Drawing on texts of cultural and literary history from the 19th and 20th centuries the study describes the change of our concept of history after the age of historicism. It depicts how the authors gradually distance themselves from the idea of history as a unity in which genesis and genealogy intertwine. The works of J. Burckhardt, G. Lukács, E. R. Curtius and W. Benjamin represent different forms of this idea which is also expressed in their analyses, approaches and the rhetoric of their texts.