What are historical sources: examples and types of sources

When studying history, you should know that there is a huge intermediate link between the events actually happened in the past and the picture described in the monographs of historian scholars. This is a historical source. Simply put, any historical research begins exclusively with reading all the available documents about that period. Only with the help of the testimonies of contemporaries or persons who are well aware of this time interval can a qualitative retrospective reconstruction of events be carried out.
So what are the historical sources on which so much depends? Let's discuss this important question in more detail.

Basic Definitions

So, what does the term "historical sources" include? In science, it is customary to call all the surviving evidence of the past so that we can give an objective picture of what happened. Of course, there are many different classifications of such data, proposed by both domestic and foreign historians and archaeologists. So what, according to prominent researchers, are historical sources? The definition of some of them is given in the article.

For example, LN Pushkarev describes the following types:

• Evidence of writing.
• Material historical sources.
• Information obtained from the results of ethnographic research.
• Oral traditions that are passed on from generation to generation.
• Linguistic evidence.
• Cine and photo chronicle.
• Audio recordings. These historical sources (and their classification, too) have appeared relatively recently, but they give us a chance to hear the voices of those who made the fate of the world several years ago!

Schmidt's classification

Shortly before our time, in 1985, SO Schmidt proposed a somewhat more detailed classification, deciding to use types and subtypes in it. How does he distinguish between historical sources? The definition of their varieties is given below.

1. As in the previous case, all material evidence in all their diversity: from sculptures to household waste found during excavations.
2. Sources related to the fine arts:
A) artistic (film and photography);
B) graphic (paintings of artists, simple sketches);
C) imaginative-natural (photographs from ordinary home archives).
3. Sources of verbal type:
A) oral historical sources, including all adverbs and varieties of linguistic forms;
B) folklore, including rare legends, found only in a certain locality;
C) all the written monuments of the era, to whomever they are concerned, for whatever purpose they are created; If it is easier to speak, then the bureaucratic list of materials can give much more truthful and detailed picture of the world than an officially approved record or textbook; Shorthand refers to the same variety.
4. Conventional historical sources of knowledge. These are notes, notations of alchemists and chemists, astrologers and astronomers, economic reductions, etc.
5. Behavioral information. These include not only rituals and customs of primitive tribes, but even corporate and other traditions of modern society, which have their roots back to the same primitive beliefs.
6. Sound. With this type of data, everything is clear: these are any recorded phonograms of a particular historical period.
That's what historical sources are, if we talk about the scientific definition of this term. But no, even the most reliable information can not give the researcher an objective idea of what happened if he does not know how to properly work with them and interpret them.

It should be remembered that historical sources and their classification are also a rather vague concept. As the new means of storage and transfer of information appear, all these lists will be expanded and rethought. Here are some historical sources.

What should I look for when extracting information from the document?

When working with any evidence of the era you need to constantly remember two important points.

1. Important! Do not take the source as a storehouse of ready-made answers. You will receive only information that you can ask and link to the information you have on hand. In this regard, it is extremely important to note and report to ordinary statisticians and archivists, who, despite their seeming "poverty", sometimes contain a lot of useful information. These historical sources and their types of townsfolk seem to be "useless pieces of paper," although sometimes they are truly priceless!

2. Never under any circumstances perceive the source as an objective reflection of the world, since it was created by a person who has his own ideas. This is an extremely important circumstance, which is sometimes overlooked even by prominent and experienced pundits!

In order not to be unfounded on the last point, let us explain. Take the famous battle of Alexander Nevsky with the Swedes. To begin with, even that domestic historians doubt the reality of what happened, if only because there are no written testimonies of that battle in the Swedish archives at all.

Perhaps they just preferred to keep silent about what had happened. It is possible that the domestic chroniclers (according to the "order from above," as they now like to say) simply presented an ordinary frontier skirmish as a heroic battle. Whatever it was, but always worth exploring the sources provided by both sides.

In addition, in the domestic chronicles (and even in European cases quite often) the word "darkness" is often found. The darkness of the soldiers, the darkness of the servants, the darkness of the rooks of the fighting ... How can we all understand this? If we start from the Mongolian fog, then the "darkness" was the number of soldiers equal to 10,000. And what, during that very battle with the Swedes, when the river was "dark" of their ships, did all ships of that period come there? Unlikely. Here we come to yet another feature - the interpretation.

On Interpretation

Remember that the historical sources, the examples of which we cited and cite, which were created by man, always pursued some goals, often self-serving. Knowing about the motives that moved the author, you can learn a lot about his historical era. Simply put, all sources need to be interpreted correctly.

This word is an attempt to find out what exactly the author has invested in the meaning of each word and expression that are found in his work. In the interpretation itself there are three important aspects.

1. First, the native content of the source itself. You should always approach the historical documents critically, never for a word not believing the information that is given there.

2. If the mediator (copyist, translator) participated in drafting the document, it is useful to pay attention to his comments and interpretations (if any). Of course, in this case it is extremely important to take into account the quality of such additions, which depends on the qualification of the editor.

3. Finally, your own understanding and interpretation of the source.

In the latter case, the researcher goes directly to the analysis of the data available to him. It is extremely important to be able to look at the events with the eyes of a contemporary, for whom that era was completely native. The researcher must independently determine his reliability of the source, relying on his own information and knowing how to apply them to defend his position in front of other scientists.

Remember that any historical sources, examples of which you give, should have not only oral but also documentary confirmation!

It is especially important to disclose the background of the document, to find out what the author "between the lines" directly or indirectly reports. It should take into account all the points and possible interpretations of terms that occur in the source. To make it easier to understand, remember "opium for the people".

What associations can this expression evoke in modern man? Only the most negative. Meanwhile, as early as the beginning of the last century, heroin was sold in pharmacies as a "cough remedy", and since ancient times opium has been considered almost the main anesthetic that can remove any suffering. Do you feel the difference? The source has invested in these words the exact opposite of the current meaning.

Synthesis

Only after collecting all the information you can proceed to generalize your work, to conclusions. All this is called synthesis. This is a very important stage, since even from the most truthful, accurate and reliable information it is possible to deduce not at all the conclusions that would be needed.

Variability of sources depending on the historical period

It should not be forgotten that sources that have been processed at different periods of history bear the imprint of each era. And this is far from a metaphorical expression, as different approaches to studying and interpreting documents were adopted at different periods of history.

For example, documents of the 17th and 18th centuries can be distinguished by any more or less educated person, as in their style there are cardinal changes.

So, at that time the number of documentary evidence sharply increases, but the content of each of them is greatly simplified. But more importantly, the fact that at that time for the first time there were really mass sources, information from which could already have a significant impact on those segments of the population who took the most active part in the development of the whole country. In addition, in those years comes almost to the modern mind statistics and documents of fiscal reporting.

All these historical sources, the groups of which we described above, are not only fairly reliable, but also extremely objective, which in the historical aspect is a rare exception to the insulting.

Periodicals and journalism had an almost greater influence at that time than all the institutions engaged in the propagation of certain ideas. The beginning of a wide distribution of personal sources, memoirs and biographies. This is extremely important simply because we can see the process of the formation of specific personalities of those historical periods, observe the change in their world outlook.

The Russian paradox

So some historians call the situation when the oldest historical sources of 13-14 centuries in our country are studied much better sources of the beginning and middle of the 20th century. However, there is nothing paradoxical about this at all.

In just one hundred years, our long-suffering state experienced three revolutions, four great wars (not counting the unreal number of local incidents). All this took place during the reign of five state entities, which succeeded each other. Do not forget about the tremendous economic transformations that marked this period: neither the Stolypin reform nor the construction of the same hydroelectric station by those in those years simply had no analogues abroad.
Of course, during the years of the USSR, various decisions and reports of the Central Committee of the CPSU become the main sources of information . These historical sources (written and a lot of film and photo chronicles) are represented in all variety. This is where the difficulty lies: in order to get a "look from the outside," many historians have to access the American Library of Congress and similar institutions, since they collected a huge number of documents that were compiled by members of both the former tsarist government and simple Emigrants. It is important to note that it is necessary to distinguish the memories of the "first wave" and those people who had to leave the country during and after the Civil War and the Western intervention that accompanied it.

The fact is that in 1905 the most far-sighted people left the country, in whose memories it is possible to find quite detailed and accurate predictions of the collapse of the Empire. In 1918-1924, not only the members of the royal family and the intelligentsia who emigrated to the Old and New World emigrated, but also former supporters of the Bolsheviks, whose views on the world radically differ from each other.

What documents are of greatest value for study?

It is unpleasant to admit, but to this day many scientists with a certain distrust and skepticism refer to legislative acts, records, periodicals. However, no less strange is the fact that memoirs by many researchers are perceived almost as a revelation from above, the truth in the last instance. This attitude is a gross error, because of which there are many historical blunders and inaccuracies.

All such historical sources and their types should be analyzed in detail and in detail in each case!

Despite the fact that memoirs should be considered a purely documentary, albeit very specific genre, their objectivity sometimes remains a huge issue. The same Skorzeny in his memoirs oaths about the "good intentions" of Nazi Germany, but it is at least difficult to believe in this.

Genre of memories

Memories are a slightly different case. These documents can often be decisive in the reconstruction of a particular historical event, since they reflect the views of sometimes completely random people. However, not always all this is so unambiguous, because, as in memoirs, people often spread their outlook from the point of view of the justifying party, or even completely ignore many points.

Simply put, both memoirs and memories are purely subjective documents, which should be treated with the utmost cautiousness and critical eye. This can not be considered a disadvantage, on the contrary, when studying these sources, one can draw an absolutely correct idea of the mores of the historical period. Of course, you are unlikely to be able to conduct such an analysis by studying bureaucratic materials.
So what are historical sources, if we talk about memoirs? How valuable and reliable are they?

On the correct analysis of memoirs

Whatever it was, memoirs are often the most valuable source of information, to neglect which is outright stupidity. Often the sincerity of the person who wrote them is easily verified by comparing the mores of those years and written.

The object of description is also very important: the person or event that occurred before the eyes (or in those years) of the eyewitness. The description of individuals should be approached with particular caution, since such information will inevitably be highly subjective, but events (especially those to which a person had no direct relationship) are often described quite reliably. So, what should be the approach to studying memoirs?

First of all, it is important for you to know about the person who wrote them. Of course, for this it is better to use several sources, and if possible, "living" memories of his contemporaries who are still alive. The latter is especially important, since it will almost certainly allow to establish reliably the role of the author in the events described: was he really an indifferent extras or did he take a direct part in them.

In addition, it is necessary to identify all possible sources of awareness of the author. Very often it was through this method that outsiders were revealed who tried to take the laurels of less famous and famous contemporaries.

An extremely valuable circumstance is the fact of applying official documents to memories. For example, this approach to the case is very typical for the legendary Wrangel. Many facts of that period are irretrievably lost or distorted, so that these materials acquire simply an outrageous value.

Almost everything is the same, if we talk about the memories of the daughter of the legendary PA Stolypin, who in attachments applies all the documents on land use that were drawn up by her father. However, if Wrangel included in his memoirs these papers himself, then to the applications in the memoirs of Stolypin's daughter, we are indebted to the Sovremennik publishing house, in which they considered that these papers are likely to interest the partisan reader. As you can see, the publishers were absolutely right.

It should be borne in mind that censorship in one form or another has always been: if in our time there are entire apparatuses of state significance, then in the troubled times, the times of the Middle Ages, etc., the best censor was the fear for one's life. Therefore, be sure to take into account the period to which this or that document refers - very often the author mentions some moments in passing, but constantly (in context) returns to them again and again, making certain hints on his point of view.
Finally, who wrote the memoirs and when? If a person took their memories from a diary that kept them constantly, or just made memories of such documents, then the information that is contained in them can be trusted. If the memoirs were written by the author at an advanced age, then often they can be treated as a variety of fiction. Practice shows that people forget more than 90% of information, each bit of which is priceless, after just a couple of years or three.

That's what historical sources are. We hope that reading this article was useful for you.