This research deals with the Russian archeology of art regarding its participation in transformation of knowledge about medieval Russian art into an actual science. The archeology of art in Russia appears in the first quarter of the 19th century when archeologists focused on studying the monuments of medieval Russian art. The study of this phenomenon helps to comprehend a mechanism of birth of scientific methods and directions inside history of medieval Russian art, which formed the further basis of future research.
The paper aims to discover an evolution in researching medieval Russian art, the ways of formation of science about it, since the 18th to the end of the 19th century, considering the role of art archeology in this process. In addition there are following aims:
• to examine the cultural and historical conditions of this method,
• to analyze main critical sources and publications which reflect the changes of views on medieval Russian art.
During this research the historiographic method of study was applied.
The pursuit of the aims selected above led us to focus on four main stages in analysing medieval Russian art, revealing a transition from art archeology to art history.
The first period lasted from the 18th century to the early 19th century and saw a transition from rejection of medieval Russian art to the birth of interest in it as a historical source; the second stage is the first quarter of the 19th century: at this time steady attention of researchers to medieval Russian monuments promoted emergence of art archeology; at the third stage, in the second quarter of the 19th century, the description of actual data prevailed, as well as publication of mo­numents.
At the fourth stage which began in the late 1850s, the first attempts of the analysis of artistic features of works of art were made, comparative-historical and iconographic methods of research were devised. Their development, as well as accumulation of descriptive material and assistance of the established archaeological societies, at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries created a base for studying the works of medieval Russian art as true art pieces. Finally, we draw a conclusion that art archeology played the role of a preparatory phase for the scientific analysis of medieval Russian monuments.

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