Oriental Studies: Archival Heuristics of Historical and Documentary Heritage

Abstract

Introduction. The article deals with the issues of archival heuristics of the historical-documentary heritage in the field of Oriental studies in close connection with the methods of identifying historical sources stored in federal, regional, and departmental archives. The article aims to analyze the issues of enlarging the source base of scientific research, which makes it necessary to focus on the methodology of searching and identifying sources in the field. Special attention is given to the method of cross-source analysis, which is instrumental in reconstructing the picture of events, phenomena, and processes. The results of the research show that when one deals with personal documents there arise issues of their attribution, identification of authorship and dates and their reliability. The researcher should be able to work with every document and to accurately determine its information value in accordance with the conceptual basis of his / her scientific work. Of importance is not only the maintenance of memory of outstanding Orientalists, but also of taking the opportunity to use and master their heritage; in fact, it is through the personality of a scholar that one can reconstruct the style of his / her thinking, work, and creative heritage in the context of Oriental studies. When histories (contexts) of personal documents are reconstructed, they may become valuable sources shedding light on the events of a particular historical period. Hence research may be conducted at the level of micro-processes, provided there is respect for his / her personality, or, to use the philosophical term, the “self” of a person. Conclusions. The article indicates the correlation of archival and source-based approaches in the study of documentary heritage, as well as the multivalence of the information environment, where owing to the latest information technologies it becomes possible to find the data one needs in the ocean of historical sources.