Historical Sources

In the research a new historic-philological analysis of Armenian unique, early medieval documents, namely “Gahnamak” (Throne List, Ranking List) and “Zōranamak” (Military List, Military Register), and their scientific-critical texts are presented. This analysis shows, that in the “Gahnamak” the beginning of Sahak Partev’s letter should be conjectured as “[Ա]հա կայ խնդիր արարեալ...” (“Here is requested...”), not “[Իմ` Սա]հակայ խնդիր արարեալ…” (“I, Sahak, was searching...”), as former philologists supposed. Therefore, Sahak’s letter was sent to Armenia from Ktesiphon (the capital of Iran), not per contra, as it was thought by now. According to the new analysis, the “Zōranamak” (Military List, Military Register) was composed approximately in 330-s in one of the Semitic languages (possibly in Syrian) and was translated to Armenian in 5th century. The taking into account the specifics of Semitic graphics allows us to correct the obvious mistakes of the text that reached us. The proposed reading and translations of “Gahnamak” and “Zōranamak” are also provided at the end of the article.

Статья посвящена изучению статейных списков русских послов в Стамбуле П.П. Шафирова и М.Б. Шереметева 1711-14 гг. Как правило, статейный списки (отчеты послов) подавались в Посольский приказ вскоре после возвращения дипломатов в Россию. Статейные списки П.П. Шафирова и М.Б. Шереметева начали составлять в 1721 году, то есть спустя несколько лет после возвращения представителей русского царя в Санкт-Петербурге. В настоящее время эти материалы хранятся в архивах Москвы и Санкт-Петербурга. Отчеты посольства отражают условия, в которых российские послы боролись за подписание мирного договора с Османской империи после неудачного Прутского похода. По своей форме этого типа ежедневные журналы, в текст которых включалось не только описание событий, но также отправленные и полученных письма, постановления, деклараций, проекты мирных договоров. Значительное место в статейных списках уделялось описанию переговоров турецкими представителями, а также местным обычаям и дипломатическому этикету.

'Maandag 5 januari 1942: ons zwijntje “Tuurke” wordt geslacht’. Dit zinnetje vinden we in het kloosterdagboek van de Gentse meisjesschool Sint-Bavo onder een ludiek doodsprentje van het te betreuren varkentje.
De tientallen kloosterdagboeken die het Erfgoedhuis l Zusters van Liefde vandaag bewaart, staan vol met dergelijke anekdotische berichten. Alledaagse informatie, maar een schat voor het historisch onderzoek.

«Documents of the National Historical Archives of Belarus on the situation in Belarusian governorates during the First World War».
The composition of archival funds of the institutions which existed in the territory of the Vitebsk, Minsk and Mogilev governorates in 1914-1918, stored in the National historical archives of Belarus, is represented.

In a context of stark opposition between supporters and opponents to the wolf, the extent to which this particular predator is dangerous for humans is still an open question.
What lies beneath the negative perception of the wolf?
What should be the historian's contribution, based on historical sources and historical methods?
Thanks to a database of 4,700 cases of wolf attacks on human having occurred in France between 1580 and 1880, it is now possible to grasp the chronological evolution and spatial evolution of wolf related risks.
Undeniably real, though mostly belonging to a remote past, and statistically rare, though anthropologically intolerable, these attacks point to two opposite groups, predatory wolves occasionally preying on humans on one hand, rabid wolves striking indiscriminately a whole population on the other.
The attacks of the first kind occurred regularly in an unsafe environment, and gave rise to tales of "Ferocious Beasts" in times of dramatic crisis (1594-1600, 1691-1694, 1746-1750, 1764-1767, 1814-1819).
The second kind was spatially and chronologically less widespread, but sowed the seeds of mass hysteria, all the more persistent since the underlying sickness it forebode remained without a cure before the last third of the 20th century.
The conclusion between these two different realities gave Canis Lupus its negative aura, significantly dimmed recently however since it has entirely lost its material basis, at least in France.

The paper discusses the potential of Historical Network Research (HNR) in Medieval Studies with a special focus on the problem of the availability of sources. In particular, it identifies three research fields in which HNR will be a most promising approach to provide valuable new insights into the mechanisms of medieval society and politics: genealogy, prosopography of clerical and academic elites and political history.

in: M. Düring / U. Eumann u.a. (Hgg.), Handbuch Historische Netzwerkforschung. Grundlagen und Anwendungen (Schriften des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts Essen zur Methodenforschung, 1), Berlin u.a. 2016, S. 85-99.

Рецензируемое издание представляет собой editio princeps (ранее публиковались лишь небольшие фрагменты) уникального стихотворного произведения на греческом языке середины XII в. Текст издан по единственной сохранившейся греческой рукописи MS. 4577 (olim N-42), написанной на 119 листах восточной бумаги, из Национальной библиотеки Испании в Мадриде. Автор поэмы, как видно, приближенный
сицилийского короля РожераП (1130-1154), попадает в опалу и отправляется в ссылку на Melitogaudos - остров Гозо Мальтийского архипелага. Пробыв там девять лет, он в стихах оплакивает свою долю изгнанника. Поэт обращается к визирю Рожера II адмиралу Георгию Антиохийскому (ум. в 1152 г.), умоляя ходатайствовать перед королем о возвращении на родину. Поэт воспевает подвиги короля,
тогда еще наследника престола, в ходе его экспедиции на Мальту и Гозо в 1127 г., а попутно описывает этот остров, его природу и обитателей, их занятия и обычаи.

Статья посвящена введению в научный оборот нового источника по истории Дагестана и Чечни XVII-XVIII вв., которое условно можно назвать продолжение «Тарих Аргвани». Вместе с тем, в данном источнике описываются и события, не имевшие прямого отношения к Аргвани, как-то возникновение антиколониального движения шейха Мансура (1785-1791). Основное внимание в источнике уделено земельному вопросу, а также выяснению принадлежности тех или иных спорных территорий, расположенных большей частью вдоль современной границы Дагестана и Чечни. Также источник позволяет уточнить некоторые спорные моменты социальной истории северного Дагестана, а именно выясняется, что в Аргвани правили представители фамилии Турурал (Турловых), т.е. боковой ветви аварских нуцалов, правивших в северной части горной Аварии и восточной части предгорной Чечни.

Бери Эгнаташвили, Ахали Картлис Цховреба (Новая История Грузии), перевов текста с древнегрузинского на современный грузинский язык и коментарии Георгия Маджарашвили, издательство «Новый Ивирон», Тбилиси, 2012."

ბერი ეგნატაშვილი, ახალი ქართლის ცხოვრება - ტექსტი ძველი ქართულიდან ახალ ქართულზე გადმოიტანა და კომენტარები დაურთო გიორგი მაჭარაშვილმა

The paper focuses on the research of the papal legates in the end of the fifteenth century; it focuses on the legation of Angelo Pecchinoli, who stayed at the Hungarian royal court of Matthias Corvinus and whose relations are kept in the Biblioteca nazionale Marciana in Venice. A list of sources related to the legation is prepared as a basis for a future edition.

Talk delivered at  West Oxford Academy, Oxford (27 October 2015) and Imperial College, London (18 February 2016). Both events were open to all.
---
In February 1944, the world's newspapers were flooded with the news that Charles E. Bedaux, one of the world's wealthiest and most powerful industrial consultants, had committed suicide while under FBI custody in Miami, Florida. Here, readers were told, Bedaux was detained under a charge of treason for collaborating with the Nazis during the war.

Reminding readers that Bedaux had made a fortune out of his 'Bedaux System of Human Power Measurement', reporters, in particular Janet Flanner of 'The New Yorker', also reminded readers that Bedaux was already famous for being a friend of the British royalty before the war. What's more: they noted that the Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII) and Wallis Simpson had married at Bedaux's magnificent French château in summer 1937.

But who, really, was Charles E. Bedaux? Was it true, as Flanner's biopic asserted, that his vaunted 'Bedaux System' was merely 'pseudo-scientific' and 'did not differ much from the old Frederick Winslow Taylor shop-management system of the [eighteen] nineties'?

While conspiracy theorists and journalists have long-deployed a phantom version of Bedaux in a variety of fantastic international plots involving various British royals, Hollywood actors and top Nazi officials (Adolf Hitler included), until now there has existed no professionally-researched account of Bedaux's life, nor his influence as a consultant. Moreover, it will be suggested that Bedaux's demonised reputation has not just warped literature in relation to consultants, but also in relation to broader narratives related to the history of technology, business, and management.

This public talk will explore the fact that, in the Bedaux case, the truth really is stranger than fiction. But this has not stopped fanatics and even forgers working to make the opposite the case. It is time to set the record straight and work out where to go next.

En este capítulo del libro Entre los datos y los formatos. Indicios para la historia indígena de las fronteras en los archivos coloniales, abordamos el formato particular de los acuerdos del cabildo de Buenos Aires en tanto documentos relevantes para el estudio de la historia indígena de la frontera de Buenos Aires durante el período colonial. Además de señalar los datos que los acuerdos contienen acerca de diversos aspectos de la vida en la frontera y de las relaciones interétnicas entre la administración colonial y los grupos indígenas de Pampa y Patagonia, analizamos el modo en que su formato particular y la forma de registrar la información distorsiona su contenido, lo cual conlleva la necesidad de aplicar recaudos y estrategias metodológicas específicas para su análisis.

Hagiographic Motifs in Sphragistics as a Historical Source. This article deals with the hagiographic themes in sphragistics. Article highlights the need to distinguish between the sacred and hagiographic themes of content of seals. In the text is presented typology of sacred motives of seals. The seals with motives of saints usually closely related to local patrocinium, but it is not an absolute rule. The seal was created in a specific period and for a particular owner. Analysis of the hagiographic tuned seal speaks not only of objective factors, but also tells the subjective circumstances of the wearer. The most important warning of the author is that the seal is an important historical source.

Rafał KUBICKI
Records from Gdańsk and Kwidzyn districts and the Chief Administrative Committee of the Province of West Prussia concerning the dissolution of monasteries carried out in the first half of the 19th century

Summary

The current paper presents the documentation concerning the monastery dissolution executed by the Prussian authorities in the first half of the 19th century in the territory of the contemporary Province of West Prussia (Provinz Westpreußen). The basic dissolution documentation was kept by the administrative district offices in Kwidzyn and Gdańsk (Regierung Marienwerder, Regierung Danzig). More general data was stored in the office of the Chief Administrative Committee of the Province of West Prussia at Gdańsk (later Province of Prussia), while the most general information was collected by the Ministry of Religious, Educational and Medical Affairs in Berlin (Ministerium der Geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medicinalangelegenheiten), later Ministry of Religious Affairs (Kultusministerium). The material documenting the dissolution encompasses general records (acta generalia), which include directives and instructions for the enforcement of the suppression, as well as detailed records (acta specialia), which present the process of dissolution of particular monasteries. The documentation of monastery dissolutions offers extremely valuable data since it does not describe only the dissolution process itself, but also comprises records from the period following the formal suppression of monasteries, presenting – among other issues – the subsequent fates of their buildings and churches.
The most extensive documentation was produced in administrative district offices. It comprises not only regular correspondence between officials responsible for the preparation and execution of the dissolution of a given monastery, but also original suppression reports, inventories of property, church furnishings and equipment, and sometimes library catalogues. The state of preservation of dissolution records concerning particular monasteries varies, and not infrequently the only extant sources are the cardboard-bound archival units stored in the records of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, held at Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin. Hence, full information on the originally produced dissolution documentation at particular administrative levels can only be provided by old inventories of the mentioned in the article fonds. Drawing on the information they contain and on present inventories helped to compile data concerning the archival units created as a result of that. In this way, it was possible to reconstruct a register of records documenting the dissolution process in the first half of the 19th century in the territory of the contemporary Province of West Prussia, taking into account also the sources that have been lost.

Abstract
This article examines the longstanding rivalry of Rome and Parthia, which began as an unintended consequence of Crassus’ decisive defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE. It synthesizes the accounts and opinions of numerous Graeco-Roman writers from the Augustan Age to late antiquity in order to help illustrate the new and interconnected post-Carrhae world and its legacy. The rivalry of the Romans and Parthians became a primary focus of their foreign policies and drastically expanded their perceptions of the world in which they interacted. Even after the fall of the Parthians to the rebellious Sassanid Persians in the 220s CE, the Romans continued to find their three-century-long rivalry with the Parthians of interest and relevant to the changing world of late antiquity.

Обобщены признанные отечественными источниковедами свойства периодической печати как исторического источника, сформулированы недостатки такого подхода и предложения по их преодолению.
  Ключевые слова: периодическая печать, исторический источник, классификация исторических источников, источниковедческая критика. 
  The recognized by the domestic specialists on source study features of periodicals as the historical sources are generalized, the shortcomings of this approach and the offers on their overcoming are formulated.
  Keywords: periodicals, historical source, classification of historical sources, source criticism.