O SPOLjNOJ KRITICI ARHIVSKE GRAĐE

Abstract

External criticism of archival material is a complex and highly responsible scientific task. The task of external critical analysis of archival materials is to determine the principles and verify the originality of archival documents, which are kept in archives and made available to researchers. The archives will hereby, in addition to collecting, processing, and storing archival materials, expand their activities to the scientific field, which, in addition to publishing materials, represents the learned tasks of these institutions. Since the records can be kept in different forms and the means of writing and types of ink have changed over time, when determining the originality of an archival document, sometimes an expert analysis is needed. It requires a certain level of technical and practical knowledge provided by auxiliary historical (archival) sciences, such as are: sphragistics, filigranology, paleography, etc. External critical analysis of the archival material requires a multidisciplinary approach and a certain level of technical knowledge. Besides, to determine the originality of the material reliably, excellent knowledge of the language of the material is a prerequisite. This paper aims to establish and set scientific rules regarding the strict adherence to the principles of external criticism of sources in historian research.