PROBLEMS OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE 16TH – EARLY 17TH CENTURIES DOCUMENTARY SOURCES IN THE SCIENTIFIC LEGACY OF THE M. KOVALSKY

Abstract

Review of the problems of typology of historical sources has a long historiographical tradition, but the beginning of their scientific (in methodological, methodical and applied aspects) processing can be attributed to the 60-ies of the last century. Classification of documentary sources on the history of Ukraine in the 16the – the first half of the XVII century belongs to the famous Ukrainian source-critic Mykola Kovalsky. In his monographic publications on source studies, as well as in a number of articles, he reviewed various issues of the typology of historical sources. The scientist took the entire collection of written sources of different typological affiliations, as a basis for the characteristics of the source base. They have already been published by Ukrainian, Polish and Russian archeographists, as well as found in archival institutions of different countries and introduced into the scientific circulation by the scientist himself. He included documents of higher and local authorities, the chanceries of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish kingdom and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, judicial and administrative institutions, etc.
The arrangement of such a significant number of historical sources could only have happened on the basis of various classification and systematic grounds. The researcher used them in their entirety and used expanded typology terminology.
Conclusions made by M. Kovalsky have not lost their scientific significance. Some of them are not fully assimilated by historical source criticism and require discussion by a wider range of specialists. Separate conclusions require clarification on a narrower range of sources at the level of species, subspecies, varieties, etc.
The attempt to highlight all such blocks in this article, can serve as an impulse to continue the discussion of a number of issues of historical sources in their classification aspect. This is especially true of the categorical apparatus of the historical-typological method and the hierarchy and the interrelations of various research activities.