The article presents an idea that the prerequisites for the formation of a secular hermeneutical tradition in Russia appear in the first third of the 20th century. Gustav Gustavovich Shpet had a great influence on this process. The manuscript of Shpet's book Hermeneutics and Its Problems (written in 1918, but not published by himself) contained, on the one hand, an analytical review of the works of authoritative authors (I.M. Chladenius, F. Schleiermacher, etc.), which currently remain in the sphere of interests of modern philosophers and humanarians, and on the other hand, showed new areas for further research. Two Shpet’s ideas had a great influence on the forming the Russian hermeneutic tradition: firstly, his concept of the internal form of words and, secondly, the hermeneutical phenomenology that he developed. These two ideas were creatively accepted and applied in linguistics and literary studies by students and followers of G.G. Shpet (including R.O. Yakobson, G.O. Vinokur and others). In fact, hermeneutics was included in the existing tradition of Russian literary criticism, but it also received an additional impetus based on a creatively rethought, due to G.G. Shpet’s works, hermeneutic apparatus of research in this area. Various directions in linguistics and philology were created, which still form the golden fund of the national humanities.