Actual tasks of archeography and source study of documents on the history of the Decembrist movement

Abstract

In the scientific tradition of Decembrist studies, despite the rich and diverse fund of published sources and the significant results achieved in the study of surviving documentary materials, there remains a considerable number of unfinished and unfulfilled source studies and archaeographic works. Based on an analysis of the achievements and shortcomings of Decembrist archaeography and source studies, the author discusses significant but still unresolved tasks related to the identification, study, and publication of sources. These include compiling a collection of monuments of the Decembrists' ideological heritage (a commented publication of programmatic and ideological documents), preparing a collection of political journalism by participants in secret societies, publishing sources of personal origin from the archives of the Decembrists and their contemporaries, and compiling indexes of both published and unpublished documents. A comprehensive overview of the achievements of Decembrist source studies and archaeography has not yet to be written. The article also touches upon the problems of the source study of documentary complexes on the history of the Decembrist movement. This includes a critical analysis of investigative testimonies, the study of monuments of political thought, journalism, and the memoir heritage of the Decembrists. The article raises the problem of addressing the legacy of little-studied figures of the Decembrist societies and suggests directions for searching for new archival materials that have not yet been subjected to special research.