Sources and Methods

Abstract

This second chapter addresses the archival, literature, and map-based research, which underpins our investigation. The materials for the study of environmental history of Bialowieza Primeval Forest (BPF) used in this book were mostly written sources (published and archival manuscripts), along with archival maps and artistic depictions of the Forest and its dwellers (both animals and people). The written sources were obtained during archival surveys in archives and libraries of Russia, Belarus, Poland, France and Lithuania. The greatest number of documents on the management of BPF in the long nineteenth century is kept at the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg (RSHA), with the National Archive of the Republic of Belarus in Grodno (NHARBG) being the second largest collection of files connected with BPF. Unfortunately, both NHARBG and RSHA were substantially damaged during the Russian Revolution and both World Wars of the twentieth century. Only the last, appanage period in BPF’s history (1889–1915) is present in the archive in a continuous way, while all other periods of the nineteenth century—are only fragmentary. Other surveyed archives included the Russian State Archive of Navy in St. Petersburg, the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and its St. Petersburg branch, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow, the Central State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg, the Central Archive of Historical Records in Warsaw, the National Library of Poland in Warsaw, the Polish State Archive in Bialystok, the Archive of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznan, the Polish Library in Paris, the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and the Museum’s archives stored at Archives Nationales, the Defence Historical Service (Service Historique de la Defense) in Vincennes, the City Archive in Strasbourg (Archives de la Ville et de l’Eurometropole de Strasbourg), the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius and the Manuscript Department of the Vilnius University Library, the National Archives in Tartu, Estonia and the Archives of Natural History Museum in Berlin. We also conducted a thorough search of literature concerning BPF and forests of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania published in second half of the eighteenth century through until the early twentieth century. Indeed, the bibliography of the nineteenth-century publications (books and articles) connected with the subject amounts to several hundred items. Every forest has its own history and in this case, most information came from different kinds of written sources (a) published and generally available to the public and (b) archival manuscripts. The latter category includes meticulous accounts, tables and inventories. Archival maps that help identify nineteenth-century interactions between man and forest supplemented this knowledge. Artistic depictions of the Forest and its dwellers (both animals and people) were important in tracing the cultural significance of BPF in the nineteenth century. Through analysis of what was depicted, in what form, and where was the work published, it was possible to identify the significance and perception of BPF in European culture.