Problems Of Historiography Research Articles

Об актуальности наследия Вл.С. Соловьева

The general characteristics of the materials of the International “Round table” “Relevance of V.S. Solovyov's legacy: philosophy, philology, cultural studies (modernity calls and possible answers)” devoted to the discussion of the problems of V.S. Solovyov's legacy research are presented. The initiator and organizer of the scientific event was the editorial board of the journal “Solovyov studies”. The discussion was attended by Russian and foreign specialists – philosophers, philologists, cultural scientists from the largest universities and academic centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaliningrad, Kostroma, Saransk, Astrakhan. Foreign participants are researchers of V.S. Solovyov's legacy from Italy, Spain, and France. It is noted that the discussion participants focused on the problems of historiography and source studies of Russian philosophy in general and the legacy of V.S. Solovyov. The relevance of the ethical vector of his historiosophical ideas is pointed out to the philosophical unreasonableness and politicization of modern attacks on Solovyov's legacy, the lack of a fundamental scientific and philosophical research program. Attention is drawn to the need for further research into the historical and philosophical context of the formation of V.S. Solovyov's philosophical views and their influence on the subsequent development of culture, on the prospects of the projects “logic of unity” and “philosophy of neo-unity” being developed. The relevance of the idea of Christian unity by V.S. Solovyov is noted. Promising directions for further philological study of his work are revealed. The role of the journal “Solovyov Studies” in the development of Russian and foreign Solovyov studies is determined.

Women‘s front-line everyday life during the Great Patriotic War as a historiographical problem

Women‘s front-line everyday life during the Great Patriotic War as a historiographical problem

Consideraciones metodológicas en torno al abordaje histórico cuantitativo del conflicto social y el rol del estado

This paper addresses the issue of quantitative methodological perspectives in the field of studies on social conflict in recent argentine history. Consequently, the design of a database elaborated to study the ways in which state agencies dealt with social conflict at the end of the 20th century, is presented. First, quantitative history and its implications in the construction of historiographic problems are shown. Secondly, the methodological design of the database is presented, focusing on the relational definition of the unit of analysis, the structure of the database and the variables that compose it. Finally, the use of the newspaper as a historical source is problematized from the reconstruction of the central methodological criticisms formulated by the referents on the field of this study. In addition, a series of methodological precautions adopted in the database to control the biases identified by the critics are exhibited.

Первоисточники Диодора Сицилийского в описании Самнитских войн: новый подход к старой проблеме

The issue of the primary sources of Diodorus Siculus in the description of the Samnite Wars and Roman events in general is the essence of a two-century problem in historiography. In the course of long searches, experts put forward more than a dozen different hypotheses based on the “single source theory”, its modernized version, “multiple sources theory”, differentiated approach, but consensus was not reached. That is why, in order to overcome the emerging methodological crisis in the issue of primary sources, the article proposes a “new differentiated approach” aimed at identifying historical traditions within the framework of narrative blocks. Based on the proposed approach, using internal and comparative analysis, the article examines 14 narrative blocks related with the least studied events of the Samnite Wars. It is concluded that Diodorus in narrative blocks relied on the early annalistic tradition under 354, 318, 310 BC and indirectly under 313 BC, the middle annalistic tradition under 306 BC, the middle or late annalistic traditions under 316, 314 and 308 BC, the late annalistic tradition under 315, 311, 305 BC and indirectly under 304 BC, the early Greek tradition under 295 BC. Limiting the range of sources to one tradition in each narrative block also allowed in some cases identifying the potential author: Duris (under 295 BC), Fabius Pictor (under 310 BC), Claudius Quadrigarius (under 315 BC), Valerius Antias (under 311 BC), Licinius Macer or Aelius Tubero (under 305 BC), Terentius Varro or Pomponius Atticus (under 304 BC). In only one case of 312 BC, it was not possible to determine the tradition, but in other episodes, the new approach allowed establishing the degree of reliability of Diodorus’ information. One way or another, the precariousness of identifying the exact source within the framework of narrative blocks is overcome by determining wider historical traditions, which allow establishing the degree of reliability of the information in individual parts of Diodorus’ work without identifying a specific author. The only narrative block in which it was not possible to determine the tradition due to the brevity of the note and the lack of specific ethnonyms refers to the events of 312 BC; however, in all other cases, the new approach gave positive results. Diodorus, constantly changing sources throughout the entire narrative of the Samnite Wars, sought to use as many authors as possible, based on his concept of the “Historical Library”, i.e., collections of not only diverse information about the past, but also various historical works.

A Historiographical Problem: The Question of Interstate Boundaries in the Former North of Brazil

RESUMO A questão dos limites interestaduais foi um polêmico e duradouro litígio interno no Brasil ao longo da Primeira República. Ela resultou de um longo processo de disputa em torno da definição das divisas entre as unidades federativas, que repercutiu em diferentes frentes, por meio das contestações judiciais, dos embates no Legislativo e até mesmo no campo bélico. Contudo, grande parte das premissas contestatórias se amparou nos usos do passado e, com isso, a questão dos limites instituiu um problema historiográfico. Neste artigo, tenho como escopo o debate historiográfico sobre os limites no âmbito dos institutos históricos dos estados integrantes do antigo Norte do Brasil nos primeiros decênios republicanos. Para isso, mobilizo como fontes os livros e artigos publicados nos referidos sodalícios, a partir de uma perspectiva comparativa. Assim, é possível entender, mediante análise de uma trincheira historiográfica, os usos do passado.

Notes to Continue Thinking about Feminist Artivism in Mexico

Despite the large number of feminist artistic practices in Mexico that clearly ascribe to women’s rights and the fight against gender violence, there is a historiographical problem regarding the use of a term capable of accounting for the social impact of these practices. Therefore, one may suggest analysing the plurality of terms to understand the increasingly present use in Mexico in recent years of the term feminist artivism. We identify how the use of the term evokes a diversity of cultural agents that may or may not be linked to the world of art, which requires its own discussion so that we might understand the scope and limitations of these artistic practices and how we study them. One of the main problems is the development of feminist artivism in the context of neoliberalism and globalisation, where some artistic practices can be ascribed to this term but can end up contributing to mercantilist logic. Likewise, there are many subversive actions with aesthetic potential that this term omits, which force us to rethink artistic frameworks. Thereby, as a way of offering a term that seeks to account for the characteristics of current art, we propose incorporating the concept of feminist aesthetic-political practices. It is not our intention to offer an unequivocal and unstable category but rather to show the complexity that goes through the artistic and cultural practices that are positioned by feminism today. Finally, as far as methodology is concerned, we suggest writing based on situated knowledge and acknowledging the potential of oral history. Also, we try to give voice to a plurality of stories and experiences, from different disciplinary fields and to establish intergenerational dialogues, as an exercise in collaborative reflection, or accompanied thought, that allows us to raise the problem in its complexity.

Formation of the territory of the Russian Empire in the Polish direction, features and patterns: controversial issues in modern historiography

An objective study of the processes of formation of the territory of the Russian Empire at the expense of the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which ceased to exist in 1795, still remains a pressing historiographical problem. The relevance of the topic was clearly demonstrated by Ye. M. Boltunova in her 2022 monograph, dedicated to the coronation of Nicholas I in Warsaw in 1829 and at the same time covering a number of broader aspects of the Polish question in the politics of St. Petersburg. The book reflected common stereotypes characteristic of the analysis of the expansion of Russian territory during the imperial period, including an isolated consideration of the Western and all other directions of the empire’s policy, as well as a separate interpretation of the processes of the divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century. and the legacy of military campaigns in the first decades of the 19th century. The content of the monograph emphasizes the need to develop an approach to the problems of registration of the territory of the Russian Empire that meets modern research realities, including taking into account territorial increments within the framework of a single process that can be traced from geopolitical changes, from the outcomes of the Great Northern War to the legal consequences of the final act Congress of Vienna 1815.

The Global History of the Free Port

ABSTRACTThis article sketches a new, integrated history of the free port from the late sixteenth to the mid twentieth century. It lays out the historiographical problems associated with the free port, ranging from how to conceptualise the form and function of the institution and the uses to which it has been put, to situating its place within liberal political economy. The starting point for making sense of the free port is to trace the history of its paradigmatic cases, studying not only key models such as Livorno, Hamburg, or Singapore; but also how contemporaries discussed, appropriated, and adapted them. It then turns to do just that, reconstructing the defining moments in the history of the free port: from the Mediterranean in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the Caribbean in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century; Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; East Asia during the nineteenth century; and the entire globe in the twentieth century, when the free port was increasingly subsumed by a host of other spatial arrangements, such as the special economic zone. The conclusion considers what the free port indicates about the history of global capitalism and its relationship to European history and imperialism.

La fine del Novecento teatrale tra storia e storiografia

The first historiographical effort to build a history of 20th century theatre is to identify the chronological coordinates that circumscribe it. It is a problem that concerns more the historiographical approach to the subject than the search for a historical truth. The question of the beginning and the end of the century, in fact, mainly concerns the critical analysis and the point of view from which the phenomena are observed. The historiographical problem is not to establish a possible date to start or end the twentieth century, but to establish what meaning we attribute to these extremes. If for the beginning of the twentieth century the critical debate has come to some conclusions more or less shared, the question of the end of the twentieth century is still open. The aim of the essay is to examine the subject through the analysis of some critical positions and some artistic experiences. Guccini, Schechner and De Marinis’ studies pose the problem of how stage practice and the idea of theatre were transformed in the eighties identifying at that time a break in the process of twentieth-century innovation. In many ways the same happens in artistic production as evidenced by Federico Tiezzi. It is not a process of regression but a new approach to language that starts from the principle of modern as classicism and from the idea that research on language is transformed into the practice of the spoken language of the contemporary.

On the French Origins of Samuel Moyn’s the Last Utopia

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to provide an account of an important yet overlooked source of inspiration in Samuel Moyn’s contributions to the historical turn in the field of human rights studies. It examines the impact of an earlier French debate that occurred within a reflection group for political thought, headed by the French historian François Furet, on Moyn's scholarship. A notable similarity between the French debate that emerged in the late 1970s and the historical turn in Anglophone scholarship a couple of decades later is the emphasis on the temporal dimension of human rights. However, the French debate placed greater emphasis on the effects of human rights on a society's capacity to orient itself temporally, while Moyn and his intellectual adversaries primarily addressed genealogical questions. The article highlights the different temporal aspects of the human rights debate emphasized by these two debates: as a politico-temporal issue (as seen in the French debate), and primarily as a historiographical problem (as exemplified by Moyn’s approach).

O perevodah sovetskih issledovanij po afrikanskomu iskusstvu na kitajskij yazyk (1950–1990): problemy hudozhestvennoj antropologii

This article analyzes the translations of the works of Soviet authors into Chinese, made in the period of the 1950s - 1990s and published in China. The characteristics of scientific works are given, the content of research is considered, the personalities of Soviet authors and their translators into Chinese are studied, the activities of journals and publishing houses are evaluated, and comments on the presented academic texts are analyzed in line with existing historiographical problems.

The Limits of the History of Western Sport in Colonial India

AbstractThis historiographical review considers a corpus of literature which examines the spread of modern Western sport within and beyond the locus of public schools, princely playgrounds and club greens in colonial India. While locating the old historiographical problems and new social historical interpretations, a great deal of attention has been paid to foregrounding significant research areas that are less catered to in existing scholarships. As well, this review contends that the eagerness to examine colonial interventions in the sports field without tracing the conflict and negotiation between two different – pre-colonial and colonial – ideas of leisure and body cultural movements expounds an incomplete history of Western sport in modern India. While doing so, it urges a rectification of the methodology of current academic studies in which vernacular literary sources are treated as a ‘passive mediator’ merely reflecting the popular enthusiasm for sport. It concludes that this ‘reflectionist’ approach is a hindrance to research work on the diffusion of Western sports in colonial India, which recognises the emergence and development of a new sporting culture as the discursive formation that surrounded the ideological meanings and images of the literary construction of sport.

Хотоны Калмыцкого ханства XVIII в.

Introduction. The article analyzes a little–studied problem in historiography – khotons (nomadic settlements) the Kalmyk Khanate of the XVIII century, which at the same time were the smallest administrative units. Materials and methods. The study is based on an extensive set of archival materials, primarily clerical correspondence, which somehow deposited information about the khotons of the Kalmyk Khanate of the XVIII century, the number of people in them, the degree of kinship, etc. Historical-genetic, comparative-historical, functional and descriptive methods were used in the analysis of source and bibliographic material and in writing the text of the article. Analysis. The analysis showed that a significant part of khotons consisted of 10-15 kibits (families), which were connected with each other by kinship relations, including those who were at different levels of kinship relations. However, archival documents show that in the 18th century, in addition to ordinary khotons consisting of related families, nomadic settlements began to appear in the Kalmyk Khanate, consisting of families or individuals not related by kinship and even belonging to different sub-ethnic groups. Sometimes, for various reasons, several khotons could unite and form a separate group of several dozens of kibits, and in some cases, due to extraordinary circumstances, they could form groups even of several hundred kibits, though for a short period. In addition to the official authorities, khotons and other nomadic groups of khoton type had their own internal public self-government built on the life experience and authority of their managers. Results. Thus, it can be concluded that in the socially stratified Kalmyk society of the XVIII century tribal relations began to deform under the influence of the prevailing circumstances.

Энциклопедия летописного Воронежа. Рецензия на книгу: летописный Воронеж: история изучения: сборник материалов и исследований / сост., вступ. ст., и примеч. Г. Н. Мокшин; Воронеж: Издательский дом ВГУ, 2022. 384 с.

Introduction. The article presents an overview of the new book by prof. Gennady Mokshin on the problem of chronicle Voronezh. The author analyzes this publication from the standpoint of modern historiography and the tradition of the local Voronezh scientific school. In fact, the book is an encyclopedia of the history of the development of research thought on the topic of annalistic Voronezh.Materials and methods. The author considers disputes about the existence of Voronezh in the XII century. as a historiographic problem, highlighting the stages in its study, focusing on the origins and reasons for the emergence of new approaches.Results. Of considerable interest is the fifth section of the book. It contains an analysis of the results of the original survey of modern researchers on the problem of annalistic Voronezh. 33 researchers were interviewed on 18 questions. As a result, Mokshin managed to obtain data for judging the current state of the study of the problem. Judging by the results of the survey, researchers (although not all of the respondents) recognize the relevance of the topic of studying the annalistic Voronezh, not only in the framework of local history studies, but also in the context of studying a number of aspects of the history of Rus'. The chronicle Voronezh is connected with the plots of ancient Russian history by the figure of Yaropolk Rostislavich, who played a significant role in the political events of the 70-80s. XII century. He reigned in Kyiv, Vladimir, Novgorod, Torzhok. Yaropolk is depicted on the miniatures of the Radzivilov Chronicle, the Illuminated Chronicle of the 16th century, and his seals were found in Novgorod.Conclusion. The author of the review comes to the conclusion that the peer-reviewed publication will find its grateful reader and will be of interest to various audiences.

Russian Design Graphics in Art Studies of the 19th–21st Centuries

The article is devoted to the historiographic problem of domestic design graphics in the history of Russian art. The analysing sources are structured in accordance with the main stages of the development of graphic design in Russia. This approach allows to visually trace the evolution of art history in the context of the corresponding cultural and historical era. In chronological order, the article examines the following periods: 18th — early 20th century, an era that can be called the protodesign period; 1920s–1930s, a period of active development of a new professional model, interrupted for the next twenty years; 1960s–1990s, a period of professional self-determination; the first decades of the 21st century, when the digital age begins and new horizons of research open up. The characteristics of each period are given from the point of view of the development of graphic design as a phenomenon of artistic creativity. The paper’s novelty is determined by the topic itself: the specifics of design in general and graphic design in particular have not yet been studied. It takes into account, basically, the range of problems studied in the Russian conventional history of art. The main tasks of the work: to show the path of development of art criticism in the work of Russian researchers; to systematize the volume and problems of the latest studies of art history over the past decades; to contribute to the formation of a more complete picture of the authors and the amount of accumulated research material. The article shows the path of development of art criticism in the work of Russian researchers — from artistic-critical to historical-theoretical comprehension throughout the 19th and 21st centuries. The foundations of fundamental research of the late 20th — early 21st century are revealed are systematized for the first time.

From Democracy to Dictatorship: Historiographic Problems of the Sociopolitical Development of Germany in 1918—1933

The article attempts to analyze one of the most difficult historiographical problems of the recent history of Germany — the transition of the first German democracy to the National Socialist dictatorship. Its necessity is dictated by the fact that in recent years new assessments and judgments of historians have appeared in historiography, which significantly supplemented traditional approaches. The authors of the article are of the opinion that due to the relatively late political unification of Germany and the preservation of medieval monarchical traditions and structures of domination, the subjects of modernization changes that began at the turn of the 19—20th centuries were social groups, associations, unions, political movements and parties. The war unleashed by the German monarchy and its subsequent tragedy clearly showed the reverse side of national unity under the influence of the euphoria of the “spirit of 1914”. The confusion and fears of the uncertainty of the future that followed the defeat in the war again forced the nation to unite, however, no longer on the basis of a common conviction that war was inevitable, as a means of overcoming land hunger, but in connection with the vision of political prospects and the intention to achieve them through parliamentary compromise. However, the fragile foundations of the first German democracy were again shaken by the upheavals of two world economic crises in the early and late 1920s. The fear of social and economic disasters was exacerbated by the lack of discussion about Germany's guilt in starting the war, which contributed to the emergence of a completely different belief in the form of a legend about the innocence of the Germans (“the stab-in-the-back myth”). Its dangerous potential, legitimizing the mass consciousness, could at any moment undermine the foundations of the fragile German democracy. The conviction that the defeat of Germany could be explained by circumstances not of a military nature, but of a domestic political nature, became part of the so-called “conservative revolution”, which arose as an opposition to the Weimar Republic and contributed to the radicalization of the right forces along with the subsequent rise of National Socialism.

Smears, Laughs, and Barnyard Hokum: Early Jazz Trombone and the Problem of Novelty

Smears, Laughs, and Barnyard Hokum: Early Jazz Trombone and the Problem of Novelty

Master’s Textbook on Book Studies: Basic Problems and Prospects of Training

The results of the study of master’s programs in the field of training “library and information activities” are presented, their shortcomings in terms of the formation of book-related bibliological competencies are revealed. A new formulation of the object of book studies has been put forward, reflecting its modern essence “author – writing – text – reading – reader”, according to which the structure of the master’s textbook is proposed. The problems of historiography, scientific method and methodology of bibliological research are analyzed. The medialogical approach in the broad context of humanitarian discourse as the main one in the preparation of the textbook is considered.

Heredity under the Microscope: Chromosomes and the Study of the Human Genome by Soraya de Chadarevian (review).

Reviewed by: Heredity under the Microscope: Chromosomes and the Study of the Human Genome by Soraya de Chadarevian Miguel García-Sancho Soraya de Chadarevian. Heredity under the Microscope: Chromosomes and the Study of the Human Genome. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. 272 pp. Ill. $37.50 (978-0-226-68511-3). In Heredity under the Microscope, Soraya de Chadarevian complements the picture of post-World War II biomedicine that she uncovered in her previous book, Designs for Life: Molecular Biology after World War II.1 Unlike in her earlier monograph, here she focuses on chromosomes as spaces of convergence of several lines of inquiry. This focus on research objects rather than disciplinary developments leads her to investigate a variety of practices that life scientists deployed to visualize and [End Page 466] interpret human chromosomes. The diversity of disciplinary backgrounds of these scientists and the multiplicity of uses to which their chromosome practices were put enable the author to expand the historiographical boundaries of both molecular biology and genetics research. Firstly, de Chadarevian disentangles “the study of postwar human heredity from the predominant concern about continuities with eugenic practices” (p. 5). The book does not limit itself to documenting the invention of karyotyping techniques to represent and detect anomalies in human chromosomes; it follows their standardization and spread, including their use as evidence of safe levels of radiation in the workplace (chapter 1) or sex assignment in the Olympic games (chapter 3). The emphasis on these uses, departed as they were from scientific theories about population improvement, displaces eugenics as the dominant interpretative framework of the history of human genetics. Secondly, the book presents chromosomes as showing “historical commonalities” (p. 177) between two approaches that have been traditionally considered as separate: molecular genetics and microscope-assisted chromosome observations. De Chadarevian stresses how these two approaches emerged as a consequence of the key role that nuclear research had played during World War II and the search of peacetime applications. Radioactive isotopes decisively fostered molecular biology, while the investigation of the effects of radiation was a crucial concern of human and medical geneticists using chromosome observations (chapter 1). Both molecular biologists and chromosome researchers also attempted to apply computers to their investigations, the former as an aid to the structural study of proteins and DNA, and the latter to automate the interpretation of karyotype images (chapter 4). However, whereas molecular biologists focused on simpler organisms, chromosome researchers engaged with both human populations and patients in the clinic. Radiation-induced leukemia was their first focus for then rapidly shifting to other conditions (especially those affecting mental abilities and sex identity) and larger-scale epidemiological studies (chapters 2 and 4). The 1960s, a decade that historians have dubbed the golden age of molecular biology,2 was also a time of expansion of chromosome observations. From the mid-1970s onward, molecular biologists turned to human subjects in order to realize the medical promise of the new recombinant DNA techniques. It is at this point when the intersection with chromosome research becomes more visible and de Chadarevian wonders “whose turn” this represents in history, a molecularization of human genetics or a humanization of molecular biology (pp. 171–76). Although subsequent success stories have put the emphasis on molecular biology, chapter 5 shows the importance of chromosome research as a key tool for gene mapping and the emergence of the human genome as an object of study. Even in the so-called post-genomic era, chromosome observations are [End Page 467] essential to clinically interpret the molecular sequence data derived from the Human Genome Project. Overall, the book offers a most welcomed framework to address the coexistence of chromosome observations and molecular biology, and their importance in genomics research. Understanding this is a pressing historiographical problem, given the dominance of molecular biologists in existing narratives and the apparent revival of chromosome research. There is yet still work to do in exploring specific overlaps between the visual and molecular approaches to the genome. A potential candidate is Victor McKusick, a main actor in de Chadarevian’s account and a co-author of the article in which Celera Genomics presented one of the draft sequences of the human...

Two “Two Ostrom” Problems

Abstract This article considers the institutional and intellectual trajectory of Elinor Ostrom as an interdisciplinary scholar in the postwar period and how her contributions have been reframed after she became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics. Two distinct but interrelated historiographical problems influence our perceptions of Ostrom. The first relates to the difficulties women face in dual-career partnerships that often affect their ability to establish independent academic careers and gain fair recognition for contributions to shared research programs. How Ostrom negotiated these challenges highlights the many and often hidden constraints professional women face. The second problem is how to gauge or weight the work of the Ostrom who was a multidisciplinary scholar of the commons with that of the Ostrom who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Exploring her trajectory in public choice over a half century makes apparent the remarkable force a Nobel Prize exerts on post hoc appraisals of a career.