Classification of historical sources and related issues

§ Basic classification of historical sources

§ Types of historical sources based on proximity to the described event

§ Necessity of historical sources

The importance of working with historical sources is obvious. Historical work not supported by any objective evidence loses its scientific nature and the trust of the reader. Publicism is a wonderful genre, but historical material requires a certain system of evidence. Below we will consider the main types of historical sources. Knowledge of these types helps to use them correctly.

§ Basic classification of historical sources

Any classification involves division into groups based on some specific essential feature. Broadly, historical sources are divided into the following groups:

1) Material - all objects used by people during the era of interest. For example, coins found during excavations are a tangible historical source.

2) Written - it is clear that this refers to what was written by humans. For example, business documents, diaries, contracts, etc. are considered written historical sources.

3) Oral - includes folk tales, epics, and other forms of folk art. It is understood that they were transmitted orally. Naturally, such oral transmission led to certain distortions – one person told a story in one way, another added something, and since there is no single "canonical" text, various narrative branches emerged.

4) Linguistic - essentially represents the linguistic imprint on history. For example, a certain people lived in a specific area at a specific time and left their names for rivers, mountains, etc. there.

5) Audiovisual - in this case, it refers to film, audio recordings, and photographs, i.e., information captured on corresponding media. For example, a photograph is a photo document belonging to the audiovisual type, and so on.

In summary, we can say that the classification is driven by two main reasons: 1) the need to systematize existing materials, and 2) the need to develop methodology applicable to specific types of sources."

§ Types of written sources

So, we have divided historical sources into 5 main groups (Material, Written, Oral, Linguistic, and Audiovisual), however, the extensive group of written sources is further divided into two subgroups:

Historical sources of an act nature include various decrees, charters, laws, etc. They provide insights into the general system of functioning of a particular community. A separate issue related to this type of source is the problem of dating, as in ancient times, dates were not always included in these documents

Historical sources of a descriptive nature include diaries, memoirs, letters. It should be remembered that such materials may be subject to a certain degree of subjectivity, as the author of memoirs, when describing events, may present themselves in a more favorable light, enhancing their place in history.

In addition, written historical sources can be divided into several subtypes based on the principle of the information they contain: Administrative (Business correspondence, registers), Personal (Letters, diaries), Artistic (Lyrics, drama, poetry), Cartographic (Maps, plans), and others. Thus, it should be understood that when we identified one large group of historical sources (in this case, "Written"), there can also be various subtypes within it. That is, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Notebooks and a Map of the Battle of Waterloo are both written historical sources, but in the former case, it is a written source of personal origin, while in the latter, it is a written cartographic source.

It should also be remembered that depending on factors such as historical epoch and culture, events that occurred could be interpreted as "worthy" of written documentation or "unworthy." Therefore, when analyzing textual documents, it is important to consider the context in which they were created.

§ Types of historical sources based on proximity to the described event

Additionally, there is an additional classification that divides historical sources not by their content but by the degree of their primacy

Primary sources are historical sources, so to say, firsthand. For example, an archaeologist discovered a medieval manuscript during excavations - he has the actual material and the inscription on it at his disposal. That is, he has in his hands not a copy of this birch bark document, nor a retelling of the text written on it, but the absolute original source, in terms of content and in terms of form.

Secondary sources are situations where we are dealing with a description of something. A vivid example of a secondary historical source can be a chronicle reporting on an event that occurred earlier and in which the chronicle author did not directly participate. That is, the chronicler used accounts of participants or some textual documents left by these participants and based on them described these events in the chronicle. That is, the fact of processing and interpreting primary materials is evident.

§ Related issues

How to process historical sources obtained? - is one of the most common questions in the entire field of source studies. Indeed, once you have discovered a historical source in one way or another, how do you decipher it? How do you understand it correctly? First and foremost, in response to this question, it should be noted that the type of work with the source is determined by the type of the historical source itself. In other words, processing pottery discovered by an archaeologist differs from processing a linguistic source. In some cases, analyzing a historical source may involve radiocarbon analysis, while in others, it may involve linguistic expertise.

Criticism of a historical source - how do we even verify a historical source? What if it's a forgery? There is internal and external criticism of a historical source. For example, an archaeologist finds an ancient inscription. In this case, the external criticism of the historical source would involve analyzing the material of the document itself, establishing its place of discovery, and so on. In other words, we would have to answer the question of how this document could have reached us. External criticism, also known as lower criticism, is focused on authenticating historical sources. This is particularly crucial as historical records often lack specific details such as authorship, title, location, and dates. It is imperative to subject a document to critical examination before considering it a credible source. External criticism primarily assesses manuscripts, books, pamphlets, maps, inscriptions, and monuments, with the issue of document authenticity being more pronounced in manuscripts than in printed documents, which are typically authenticated by the author or publisher.

The internal criticism of this source will involve establishing the identity of the author, i.e., who could have written it? Why? What was the intended meaning? What is the significance of this document? Roughly speaking, external criticism of the source involves analyzing the form, while internal criticism of the source involves analyzing the content.

Speaking about the criticism of historical sources, it is necessary to mention the concept of double subjectivity of the historical source. The essence is as follows: the person who creates a historical source has their own personal perception of events and reflects information through the prism of their consciousness, i.e., subjectively expressing themselves in the source. This is the first level of subjectivity.

Furthermore, when the source is in the hands of the researcher, they, in turn, analyze the source according to their own interpretations - this is the second level of subjectivity. Thus, the stored information encounters human interpretation twice and, as a result, becomes doubly subjective.