Historical criticism. Basic elements of scientific criticism of sources Internal and external criticism of a source

AND drainage studies - a term denoting a body of knowledge about historical sources and their study. At the same time, a “historical source” means literally everything that can indicate accomplished facts, events, processes and phenomena. Sources can be oral, written, material, visual, in connection with which the construction and scientific classification historical sources. Depending on the tasks of studying sources, scientific specialties of source study are distinguished. Classical methods of linguistic and historical source study are used. Thus, linguistic source studies analyzes written sources in order to find evidence in their texts about the history of the language. Historical source studies analyzes sources on the history of a state or people. Historical book source study aims to find and study sources that reveal the history of the book. These can be written sources and monuments of material culture, for example, means of producing handwritten and printed books. Books are an independent historical source. The subject of science in the source study of book history is the search for evidence about the emergence and development of writing, the means and forms of its recording and distribution, methods of consumption, reading characteristics, etc. Historical book source study has developed special moves, which are used in the historical study of book signs (ex librises), typographic fonts, engraving and printing methods, and printing house equipment.

One of the main methods of source study is external and internal criticism of a historical source.

External criticism of the source - this is its characteristic from the point of view of attribution and dating, that is, origin, connection to certain historical circumstances, manufacturer (author), time and place of creation.

Internal criticism - characteristics of the structure, content of the source, comparative analysis information, data that the researcher expects to obtain. Ways to check their reliability are indicated. Groups of questions are outlined that sources can answer. It is established what their value and significance for specific research results is. There are two types of sources: documentary - those that accurately convey a fait accompli, and interpreted - those who present it, narrate it (abbreviated, subjective, etc.). Interpreted historical sources include periodicals, memoirs and notes, and memoirs. External and internal criticism of a source aims to determine the degree of interpretability of the materials it contains. Based on this, a specific analysis plan is developed. In addition to setting the objectives of the research and establishing its chronological framework, the sequence of techniques and methods of source study is determined depending on its stages and directions. The analysis ends with conclusions about the significance of the detected group of sources.

Periodicals and ongoing publications are called newspapers, bulletins, magazines, almanacs, collections, etc. published at pre-announced dates. Newspapers and magazines have always actively expressed public opinion; in them you can find not only characteristics of the books being published, reviews of them, but also reviews of the work of publishing houses and the book industry. the market as a whole. The most valuable material for a researcher of the history of books are acts published in periodicals (laws, regulations on the press), book advertising, various types of information, letters from readers, etc.

Before proceeding with a source analysis of periodicals, it is necessary to identify whose press organ the publication is, its frequency of publication, format, volume, and the presence of special applications. Particularly interesting is the presence of letters from readers and reviews of them from the editors. Taken together, this makes it possible to establish the public face of the body, its political orientation, and general attitude towards book publishing and its problems.

It is also necessary to take into account the presence of special periodical journals of bibliology, which represent a real treasure for the modern historian. The earliest of such organs was probably the St. Petersburg Book Messenger (1860-1867). Its main advantage was systematic information about published books. However, the magazine was closed for critical articles about the state of the book market. The same fate befell the Moscow magazine "Knizhnik", published in 1865-1866. bookseller A.F. Cherenin. Of all the subsequent bibliographic publications in our country (and there are more than fifty of them), the most famous was “News on Literature, Sciences and Bibliography of Bookstores of the M.O. Wolf T.” (1897-1917). For the modern period, the most valuable is the ongoing publication of the scientific collection "Book. Research and Materials." Seventy-eight issues were published between 1959 and 2000.

Source research in periodicals should begin with bibliographic indexes of the press, and then, choosing what is necessary, gradually narrow the search until a specific source is identified.

Work with memoirs has its own specifics. There are numerous works on source research and criticism of memoirs. When studying memoirs (memoirs, diaries, notes, correspondence), inaccuracies of a subjective nature (for example, memory deficiencies), political, and ideological nature should be identified and, if possible, eliminated. A comparison is made of the memoirs under study with existing reliable historical sources on the history of the book: legislative acts, newspaper reports, advertising, address books and other reference materials.

From the point of view of the history of the book, memoirs can be divided into memoirs of a general nature and memoirs of the book’s figures; Objectively, both of them may contain sources that are extremely useful for our purpose. However, of particular interest are memoirs, business notes, diaries of famous publishers (for example, I.D. Sytin, A.S. Suvorin, M.V. Sabashnikov, etc.), booksellers (for example, P.P. Shibanov, F.G. Shilov, N.N. Nakoryakova), censors, librarians, bibliographers and many others. Unfortunately, a consolidated work on the bibliography of memoirs on the history of books in our country has not yet been created.

Print statistics includes quantitative indicators of book production. This is the number of titles both in total volume and by type, type of publication, by language, and state affiliation. Circulations and the volume of publications are taken into account - in author's, publisher's sheets, in pages. Press statistics keeps records of book publishing and book distribution enterprises: printing plants, printing houses, book warehouses, shops, kiosks. The subject of statistics can also be readers (consumers, buyers) of books.

The beginning of press statistics in our country was laid by the famous bibliographers A.K. Storch and F.P. Adelung. The systematic publication of statistical collections began, where the book was first taken into account among other cultural objects. Over time, special collections of statistical indicators of Russian book publishing and book distribution appear. In recent times, such fundamental statistical publications as “Print in the USSR” (yearbook), “Book Chronicle” and others have become famous. Currently, the publication of publications on press statistics is entrusted to the Russian Book Chamber.

When conducting a source analysis of statistical publications in terms of external criticism, it is necessary to determine what type of statistical tables they are, why use the introductory article and notes, if any. If possible, evaluate statistical sources in terms of their origin and reliability. In terms of internal criticism, establish possible dynamic characteristics book publishing, bookselling, printing activities, to reveal newly emerging features of their development, to evaluate them.

The most important sources on the history of the book are concentrated in state, departmental, public and personal archives - sources that are usually called unpublished. According to academician N.M. Druzhinin, historians “cannot limit themselves to printed publications and strive to search for new materials in archival funds... Direct contemplation of a document, gradual reading, thoughtfulness,... feeling into its contents enriches the researcher with a better knowledge of the era and the phenomenon being studied.”

The history of the book must develop its own approaches to the study of sources, based both on the characteristics of the book, considered as a historical fact, and on the characteristics of the sources that help reveal the historical patterns of development, production of the book, its distribution and use. In this regard, it is customary to call the books and similar documents being studied historical sources.

Polish book historian K. Migon proposes to group the facts reflected in historical book sources as follows: the appearance of new elements in the content of the book, the appearance of new elements in the form of the book, changes in the technology of book production, changes in the organization of book production, changes in the organization of book distribution , social phenomena, processes that determine the growth or decline of interest in the book.

Historical criticism

By the name of historical history we mean, first of all, a set of techniques that the historian uses in order to distinguish truth from lies in historical evidence. The so-called K. text is aimed at resolving the issue of the authenticity or falsification of a document. For example, one of the founders of historical philosophy in new Europe, the Italian humanist of the 15th century. Lavrenty Valla (see), wrote an entire essay to prove the forgery of the famous gift of Konstantinov, the authenticity of which was believed throughout the Middle Ages. Further, the document itself may be genuine, but the information contained in it may be incorrect. The author of one or another historical source often conveys what he himself learned from others, including in his work, without any criticism, known to him only by hearsay. Often the author himself, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, distorts the facts of which he was a direct witness. The scientific nature of historical work should be based primarily on the elimination from sources of everything that may contradict factual reliability. Historical history gives rules, developed through experience, on how to treat news contained in historical sources of different categories. The main common basis of these rules is the simple common sense , but their successful application in practice is possible only with a certain kind of skill, the possession of which indicates a good school completed by the historian. Nevertheless, many scientists tried to formulate the rules of historical calculus as a special methodological discipline; There is a whole literature on this subject. Historical history is usually divided into external and internal. By external criticism is meant the examination, in relation to each document or monument, firstly, whether it is what it claims to be, and secondly, whether it really represents what it has hitherto been taken to be. When examining a source from the first point of view, for example, either direct forgery, or any insertions into the original text or other distortions can be discovered. When studying a monument from the second point of view, misconceptions about it that were formed and established independently of the author’s intentions can be eliminated. Science knows a lot of such cases when scientists mistook this or that monument for something that in reality it was not. Once the authenticity of a source has been established, it is often necessary to resolve questions about the time and place of its origin, about its author, whether it is a primary source or borrowing from some other source, etc. It is necessary to distinguish K from this external K. ... internal, which consists in deciding the question of the relationship of the news contained in the sources to the actual facts, i.e. whether this news can be considered completely reliable, or only probable, or whether the very possibility of the reported facts should be rejected. The main issues are resolved here by examining the internal merit of the sources, which depends on the nature of the sources themselves, on the individuality of the author, and on the influences of place and time. At the same time, it is very often necessary to check the reliability of some sources by others, and many sources about the same fact may, to a greater or lesser extent, either coincide with each other, or contradict each other. In all cases of historical research, both external and internal, the researcher, in addition to common sense and skill, also requires impartiality and close familiarity with the subject of research. Some theorists of historical theory also point out the need to maintain a golden mean between gullibility and excessive skepticism. The newest treatise on historical history, with references to the literature of the subject, is the fourth chapter of E. Bernheim’s excellent book: “Lehrbuch der historischen Methode” (1889, 2nd ed. 1894). Russian historical literature is very poor in works on historical history. A number of comments on this subject can be found in volume I of “Russian History” by Bestuzhev-Ryumin and in volume I of “The Experience of Russian Historiography” by Ikonnikov. See also Fortinsky’s article: “Experiences in systematic processing of historical criticism,” in “Kyiv University News” for 1884, as well as the Russian translation of Tardif’s pamphlet: “Fundamentals of Historical K.” (1894). In a broader sense, the name of historical criticism is given to a critical attitude, from a historical point of view, towards the very phenomena studied by historical science; but such usage cannot be considered correct, and it can give rise to great misunderstandings.

N. Kareev.

Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron. - S.-Pb.: Brockhaus-Efron. 1890-1907 .

See what “Historical Criticism” is in other dictionaries:

- (Greek xritikn art of judging, disassembling) study, analysis and evaluation of the phenomena of muses. lawsuit va. In a broad sense, classical music is part of any study of music, since the evaluative element is an integral part of aesthetics. judgments...... Music Encyclopedia

THEORY. The word "K." means judgment. It is no coincidence that the word “judgment” is closely related to the concept of “court”. To judge, on the one hand, means to consider, reason about something, analyze any object, try to understand its meaning, bring... ... Literary encyclopedia

- (Greek krittke, from krino I judge). Analysis and judgments about the merits and demerits of any subject, work, especially an essay; discussion, evaluation. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. CRITICISM of the Greek... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Criticism- Literary criticism is a type of literary creativity, the subject of which is literature itself. Just as philosophy of science is the theory of knowledge, epistemology is the organ of self-awareness of scientific creativity, so criticism is the organ of self-awareness of creativity... ... Dictionary of literary terms

CRITICISM, critics, women. (from Greek kritike). 1. units only Discussion, consideration, research of something, testing of something for some purpose. To criticize something. Treat something without any criticism. Criticism of pure... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

Contents 1 Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses 1.1 Notable critics 1.2 Translation ... Wikipedia

Women search and judgment about the merits and demerits of any work, esp. essays; analysis, assessment. Historical criticism, everyday analysis, searching for events, clearing them of embellishments and distortions. Human criticism cannot be avoided, gossip,... ... Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

- “New chronology” is a non-academic theory that claims that the generally accepted chronology of historical events is generally incorrect, and offers its own version of chronology and the history of mankind in general. According to its authors, it is based on... ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Historical school. Historical school of law current in jurisprudence first half of the 19th century century. It originated and became most famous in Germany. Contents 1 Basic provisions ... Wikipedia

Books

• A. Pushkin. Collected works in 6 volumes (set of 6 books), A. Pushkin. The collected works of the great Russian poet and writer A. S. Pushkin include all of his most significant works...

Comprehensive analysis of the source or "source criticism", as source scholars usually say, includes determining the type of source, its origin, establishing the time, place, circumstances of its appearance, and completeness of information. Source criticism is usually divided into external And internal.

External criticism establishes the time, place and authenticity of the creation of the source, as well as authorship. Time, place and authorship are established even when they are indicated in the document, since this information may be deliberately distorted.

External criticism source studies are largely involved. Historian researchers pay much more attention to analyzing the content of a historical source (internal criticism).

Internal criticism focuses on the content of the source, on the analysis of the completeness, accuracy and truthfulness of the information contained in the source.

Main directions of internal criticism- this is the establishment:

· the place of the source in the context of the era, its completeness and representativeness;

· the purpose of creating the source;

· reliability of the source (accuracy and truthfulness of the presentation).

You can determine the place of a source, how important and fundamental it is for the study of the era reflected in it, by establishing how representative it is (how much the most significant facts are reflected in it). In this regard, it is worth quoting the words of the famous American historian L. Gottshok: “People who observed the past saw only part of what took place, and recorded only part of what they remembered; of what they recorded, only a part has been preserved; The historian has reached part of what was recorded, but only part of it is trustworthy: and of what is trustworthy, not everything is clear to us; and, finally, only part of what is understood can be formulated or told.” At the same time, he adds that “we have no guarantee that what has reached the end of this path represents precisely the most important, the largest, the most valuable, the most typical and the most durable of the past.”

The researcher needs to remember that any document is created to achieve some purpose. The realization that the source was created for a specific purpose allows us to understand that there could be other goals and, accordingly, other sources illuminating this fact, but in other way. This guides the search for other sources, various kinds of documents, and their comparison.

Establishing the reliability of a source involves how accurately a historical source reflects historical phenomena and events. For example, statements politicians are genuine from the point of view that these are the speeches of these very figures, and not impostors, but this does not mean that the information in their speeches is always truthful and reliable.

In the general context of the study, the language and phraseology of the source are subject to critical analysis, since in different historical eras the meaning of words does not remain unchanged.

It is also worth paying attention to the fact that between a fact and its reflection in the source there is always a witness who occupies a certain place in the structure of society, has his own views and is endowed with individual psyche. All facts, before being deposited in the source, pass through its perception, and this leaves a certain stamp on the content of the source.

Each source contains elements of subjectivity that transfer to the facts reflected in it, that is, the source is colored to one degree or another by a personal attitude. The researcher has to do painstaking work to “clean” the facts from the taint of subjectivity and identify the true phenomenon of the historical process.

Structure and methods of historical knowledge

Specifics of historical knowledge

Structure of historical research reflects, taking into account its specificity, the stages of scientific- research activities in any field of knowledge:

· Selection of the object and subject of research based on determining the relevance and degree of knowledge of the problem

· Determination of the purpose and objectives of the study

· Selection of research methods

· Reconstruction of historical reality

· Theoretical analysis, proof of the truth of the acquired knowledge

· Determination of the value, theoretical and practical significance of the acquired knowledge

The research is determined by relevance, that is, it must represent scientific interest. The researcher certainly strives to objectivity in the assessment of historical events and phenomena. But with all the desire to be impartial, it is impossible to be completely free from one’s worldview, value or other attitudes. One way or another, in the process of research, the historian expresses his own, subjective opinion. The research activity of any historian always reveals a combination of objective and subjective factors.

The specificity of historical research lies in the fact that the research process is based primarily on theoretical methods, which necessitates verification (certification of authenticity) of historical knowledge. In order to get as close as possible to the objective truth, reducing the influence of subjective factors, a system of methods of historical knowledge is needed.

Methods for studying history

History, like any other science, is characterized by its research methods. The first level covers general scientific methods used in all humanitarian fields knowledge (dialectical, systemic, etc.), the second level directly reflects general historical research methods (retrospective, ideographic, typological, comparative, comparative, etc.). Methods of other humanities and even natural sciences (sociology, mathematics, statistics) are widely used.

Dialectical method contributes to a theoretical reflection of the integrity of the object, identification of the main trends in its change, causes and mechanisms that ensure its dynamism and development.

System method determines the need for a holistic analysis of historical events and phenomena in the totality of the individual, special and general, the diversity of components of the historical process and its internal

Widespread in historical science comparison method (comparative method ) - comparison of historical facts, portraits of historical figures in the process of historical knowledge. It is aimed at detecting analogies or their absence in the historical process. The comparative method produces fruitful results when comparing the history of different states and the lives of different peoples.

Closely related to the comparison method typological method (classification method)– based on the classification of historical phenomena, events, objects; identifying the common in the individual, searching for characteristic features for certain types of historical events. Classification is the basis of all types of theoretical constructs, including a complex procedure for establishing cause-and-effect relationships that connect classified objects. This method makes it possible to compare historical phenomena according to similar parameters.

One of the most common methods of historical knowledge is genetic (or retrospective). This is a retrospective disclosure of historical reality, activities historical figures, consistent changes in historical reality in the process of development based on cause-and-effect relationships, patterns of historical development. Based on the analysis of the same object in different phases of its development, the genetic method serves to restore events and processes of the past according to their consequences or retrospectively, that is, from what is already known after the lapse of historical time - to the unknown.

Here is what the English historian D. Elton wrote about this: “Since we know how events moved, we are inclined to assume that they must have moved only in this direction and considered the result known to us to be “correct.” The first tendency frees the historian from his main duty - to explain something: the inevitable does not require explanation. Another tendency makes him a tedious apologist for what has happened and encourages him to see the past only in the light of the present.” The researcher must strive for objectivity, must strive to see the features of the era being studied and take a historical approach to the prospects for social development.

Idiographic (individualizing) method characterized by a description of individual historical events and phenomena, processes. This is a specific, maximally complete description of an individual historical phenomenon, allowing one to recreate only a local whole, without implying comparative historical research. The idiographic method is aimed at identifying the characteristics of historical phenomena.

The study of historical sources involves the application matching method, mutual verification of information from available documents, various historical sources, which excludes the absolutization of a once-mentioned fact, and, accordingly, speculativeness in historical knowledge, and ensures an approach to the truth in a retrospective display of a historical event or process.

Studying historical documents, the researcher is engaged observation. However, observation is indirect in nature, since, as a rule, what is studied is what no longer exists, what has sunk into eternity: the conditions in which events developed, the people who took part in them, and even entire civilizations. Observation is carried out on the testimony of individual participants in the events who did not choose the moment of these events, their place in them and often saw far from the most important thing in these historical phenomena. Only the study of various sources, historical observation through sources allows us to paint a more objective picture, to fully present a historical fact and its unique features.

Historical science allows mental or thought experiment, carried out in the imagination of the researcher when an attempt is made to reproduce a particular historical event.

Widespread quantitative method (quantitative, statistical) analysis phenomena - dynamics analysis social processes based on statistical material. Economic history was the first to enter the quantitative path, since it has always dealt with measurable quantities: the volume of trade, industrial production, etc. She widely used statistical materials characterizing economic processes And economic life society. With the help of statistical methods, various empirical data are accumulated and systematically summarized, reflecting various aspects and states of the object of study. Quantitative methods are now widely used in the study social phenomena of the past. However, when working with quantitative indicators, researchers are faced with two difficulties: for distant eras this information is too scarce and fragmentary, and for the modern period it is enormous in volume.

When extracting information about various facts from a source, the researcher compares them with what he knows about the same or similar facts and phenomena. Knowledge independent of sources is what the Polish historian E. Topolsky calls “ non-source": it is given both by one’s own observations of the environment and various sciences. Based on existing knowledge, the inevitable gaps in the source are filled. In this case, plays a significant role common sense, that is, a guess based on observation, reflection and personal experience.

All of the listed and characterized methods of historical research or methods of historical knowledge are at the same time methods of studying history within the framework of the widespread problem-chronological method– studying historical processes in the interrelation of facts, events and phenomena in chronological order.

Methodology of history

To understand the current problems of historical science, it is important to understand not only the features of historical knowledge, the specifics of historical research, but also to become familiar with various methodological approaches. This is a necessary condition for optimizing not only historical, but also humanitarian training in general at a university.

"Methodological approach"- a method of historical research based on a specific theory that explains the historical process.

Under the term "methodology" one should understand the theory that explains the historical process and determines the methods of historical research.

For many years, only the Marxist-Leninist methodology of history was known in our country. Currently, domestic historical science is characterized by methodological pluralism, when various methodologies are used in historical research.

Theological approach

The theological approach was one of the first to emerge. It has its roots in religious ideas, which determined the basis for understanding the development of mankind. For example, the basis of the Christian understanding of the development of society is the biblical model of history. The theological approach thus relies on theories that explain the historical process as a reflection of the Divine plan for human existence. According to the theological approach, the source of the development of human society is the Divine will and people's faith in this will. Adherents of this theory were Augustine, Geoffrey, and Otto. In the 19th century the course of history was determined by the divine providence of L. Ranke. Russian authors of the Christian concept of historical development include G. Florovsky, N. Kantorov.

Subjectivism is an idealistic understanding of the historical process, according to which the history of the development of society is determined not by objective laws, but by subjective factors. Subjectivism, as a methodological approach, denies historical patterns and defines the individual as the creator of history, explains the development of society by the will of individual outstanding individuals, the result of their activities. One of the supporters of the subjective method in historical sociology is K. Becker.

Geographical determinism– exaggeration of the importance of the geographical factor in the development of specific societies. The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), author of the “Book of Instructive Examples on the History of the Arabs, Persians, Berbers and the Peoples Living with them on Earth,” developed the idea of ​​​​the decisive importance of the geographical environment for the development of society, the dependence of the customs and institutions of each people on the way they earn their livelihood. Thus, according to the theory of geographical determinism, the historical process is based on natural conditions that determine the development of human society. The diversity of the historical process is also explained by the peculiarities of the geographical location, landscape, and climate. Supporters of this trend include S.L. Montesquieu, who expounded in detail the idea of ​​the influence of climate and other natural geographical factors on society, its form of government and spiritual life.

Russia as an entire historical and geographical continent with a special destiny was considered by representatives of the Eurasian school G.V. Vernadsky and N.S. Trubetskoy, V.N. Ilyin, G.V. Florovsky. N.I. Ulyanov, S.M. Soloviev in the history of the development of society attached great importance to nature and the geographical environment. N.I. Ulyanov believed that “if there are laws of history, then one of them must be seen in the geographical outlines of the Russian State.” CM. Soloviev wrote: “Three conditions have a special influence on the life of the people: the nature of the country where they live; the nature of the tribe to which he belongs; the course of external events, the influences coming from the peoples who surround him.”

Rationalism- a theory of knowledge that defines reason as the only source of true knowledge and the criterion of reliable knowledge. Descartes, the founder of modern rationalism, proved the possibility of comprehending truth by reason. Rationalism XVII-XVIII centuries. denied the possibility of scientific knowledge of history, considering it as the realm of chance. As a methodological approach, rationalism correlated the historical path of each people with the degree of its advancement along the ladder of universal human achievements in the field of reason. The figures of the Enlightenment most clearly demonstrated their boundless faith in the triumph of progress based on the power of reason.

The rationalistic interpretation of history (world-historical interpretation) in the 19th century is represented by the teachings of K. Marx and G. Hegel. In their opinion, history is universal; there are general and objective laws in it. In the philosophy of G. Hegel, the historical process is represented by three stages: Eastern (Asian), Greco-Roman (ancient), Germanic (European). In the preparatory manuscripts for Capital, K. Marx distinguished pre-capitalist, capitalist and post-capitalist society. It is a description of European civilization. Eurocentrism (recognition of European masterpieces of economics, architecture, military affairs, science as the standard of civilization and European criteria of progress as universal) led to a crisis in the rationalist interpretation of history in the twentieth century.

Evolutionism formed at the beginning of the 19th century. as an anthropological interpretation of the idea of ​​development and progress, which does not consider human society as a society of producers. The classics of evolutionism include G. Spencer, L. Morgan, E. Taylor, F. Fraser. Among Russian scientists, N.I. Kareev is considered a supporter of evolutionism. Evolutionism represents the historical process as a unilinear, uniform development of culture from simple shapes to complex ones, based on the fact that all countries and peoples have a single development goal and universal criteria for progress. The essence of evolutionist theory is extremely simple: with a few temporary deviations, all human societies move upward along the path to prosperity. Cultural differences between peoples are explained by their belonging to different stages of historical progress.

Positivism as a theory, arose in the 19th century. The founder of positivism was the French philosopher and sociologist O. Comte, who divided the history of mankind into three stages, of which - theological and metaphysical - have been passed, the highest stage - scientific, or positive, is characterized by the flourishing of positive, positive knowledge. Positivism focuses Special attention the influence of social factors on human activity, proclaims the omnipotence of science and recognizes the evolution of human society from lower to higher levels, independent of the arbitrariness of the individual. Proponents of positivism ignored the socio-political evolution of society, explaining the emergence of classes and other socio-economic processes by the functional division of labor.

Formational approach

The formational approach is based on Marxist methodology , authored by Karl Marx.

Understanding the development of the historical process within the framework of Marxist methodology is materialistic understanding of history, since the basis of the life of society is determined material production, development of productive forces. TO productive forces refers to a person with his labor skills and skills and means of production , which, in turn, are divided into the object of labor and the means of labor. The object of labor is understood as everything to which human activity can be directed. Means of labor combine the instruments of labor with which a person carries out labor activity, and also what is on modern language could be called production infrastructure (that is, a communications system, storage facilities). Relationships between people in the production process material goods, as well as their distribution and exchange are called industrial relations. The dialectical unity of productive forces and production relations is called production method.

An analysis of the dynamics of the relationship between the productive forces and production relations led Marx to the formulation of the law according to which the development of human history occurs. This basic historical law, discovered by K. Marx, was called the law of compliance of production relations with the nature and level of development of productive strength The discrepancy between production relations and the nature and level of productive forces leads to a change in the type of ownership of the means of production, a change in production relations, the development of productive forces and, thus, a change in the nature of the method of production. But not only the method of production is changing, but also all other components of human society. A new type of property leads to the formation of a new ruling layer (class) and socially lower strata, in other words, it will change social class structure of society. New system industrial relations will be new economic basis. The new basis will lead to the renewal of what in Marxism is called superstructure. The superstructure includes both the system of so-called institutions, among them, for example, the state, and the system of ideas, which may include ideology, morality and much more.

So, the action of the law of correspondence leads to the fact that, along with the breakdown of old production relations, the whole type of society. The type of society that includes the above features is called in Marxism socio-economic formation(OEF). The process of changing socio-economic formations in Marxism is called social revolution.

The history of human society, according to the theory of K. Marx, is a change of socio-economic formations. In the Preface to the “Critique of Political Economy” he identified Asian, ancient, feudal and capitalist formations. On this basis, the Marxist approach to history is called formational approach. According to the formational approach finally formalized in the twentieth century, five socio-economic formations are distinguished in the history of mankind: primitive, slave, feudal, capitalist and communist.

The theory of formations is formulated as a generalization of the historical path of development of Europe. Within this methodology, human history is unified, and all countries appear to be moving in the same direction: from primitive to communist society. The course of history is determined (predetermined) by socio-economic relations, and a person in the context of a class approach to history is considered only as a component of class and productive forces. The focus is on class struggle as driving force history, when revolutionary development is absolutized and the importance of evolutionary development is downplayed.

Civilizational approach

When critically assessing evolutionism, positivism, Marxism, one should pay attention to theory of local civilizations, which is a cultural-historical interpretation of history. The theory of local civilizations arose as a reaction to attempts to unify the diverse human history. This theory, without recognizing uniform criteria for historical progress, characterizes the history of mankind as a diverse, multivariate process, a set of histories of various local civilizations, each of which has its own laws and its own direction of development. It has its roots in the theory of cyclical development of Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, who identified periods of development, stagnation and decline social systems.

The development of the civilizational approach was based on the theory of cycles developed by O. Spengler and A. J. Toynbee. Oswald Spengler in his book “The Decline of Europe” revealed the uniqueness of Western European civilization, presenting it, like other civilizations, fenced off from the world. The English historian Arthur Toynbee made a huge contribution to the development of the theory of local civilizations. At first, in his theory there were 100 civilizations, then, as a result of enlarged criteria, the number of civilizations as types of society was reduced to 21.

Civilization is distinguished by a large number of criteria: geographical, natural, religious, economic and other various factors. Due to difficulties with numerous criteria of civilization, a large scatter in the number of identified civilizations, historians adhering to this methodology turned to the concept type of civilization. Russian scientist (a botanist by profession, history and politics were his hobbies) Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky presented the history of mankind as the history of individual, unrelated 13 cultural and historical types, including the Slavic cultural and historical type . In educational literature, the following types of civilizations are usually distinguished: natural societies, eastern and western types of civilization.

A civilizational approach that takes into account the influence of a wide variety of factors on the historical process allows us to more adequately reconstruct history; to include in the process of historical knowledge the highest value - man; overcome Eurocentrism, that is, not present European criteria of progress as universal.

However, within the framework of the civilizational approach, a clear categorical apparatus has not yet been developed, the concept of a “civilized country” in the usual, everyday sense of the word is denied, there are no uniform criteria for civilization, and due to the “atomization” of human history, it is difficult to distinguish general patterns historical development.

The theories presented above do not exhaust the methodological teachings. And at present, the search continues for new ways of understanding the historical past, determining the content of historical science and methods of historical research.

Historiography of history

The concept of “historiography”

Initially, historiography was the name given to historical science (“historiography” - description of history). Currently, this term has a slightly different meaning. It means history of historical science. The term “historiography” is also used today in the sense "historical bibliography"(historical literature on a specific problem).

The emergence of the Russian state caused the need to substantiate its origin and the inviolability of autocracy. In 1560-63. for the first time in the “Book of Degrees” the history of the state is depicted as successively changing reigns.

External criticism

Definition external features written source

To determine the external characteristics of a source, data and methods of paleography, sphragistics, filigree studies and a number of other auxiliary historical disciplines are used. Establishing external features makes it possible to date the text and determine its authenticity. This procedure includes identifying the writing material (paper, parchment, fabric, birch bark, etc.), writing or printing tools, type of writing, handwriting or font, and the external design of the text.

Initially, parchment, birch bark, and wood were used as writing materials. Since the 15th century paper became the main writing material. Paper production in Russia began only in early XVIII century. Before this, foreign-made paper was used. During production, each full sheet of paper was marked with a watermark (filigree). By restoring the watermark, you can date the text. Special reference books on filigree help you do this. The best among them include the works of N.P. Likhachev “Paleographical meaning of paper watermarks” (in 2 volumes, St. Petersburg, 1898–1899) and S.A. Klepikov “Filigree and stamps on paper of Russian and foreign production of the 17th-20th centuries.” (M., 1959). The ink used to write medieval manuscripts was usually brown or Brown, but there were also black ones.

Most of the handwritten monuments of the 11th–17th centuries. was issued in the form of books, letters and scrolls. Old books differed in format, depending on the size of the paper sheet. 1/4 formats were used; 1/8; 1/16 and 1/32 sheets. As a rule, handwritten books were compiled from notebooks of 16 pages. The notebooks were numbered. The binding of the book was made of wooden boards, which were necessarily covered with leather or fabric. Certificates were written on separate sheets on one side. If one sheet was missing, then other sheets were glued to it from below, and the result was a rather long scroll. The places where the sheets were glued together on the blank reverse side were marked with a staple or the scribe's signature, which verified the authenticity of the text. When stored, the scrolls were arranged in pillars (columns). The size of the columns can be judged from the Council Code of 1649, composed of 959 sheets. Its length eventually exceeded 300 m. In 1700, columnar records management was abolished. It was replaced by business as a form of document organization.

Elements of the external design of the text include the decoration of manuscripts that changed over time: script, ornament and miniature. Elm is a decorative writing style that has a certain ratio of the height of the letter to its width and characteristic curls. A handwritten ornament is understood as the totality of its constituent elements: initial, headpiece, ending and decorations in the margins. An initial is the beautifully drawn initial letter of a text. In addition to the initial, there was a headband at the top - an ornamented drawing at the beginning of the text. An ornamented design placed at the end of the text was called an ending. An ornamental design made in a certain style was also located on the margins. Many manuscripts featured painted miniature (face) drawings. Manuscripts painted with miniatures were called obverse.

The most significant external feature of a text is the type of writing. The most ancient type of writing in Rus' was the charter, which existed in the 11th–15th centuries. In the XIV - early XVI centuries. semi-charter was used in the 16th–17th centuries. - cursive writing. In the 18th century its simplified type was established. In the XIX - early XX centuries. Civil writing and, since 1918, modern writing have become widespread.

Setting the time of text occurrence

Many Russian documents of the Middle Ages, modern and contemporary times have a direct indication of the time of their creation - the date in the text, stamp or near the signature. Similar evidence is also found in some sources of earlier times, when the document mentions a name, title, position, church rank or membership in the “list of saints”. The dates of writing of documents are also established by the events, persons, institutions, banknotes mentioned in the text, the quality of paper, ink, by the physical measures and seals used in the text, by lists and registers of papers, by the vocabulary and dialect features of the language. One of the important techniques is dating by external signs text: letter, material, watermarks, design. In some cases, astronomical and other data help date the text. The situation is more complicated when you have to work with a copy or editing of the text. In this case, it is necessary to find out whether the specified date is the time of compilation of this option. To date written sources, the researcher often has to use data from paleography, filigree science, numismatics, heraldry, historical metrology, historical linguistics and other auxiliary historical disciplines.

Determining the location of the source

Determining the place of creation of a written source helps to find out the reasons, goals, historical, cultural and local conditions of its origin, find the author and, ultimately, correctly interpret its content. When working with spatial information, it is necessary to know the political and territorial division of the country, its geography, toponymy, local features of culture and language in the time being studied and in their historical development. Therefore, to localize a document, data from historical geography, toponymy, and linguistics are used. In addition, materials from paleography, heraldry, sphragistics, and historical metrology are used. For example, in medieval Rus' for a long time a variety of local systems of physical measures was maintained. In Novgorod until the end of the 15th century. Volumes of bulk solids were measured in boxes and quadrangles. In the rest of Rus' the units were kad, ladle, quarter and octine.

Some sources provide direct information about the place of origin. Most often these are toponyms - proper names objects and areas of terrain: settlements (oikonyms) and rivers (hydronyms). Many medieval documents do not contain direct spatial references. Then, for localization, the indirect data available in them is used, first of all, ethnonyms - the names of peoples and tribes. In this group of names, ethnotoponyms are important - names of peoples transferred to geographical features and topoethnonyms - names of places transferred to the people. Evidence of the local origin of a particular written source can be a detailed description of events that took place in a particular land, or the author’s knowledge of small geographical and topographical objects. Indirectly, the place of origin of a document is often evidenced by local features of the form (for acts), seals, stamps and external design of the text. In a number of cases, anthroponyms - nicknames, first and last names of people derived from the names of places - are considered as localizing features. Usually they indicate the origin and affiliation of a person to a particular region, city, or locality.

Identifying the author allows us to obtain more accurate ideas about the place, time, causes and conditions of the origin of the source, and to more fully reveal its socio-political orientation. Having studied the worldview, practical activities, and sociocultural affiliation of the author, one can more accurately interpret the text and determine the degree of reliability of the information reported in it. Even incomplete, non-personalized (corporate-cultural) attribution of the source is important.

The author of the text could be either an individual or a collective subject: a corporation, a state or public institution, a sociocultural community. Collective texts were, first of all, the remnants of the functioning of social systems: legislative, office work, legislative and statistical materials, periodicals, and many chronicles.

The name of the author is quite often determined on the basis of direct testimony from the source. Human proper names (anthroponyms) include personal name, nickname, surname, pseudonym and cryptonym (encrypted name). Personal names are names that were assigned at birth and were known to society. The main thing was the canonical personal name, which was given according to the church calendar, at baptism and was secret. A non-canonical, worldly name was used in everyday life. Nicknames more often expressed the qualities and origin of their bearers.

An important part of the name was the patronymic nickname. It indicated a person’s ancestral origin, was honorable and reflected the social affiliation of its bearer. Aristocrats had a full middle name ending in “vich” (Petrovich). Persons of the middle classes used semi-patronymic names ending in “ov”, “ev”, “in” (Petrov, Ilyin). The lower classes down to late XIX V. got by without a middle name. Later than all other forms of names, surnames began to spread in Russia. Their appearance dates back to the 15th–16th centuries. The first surnames were given to princes, boyars, and nobles. Most of them arose from middle names, grandfather names and nicknames. In the 18th and early 20th centuries, pseudonyms were often used. To identify them, you can use special reference books, in particular “Dictionary of pseudonyms of Russian writers, scientists and public figures” I.F. Masanova.

Most medieval texts of the 11th–17th centuries. expressed corporate consciousness. They were written according to the canons, had an anonymous character, and were repeatedly rewritten and revised at different times, which further strengthened their anonymity. Attribution of such evidence is carried out indirectly. For this purpose, data from anthroponymy, genealogy, heraldry, sphragistics, paleography, and historical linguistics are used.

The possibilities of indirect attribution of a source depend on the information it contains about the individual and social status author. The author is openly indicated by indications of his place of birth, gender, age, age of majority (12–15 years for princes and service people) and marriage, ethnic origin, family and family ties. A good basis for restoring the degree of family kinship, in addition to pedigrees, is provided by knowledge of the “ladder” system of ascension of ancient Russian princes to the thrones and an idea of ​​the parochial system of holding positions in the 16th–17th centuries. Also important is the information in the text about the social origin and position (class, rank, position, awards) of the author, his worldview, values ​​and socio-political position.

Determining authorship often requires an analysis of the stylistic features of the text. This is especially true when studying narrative sources, since style analysis is sometimes the only way indirect attribution. Everyone, even a writer working according to the canon, has his own stable style, expressed in the peculiarities of the construction of text and sentences, in the use of favorite words and phrases. The structure of style can be given a quantitative and stylistic form, which can be analyzed by computer methods. The coincidence of stylistic characteristics of an anonymous work and works whose creator is known allows us to attribute it to this author.

Establishing the authenticity of the monument

In source studies, a special technique for identifying forgeries has been developed. In many cases, they are discovered at the stage of clarifying the time, place, authorship and conditions of the document’s origin. If it is established that the source did not appear at the time, place and conditions in which, by all indications, it should have appeared, if the author is not the person who is meant, then it should be considered a forgery. According to the degree of authenticity, all historical sources are divided into originals, copies that repeat the external features of the original, and fakes.

To distinguish counterfeits, you need to know the reasons for their creation. All fabricated evidence can be divided into three groups. Most of them were forged in the past they represent. Most often these were fake legal documents. They confirmed ownership or provided various benefits. Another group of false testimonies does not express the past at all. These false testimonies were initially fabricated at a later time as fake sources. They were created in order to form the necessary ideas about the past. Such forgeries fabricated historical facts themselves. In addition, there are also collectible fakes that were created by collectors for prestige and to gain certain benefits.

All methods of falsifying sources are divided into falsification by content and falsification by form. The first includes completely falsified documents. Some of them can be executed in compliance with external signs of authenticity (handwriting, seals, etc.). Such forgeries are recognized by analyzing the content of the text and comparing it with already known and accurately established facts. Forgeries in form usually have genuine content. But some of them have fabricated external signs. Other sources, while apparently genuine, include forged text insertions, records, scribal notes, etc. This is how chronicles, charters and office documents were most often falsified.

Studying the nature of genetic connections of sources (Stemma)

Many ancient sources have come down to us in dozens of lists and editions, so their source analysis involves establishing the relationship between editions and lists, identifying the genetic connection of all surviving and lost texts of the monument, and reconstructing the history of the texts. These tasks are solved through comparative textual analysis, which can be facilitated by computer construction of a classification of lists. To do this, they use the method of constructing a “family tree” (stemma). It is based on the “groups” method proposed by the French textual critic D.J. Froger. The main idea of ​​the method is the following: if the “descendant” lists acquire all the features of the “ancestor” lists, then the history of copying the lists is encrypted in a very specific way in the different readings of the lists. Then, based on the analysis of the structure of discrepancies, a family tree of the lists is built.

The “groups” method has the following conditions:

1) each list has only one protograph;

2) each list contains all the errors of its protograph;

3) identical errors are not contained in lists that have independent lists as their protographs.

To study the genetic connections of sources, methods of conventional and historical textual criticism are used.

Methods of conventional textual criticism are used when studying texts that were edited by the author of the source himself or by a collective author. In this case, all surviving versions of the text (initial, intermediate, final) are sequentially checked. The study of connections makes it possible to clarify all aspects of the change in the original text, to trace the change in the intention of the author / authors, their ideological orientation, and the influence of individuals in the work on the final version of the text.

Methods of historical textual criticism are used in the study of the original text, which over a period of time was repeatedly rewritten and revised by various authors. Such texts have reached us in dozens of lists and editions. The ultimate goal of historical textual criticism is the restoration of the original, which serves as a source of historical reality. Unlike ordinary textual criticism, in historical textual criticism the study proceeds in the reverse order: first, later stages in the history of the text are restored, and then all the earlier ones. The research process looks like this: a comparison of lists allows us to identify their individual and general properties and restore the protograph of the text edition, in turn, their comparison also makes it possible to identify their individual and general properties and ultimately restore the protograph of the original text.

Internal criticism

Identification and external criticism of sources leads the researcher to the final stage of working with the document - interpretation of the text, interpretation of identified historical facts, i.e. hermeneutics. It is preceded by a study of the actual content of a historical source and clarification of its correspondence to historical reality.

Analysis of the actual content of a historical source involves identifying all the historical facts present in the text, revealing the completeness of its sociocultural information, determining whether the actual content of the source corresponds to historical reality, assessing the accuracy and reliability of its data, and determining the authenticity of the texts. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the sociocultural affiliation of the source, its functions, and the historical conditions of its occurrence; personal characteristics of the author, his worldview, the influence on him of the social atmosphere and political situation of the time of creation of the work in the selection, recording and evaluation of events, facts and persons, his attitude towards them, the author’s degree of awareness, sources of his information (rumours, eyewitness accounts, personal impressions , documentation).

Authentic sources include texts that are a direct remnant of an event, that is, there were no indirect links in time and space between the source and the event. Genetically, they are the result of the action of one of the participants in the event. Their occurrence influenced the course of events. Authentic sources, as a rule, include business documentation aimed at solving specific practical problems. These sources predominate among the sources of modern and recent times. Based on the source of information, inauthentic sources are divided into several groups: 1) sources compiled by participants in the events; 2) sources compiled by eyewitnesses of the events and 3) sources compiled by contemporaries of the events. In turn, a contemporary of the events - the author of the text - could use information gleaned from a participant in the events, an eyewitness or other contemporaries, which also influenced the degree of his awareness of the events that took place. The degree of reliability of all these sources is different. It depends not only on the source of information, but also on the time of compilation of the text, by one or another author - participant, eyewitness, contemporary.

Determining the reliability of historical sources comes down to clarifying the nature of the coincidence of their information. Such information may coincide independently of each other and as a result of genetic connections. In source studies, rules have been developed for formally checking source information for accuracy. The first rule states: if, by coincidence, the sources arose independently of each other, then this information is reliable. The second rule: if, when the information coincides, one source is based on another, then it is impossible to determine the reliability. And finally, the third rule: if information from sources contradicts each other, then it is also impossible to determine reliability. The dependence and independence of sources is verified using their attribution and methods of historical textual criticism. If there are three or more sources, which does not happen rarely, the rules for checking the reliability of information from sources become somewhat more complicated:

1. if information from one independent source contradicts information from other independent sources that coincide with each other, then the information from this group is reliable;

2. if information from one independent source contradicts information from a group of dependent sources, then reliability cannot be established;

3. if matching information from one group of sources contradicts matching information from another group of sources, then it is first necessary to find out the presence of genetic connections.

Most known sources contain information about several events. At the same time, the reliability of all information from one source is a contradictory property. A source may be reliable in describing some events, unreliable in describing others, and biased in describing others.

Identification of all historical facts present in the text, disclosure of the completeness of its sociocultural information, and representativeness of sources in historical research is associated with ensuring representativeness, which logically follows the identification of reliability. Representativeness is the property of a group of sources to display a phenomenon comprehensively and with the same degree of detail. In source studies, there are several ways to ensure representativeness. Firstly, when studying past phenomena, one should select sources that belong to different types and, secondly, depending on the type of historical phenomenon (action, event, process, situation). In addition, it is necessary to actively involve inauthentic sources (memoirs, memoirs, diaries, journalistic writings), especially when studying major social upheavals, when information was mainly transmitted orally and the total number of documents decreased.

Interpretation of the text (hermeneutic analysis)

Hermeneutics is a special branch of knowledge (from the Greek epmnvevw - I interpret, explain) which sets as its task to explain, interpret, interpret the meaning of the document being studied. At this stage, the problem of interaction in the system: “source-historian” is solved. C. Langlois and C. Senobos believed that the main thing in hermeneutics is the art of recognizing and explaining hidden meaning texts, their images and metaphors. According to A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky, the tasks of hermeneutics are much broader: “To determine exactly what historical fact can be restored on the basis of a given source, to more accurately identify the very meaning that the author attached to the entire work.”

Representatives of the Annales school, who pay considerable attention to issues of hermeneutics, believe that the historian’s method is expressed both in the selection of sources and in the method of their interpretation. M. Blok decisively breaks with the tradition of old historiography and criticizes Alfan, who believed that “it is enough to surrender, so to speak, to the disposal of the sources, reading them one after another in the form in which they have come down to us, in order for the chain of events to be restored almost automatically". M. Blok is against the fact that the functions of a historian are reduced to the role of a passive registrar of archival storage units, a reteller of texts. He compares the historian to a forensic investigator, who “is not satisfied with the version of the accused and even his confessions, looks for evidence and tries to recognize all the circumstances of the case.”

Soviet historians S.N. Bykovsky, E.M. Kashtanov, A.A. Kursnosov, A.A. Novoselsky believe that the analysis of the document should be comprehensive and there is no need to divide criticism of sources into “external” and “internal”. In many ways it is conditional. The main thing is to define the tasks scientific criticism and methods for their implementation. A historical source reflects a certain sociocultural system of the past. The historian working with him represents a different (scientific and social) culture. There is a large temporal and cultural distance between the source and the historian. The researcher must overcome it by correctly understanding the content of the text used. Therefore, the historian, having established all the circumstances of the origin of the written message, moves on to its interpretation. The essence of interpretation is to reveal the true meaning invested in the testimony by its author. When interpreting, methods of hermeneutics (the science of understanding), ethnology and auxiliary historical disciplines are used. In order to correctly interpret the text, it is necessary to understand it as a historically conditioned sociocultural integrity (typing method), take into account the peculiarities of the worldview, values, character and interests of the author (psychological and individualizing methods). For this purpose, it is initially determined true meaning concepts and expressions used in the text. They need to be translated, understood and interpreted correctly. In principle, the historian begins to interpret the text while reading and translating. Unlike simple translation, when interpreting a text, the researcher focuses on revealing its meaning in accordance with the specific historical and cultural conditions in which the source arose. Words, concepts, phrases receive a direct, unambiguous interpretation. At the same time, omissions and errors are eliminated, idioms, symbols, allegories, allegories and allusions are revealed, individual parts of the text and the text as a whole are interpreted. These operations are especially important for revealing the meaning of narrative monuments, and the literal meaning often has no meaning.

Basic concepts of the course “Source Studies”

Historical sources are everything that people created in the process social activities, has reached the present day and is used in science to obtain primary knowledge about the past of mankind.

Authenticity is the ability of a historical source to be part of the event it reports in the past.

Reliability is the correspondence of source information to the facts of historical reality.

Interpolation - words or phrases randomly inserted into the text during rewriting or editing.

Information expressed – consciously recorded, obvious.

Information is fixed - fixed on a material medium.

Unfixed information – not fixed on a material medium (oral).

Hidden information – not expressed in the content of the source, recorded involuntarily.

Narrative source – narrative source.

A copy is a text that completely reproduces the original text and has the formal characteristics of a copying certificate.

Mass sources – reflecting the essence and interaction of mass objects.

Authenticity is the correspondence of the source to what the author claims it to be.

A fake source is one that does not correspond to what the author claims it to be.

Representativeness is the property of a source to display a separate historical phenomenon comprehensively, with an equal degree of detail.

Tendentiousness is the incomplete correspondence of the source to the facts of historical reality.

The fact of a historical source is a subjective reflection of the facts of reality in a historical source.

The fact of historical reality is a concrete manifestation of reality in its past state.

A scientific-historical fact is a reflection of the facts of historical reality based on the facts of historical sources in the scientific works of historians.

First of all, you need to find out What does the concept of “historical sources” mean and why is the ability to work with them necessary?

The historian is completely deprived of the opportunity to personally establish the facts that he studies. Not a single Egyptologist has seen the pharaohs. Not a single specialist Napoleonic wars I didn’t hear Austerlitz’s guns. One can speak about previous eras only on the basis of the evidence remaining from them. As Mark Block (who has already been discussed) noted, the historian plays the role of an investigator trying to reconstruct the picture of a crime in which he himself was not present, or a physicist forced to stay at home due to the flu and learning about the results of his experiment from the reports of a laboratory assistant. Thus, knowledge of the past will never be direct. But even a researcher who reconstructs the history of the recent past, which he himself witnessed, finds himself in no better position. After all, immediate, “direct” observation is almost always an illusion. A historian cannot be a witness to all the events taking place in his time; he can directly observe only a small part of them. Moreover, what the researcher “saw” consists to a large extent of what others have seen. The historian studies the state of affairs in the economy on the basis of reports compiled by economists; public opinion - based on data from sociologists, etc.

Thus, historical knowledge is always not direct, but indirect. Between history as a process and the activity of the historian there are certain intermediaries, which are called historical sources. Historical source is a very broad concept. This is all that can give an idea of ​​human life in the past. The variety of historical sources dictates the need for their classification. There are several types of such classifications. For example, sources are divided into intentional And unintentional. Unintentional sources include what a person created not with the goal of going down in history, leaving a mark about himself in it, but with the goal of simply providing himself with everything necessary for life. Such sources usually include material sources. There is a special historical discipline - archeology, which studies the ancient past of humanity on the basis of what remains of dwellings, tools, etc. Intentional sources usually include written sources. Many of them were created with a very specific purpose - to express themselves. This especially applies to the sources that political history studies: these are the programs of political parties; transcripts of congresses, conferences, meetings; speeches and writings of political figures and similar documents.

There are other classifications of historical sources: they are classified by period of creation, by type(media materials, memoirs, etc.), in the areas of historical science, for which these sources may be of interest (sources for economic history, for political history, for cultural history, etc.).

The search for historical sources is the most important component of the work of both a professional historian and a person studying history. But just having sources is not enough. This is easy to verify with a specific example. For many years in our country, access to a significant part of sources was difficult; many archives were closed even to specialists. Under these conditions, the idea arose that as soon as the doors of special storage facilities and secret funds were opened, all questions related to our past would be answered. Access to sources has now become easier, but the expected breakthrough in historical science has not occurred, since its source study crisis has emerged. It follows from this that without the ability to work with historical sources, an adequate reconstruction of history is impossible.

It should be taken into account that sources are things created by people and therefore cannot be a reflection of objective truth. They bear both the stamp of the era and the ideological, social, psychological and other orientations of their authors, i.e. they represent a complex combination of objective and subjective factors. To reproduce the source’s point of view without analysis and commentary in historical research means repeating the long-noted mistake of historical science, which sometimes believes any era, no matter what it says about itself.

Let us quote the words of Karl Marx on this matter: “While in everyday life any shopkeeper is perfectly able to distinguish between what this or that person pretends to be and what he really is, our historiography has not yet reached before this trivial knowledge. She takes the word of every era, no matter what it says or imagines about itself.”

Therefore, the ability to analyze historical sources is necessary. The development of methods for their analysis is carried out by a special historical discipline - source study.

Having found out what historical sources are and what their classifications exist, it is necessary to move on to the question: What are the areas of analysis of historical sources and methods of working with them?

Source study contains the concept "criticism of sources"(that is, their analysis). Usually isolated external And internal criticism of historical sources. External criticism establishes the authenticity, time, place of creation of the source, its authorship. (Time, place and authorship are established even when they are indicated in the document, since they are sometimes deliberately distorted.) Internal criticism focuses on the content of the source. Its essence is to study the testimony of a source about a historical fact, to determine the reliability, completeness and accuracy of the information contained in the source.

Since students get acquainted with sources through anthologies and collections of documents, which include documents that have undergone external criticism, mastery of its techniques for them and for all students of history is not a primary task. It is much more important to learn to analyze a historical source from the point of view of content.

The main areas of internal criticism are:

– establishing the purpose of creating a particular source;

– establishing the place of the source in the context of the era, its

representativeness relative to the historical

reality;

– establishing the reliability of the source (it should not be

confused with authenticity).

What do these directions mean?

An intentional historical source is created to realize some purpose. Highlighting this goal will allow you to better understand the content of the source, its logic and argumentation. Realizing that a source was created for a specific purpose will allow students to understand that there were other purposes, and, therefore, there are other documents that cover the same historical fact from a different perspective. This will guide you to search for multiple documents, and therefore compare them.

Finding out the place of the source in the context of the era involves solving several problems at once. Firstly, it is necessary to establish how important this source is for the study of the era reflected in it. After all, the real scale of historical events does not always coincide with how it is reflected in documents. More significant facts may be briefly covered, while less significant ones may be given too much importance. In other words, it is necessary to understand how representative the source is for the study of a particular time. Secondly, this is to clarify from what positions the document was written. This will answer the question: what other points of view on the event in question existed in the past and, thus, will again guide the search for other documents. In addition, understanding that a source belongs to a particular belief system will ensure that his point of view will not be mechanically transferred into historical research as the ultimate truth.

Establishing the reliability of a source involves finding out how accurately it explains the reasons for certain events. There may be situations where the source will be genuine from the point of view of external criticism (that is, not fake), but will contain unreliable information or interpretation. For example, many speeches by political figures are genuine in the sense that these are speeches by these political figures, and not by their doubles or impostors. But this does not mean at all that the information contained in these speeches is true and reliable. Therefore, comparison with other documents is necessary.

What are the rules and techniques for working with historical sources?

There are many techniques for working with historical sources that allow you to accomplish the tasks of their criticism. Let us dwell on the basic techniques, without knowledge of which any meaningful work with historical documents is impossible.

▼ First of all, you need to learn the rule: sources should not be matched to ready-made theories, but theories and conclusions should be formulated based on an analysis of numerous sources. If you break this rule, the result will be anything but historical science. There are a lot of historiosophical constructions that operate on specially selected facts, but they cannot be considered historical science; they distort historical reality, going not from documents to theory, but from theory to documents. The sources are not illustrations of pre-constructed theories. The worst scientific crime a historian can commit is to throw out a fact that does not fit into his historical concept.

▼ Hence the rule follows: study not individual sources (no matter on what basis they were selected), but the entire complex of sources on the topic under study.

▼ Studying the entire complex of sources will inevitably lead to situations where the same historical fact will be covered by different sources not just from different angles, but from completely opposite positions. This should be treated as a natural phenomenon. Each source reflects the view of one part of society on an event, and there are many views. If we limit ourselves to one source, this will lead to a one-sided vision of the historical event.

What techniques for working with sources are needed in this situation? It is not at all the ability to compose something arithmetic average from various sources. This is impossible, and it is not necessary. It is necessary to be able to compare and contrast sources, showing the versatility of a historical event and the ambiguity of its perception.

Let's look at this with a specific example. On December 6, 1876, in St. Petersburg, on Nevsky Prospekt in front of the Kazan Cathedral, the first demonstration in the history of Russia under the red banner took place. One of its organizers was G.V. Plekhanov, then a student at one of the St. Petersburg universities, later the first Russian Marxist. It is a fact. Let's see how it is reflected in various sources.

Source one. G.V. Plekhanov himself, a participant in this demonstration, recalls:

“On the morning of December 6, all the “rebellious” workers’ circles came to the scene. But there were no outside workers at all. We saw that we had too little strength and decided to wait. The workers dispersed to the nearest taverns, leaving only a small group at the cathedral porch to monitor the progress of work. Meanwhile, young students were approaching in large groups. ...

The bored “nihilists” began to go out onto the porch, and the “rebels” who were sitting there—the workers—came up from the neighboring taverns. The crowd assumed quite impressive proportions. We decided to act. ...

There were few policemen and gendarmes on Kazan Square. They looked at us and “waited for action.” When the first words of the revolutionary speech were heard, they tried to squeeze through to the speaker, but they were immediately pushed back. ... When, after the speech was delivered, the red banner was unfurled, the young peasant Potapov grabbed it and, raised in the hands of the workers, held it for some time high above the heads of those present. ...

“Now let’s all go together, otherwise we’ll be arrested,” some voices shouted, and the crowd moved towards Nevsky. But we had barely taken a few steps when the police... began to grab those walking in the back rows. ...

The police received new and strong reinforcements. A whole detachment of policemen, accompanied by many janitors, was quickly approaching the square. ... The most brutal dump began. ... Those who acted alone were immediately grabbed and, after brutal beatings, dragged to the police stations.”

(G.V. Plekhanov. Russian worker in the revolutionary movement. Collection of articles. L., 1989. P. 84 – 88.)

This is the testimony of a demonstration participant. Here's a look from the other side. The famous Russian lawyer Anatoly Fedorovich Koni testifies, describing in his memoirs the same day, December 6, 1876:

“I found Trepov, the prosecutor of the chamber, Fuchs, comrade prosecutor Poskochin and comrade minister Frisch in the minister of justice’s office. The latter animatedly said that, walking an hour ago along Nevsky, he witnessed a demonstration at the Kazan Cathedral, carried out by a group of youth of the “nihilistic nature,” which was stopped by the intervention of the police, who began to beat the demonstrators. In view of the undoubted importance of such a fact in the capital, in broad daylight, he hurried to the ministry and found Trepov there, who confirmed that a group of young people were rioting and carrying in their arms a boy who was waving a banner with the inscription “Land and Freedom.” At the same time, Trepov said that they were all arrested - one resister was tied up, and some were probably armed, because a revolver was found on the ground. ... The demonstration ... caused a very indifferent attitude from society. Drivers and shopkeepers rushed to help the police and beat “gentlemen and girls in scarves [plaids] with whips and fists.”

(Koni A.F. Memories of the case of Vera Zasulich // Selected works. M., 1958. T.2. P. 8, 10.)

And one more piece of evidence demonstrating a completely unexpected view of these events.

One observer of street life told about a merchant who said: “My wife and child and I went out for a walk on Nevsky; We see a fight near the Kazan Cathedral. ... I put my wife and child at Milyutin’s shops, rolled up my sleeves, got into the crowd, and - it’s a pity only two of them and managed to hit the neck quite a bit ... I had to hurry to my wife and child - after all, they were the only ones left!” - “Who did you hit and why?” - “Who knows, who, but how, for mercy’s sake, I suddenly see them beating: I can’t stand there with my hands folded?! Well, he gave it to anyone a couple of times, amused himself - and to his wife...” (The character’s language has been preserved unchanged).

(Koni A.F. Op. op. pp. 10 – 11.)

Let's see what happens if, when reconstructing this event, we limit ourselves to only one source. What will the use of Plekhanov's memoirs as such a source lead to? (After all, it is natural for a participant and organizer of a demonstration to remember it in an elevated, pathetic tone). Moreover, this demonstration will have to be portrayed as an event that was of great significance and had a significant impact on the socio-political life of the capital, and even the entire country. This was the case in Soviet historical literature, which used only this source (omitting unnecessary everyday details about taverns). What if we use only the opinions of officials as a source? Then this event will have to be portrayed as a riot, completely groundless, which did not cause any resonance in society. If we use only the above opinion of the merchant as a source, then this event should generally fall into the category of police chronicles or even oddities of St. Petersburg life. Therefore, using a single source will result in an inadequate representation of history. At the same time, it is clear that it is impossible to make something arithmetic average from these sources. Therefore, the use of different sources is necessary in order to show the real scale of this historical event, its perception in different strata of society.

▼ When working with sources, it is necessary to systematize, summarize them, and compare them with each other to determine their reliability.

For example, source studies teaches that memoirs as a historical source can only be used when compared with other sources. This is explained by the fact that the memoirist may fail his memory, he may (even unwittingly) exaggerate his role in historical events, ascribe to himself views that he did not share at that time. Finally, he may be under pressure from the political circumstances of the time the memoirs were written. This is certainly true. But would a document written on official letterhead, with a signature and official seal be more reliable? Many materials from state and former party archives of the Soviet era are nothing more than reports. You don’t have to be a great expert in source studies to understand: if future historians reproduce the history of our recent past from reports, they will have a completely wrong idea about it. But some historians have developed a kind of reverence for official documents. This stereotype needs to be overcome. These documents need careful re-checking and comparison with many other historical sources.

This applies to all sources. For example, there is not one political party, the program of which would state that this party wants to do bad things to the people or the country (and party programs are also a historical source). Alas, there was enough blood in history. Thus, here too a comparison of programs with other documents is necessary.

▼ When working with historical sources, it is necessary to understand that some information may be hidden from the researcher. Therefore, methods of working with sources should lead to clarifying not only what the authors of documents testify to, but also what they are silent about, to the ability to see the character of the era behind individual facts of a document.

Of course, this is not everything, but only the basic rules and techniques for working with historical sources. But without mastering them, understanding history is impossible.

So, the material presented above is an introduction to historical science. It reveals the specifics of history as a science, the methodology of historical research, directions and techniques of source analysis. This knowledge is necessary for the formation of historical consciousness, for the meaningful study of specific topics in a university history course.

1. Specifics of history as a science. The problem of objective truth in historical science……..p. 3

2. Methodology of historical research. Main methodological approaches and schools……………………………………………………………p.15

3. Historical sources and their criticism……………………………………………..p.37