FOREIGN NARRATIVE SOURCES ABOUT THE EPOCH OF ALEXANDER NEVSKY IN THE WORKS OF RUSSIAN HISTORIANS OF THE 18TH – FIRST QUARTER OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

The article considers the process of introducing foreign narrative sources about the epoch of Prince Alexander Nevsky into Russian historical science. Vasily N. Tatishchev initiated the work with foreign narrative sources for historical research. He took a lot of information from the Byzantine and Latin chronicles to work on “Russian History”. Working on the chronological period of the reign of Alexander Nevsky, he used the works of European travelers (Rubruk, Plano-Carpini, etc.). Tatishchev used foreign sources not so much for critical analysis, but to supplement the data of Russian chronicles. Prince Mikhail M. Shcherbatov continued this process. He used Scandinavian sources in the processing of the Swiss historian P.A. Male. Nikolay M. Karamzin made a large work with foreign narrative sources. He introduced German chronicles into scientific research, such as “The Prussian Chronicle” by Peter from Duesburg, “The History of Livonia” by Christian Kelch, “The Chronicle of Livonia” by Johann Gottfried Arndt, etc. Information from Scandinavian sources became available to him in the book of the Swedish historian Olof von Dalin. Nikolay A. Polevoy used the Chinese chronicles in the retelling of the monk Fr. Iakinf Bichurin, Baron d'Osson and German traveler Yu.G. Klaproth. Russian historians of the 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th centuries actively used information from foreign sources. However, they did not use the original texts, but mostly their retellings.