Historical Texts Research Articles

Reading to Learn: Powerful pedagogy for disciplinary teaching in a high-stakes examination curriculum

The qualitative study presented here shows how a secondary school history teacher in the United Kingdom transformed her lesson planning and classroom interactions with students following professional development in the genre-based Reading to Learn pedagogy grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics. The teacher undertook Reading to Learn while teaching a history class preparing for the General Certificate of Secondary Education. The professional development enabled her to analyse the genres and linguistic features of history texts in order to support the development of subject knowledge via the implementation of the teaching strategies designed to support student reading and writing of the texts required by the examination curriculum. The study reporting on the teacher planning and classroom practices includes examples of teacher-student interaction that demonstrate how the teacher was able to approach her disciplinary texts through the lens of genre, thus identifying the existing gap between the reading of informative genres in textbooks and the requirement to write in less familiar evaluative genres in exams. Moreover, the careful planning of strategies to support reading and the annotation of texts, had a positive impact on the joint construction of the less familiar argumentative genre required.

KERANGKA BERPIKIR WALI SONGO DAN ISLAMISASI JAWA PADA PERALIHAN ABAD XV DAN XVI

This research aims to explore the framework of thought used by the Wali Songo in the process of massive Islamization in Java during the transition period of the 15th and 16th centuries. A historical-philosophical approach is used to explore the thoughts and da'wah strategies carried out by Wali Songo in dealing with the social conditions of Javanese society at that time. The content analysis method is used to analyze historical texts and related literature which contain the preaching activities of the Wali Songo. The research results show that the Wali Songo's frame of mind is reflected through the social analysis and da'wah strategies they use. Through a deep understanding of local communities and their spiritual needs, the Wali Songo use an approach appropriate to the Javanese cultural context to spread Islamic teachings on a massive scale. They adopted an inclusive and adaptive da'wah method, utilizing local culture, language and traditions to form an understanding of Islam that was relevant and acceptable to Javanese society at that time. This research contributes to an understanding of the dynamics of Islamization in Java during that period, as well as the relevance of the da'wah strategies used by the Wali Songo in different social and cultural contexts

Women's Empowerment in India: Progress, Challenges, and the Ongoing Journey

Women empowerment is a continuous process that involves addressing various aspects of gender equality and ensuring that women have equal opportunities and rights. In ancient India, women played multifaceted roles and held positions of respect in society, evident through historical texts and archaeological findings. However, the eventual erosion of these positions due to societal shifts. The people of the Indus Valley civilization worshiped female deities; they were especially worshipped "Ammatalli". The Rigveda provides glimpses into the roles and contributions of women during that era; women were actively involved in religious rituals and ceremonies. They played roles in performing sacrifices and were often praised for their dedication to these rituals. The kings and people of the Satavahanas dynasty used to put their mother's name before their name. For example, Gautamiputra Satakarni,Vasishtiputra Pulomavi. Over time, the position of women in Indian society has declined. The present modern world the position of women is lower than that of men in many countries. India is taking many steps to empower women, but the results are meager. Women's empowerment in India has witnessed significant strides, accompanied by a host of persistent challenges. Advances in education, economic participation, and legal reforms have propelled women forward, but societal norms and deep-rooted biases continue to impede their full realization of empowerment. The struggle for gender equality gained momentum with social reform movements and legal advancements, leading to increased access to education and employment opportunities for women. Although Global Gender Gap Report 2023 India has 127th place out of 146 countries. Yet, persistent issues such as gender-based violence, unequal pay, and under representation in leadership positions underscore the incomplete journey towards empowerment. In the current circumstances there is a need to examine the measures taken by India for women empowerment.

The Fuuta Jalon ʿAjamī Tradition

Abstract Fula ʿAjamī texts have served as an important pedagogical tool, allowing for the spread of Islamic knowledge. ʿAjamī texts were crucial to compiling and circulating Islamic knowledge, inculcating “proper” behavior, and disseminating knowledge about the region’s history. This article situates Fula ʿAjamī texts in the broader history of Fuuta Jalon, emphasizing the role of these texts in the region’s history and processes of knowledge production. Many of the texts from Fuuta Jalon used in the neh ʿAjamī project serve a dual purpose: to educate and prescribe the proper path of righteousness in Islam, and to validate the religious and political rulers of the region as inheritors of a larger Muslim genealogy. In Fula ʿAjamī poetry, the veneration of religious leaders serves to raise up the Islamic traditions of Fuuta Jalon, and to center the region as an integral part of the Muslim world and a center of Islamic learning.

Arabic Manuscripts in Islamic Historiography during the Mamluk Dynasty

Historiography of Islam has often reflected the efforts to construct history distorted by political elements of power and the subjective interests of historians, hindering the presentation of the true historical facts. One of the pressing issues is how the use of the Arabic language in historical texts influences the understanding of Islamic historiography. This research aims to detail and analyze the characteristics of Islamic historiography during the medieval period, especially in the context of the Mamluk Dynasty, with a focus on the role of the Arabic language. The research methodology involves a literature review, examining various previous studies on Islamic historiography. The results of data analysis reveal characteristics of encyclopedic scholarship, the pivotal role of the Arabic language as the primary means of communication in constructing historical narratives, and the presence of creativity and originality in historical writings. Thus, this research makes a significant contribution to the development of theoretical frameworks for understanding the history of medieval Islam during the Mamluk period. This study is essential for delving into Islamic historiography of the past, especially in the context of the use of the Arabic language, to gain a deeper understanding of how Islamic history was recorded and conveyed during the Mamluk Dynasty. With this understanding, we can grasp the political, cultural, and social nuances that shaped the Islamic historical narrative during this period, while highlighting the crucial role of the Arabic language in this process.

Руските преписвачи на старобългарския превод на Словата против арианите от Атанасий Александрийски

The Old Bulgarian text of the Orations against the Arians by Athanasius of Alexandria has survived in ten Russian copies, dating between the 15th–18th centuries (middle of the 17th c.), all of them preserving the colophon of Tudor Doksov, according to which the translation was done by Constantine of Preslav in 906. The article discusses how five, six or seven centuries after the Old Bulgarian translation, the Russian copyists perceived certain specific linguistic markers from the translation done by Constantine of Preslav: the theological terms, neologisms such as сонтьство φύσις, бышьнъ γενητός, лоучьшение βελτίωσις, the participle сон/сони as an epithet of God, the archaisms братръ, съцѣглъ μόνος and some morphosyntactic devices (the adverb сегда/сьгда, the particle есе, the conjunction небонъ). Their substitution with other lexemes can be explained by diverse reasons: inability to understand the authentic meaning, inaccurate copying, adaptation of the text to certain theological interpretations in view of the time and place of the copying process. The copyists’ mistakes and reinterpretations of the lexemes that were irrelevant for the 15th–18th century serve not only as a revealing comment on various aspects of the copyists’ practice but also as a tool to look into the textual history of the composition.

Exploring the Role of Leadership in Art History

Leadership is an integral yet understudied component of art history. This paper explores the role of influential leaders who shaped the course of art movements and genres throughout history. A visual and documentary analysis is conducted to examine how leadership manifests in artistic works and historical texts. The study analyses key art historical figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Andy Warhol, and others who pioneered new techniques, spearheaded movements, founded institutions, mentored proteges, or galvanized public interest in the arts. Their lasting impacts as champions of artistic innovations and progress are evaluated. Archival letters, journals, articles, and other documents provide insights into leadership styles, relationships with followers, and strategic decision-making. Patterns of patronage linking leaders with wealthy, powerful, or religious institutions are also explored. The visual record reveals how leadership was conveyed symbolically through the content and style of seminal works. The analysis integrates qualitative evidence from both visual and documentary sources to build a historical understanding of leadership's central, multifaceted role in shaping the direction of art. This study aims to highlight leadership as a driving force in art history and understand how leaders profoundly influenced the production, dissemination, and reception of art across successive eras.

Two Key Narrative Strategies in Approaching Historiography on the Path of Historians in Space and Time

The subject of the study is the distinctive approaches to the formatting of spatial and temporal structures in historical texts. The main methods for historians belonging to a particular tradition to move through historical space and time in the process of creating discourse are highlighted, affecting a distinctive relationship in the representation of past events and structures, chance and regularity. For the sake of clarity, examples are taken of little-known sites (e.g. the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom of Hellenistic period), for which historians face not only the problem of generalising factual material, but also the problem of incorporating such sites cumulatively, without destroying discourse, into the existing structure of historical knowledge. In line with the opposing approaches developed in both historiographical traditions, the author of this study have outlined and for the first time identified the methods that have been used in these traditions to achieve the objective: the method of frontal approximations (in Soviet historiography) and the ‘historian’s wings’ method (in Western historiography). The study presents examples of applying both methods, identifies their shortcomings and advantages, in accordance with which the specific features inherent in both historiographical traditions are specified, and indicates their significance for an adequate presentation of the historical past.

Neue Forschungen zu Glashandwerkern unter den Karolingern und ihren Nachfolgern ( 8. bis 10. Jahrhundert )

Abstract So far, the history of early Medieval glassmakers has mainly been derived from archaeological sources. Significant in this context was, more than half a century ago, the discovery of a new glass recipe, which began to spread in Europe from the ‘deepest’ early Middle Ages; the question of how this could develop is still subject of various discussions. A new contribution was published by Alexis Wilkin in 2019. According to this contribution, the early Medieval glass artisans owed the technological foundations of their new recipe to their collaboration with metal artisans. There is some clear evidence for this theory, but besides the technical innovation the social conditions of the artisans should not be forgotten. The glassmakers of the early Middle Ages were not free entrepreneurs, in the historical texts they are dependent on their landlords. This dependency, however, gives rise to a purely historical method of investigation: new finds of early Medieval glassworks manufactured according to the altered glass recipe can be assigned to the territories of specific landlords. This paper examines the extent to which family connections can be made visible in the passing on of glassmakers belonging to these families, perhaps also in the development of the new glass recipe.

‘The words of a nation worn down by cares’: classical wisdom and modern crisis in Lin Shu’s Aesop’s Fables

Abstract This article analyses the remarkable translation of Aesop’s Fables produced by the Chinese literatus-turned-cultural-impresario Lin Shu [林紓; 1852–1924] at the turn of the twentieth century. Collaborating with colleagues proficient in English, which he himself was not, Lin translated the Fables into elegant Classical Chinese. This article examines the preface to the translation, which uses Aesop’s status as an enduring classical figure in Western education to argue for the continuing relevance of Classical Chinese in newly constituted school curricula. More importantly though, this article probes at the voluminous epimythia Lin composed for most of the fables in the collection. Written immediately after the humiliating Boxer Protocol, these present a feisty critique of Western imperialism in China. They range in topic from China’s lack of cultural self-confidence to comparative reflection on the status of enslaved Africans in the antebellum USA. Lin was a confident and wilful reader of texts; in his hands, the Fables become a foil for razor-edged polemic. His translation is surely one of the most culturally significant in the Fables’ long and murky textual history, and represents an overlooked monument of classical reception in an East Asia teetering on the violent edge of modernity.

The ‘pheasant of the future’: Encountering and imagining Reeves’ pheasant in Britain, 1831 – 1913

Abstract This paper examines the presence of Reeves’ pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesii) in Britain. It investigates how encounters between British people and Reeves’ pheasant informed their imaginings of the species, from its first introduction into Britain from China in 1831 to 1913 when a serious decline in its numbers began. Drawing on natural history texts, records from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, technical literature on pheasant rearing, and extracts from periodicals, magazines, and generalist encyclopaedias, this paper shows how imagined and physical encounters with Reeves’ pheasant, by naturalists, acclimatisers, pheasant enthusiasts, and sportsmen, informed shifting constructions of the species, which influenced and shaped its presence in Britain.

Aurora Records Reveal Shortened Solar Cycle During Maunder Minimum

Fastidious night sky observations from Korean historical texts provide a novel source of evidence for an altered solar cycle during periods of low magnetic activity.

THE HERMENEUTICS INFLUENCE ON FEMINIST EXEGESIS: A CASE STUDY ON AMINA WADUD

This article will discuss how hermeneutic influences the exegesis of the Qur’an initiated by Muslim feminists. Through hermeneutical principles, Muslim feminists develop their own theories and methods in presenting new interpretations of the Qur'an. This research will focus its discussion on one of the well-known Muslim feminists, Amina Wadud. Through a critical study of text analysis, this research will try to answer questions about (1) the necessity of using the hermeneutical method in feminist interpretation, (2) the influence of hermeneutics on Amina Wadud's method of interpretation. This paper will highlight this event using a socio-historical approach and content analysis. In addition, references related to the patterns of Islam integrity and culture will be used with a comparative pattern. The conclusion of this research is that through historical critical analysis tools and text criticism inspired by hermeneutical principles, Amina Wadud succeeded in creating her own interpretation method and developing an interpretation approach that is not gender biased and emphasizes the principal and universal messages contained in the Qur'an.

A New Historical Approach to Learn the Madheshi People in Nepal

Nepal is a multicultural country with a different physical geography. The people living in Himalayan; mountain and valley, and in the flat plain/Terai (Madhesh) regions have their mother tongue and even the different dialects in the same Nepali language. Despite the contribution of the Madheshi people in the nation-building and their continuous effort to maintain harmony with the other communities, some ruling people from non-Madheshi communities continuously have been denying their presence by ignoring cultural assimilation in the sectors like history, university texts, media, bureaucracy, security, the power structure in the nation, and so on which creates sometimes unrest and the hostility. The anti-Madheshi narrative used by many historians has left the Madheshi people always a suspicious community in Nepal in terms of nationality for those citizens who are unaware of the truth of Nepali history. So, this academic writing uses new theoretical tools like new historicism with some other marginal theories for the historical truths and to counterfeit the pre-histories to maintain cultural assimilation. It is a qualitative research rendering through historical text, article, theoretical text, and news media to crosscheck the facts of either community of Nepal.

Initial experience of synchronic description of historical musicology texts

The author discusses a small initial experience of using synchronic description in musicology texts. In the beginning, the origin of the synchrony–diachrony dichotomy introduced into linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure is revealed. These terms and concepts from linguistics turned out to be so generative in methodological terms that they were adapted into other scientific disciplines. Starting with Saussure, the specificity of the relations of the two approaches is most deeply expressed as the relation of the system of the subject – synchrony and its evolution – diachrony. Next, the article discusses collective intelligence (Lotman) as a result of the activity and cooperation of experts of the same specialty. The productivity and relevance of using a synchronic approach for an adequate comparison of musical works, especially in the history and theory of performing arts, is emphasized. The main objective of the article was to test the use of a synchronic approach for the formation of textual information about the formation of the classical style in musical Europe of the XVIII century. The main pathos and function of the synchronic approach is "comparison". When the beginnings of events are aligned, it becomes possible to compare them (events) with each other, and the results of the comparison are attributed to the synchronization time. The synchronic approach demonstrates the continuity and monomericity of historical time. In synchrony, we see that juxtaposition and comparison overcome the natural separateness of historical events. The conclusions of the article summarize the main properties of the synchronic and diachronic approaches: synchrony reflects the system structure of the object and phenomenon, and diachrony, their evolution. For more productive event matching, synchronization of several parameters and types is necessary. This type of historical research can be described as a multifactorial synchronic analysis of historical events. Further prospects for the development of synchronic and diachronic approaches lie in their synthesis, when multiple slices of synchrony are sorted by chronology, and diachrony consists of synchronic slices of time.

Aktual'nyj istoricheskij storitelling v videoigrovyh kibertekstah: strategii memorial'noj mediaritoriki

The article is devoted to the practice of popular historical storytelling, implemented within the framework of video-game media texts, which today is a noticeable part of the discursive space of public history. The article emphasizes the significant role of non-academic historical texts in the formation of sustainable content structures of public historical consciousness. The nature of the formal-linguistic and conceptual-content adaptation of historical narratives to the semiotic framework of video game media rhetoric is considered. The fundamental differences in the architectonics of video-game storytelling and textual-narrative “stories about the past” are revealed.

April 9, 1989 as a Paradigmatic Event: “The Time We Live in Now Started That Night”

The events of the late 1980s-early 1990s played a key role in the history of Georgia. April 9, 1989, was one of the most important events in this respect. It defined the shared identity and memory for a long time and determined future developments in the country. April 9 proved to be a paradigmatic event in the recent history of Georgia. The narrative of trauma and triumph was formed, being reflected in historical, literary and documentary texts, as well as in different sites of memory. Two years later, at the very place of the tragedy, the restoration of independence of Georgia was declared. The paper deals with the process of the crystallization of April 9 as a paradigmatic event. Cultural patterns that played a crucial role in the establishment of the traumatic-triumphal narrative of April 9, 1989, and in the thirty-year dynamics of the attitudes towards this event are explored. The study presents how April 9 and its resonance influenced the perception of the past, as well as further developments. Theories of collective memory and cultural trauma serve as the theoretical framework for the research, while official documents, memoirs, literary texts and various types of media sources form its empirical basis

The image of Russia through animal metaphors: A diachronic case study of American media discourse

The image of a country has a critical impact on the degree of its political, economic and cultural influence in the world. This indicates a need to understand various perceptions of a country that exist among other nations and mechanisms of their formation and change in an ever-shifting world. This qualitative case study seeks to examine the changing nature of wild animal metaphors employed to model the image of Russia in American media discourse in the XIX-XXI centuries. The study is limited by two source domains, namely, the beast and the bear. They were analyzed within particular contexts: American English, culture and media discourse. The research data were drawn from dictionaries and corpora. The dictionaries included etymological and explanatory entries, as well as those covering idioms, symbols, and metaphors. The corpora research data were collected from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and Chronicling America, a collection of historic digitalized texts. A total of 218 metaphors were selected from 4929 texts. The metaphors were studied through lexicographic, conceptual metaphor, culture-specific, corpus, discourse, and diachronic methods. The findings of this study suggest that the two metaphors “Russia is a beast” and “Russia is a bear” are frequently used in realizing the strategy of ‘othering’ in XXI century American media discourse. Still, their meanings allowed for variation and modification in the periods of the two countries’ amity and cooperation. In the XIX century and in the years of US-Soviet alliance in WWII the metaphors could evoke positive images of Russia, thus, realizing the strategy of ‘bridging’ or ‘belonging’. The contribution of this study has been to confirm that, whatever metaphorical projections exist in language and culture, historical factors determine choices in any sample of discourse. This could be important for understanding the mechanisms involved in modeling the image of modern Russia in foreign media discourses.

Hero’s Journey in Korean Confucian Historiography: Biographies of Kim Yusin and Kungye in the Context of J . Campbell’s Monomyth

For the first time in Russian (and world) Korean studies, biographies of real historical characters are analyzed within the framework of the concept of monomyth (or hero's journey) coined by Joseph Campbell. Previously, such an approach was practiced only in the study of narrative prose. This paper focuses on practical evaluation of monomyth as a prism with regard to Confucian chronicles. Critical analysis of the text showed us to conclude that the concept of monomyth is quite suitable — with some reservations — for describing the historical narrative of the biographical section of the Confucian chronicle Samguk sagi (Historical Record of the Three Kingdoms). The research revealed life paths of the chosen hero, who embodies the ideal of a loyal subject, and his antagonist generally follow the three-part model proposed by Campbell (departure — initiation — return). This allows us to conclude that a powerful autochthonous Korean cultural stratum contributed to the formation of a specific syncretic worldview in Korea during the Three States and United Silla period (traditional dates: 1st century B.C. — 10th century A.D.), which integrated Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism into a single system and was reflected in the official chronicle compiled in the 12th century. The Confucian historiographer's representation of these substrates (given a certain ability of these teachings to assimilate each other's concepts) was cemented by myth, which, together with the Confucian canon, set the principles of text organization, plot models, and ways of presenting historical events. The susceptibility of Korean Confucianism at this historical stage to mythology allowed mythological cosmology to integrate quite easily into the Confucian world-building narrative, and to deal with subjects that were previously considered taboo for Confucian ethics in classical Orientalism, such as the manifestations of the Oedipus complex. The interpretation of history as a moral and ethical drama brings official Confucian historiography closer to political myth in its modern interpretation and allows us to evaluate the historical text in a new way.

О некоторых неточностях в переводе А.С. Козина «Тайной истории монголов»

Research objectives: This paper aims to identify inaccuracies in the Russian translation by A.S. Kozin of paragraphs 270 and 275 of the Mongolian 13th-century historical text “The Secret History of the Mongols.” These inaccuracies hinder a proper understanding of the information presented. The paragraphs in the source text narrate events related to the organization and course of the Great Western campaign of the Mongols (1236–1242). The translations sometimes present information that contradicts other sources and, consequently, modern interpretations of the history of the 1236–1242 Campaign. Furthermore, the points noted are occasionally refuted by other information within the same source. The analysis of these excerpts, which are ambiguous in meaning, leads to the conclusion that mistakes were made in their Russian translation. Notably, the inaccuracies identified in A.S. Kozin’s translation have not been previously addressed by researchers. Errors in the translation of the source material hinder the accurate comprehension and interpretation of its content by Russian-speaking researchers, occasionally leading modern authors astray and potentially resulting in incorrect conclusions. Research materials: This study focuses on specific information in the Russian translation by A.S. Kozin of paragraphs 270 and 275 of the Mongolian historical text “The Secret History of the Mongols.” The investigation was conducted by comparing questionable segments with translations of the source text in other European languages, as well as with re-transcriptions of the text into Mongolian carried out by specialists. Results and novelty of the research: This paper exposes inaccuracies in A.S. Kozin’s Russian translation of “The Secret History of the Mongols” and proposes their correction. A thorough understanding of the source material is crucial for its accurate interpretation and drawing of correct conclusions. This study may be of particular interest to Russian-speaking researchers.