New Approaches to the Topical Aspects of Current Mediaeval Studies

Abstract

The article reviews two conferences that took place at the Institute of World History RAS in June 2023. The Second All-Russian Scientific Conference “Source Studies in Modern Medieval Studies”, held at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences on June 21—22, 2023, confirmed the high status of source studies as a key historical discipline, in the further development of which the entire professional community is highly interested. More than 50 reports were made at the conference on various areas of source study of the medieval history of Eurasia, in which the results of the latest research on the main types of medieval sources were presented. In many reports, much attention was paid to new approaches to the consideration of source problems, in particular, with the use of geoinformation technologies and electronic databases. This article also addresses the question of current interpretation of the forms and results of intercultural contacts in the Mediterranean from the 14th to 16th century. It was the period when the region under study appeared in the centre of global changes resulting in majestic geopolitical, economic, ethno-social, and cultural transformations. These changes made direct impact on the dynamics, nature, and effects of intercultural communications in the Mediterranean. Presented as lectures at a scholarly conference discussing the given question, the results of the researches conducted by Russian specialists in Mediaeval Studies allowed them to enunciate general global challenges that influenced the development of the region under study from the fourteenth to sixteenth century, to trace the forms and results of cross-cultural communications in the Mediterranean zone against the background of particular cases, and to determine their consequences for the development of European world in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period.