Maghuga V. I., Prokopiev A. Yu., Introduction. 2024.

Mazhuga Vladimir Ivanovich, PhD of History, St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (197110, St. Petersburg, Petrozavodskaya Street, 7)
vladimirmazhuga@gmail.com

Prokopiev Andrey Yur’evich, doctor of History, professor, Saint-Petersburg State University (199034, Rossiya, Sankt-Peterburg, Universitetskaya nab., 7/9)
а.prokopiev@spbu.ru

Language: Russian

Постоянная ссылка: http://proslogion.ru/71-intoduction/

Zmud, L. Ya. M. A. Gukovsky on the way to Leonardo da Vinci: the History of Science and Technology in the 1930s, in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2023. Vol. 6(2). P. 38–62.

Leonid Yakovlevich Zhmud’, Doctor of Philosophy, Principal Academic Researcher at the Saint Petersburg Branch of the Institute for the History of Science and Technology named after S. I. Vavilov, Russian Academy of Sciences (199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Universitetskaya embankment, 5)

l.zhmud@spbu.ru

Language: Russian

The paper covers the early period of M. A. Gukovsky’s scholarly work, the 1930s, when his major study on the history of science, “The Mechanics of Leonardo da Vinci”, was written; in 1939 it was defended as a doctoral dissertation though published only in 1947. Gukovsky had been educated by scholars of the old school, such as L. P. Karsavin, I. M. Grevs, A. I. Khomentovskaya, but did not immediately become a historian. His scholarly and organizational activities in the Commission for the History of Knowledge and the Institute for the History of Science and Technology began after the “great break” that sharply increased the ideological pressure on the humanities. In articles and reviews of this time, Gukovsky appears as a scholar of a new generation, capable both to combine academic scholarship with a Marxist understanding of history in general and the history of science and technology in particular and to form a new methodology for their research, meeting the challenges of the time.

Keywords: M. A. Gukovsky, N. I. Bukharin, history of science and technology, Commission on the History of Knowledge, Institute of the History of Science and Technology, Renaissance, Marxism

URL: http://proslogion.ru/71-zmud/

DOI: 10.24412/2500-0926-2023-71-38-62

Youssim, M.A. Collections of Biographies and Giordano Orsini, in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2023. Vol. 7(1). P. 123–147.

Mark Arkadjevich Youssim, doctor of history, chief researcher, Institute of World History, Russian Acedemy of sciences, Department of Western Middle Ages and Early Modern times (Leninskiy prosp., 32A, Moscow, Russia, 119334)

youssimm@mail.ru

Language: Russian

The Renaissance was characterized by an interest for biographies of great personalities, which was reflected in collections of life histories and galleries of portraits that adorned the palaces of antiquity admirers. Francesco Petrarca was one of the first to turn to this genre, compiling his collection exclusively of antique heroes. A collection of more than 300 figures of historical figures of all times decorated the palace of Montegiordano in Rome, where under the auspices of Cardinal Giordano Orsini gathered a circle of humanists. The frescoes have not survived and are known from copies; their composition reflects the ideas about history and great men typical of Renaissance culture.

Keywords: historical painting, Montegiordano, Cardinal Giordano Orsini, vitae, history in persons.

URL: http://proslogion.ru/71-youssim/

DOI: 10.24412/2500-0926-2023-71-123-147

Skvortsov, A. M. On the training medievalist-scholars at Leningrad University in the 1930s, in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2023. Vol. 7(1). P. 84–100.

Artyom Mikhailovich Skvortsov, PhD in History, Assistant Professor, Research fellow, S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg Branch, Saint Petersburg (199034, Russia, St. Petersburg, Universitetskaya emb., 5)

artyom-skvorcov@yandex.ru

Language: Russian

The year 1934 was a turning point for medieval studies in Soviet Russia. The postgraduate legislation of the 1930s outlined only in the most general terms the process of training scholars, which encouraged professors to freely fill in the content of the training. The old-school specialists involved in this important state undertaking sought to realise the ideas of traditional science and their usual approaches to teaching. I. M. Grevs and O. A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya insisted on the seminar form of classes as optimal in training researchers, contributing to the formation of research skills in young medievalists. The historical-philological approach implemented in Grevs’s seminars not only developed the skills of reading a medieval source in its original language and analysing it, but also made it possible to embed the findings in a broad historical context. O. A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya’s seminars were held in parallel with I. M. Grevs’s classes: during the first year and a half postgraduates listened to lectures, were engaged in laboratory work on Western historiography, diplomatics, historical chronology and geography under the direct supervision of the seminar leader. Afterwards the students were offered to independently study documents from the collection of the Public Library, which were not directly related to the chosen thesis topic. This is how the restoration of the criteria corresponding to world science took place for the preparation of the young generation for the occupations of science, the most important of which were the skills of working with sources, including those that have arrived in their original form, and historiography.

Keywords: Graves, Dobiaš-Roždestvenskaja, Leningrad State University, Medieval History Department, historiography, seminar, the Soviet Medievalstudies

URL: http://proslogion.ru/71-skvortsov/

DOI: 10.24412/2500-0926-2023-71-84-100

Sergeev, M. L. Conrad Gessner as a scholar of Greek (some observations), in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2023. Vol. 7(1). P. 148–162.

Mikhail L’vovich Sergeev, candidate of sciences (in philology), research fellow, S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg Branch (199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Universitetskaya emb., 5)

librorumcustos@gmail.com

Language: Russian

This article is devoted to the Swiss philologist and naturalist Konrad Gessner’s studies in Greek language and literature. It offers some general information about Gessner’s interest in Greek and his reputation as a Hellenist among humanists, and considers a sample of Gessner’s Greek poems from the manuscript collection «Thrinodiae» (1532), his correspondence in Greek and main achievements in Greek philology (as editor and translator). The influence of Greek studies on Gessner’s research activities in various fields of science and his ideas about the tasks of a scientist is then shown on the example of three cases — the history of the first edition of Marcus Aurelius’ «Meditations» (1559), the citation from «De venatione» (a poem on hunting) by Oppian in the first volume of «Historia animalium» (1551), and the treatment of German linguistic material in «Mithridates» (1555) according to the model applied to Greek dialects. It is concluded that the Greek literary heritage was perceived by Gessner both as an indispensable source of factual information about nature and culture, to be inventoried and criticized by means of philology and bibliography, and as a model of scientific discourse applicable to the description of new European realities.

Keywords: Humanism, 16th century, Switzerland, Greek, Neo-Greek literature, history of science, philology, bibliography

URL: http://proslogion.ru/71-sergeev/

DOI: 10.24412/2500-0926-2023-71-148-162

Saveleva D. I. Issues in the study of Egyptian toponyms in the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2023. Vol. 7(1). P. 189–198.

Daria Igorevna Saveleva,Research Engineer, Institute of History, Saint Petersburg State University (199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Mendeleevskaya liniya, 5)

d-saveleva@mail.ru

Language: Russian

The Chronicle, compiled by John of Nikiu, the Coptic bishop of the Egyptian city of Nikiu in the late 7th century, is a unique source within the Late Byzantine historiography that contains singular information related to the Egypt toponymics. The research on toponyms in the source studied makes a localization a number of historical events possible, considering both those events that were described in other historical works without a sufficient description of the area, as well as the unique ones that could not be found in other sources. The study of the toponymy of Egypt within the Chronicle of John of Nikiu involves a set of particular features, including several significant difficulties that complicate the work with the source studied. Thus, the Chronicle apparently was first written in Greek, then to be translated into Arabic in the period of the 12–13th centuries and then into Ge’ez in 1601 CE, which led to a distortion of the topographical designations, affecting their spelling twice. Furthermore, the Chronicle contains unique toponyms not mentioned in any of the sources currently known to us. The Coptic bishop could probably have relied on them while compiling his work. The unique naming of several locations may be reasoned by the fact that John of Nikiu used appellations relevant to him and his contemporaries, of which there is little evidence. At the same time, a number of toponyms can be localized based on the text of the Chronicle itself, while the others can be acknowledged from earlier sources, such as the Chronographia of John Malalas (6th century), which served as a work to rely on for John of Nikiu when he was creating his Chronicle. For these reasons, it is not always possible to identify the nature of the misinterpretation of toponyms cited in the Chronicle with precision.

Keywords: foreign literature in Ethiopic translation, John of Nikiu, the Geʽez language, Egypt, Egyptian toponyms, Byzantine historiography, the geography of Egypt

URL: http://proslogion.ru/71-saveleva/

DOI: 10.24412/2500-0926-2023-71-189-198

Potekhina I. P. M. A. Gukovsky and the tradition of studying the history of the papacy within the medievalist school of St. Petersburg — Petrograd — Leningrad, in: Proslogion: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Social History and Culture, 2023. Vol. 7(2). P. 63–83.

Irina Pavlovna Potekhina, PhD in History, Associate Professor, Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology (190013, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Moskovsky pr., 26)

anscelida@inbox.ru

Language: Russian

The formation of medieval studies within the walls of educational and scholarly institutions of Saint Petersburg has been going on for more than a century and a half. However not all the aspects of the history of the European Middle Ages, even in periods relatively favorable for the development of domestic historical science, received an adequate coverage in the works of local scholars. The history of the medieval papacy undoubtedly can be included among such topics as an attractive but relatively little studied theme. As our previous research has shown, Saint Petersburg medievalists (as well as church historians) of the pre-Soviet period addressed themselves to a special study of subjects related to the development of the Western Church and its central institution, the Holy See, quite rarely and moreover within the framework of narrow research issues, as a result of specific ideological attitudes. Research on the history of the papacy also became a «victim of ideology» in the Soviet years. In despite of this M. A. Gukovsky not being directly a specialist in church-historical issues in the conditions of the prevailing Marxist-Leninist dogma, managed to build a rich, well-founded and at the same time fascinating narrative about the Papal See in one of the most difficult periods of its history, in the last centuries of the Middle Ages, which gave birth to the Italian Renaissance. The author of the article suggests paying attention to two main scholarly texts that characterize M. A. Gukovsky’s perception of the late medieval papacy and also of such a phenomenon as papal fiscalism, which in the 20th century became one of the main topics of «papal studies» abroad, but remained practically unknown to Soviet science.

Keywords: history of the Middle Ages, history of the papacy, Saint Petersburg historical school, Saint Petersburg University, Italian Renaissance, M. A. Gukovsky, Yves Renouard

URL: http://proslogion.ru/71-potekhina/

DOI: 10.24412/2500-0926-2023-71-63-83