{"title":"“German Pamphlets, Russian Chronicles, and Ivan the Terrible”","authors":"Charles J. Halperin","doi":"10.30965/18763316-12340032","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nMany historians have questioned the accuracy of the “Tale of Ivan IV’s Campaign against Novgorod in 1570.” Cornelia Soldat now expands that critical approach to the “Tale” by arguing that it derives from German pamphlets published a century earlier. She relies upon the congruence of macro- and micro-structures to demonstrate textual influence without textual borrowing. Given the absence of Muscovite manuscripts of the “Tale” between 1570 and the second half of the seventeenth century, the composers of the “Tale” “must have” relied upon foreign sources about the raid, because no domestic sources existed. Her analysis is certainly possible, but it elides a number of issues about the transmission and translation into Russian of the German pamphlets. Reliable contemporary Muscovite sources tells us more about the “real” raid than Soldat allows. It is equally possible that the “Tale” derives from circulating native oral legends. However, the methodological and evidentiary issues Soldat raises are serious and deserve further discussion.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.30965/18763316-12340032","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Many historians have questioned the accuracy of the “Tale of Ivan IV’s Campaign against Novgorod in 1570.” Cornelia Soldat now expands that critical approach to the “Tale” by arguing that it derives from German pamphlets published a century earlier. She relies upon the congruence of macro- and micro-structures to demonstrate textual influence without textual borrowing. Given the absence of Muscovite manuscripts of the “Tale” between 1570 and the second half of the seventeenth century, the composers of the “Tale” “must have” relied upon foreign sources about the raid, because no domestic sources existed. Her analysis is certainly possible, but it elides a number of issues about the transmission and translation into Russian of the German pamphlets. Reliable contemporary Muscovite sources tells us more about the “real” raid than Soldat allows. It is equally possible that the “Tale” derives from circulating native oral legends. However, the methodological and evidentiary issues Soldat raises are serious and deserve further discussion.
期刊介绍:
Russian History’s mission is the publication of original articles on the history of Russia through the centuries, in the assumption that all past experiences are inter-related. Russian History seeks to discover, analyze, and understand the most interesting experiences and relationships and elucidate their causes and consequences. Contributors to the journal take their stand from different perspectives: intellectual, economic and military history, domestic, social and class relations, relations with non-Russian peoples, nutrition and health, all possible events that had an influence on Russia. Russian History is the international platform for the presentation of such findings.