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Problems of Source Criticism (with Reference to Medieval Russian Documents)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

J. Luria
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Extract

The problem of criteria and methods of historical source criticism has rarely been the subject of special study. It is most often set forth in textbooks of historical method or in general introductions to historical study. And yet a number of extremely complex and important problems are related to source criticism: principles of evidence in historical study, the relation between deduction and induction, between synthesis and analysis, and so on.

For historians of medieval Russia, as for medievalists in general, these problems are of particular significance. In this field we constantly encounter the situation when one or another fact is attested by a small number of sources, sometimes a single one. The paucity of sources, their far from complete information, and their frequent tendentiousness—all this confronts scholars with the necessity of studying them with intensity and with extreme caution.

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Slavic Review , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 1968 , pp. 1 - 22

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References

Professor Michael Cherniavsky, of the University of Rochester, translated this article from the Russian.

1 E., Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (Leipzig, 1894)Google Scholar; Langlois, Ch. V. and Seignobos, Ch., Introduction aux Etudes historiques (3d ed.; Paris, 1905)Google Scholar; Lappo-Danilevskii, A. S., Metodologiia istorii, Vol. II (St. Petersburg, 1913)Google Scholar; L., Gottschalk, Understanding History : A Primer of Historical Method (New York, 1951).Google Scholar

2 N. M. Karamzin, Istoriia gosudarstva Rossiiskogo (2d ed.; St. Petersburg, 1818), I, xxviixxix, notes 347, 385, 398, 420, 455, 463, 486; Vol. II, notes 9, 17, 65, 115, 121, 128, 131, 133, 145, 148, 156, 167, 170, 176, 179, 186, 189, 190, 208, 214, 222, 225, 229, 239, 246, 247, 255, 256, 263, 266, 269, 270, 278, 279, 296, 307, 308, 319, 331, 357, 366, 373, 375, 415, et passim. Characterizing Karamzin's attitude toward Tatishchev, D. Bludov, the publisher of the last volume of the Istoriia (which appeared posthumously), said, with full justification, that the “late historian” did not trust Tatishchev, who allowed himself “to invent ancient traditions and manuscripts” (Vol. XII, n. 165).

3 For opinions about the “skeptical school” by the next generation of historians, see S. M. Solov'ev, “M. T. Kackenovskii,” in Biograficheskii slovar1 professorov i prepodavatelei Moskovskogo universiteta, I (Moscow, 1855), 401-2; K. N. Bestuzhev-Riumin, “Sovremennoe sostoianie istorii kak nauki,” Moskovskoe obozrenie, No. 1, 1859, p. 55.

4 Kachenovskii, “Istoricheskie spravki ob Ioanne, Ekzarkhe Bolgarskom,” Vestnik Evropy, July-Aug. 1826, p. 199.

5 Nadezhdin, “Ob istoricheskoi istine i dostovernosti,” Biblioteka dlia chteniia, XX (1837), 153-54.162.

6 S. M. Solov'ev, Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen, Book I (Vols. I-II) (Moscow, 1959), pp. 175, 318; Book II (Vols. III-IV) (Moscow, 1960), p. 116. See also Solov'ev, “Pisateli russkoi istorii XVIII v.,” Arkhiv istoriko-iuridicheskikh svedenii otnosiashchikhsia do Rossii, ed. N. Kalachev, Book II, Part 1 (Moscow, 1855), pp. 20-21, 25.

7 Solov'ev, Istoriia, Book V (Vols. IX-X), pp. 361-62. In one of his last articles, arguing with D. I. Ilovaiskii, Solov'ev wrote that “when the historical science is sufficiently mature, then the course of national life exhibits a coherent pattern…. Then it becomes easy to check the authenticity of the information“; in particular, he pointed out that in the information on the calling of the Varangians (the authenticity of which Ilovaiskii doubted) “there exist internal conditions of necessity” (“Nachala russkoi zemli,” II, in Sbornik gosudarstvennykh znanii, ed. V. P. Bezobrazov, VII [St. Petersburg, 1879], 7).

8 Presniakov, Obrazovanie Velikorusskogo gosudarstva (Petrograd, 1920), pp. v-vi, and Rech’ pered zashchitoi dissertatsii pod zaglaviem “Obrazovanie Velikorusskogo gosudarstva” (Petrograd, 1920), pp. 3-7. Both these works of Presniakov were published in the Letopisi zaniatii arkheograficheskoi komissii, 1917, Vol. XXX (1920).

9 Presniakov, Rech', pp. 6-7. See also S. N. Valk, “Istoricheskaia nauka v Leningradskom universitete za 125 let,” Trudy iubileinoi nauchnoi sessii, Sektsia istoricheskikh nauk (Leningrad, 1948), pp. 27-31, 52-59.

10 See Priselkov, “Russkoe letopisanie v trudakh A. A. Shakhmatova,” and A. E. Presniakov, “A. A. Shakhmatov v izuchenii russkikh letopisei,” Izuestiia otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk, 1920, Vol. XXV (1922).

11 Priselkov, M. D., Ocherki tserkovno-politicheskoi istorii Kievskoi Rusi X-XII w. (St. Petersburg, 1913)Google Scholar. See the reviews of this work by A. V. Korolev in Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia, No. 10, 1914, pp. 387-400; and V. Zavitnevich in Trudy Kievskoi dukhovnoi akademii, IV (1914), 628-51. We should note that Priselkov himself was not at all incapable of hypothetical constructions, frequently very bold ones (for instance, his conjecture about the subordination of the Russian Church to the Bulgarian Okhrida patriarchate at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century; see Miiller, L, “Zum probleme des hierarchisches Status und der jurisdiktionellen Abhangigheit der russischen Kirche vor 1039,” Osteuropa und der deutsche Osten, Third Series, VI [1959], 12–17)Google Scholar. Nevertheless, Priselkov's hypothesis was an attempt to fill in a gap in the sources and did not derive from any preconceived general scheme. This was justly recognized by Presniakov, whose scholarly temperament was quite different and more cautious than that of Priselkov but who was close to the latter in his approach to sources. No matter how debatable Priselkov's hypothesis, he wrote, “In general, it does not evoke greater doubts than the current idea of some kind of ‘metropolitans’ under Vladimir; it clearly derives out of the direct scholarly need to explain the lack of information on early Russian Church relations” ( Presniakov, A. S., Lektsii po russkoi istorii, I : Kievskaia Rus’ [Moscow, 1938], 112 Google Scholar).

12 Zavitnevich, p. 635.

13 See, for example, Pokrovskii, M. N., Bor'ba klassov i russkaia istoricheskaia literatura (Leningrad, 1927), pp. 13–14 Google Scholar; Grekov, B. D., Kievskaia Rus’ (Moscow and Leningrad, 1939), pp. 12–17 Google Scholar;

14 M. D. Priselkov, Istoriia russkogo letopisaniia XI-XV w. (Leningrad, 1940), passim, esp. pp. 6-7, 9-10, 72-73, 85, 136-39, 176, 183-86.

15 Ibid., p. 6.

16 Romanov, Liudi i nravy drexmei Rusi (sded.; Moscow and Leningrad, 1966), p. 10. Romanov illustrated this proposition in his book by a witty critique of works in which the publicistic chronicle account of the Dolob convention (preserved in two redactions) was treated as precise “minutes” of events (ibid., pp. 107-10).

17 H., Paszkiewicz, The Origin of Russia (London, 1954), pp. 22 and 23, n. 1Google Scholar; see also Eremin, , Literatura drevnei Rust (Moscow and Leningrad, 1960), pp. 62–64.Google Scholar

18 See Izvestiia Gosudarstvennoi Akademii material'noi kul'tury, LXXXVI (1934), 111-12.

19 Ia. S. Lur'e, “Kritika istochnika i veroiatnost’ izvestiia,” in Kul'tura drevnei Rust, (Moscow, 1966), pp. 123-25.

20 Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRL), XI-XII (Moscow, 1965), 55-64; George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia (New Haven, 1953), pp. 260-62 (“A History of Russia” by George Vernadsky and Michael Karpovich, Vol. III).

21 See N. I. Kostomarov, “Kulikovskaia bitva,” in Istoricheskie monografii i issledovaniia, III (St. Petersburg, 1880), 39-41; and his Russkaia istoriia v zhizneopisaniakh ee glavneishikh deiatelei(St. Petersburg, 1912), pp. 180-81.

22 A. Shakhmatov, Otzyv o sochinenii S. K. Shambinago (St. Petersburg, 1910; offprint fromOtchet o 12-om prisuzhdenii premii mitropolita Makariid), p. 180; M. N. Tikhomirov, Kulikovskaia bitva 1380 g.,” Voprosy istorii, No. 8, 1955, p. 23.

23 L. A. Dmitriev, “K literaturnoi istorii Skazaniia o Mamaevom poboishche,” in Povesti 0 Kulikovskoi bitve (Moscow, 1959), pp. 409-11, 416-20.

24 PSRL, XVIII (St. Petersburg, 1913), 129-30; Priselkov, M. D., Troitskaia letopis' : Rekonstruktsiia teksta(Moscow and Leningrad, 1950), pp. 419–21 Google Scholar. See also Salmina, M. A., “ ‘Letopisnaia povest’ o Kulikovskoi bitve i ‘Zadonshchina, ’ “ in Slovo o polku Igoreve i pamiatniki Kulikovskogo tsikla (Moscow and Leningrad, 1966), pp. 355–64.Google Scholar

25 Kazanskaia istoriia (Moscow and Leningrad, 1954), pp. 55-57. See also A. E. Presniakov, “Ivan III na Ugre,” in Sbornik v chest'S. F. Platonova (St. Petersburg, 1911), p. 290.

26 George Vemadsky, Russia at the Dawn of the Modern Age (New Haven, 1959), pp. 72- 73, 76 (“A History of Russia” by George Vemadsky and Michael Karpovich, Vol. IV).

27 Bazilevich, K. V., Vneshniaia politika Russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva : Vtoraia polovina XV veka (Moscow, 1952), pp. 121, 162-63Google Scholar; Fennell, J. L. I., Ivan the Great of Moscow (London, 1961), p. 84.Google Scholar

28 Shakhmatov, A. A., “K voprosu o kriticheskom izdanii Istorii Rossiiskoi V. N. Tatishcheva Dela i Dni (Petrograd), No. 1, 1920, pp. 94–95Google Scholar. The first redaction of Tatishchev's work has now been published : Tatishchev, V. N., Jstoriia Rossiiskaia, Vol. IV (Moscow and Leningrad, 1964).Google Scholar

29 Peshtich, , Russkaia istoriografiia XVIII v. (Leningrad), I (1961), 236–50; II (1965), 155-63.Google Scholar

30 Tatishchev, I (Moscow and Leningrad, 1962), 123-25; IV, 47-49. See also Peshtich, I, 250-61. The Raskol'nichii chronicle, copied, according to Tatishchev, by some Old Believer from an ancient parchment manuscript, has not been found as yet. Nevertheless, this chronicle was used by Tatishchev even for the first redaction of his Istoriia Rossiiskaia (IV, 47-48) and therefore can hardly be considered the source for the numerous instances of “Tatishchev information” in the second redaction.

31 Paszkiewicz, p. 87.

32 George, Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (New Haven, 1948), p. 1948 Google Scholar (“A History of Russia” by George Vernadsky and Michael Karpovich, Vol. II).

33 Tatishchev, II (Moscow and Leningrad, 1963), 69, 282; cf. IV, 42. S. L. Peshtich, “O ‘dogovore’ Vladimira s volzhskimi bolgarami 1006 g.,” Istoricheskie zapiski, XVIII (1946), 327-35; see also Peshtich, Russkaia istoriografiia XVIII v., II, 159-6I. Vernadsky knew the article by Peshtich that we refer to here (see Kievan Russia, p. 121, n. 27) but neither accepted its conclusions nor refuted them in any way.

34 Tatishchev, III (Moscow and Leningrad, 1964), 123-24, 206; cf. IV, 295, 356.

35 Vernadsky, Kievan Russia, p. 279.

36 Paszkiewicz, p. 367. See Tatishchev, 1, 112.

37 Vernadsky, Ancient Russia (New Haven, 1943), p. 340 (“A History of Russia” by George Vernadsky and Michael Karpovich, Vol. I). See Tatishchev, 1, 112.

38 See S. M., Shambinago, “Ioakimovskaia letopis',” Istoricheskie zapiski, Vol. XXI (1947)Google Scholar; Gorlin, M, “La Chronique de Joachime,” in M. Gorlin and R. Bloch-Gorlina, Etudes littitaires et historiques (Paris, 1957), pp. 51–62.Google Scholar

39 See M. N. Tikhomirov, “O russkikh istochnikakh ‘Istorii Rossiiskoi, '” in Tatishchev, I, 51-52-

40 Presniakov, Rech', p. 5.

41 See Lappo-Danilevskii, Metodologiia istorii, II, 129 ff.

42 Ibid., p.741.

43 Vernadsky, Ancient Russia, p. 366.

44 A. A. Shakhmatov, Razyskaniia o drexmeishikh russkihh letopisnykh svodakh (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 398-99; and his Obozrenie russkikh letopisnykh svodov XIV-XVI xw.(Moscow and Leningrad, 1938), p. 362.

45 Priselkov, Istoriia russkogo letopisaniia XI-XV xw., p. 24; and his “Kievskoe gosudarstvo vtoroi poloviny X v. po vizantiiskim istochnikam,” Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo Gos. Universiteta, No. 73 (1940), pp. 215-46.

46 See, for example, Langlois and Seignobos, pp. 157-60; and Gottschalk, pp. 161-65.

47 The atmosphere in which such testimony was obtained is most vividly described in the tractate of F. von Spee against witch trials, Cautio criminalis sen de processibus contra sagos liber… (Rinteln, 1621; republished, with the author's name, in 1731).

48 F. Frank, Der Ritualmord von den Gerichtshöfen der Wahreit und der Gerechtigkeit (1902).

49 Lur'e, la. S., Ideologicheskaia bor'ba v russkoi publitsistike konsta XV—nachala XVI w. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1960), pp. 95–127;Google Scholar and Kritika (A Review of Current Soviet Books on Russian History) (Cambridge, Mass.), I, No. 3 (1965), 10-18; II, No. 2 (1966), 35-45. See also Luria, J, “L'hérésie dite des judaïsants et ses sources historiques,” Revue des dtudes slaves, XLV (1966), 49–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Another article by Fine is about a source of a different kind—the Laodikiiskoe poslanie, the work of one of the most prominent heretics, Fedor Kuritsyn; Fine's observations on the similarity of structure between the first part of the poslanie and certain Talmudic texts are interesting ( Fine, John V. A. Jr., “Feodor Kuritsyn's ‘Laodikijskoe Poslanie’ and the Heresy of the Judaizers,” Speculum, XLI, No. 3 [July 1966], 500-502Google Scholar). Unfortunately, Fine did not go far enough in his observations; he did not go into the question of how general this manner ofexposition was in medieval philosophical literature and what intermediate links can be posited between these documents. The German scholar D. Freidank has pointed out the connection between the basic part of the Laodikiiskoe poslanie (the table of letters) and the Byzantine grammatical tradition (the scholia to Dionysios of Thrace); this, as well as the title of the document, speaks, rather, for its Greek foundations; see Freidank, , “Der ‘Laodicienbrief : Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation eines altrussisches Textes,” Zeitschrift fur Slawistik, XI, No. 3 (1966), 364–70.Google Scholar

50 Fine is wrong when he thinks that the classification described above is based “on chronology alone” (Kritika, II, No. 2, 40). That is a misunderstanding. The contemporaneity of a document is a conditio sine qua non of a genuine polemic, but it is not the only, nor even the main, criterion of the classification; decisive is the structure of the polemical document— the successive, point by point, refutation of the opponent's views (see Lur'e, Ideologicheskaia bor'ba, pp. 112-27).

51 Kritika, U, 'No. 2, 40.

52 Of informational character are the chronicle data on the punishment of heretics in 1488 (PSRL, VI, 238; XX, Part 1, 353; and elsewhere), on the Council of 1490 (PSRL, XXV, 331- 32; XXVII, 290, 360-61; XVIII, 273-74; and elsewhere) and of 1504 (PSRL, VI, 49-50, 244; and elsewhere); here we are told only about the individuals who suffered punishment and, very briefly, about the accusations made against them. But already the expanded account of the Novgorodskaia IV letopis', associated, apparently, with Archbishop Gennadii, displays clearly propagandists features (PSRL, IV [1st ed.], 158); see la. S. Lur'e, “Iz istorii russkogo letopisaniia kontsa XV v.,” Trudy otdela drevnerusskoi literatury, XI (1955), 176-78.

53 “Istochniki po istorii ereticheskikh dvizhenii XIV—nachala XVI v.,” in N. A. Kazakova and la. S. Lur'e, Antifeodal'nye ereticheskie dvizheniia na Rust XIV—nachala XVI v. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1955), Nos. 12, 16, 22 (hereafter referred to as “Istochniki“).

54 “Istochniki,” No. 19, p. 380. Gennadii mentioned the procedure of the torture of Samsonka incidentally, as something to be taken for granted (he was pointing out that all the proper formalities were carried out). Despite Fine's opinion (Kritika, II, No. 2, 42), therefore, we may consider that torture was applied not only to Samsonka.

55 Kritika, II, No. 2, 43-44.

56 “Istochniki,” Nos. 12, 16, 18 (p. 378), 19.

57 Ibid., Nos. 11, 17, 22 (P. 413), 24.

58 Akty, sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Arkheograficheskoi ekspeditsiei Akademii nauk(AAE), I (St. Petersburg, 1836), No. 239; Akty Istoricheskie, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoi komissiei, I (St. Petersburg, 1841), No. 161; PSRL, XIII

59 AAE, I, No. 238, 246-49; Chteniia v Obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh (ChOIDR), 1847, No. 3, Part 2, pp. 18-23; l858. Book II, Part 2, pp. 40-42.

60 A. A. Zimin, S. Peresvetov i ego sovremenniki : Ocherki po istorii russkoi obshchestvenno- politicheskoi mysli serediny XVI v. (Moscow, 1958), pp. 172-76.

61 AAE, I, No. 238, 248; ChOIDR, 1847, No. 3, Part 2, p. 22.

62 Zimin, pp. 179-80.

63 PSRL, XIII, Part 1, 232-33.

64 Zimin, p. 170; see also p. 175.

65 Opisi Tsarskogo arkhiva XVI v. i arkhiva Posol'skogo prikaza 1614 g., ed. S. O. Shmidt (Moscow, i960), p. 42.

66 Popov, in Poslanie mnogoslovnoe : Sochinenie inoka Zinoviia (Moscow, 1880), pp. xi, xii-xix.

67 Istiny pokazanie k voprosivshim o novom uchenii : Sochinenie inoka Zinoviia (Kazan, 1863).

68 Lur'e, Ideologicheskaia bofba, pp. 123-26.

69 See D. Tschižewskij, “Altrussische wissenschaftliche Literatur und die ‘Judaisierenden, ’ “ Die Welt der Slaven, XI, No. 4 (1966), 355, 365, n. 1; Čiževsky does not raise the question at all of the possibility of using polemical documents as sources for the history of the heresy.

70 Kritika, II, No. 2, 44.

71 Bertrand Russell, “Reply to Criticism,” in The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, ed. P. A. Schillp (Evanston, 1946), p. 741; see also p. 650.

72 See the interesting remarks of Arthur Mendel on the similarity of the views of American and Soviet historians on this question, in “Otvet amerikanskomu uchenomu,” Voprosy istorii, No. to, 1966, p. 29.

73 V. Koretskii, in Tserkoi/ v istorii Rossii (IX v.-igij) : Kriticheskie ocherki (Moscow, 1967), p. 105.