Historical Chronicles Research Articles

Летопись хоринских бурят Рабжи Санжиева: предварительные сведения

Introduction. The introduction of new sources characterizing traditions of Buryat chronicle writing into scientific circulation remains an urgent task of Mongolian studies. Dozens of works and their various copies and editions are still there to be explored. The article precedes a further study and translation of a voluminous historical chronicle of the Aga and Khori Buryats. Goals. The study attempts a brief overview of the chronicle’s contents and approaches some peculiarities traced in its text. Materials and methods. The analysis of Rabzhi Sanzhiev’s writing involves a wide range of Buryat historical works — both chronicles and archival documents. The historical comparative and chronological methods prove instrumental in systematizing the data contained, while tools of textual and source studies have made it possible to delineate the author’s text proper. Results. The work identifies an extensive range of sources and the chronicle’s structure according to which R. Sanzhiev’s narrative be conventionally divided into a number of large sections, namely: Shirab-Nimbu Khobituev’s chronicle; copies of official documents; historical works by T. Toboev, D. Zayaev, S. Vandanov, A. Ochirov; and the author’s text. Conclusions. R. Sanzhiev’s writing is a major work of the historical documentary genre. The author undertook painstaking efforts to meticulously clarify data included in Shirab-Nimbu Khobituev’s chronicle and supplement certain facts and data, introduce additional findings from various sources. The continuation of Khobituev’s chronicle — despite the compiled facts are fragmented enough — acts as an independent composition. Archival documents on the history of Buryat self-governance and Buddhism, folklore texts, chronicles and legends included by the author into the narrative are of particular value.

The Beauty, the Beast and the Red Hare. The 'Chain Scheme' in Chinese Literature and Cinematography. Part 1

The Chinese historical chronicle “The Annals of the Three kingdoms” relates the last years of Han dynasty before the country fell into chaos. According to the Chronicle, a frontier general Dong Zhuo marched with his troops to the capital and took control over the boy emperor. He wanted to get rid of his rival general Ding Yuan, so he bribed his officers with gifts and promises. A young junior officer Lü Bu killed general Ding and presented his head to Dong Zhuo. The daring and unscrupulous officer enjoyed the favours of the usurper, he became his adopted son and was placed at the head of cavalry. To his misfortune, Dong Zhuo’s uncontrolled temper threatened the very life of his closest henchmen. Besides, Lü Bu’s regiments didn’t enjoy benefits they expected and that annoyed the soldiers and their new commander. Finally, Lü Bu started a secret affair with a court lady and was afraid to be exposed. So, when minister Wang Yun asked him to kill the tyrant, Lü Bu agreed. Following Wan Yun’s plan, he killed Dong Zhuo with his own hands. This story was masterfully re-worked in Luo Guangzhong’s great epic “The Three Kingdoms”. The writer dramatized the plot and turned the nameless court lady into a renowned beauty Diao Chan who plays the key role in the conspiracy. According to the novel, Diao Chan seduced Lü Bu and later married Dong Zhuo to set the tyrant and his powerful bodyguard against each other. This scheme was called “The Chain Scheme”, for the idea was to break the chain between the male characters with the help of female charms. The Chain Scheme is the most stylistically strong and textually rich episode; in the course of Chinese history it served as a plot to masterful works of fiction and in 20th-21st centuries got numerous TV adaptations. In the present paper I analyse artistic devices and narrative tropes in literature versions of Chain Scheme plot, paying attention to the visual images of the characters, especially their bodily representations as well as the psychological interpretations of their actions. In the Part II of the work I hope to do the same for the screen versions of the Chain Scheme story.

Dangerous Friendships in Eighteenth-Century Buddhist Laṅkā and Siam

AbstractThe kingdoms of Kandy (now Sri Lanka) and Ayutthaya (now Thailand) were briefly connected across Indian Ocean waters in the mid-eighteenth century by Dutch East India Company (hereafter VOC) traders, leading to the importation of valuable Siamese Buddhist monks and their ordination lineage to the island. Two series of events related to the VOC's search for and delivery of these monks demonstrate that the patronage of connected religious dynamics—not just the contingencies of trade, land, labour, and statecraft—was an essential aspect of Company business. At the same time, mediating Buddhist connection was a dangerous, sometimes perilous undertaking. Analysing VOC records alongside Laṅkān and Siamese historical chronicles and travelogues reveals that what were initially friendly connections at first necessitated, and later intensified certain forms of danger. We begin with perilous shipwrecks and diplomatic impasses across monsoon waters that eventually led to the restoration of an important but defunct Kandyan Buddhist ordination lineage, and conclude with the aftermath of a failed assassination attempt in 1760 against the royal patron of that lineage transmission. I advance the notion of “dangerous friendships” to characterise how Buddhist courts and European traders worked together to first generate, and then exploit, friendly religious connections.

SHAKESPEARIAN MAN IN THE CONTEXT OF RENAISSANCE IDEAS

William Shakespeare’s writing is characterised by lasting interest in man as a dialectic being. On the one hand, it can be explained by the specific features of the genre chosen by Shakespeare, for both the play (a tragedy, a comedy, a historical chronicle) and the sonnet call for a more intense clash of thesis and antithesis. On the other hand, it is the age that has shaped the notion of man as a being with inner contradictions: Shakespeare wrote his works at a time when an optimistic view of man was gradually replaced by pessimism that is characteristic of the decline of Renais- sance. The paper is devoted to the analysis of interpretation of the image of man that is typical of Shakespeare’s writing. Special attention is paid to the pair of opposites of “man-God” and “man-degenerate of nature”, emphasising daring as a common meas- urement of the value of man in Renaissance. The interpretation of the image of man that is specific to Shakespeare’s writing is viewed in the context of ideas of Renaissance authors: Pico della Mirandola, Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio and Christopher Marlowe.

The Beginning of Meiosis in Mammalian Female Germ Cells: A Never-Ending Story of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors.

Meiosis is the unique division of germ cells resulting in the recombination of the maternal and paternal genomes and the production of haploid gametes. In mammals, it begins during the fetal life in females and during puberty in males. In both cases, entering meiosis requires a timely switch from the mitotic to the meiotic cell cycle and the transition from a potential pluripotent status to meiotic differentiation. Revealing the molecular mechanisms underlying these interrelated processes represents the essence in understanding the beginning of meiosis. Meiosis facilitates diversity across individuals and acts as a fundamental driver of evolution. Major differences between sexes and among species complicate the understanding of how meiosis begins. Basic meiotic research is further hindered by a current lack of meiotic cell lines. This has been recently partly overcome with the use of primordial-germ-cell-like cells (PGCLCs) generated from pluripotent stem cells. Much of what we know about this process depends on data from model organisms, namely, the mouse; in mice, the process, however, appears to differ in many aspects from that in humans. Identifying the mechanisms and molecules controlling germ cells to enter meiosis has represented and still represents a major challenge for reproductive medicine. In fact, the proper execution of meiosis is essential for fertility, for maintaining the integrity of the genome, and for ensuring the normal development of the offspring. The main clinical consequences of meiotic defects are infertility and, probably, increased susceptibility to some types of germ-cell tumors. In the present work, we report and discuss data mainly concerning the beginning of meiosis in mammalian female germ cells, referring to such process in males only when pertinent. After a brief account of this process in mice and humans and an historical chronicle of the major hypotheses and progress in this topic, the most recent results are reviewed and discussed.

Arthur and Kingship as Represented by the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth

The present study investigates the representation of King Arthur in the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1343–1400). In doing so, it concentrates on specific historical context – early Anglo-Saxon England – and a specific form of authority – Anglo-Saxon kingship. The intention of the study is to show how Geoffrey of Monmouth used historical chronicles, not only for cataloguing the stories of various rulers of the island, but also for creating and shaping a single leader who can unify the kingdom.The study claims that the ideal kingship constructed around the figure of King Arthur in the Historia involved a re-orientation of some of the more conventional norms of kingship; the heroic qualities of martial prowess, generosity and morality are quite essential in every conception of an ideal king. Geoffrey’s conception of this ideal king was largely influenced by his personal aspirations, some of which have been outlined in the introduction of this article. The remaining parts of this study offer a historical as well as a literary analysis of the text, addressing the main qualities of kingship that were articulated in the text.All translated quotations from Historia Regum Britanniae are taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of Kings of Britain, translated by Lewis Thorpe (London, Penguin Book, 1966). The Latin text consulted was Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regnum Britianniae, Vol. 1, Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Ms 568, ed. Neil Wright (Cambridge; D.S. Brewer, 1984).

The question of peace in medieval domestic international and inter-principal treaties

Solving the current problems of our time is impossible without turning to history. Today, in times of great war, millions of eyes are directed forward, to the unknown post-war future. Without pretending to be able to give any principled advice to contemporaries, the publication introduces how their medieval ancestors stopped wars, concluded peace treaties and organized post-war life. The Middle Ages of Ukraine are mainly associated with the activities of the East Slavic state formations headed by princes from the Rurik dynasty. Thanks to historical chronicles (so-called Litopys or Letopis) and European archives, a lot of information about peace treaties has been preserved, as well as a certain number of originals or copies of peace treaties of the 10th-14th centuries. Practically all of them are currently published and put into scientific use. Such treaties cover the relations of East Slavic state formations with each other, as well as with other states and state formations: steppe hordes, neighboring kingdoms, church military orders, independent bishoprics and self-governing cities. From the available historical sources, we learn about the principle of the current treaty, which was that not only in the event of a declaration of war, but also in the event of a change (death, deprivation of power) of the signatory of the treaty (prince, king, khan, Grand Master of the order, etc.), peaceful relations were suspended until the moment of concluding a new contract or the time of sending ambassadors with the proposal of such a contract. There is no agreement – there is no peace, because there is no one who guarantees this peace. This gave rise to the practice of renewing old treaties without revising them, which was based on the principle of respect for antiquity common to all of medieval Europe. Another principle on which all peace treaties were based is the forgetting of previous grudges. Any conflicts that occurred during the war, during the period of validity of the previous treaty or during the time between the end of the previous treaty and the conclusion of the new one (the so-called rozmir’ya) were to be resolved during the conclusion of peace and in the future there was no need to mention them. Demands to return to consideration of previous conflicts were considered a violation of the treaty and the beginning of war. The Eastern Slavic legal worldview left no room for discussion: there is a time of war (rozmir’ya) and there is a time of peace, which creates a new legal space and should not be burdened by previous conflicts. The article also highlights information about the possibility of temporary peace agreements, the practice of armistice, the possibility of arbitration, the procedure for compensation to the affected population, the participation of princely people in the contractual process, etc. Key words: East Slavic state formations, Kyivan Rus, Old Rus, Medieval Law, Old Rus Law, law-making treaty, International treaty, Source of Law, Legal history

LET’S READ "MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN" (THE PLAY OF B. BRECHT IN THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING THE HISTORY OF FOREIGN LITERATURE)

Interpretation of Brecht’s ideas and poetics, especially in publications for schoolchildren and teachers, are usually limited by scholasticism or reiteration (or by distortion) of what was said as early as in soviet times. Research aim: to find out characteristic stereotypes and errors of interpretations of drama and work of B. Brecht in the wide reader's accessible sources and to offer the own reading of the play "Mother Courage and Her Children".
 We underline that the action in Brecht’s works is fully conditional. The subtitle of the play – "The Chronicle from times of Thirty Years’ War" – does not do the literary work a "historical chronicle". It is one of the author’s techniques of the conditional image through the principle of Verfremdung – a term is given in the distorted translation from Russian as "alienation". A widespread stereotype of character perception of Mother Courage as the "bad mother", allegedly opposed against her daughter-heroine, distorts the authorial intention of the play. Brecht’s personages are conditional, not realistic ones: none is an embodiment of a psychologically integral character of the real man, everybody was the author’s megaphone of certain ideas, for criticism of public defects and crimes. Brecht showed Mother Courage as a resilient self-respectful person woman, however unable to provide the future to her children and unable to give up the chosen way of life. The eloquent symbolic motif of the play is the movement of Courage's van in a closed circle. Brecht did not go down to the dogmatic and moralizing theatre. He was a sceptic and he doubted any ideology, morality, values. He cruelly derided primitive ideas about valour and virtue, about respectability and nobleness. He bitterly mocked the weakness of mute victims of violence and lying.

Appalachia as Contested Borderland of the Early Modern Atlantic, 1528–1715

In her work Appalachia as Contested Borderland of the Early Modern Atlantic, 1528–1715, Kimberly Borchard brings a new perspective to the history of Appalachia, a region oft ignored by historians of the colonial period regardless of whether their focus is on Spanish, French, or English North America. Appalachia traditionally only enters modern scholarship when dealing with topics like coal, labor unions, and environmental devastation. In contrast, Borchard reveals not only Appalachia's incredibly important role in the Spanish colonial enterprise but also how the region became a key contested borderland in the latter half of the sixteenth century with the entrance of both French and English explorers. Borchard illustrates how the histories of Anglo and Spanish Appalachia are inextricably intertwined. Here is the crux of Borchard's main argument, “to push aside those longstanding ‘normative assumptions’ with regard to the colonization of Appalachia and demonstrate that the historical separation of Anglo from Latin America, particularly in this region, is largely fictitious” (p. 11). She accomplishes this by linking today's Appalachia with Spanish Apalache and the myth of El Dorado, highlighting the importance of the search for gold to the colonization of the Appalachian states of Virginia and the Carolinas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In so doing Borchard “moves Appalachia from the realm of regional American history into the broader world of Atlantic and global history where it belongs” (p. 12).The myth of Appalachia, or Apalache, begins in the wake of Pánfilo de Narváez's disastrous attempt to conquer Florida. The writings of one of the few survivors, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, helped to isolate a new possible location of the golden city of El Dorado (other options included present-day Colombia and the interior of Venezuela). Cabeza de Vaca's chronicle succeeded in inspiring the voyages of multiple Spaniards searching for the rumored wealth of Apalache in northwestern Florida, first and foremost Hernando de Soto in 1539. With more exploration the location of Apalache began to move northward, reaching the Appalachian Mountains of the Carolinas by the time that Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the United States’ oldest city in 1565. Menéndez believed that he would find in Appalachia mines of silver and gold and, perhaps more importantly, a route from the Atlantic coast to the Spanish silver mines of Zacatecas, all of which had to be kept out of the hands of the Protestant French.However, by the end of the sixteenth century the Spanish had begun to lose interest in the more northern regions of North America, including Appalachia, as they failed to find both El Dorado and a route to the South Sea. Additionally, all attempted settlements north of present-day Florida had failed within months. At this juncture the Spanish began to question whether Appalachia was worth continuing hostilities with their European neighbors, thus leaving the region open to the hopes of the English. But the English did not locate the famed riches either, and instead Appalachia became a source for Indigenous slaves, leading to the Mississippian shatter zone of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (though violence against the Indigenous peoples of the region was not new, having occurred during the voyage of de Soto, for one). Then when gold was finally found in the nineteenth century, there was a new explosion of violence aimed at the region's Native peoples culminating in the Trail of Tears. Borchard shows how the Appalachian myth of wealth inspired exploration and violence both between European nations and between Indigenous peoples and European colonizers for centuries.Beyond highlighting the place of Appalachia within the larger history of the Atlantic world, Borchard's work is also a treasure trove for scholars of sixteenth-century North America, containing translated excerpts of dozens of key primary sources. The author not only uses historical chronicles to prove her thesis but also provides in-depth literary and historical analyses of the documents. By focusing on the circulation of these chronicles Borchard also shows how literature and knowledge traveled across the early modern world, how explorers of diverse nations were able to learn about Spanish or French expeditions and incorporate the knowledge into their own colonial aspirations. All in all, Borchard's work succeeds in placing Appalachia at the center of many Spanish, French, and English colonial enterprises, putting it squarely within the larger Atlantic world. This is an exciting and innovative piece of scholarship in its own right but perhaps more importantly is the beginning of much more fruitful research on this once forgotten region.

Disasters and Society: Comparing the Shang and Mycenaean Response to Natural Phenomena through Text and Archaeology

Disasters do and have happened throughout human existence. Their traces are found in the environmental record, archaeological evidence, and historical chronicles. Societal responses to these events vary and depend on ecological and cultural constraints and opportunities. These elements are being discovered more and more on a global scale. When looking at disasters in antiquity, restoring the environmental and geographical context on both the macro- and microscale is necessary. The relationships between global climatic processes and microgeographical approaches ought to be understood by examining detailed societal strategies conceived in response to threatening natural phenomena. Architectural designs, human geography, political geography, technological artefacts, and textual testimony are linked to a society’s inherited and real sense of natural threats, such as floods, earthquakes, fires, diseases, etc. The Shang and Mycenaean cultures are prime examples, among others, of Bronze Age societies with distinctive geographical, environmental, and cultural features and structures that defined their attitudes and responses to dangerous natural phenomena, such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, and drought. By leaning on two well-documented societies with little to no apparent similarities in environmental and cultural aspects and no credible evidence of contact, diffusion, or exchange, we can examine them free of the onus of diffused intangible and tangible cultural features. Even though some evidence of long-distance networks in the Bronze Age exists, they presumable had no impact on local adaptive strategies. The Aegean Sea and Yellow River cultural landscapes share many similarities and dissimilarities and vast territorial and cultural expansions. They have an apparent contemporaneity, and both recede and collapse at about the same time. Thus, through the microgeography of a few select Shang and Mycenaean sites and their relevant environmental, archaeological, and historical contexts, and through environmental effects on a global scale, we may understand chain events of scattered human societal changes, collapses, and revolutions on a structural level.

The enigmatic 1693 AD tsunami in the eastern Mediterranean Sea: new insights on the triggering mechanisms and propagation dynamics

The disastrous earthquake of 1693 AD caused over 60,000 causalities and the total destruction of several villages and towns in south-eastern Sicily. Immediately after the earthquake, a tsunami struck the Ionian coasts of Sicily and the Messina Strait and was probably recorded even in the Aeolian Islands and Malta. Over the last few decades, the event has been much debated regarding the location of the seismogenic source and the possible cause of the associated tsunami. The marine event has been related to both a submarine landslide and a coseismic displacement at the seafloor. To better define the most reliable sources and dynamics of the tsunami, we couple high-resolution marine seismic survey data with hydrodynamic modelling to simulate various scenarios of tsunami generation and propagation. Results from the simulations are compared with geomorphological evidence of past tsunami impacts, described in previous work along the coast of south-eastern Sicily, and within historical chronicles and reports. The most reliable scenario considers the 1693 event composed by two different tsunami waves: a first wave generated by the coseismic fault displacement at the seafloor and a second wave generated by a submarine landslide, triggered by the earthquake shaking. Tsunami modelling shows that a simultaneous movement between fault displacement and submarine mass movement could determine a destructive interference on the tsunami waves, resulting in a reduction in wave height. For this reason, the second tsunami wave probably occurred with a maximum delay of few minutes after the one generated by the earthquake and induced a greater flooding. The double-source model could explain the observation because in the course of other destructive earthquakes in south-eastern Sicily, such as that of 1169 AD, the associated tsunami caused less damages. This implies the need to better map, define and assess the hazard responsible for this type of tsunami events.

Periodization of the Northern Song Emperor Huizong’s Reign (1100–1126)

This article is devoted to the reign of the de facto last Emperor of the Northern Song, Huizong. In particular, it deals with the question of how the periodization of the reign, based on mottos that were declared during the reign of the Emperor coincides with the theoretical periodization, based on the model of political struggle, as well as the question of whether the mottos of the reign can be considered as political institutions that include an official announcement of a change of political course. The dynamics of internal political processes, based on the analysis of the corresponding chapters of the historical chronicle of Song Shi, is demonstrated. As a result of the research, some discrepancies were revealed between the periodization based on the dynamics of internal political processes and the periodization using mottos, in particular, there were more mottos than the stages outlined during the research 6 and 5, respectively, a brief description of each stage is given.

Simulation of Gnosis: Which Doors Do "Keys of Mary" Open (On the Basis On the Novel "Keys of Mary" by A. Kurkov, Yu. Vynnychuk)

Given article is the first study of the artistic features of the novel "Keys of Mary" since its publication. The article clarifies the difference between literary texts that attempt to provide answers to the philosophy of gnosis questions and those postmodern literature texts the authors of which use gnostic ideas to create the artistic world of the work while largely formalizing them. We consider it relevant to apply the concept of "gnosis simulation" for this group of works. The author argues that it was exactly the use of ideas and signs of this philosophical direction that made the basis for the plot and composition of "The Keys of Mary". "Simulation of gnosis" emphasizes the genre peculiarity of the novel defining it as a detective-adventure; it stimulates the reader's interest, because it serves as an intriguing factor. The work is modeled on the "cosmogony structure" principle: its bipolarity is manifested both in the division of characters and in the way the main conflict is resolved. Elements of gnosis, replicated at the subculture level, are successfully used to combine three storylines, three spatiotemporal dimensions. The focus point of the work is the image of the Maiden in her three novel incarnations (Maria, Aretha, Rina) – she is an eternally young savior of the mankind, whom the forces of evil hunt in all three of the "worlds". An interesting artistic discovery in the novel that draws reader attention is the plot of a lost historical chronicle about the knight Olgerd: in the narrative space of the work, it is perceived as a "supernova" that attracts the worlds of two time- distant plot orbits and creates a kind of insight on the last pages. Primarily, the authors of “The Keys of Mary” used the simulation of gnosis to model the plot, chronotope, and intrigue; but the values,​​ deeply reflected in the legends and artifacts associated with the life of the Virgin Mary, prompt readers' need for self-determination.

From Terrifying Villain to Tragic Hero: Miodrag Bulatović’s Problematic Rehabilitation of the Historical Dracula

The present study analyses the novel Death’s Lover (1990) by the Yugoslav writer Miodrag Bulatovid. The main character is the controversial figure Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, a medieval Romanian prince. The first part of the study identifies the elements that remain true to the historical chronicle thereby giving the text the character of a documentary. From

Жанровые модификации и «поиски жанра» в романе Тимура Кибирова «Генерал и его семья»

Genre definition of Timur Kibirov’s The General and His Family caused disagreement among literary critics. The range of opinions concerning the definition of the novel’s genre include historical novel, family saga, cento novel, the novel about psychology and morality of the late years of the USSR. This article is concentrated on the novel’s genre definition. The genre framework of the text is the epoch-standard local family story depicted against the background of massive Soviet history. Text analysis allows to speak about the combination of the family and historical chronicle genres as the form and meaning generating composition and style structure in its historical stability. At the same time, the novel is distinguished by features of genre marginality (transitivity), manifested through genre contamination and genre diffusion. This allows Kibirov’s novel to absorb other compositional and stylistic formations, including that variety of the coming-of-age novel, which Bakhtin defines as a novel of ordeal. Contamination of various genres in the novel is based on the principle of their interpenetration, that is, genre-related new formations and connections appear in the text as a result of the diffusion process, that is when new meaningful forms arise as a result of mixing, displacement, constant and deliberate breaking of boundaries. The author in the text, commenting on the events and being one of their participants, uses the techniques of artistic play to lead a never-ending dialogue with the reader and the characters. The author’s vision makes it possible to perceive the novel written in the paradigm of “genre search” in its genre integrity.

Animals in Javanese manuscript illustrations

Most Javanese manuscript illustrations of narrative poems and (pseudo)-historical chronicles ( babad ) depict only one part of the natural world: animals. Animals are portrayed in relation to the characters in the text they illustrate. Some illustrated Javanese manuscripts are discussed below in relation to the way in which they illustrate the natural world: these are the fictive narrative poems Serat Selarasa , Serat Panji Jayakusuma , Serat Asmarasupi, Serat Jayalengkara Wulang , and Serat Damar Wulan , and the poetic (pseudo)-historical chronicle Babad Perang Demak . It appears from the illustrations in the manuscripts discussed that in the narrative poems the wayang style is preferred and they depict animals differently from the babad for which the wayang -style is not used and whose illustrations tend to be more “realistic”. The focus in the narrative poems discussed here is on serpents, crocodiles, and elephants, and in the babad on all the animals featured.

The R Language: An Engine for Bioinformatics and Data Science.

The R programming language is approaching its 30th birthday, and in the last three decades it has achieved a prominent role in statistics, bioinformatics, and data science in general. It currently ranks among the top 10 most popular languages worldwide, and its community has produced tens of thousands of extensions and packages, with scopes ranging from machine learning to transcriptome data analysis. In this review, we provide an historical chronicle of how R became what it is today, describing all its current features and capabilities. We also illustrate the major tools of R, such as the current R editors and integrated development environments (IDEs), the R Shiny web server, the R methods for machine learning, and its relationship with other programming languages. We also discuss the role of R in science in general as a driver for reproducibility. Overall, we hope to provide both a complete snapshot of R today and a practical compendium of the major features and applications of this programming language.

Theme of Wine and Wine Drinking in Late Medieval Transoxiana Sufism in 16th Century

The article is devoted to wine drinking in the Sufi sources of Transoxiana of the 16th century, on the example of Manakibs. The importance of research on this topic lies in determining wine drinking in the secular and religious traditions of Muslim society. Besides, the topic's relevance is due to the insufficient study of the issues of semantic interpretation of the concept of wine in Sufi writings. Hence, this article aims to disclose the various meanings of the concept of wine contained in Sufi writings. The primary method in the study of this issue is the historical and comparative method, and the method of literary analysis, which allows creating a holistic view of the hidden images of wine in the Sufi writings of Maverannahr of the 16th century. It is known that wine, winemaking, and wine drinking for many centuries, despite strict Islamic prohibitions, were present in Muslim society, as evidenced by historical chronicles, literary works. This phenomenon also applies to the history of the State of the Timurids and Sheibanids, where winemaking and wine drinking were widely practiced among representatives of different sectors of society.

Reflection of Sassanid policy in Dagestan in the arabographic chronicle of “Derbend-name” in the Kubachi language and its place among the chronicle of “Derbend-name” in some other languages

The author discusses the features of the Sassanid policy in Dagestan since the 5th century A. D., as recorded in the chronicle “Derbend-name” written in the Kubachi language. The study offers a textual analysis of the historical chronicle “Derbend-name” written in the Kubachi language. The text is compared with its wellknown translations “Derbend-name” into English, Arabic, Kumyk, Dargin (Sirkh dialect), Persian and Azerbaijani languages. The author identifies the place of the Kubachi version among these translations. The research shows that the Kubachi version in comparison to other versions comprises a larger number of settlements built by Anushirvan (531–579) during his stay in Dagestan, equally it provides a more detailed list of settlements, which were conquered by him. Among them, there is mentioned a city, which is mentioned only in the version written in Sirkh dialect of the Dargin language. This is the city of Guna rebuilt by Isfendiyar. The Kubachi version of “Derbend-name” also provides a more detailed list of the cities and villages, which were owned by the Khazar ruler Khakan Shah. “Derbend-name” in the Kubachi language can therefore be considered as a valuable text, which belongs to the scribal culture of the Kubachi-speaking population of Dagestan. As a historical source, it constitutes a link between all translations of the chronicle “Derbend-name” into five languages of Dagestan. Equally, it provides the most valuable linguistic data, which enables linguists to conduct several research projects. Among them is the comparison between the Old and New Kubachi languages, as well as a comparative analysis of texts written in the Dagestan adjam (writing of the peoples of Dagestan based on the Arabic alphabet). In addition, the historical chronicle “Derbend-name” in the Kubachi language records some 60 old Kubachi words, which are now forgotten and out of use.

The Law of the Mongols as Seen by John of Plano Carpini: Historical Legal Verification

Research objectives: The goal of the article is a comparative analysis of information recorded by John of Plano Carpini on Mongolian and Mongol Empire law, along with other sources on the Mongolian law and legal traditions aimed at determining the objectivity of diplomat’s materials and observing the evolution of traditional law of the Mongols. Research materials: Verification is carried out on the basis of the work “The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars” by John of Plano Carpini, making comparisons with the corpus of other historical sources, including travelers’ notes and historical chro­nicles by authors of the medieval and modern eras, as well as materials of ethnographic research on the legal traditions of nomadic peoples of Eurasia. The novelty of the study: The presented article is the first attempt to compare the information of John of Plano Carpini on the customary and imperial law of the Mongols with other sources on Mongolian law to observe certain legal traditions of the Mongols and the evolution of law among the Eurasian nomads. Research results: The author has found that the majority of information from John of Plano Carpini on Mongolian law in the middle of thirteenth century can be characterized as objective as it is confirmed by the data from independent sources dating from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries. These include testimonies of other foreign travelers who visited Mongolia in different epochs, medieval historical chronicles, studies resulting from ethnographic research, etc. Besides that, the value of the information of the diplomat is emphasized within the context of comparative legal research on the history of the state and law of the Mongol Empire and Chinggisid states.