STUDENT'S ANNOTATED CHRONOLOGY AND SYSTEMATIC BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Central Pedagogical Component of KIMBALL FILES
A Page of Explanation and Guidance
© Alan Kimball
STUDENT'S ANNOTATED CHRONOLOGY AND SYSTEMATIC BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Central Pedagogical Component of KIMBALL FILES
A Page of Explanation and Guidance
© Alan Kimball
Table of Contents
STRUCTURE OF SAC,
HOW TO USE SAC
-- The FIND function
-- Chronological "LOOPS"
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ABOUT SAC
THEMATIC CONSTANTS
CONTENTS OF NINE MONSTER SAC PAGESREMEMBER =
"Click" on a hypertext link (such as just above) and "hop" to a promised site.
"Hop back" to your launch point by pushing "ALT+left arrow".
[ALT & <-- at the same time]
Reverse the "direction" of the hop by pushing "ALT+right arrow".
This is the quickest way to hop back and forth among webpages and websites.You may also click a "BACK" or "FORWARD" button, usually in the upper left-hand corner of your web navigator screen. But I recommend the "ALT+Arrow" key combo.
You can take many hypertext hops in sequence, frequently moving back and forth, and your machine will "remember" and be able to lead you back over all previous hops to the point of your original hop.
Practice keeping mental tabs on your hops, monitor your movements back and forth. This will soon become natural to you and will facilitate quick and focused internet surfing. It takes some practice not to "get lost", but this is the way the world is beginning to travel the internet. What you want to do is become an active rather than a passive surfer. Stand up and move on out. You are the navigator....
STRUCTURE OF SAC
SAC employs several almost iconographic symbols =
The definition of "ENTRY" in SAC is all text between the brightly colored symbols "<>" and "<>".
SAC is filled with "HYPERTEXT LINKS". Click on these and you will hop to another place. The hypertext link is presented in the form of an underlined word or passage, distinguished from the surrounding text by color.
When a published title is "hypertexted", the hop will be to the University of Oregon Library entry for that title.
When a key word or phrase is "hypertexted", the hop will be to the next appearance of the highlighted keyword(s) on the current or following SAC page. That next appearance is nearly always chronologically "later". You can immediately hop back [ID] to where you just came from, or you can read on until you come across the next hypertext hop on the original keyword(s). SAC designates a sequence of hypertexted keyword(s) as a "LOOP" [ID]. What does the symbol [ID] mean? Read on =
The symbol [ID] (=identification) indicates a hypertext link, one hop to a location with a brief identification of the term immediately preceding the symbol.
The symbol [EG] (=for example) indicates a hypertext link, one hop to an example of the issue or term immediately preceding the symbol.
As with [ID], so also with [EG], the hop from these symbols will often be to a single and sufficient entry. But sometimes the hop is to an entry that offers further hops on the keyword(s), a series that SAC calls a "LOOP" [ID].
Examples of previous two symbols [EG].
The symbol [F//] (=find), suggests that you launch your own "FIND search" on an internet page. Right now, hop for a moment to the description of the FIND search, then return here. For example "[F/Novgorod/]" or "Novgorod [F//]" in a SAC entry suggests that you launch a find search for the word Novgorod from that point on the page.
The symbol [pix] (=photo) indicates a hypertext link to an illustration [EG#1] [EG#2] [EG#3]
The symbol [TXT] (=text) indicates a hypertext link to an electronic text [EG]
The symbol, [W] (=website), indicates a hypertext link to an external website, an independent webpage beyond KIMBALL FILES. If there are more than one such link at any point, then the following form might be followed: [W#1], [W#2] etc. [EG]. These links "to the outside" are sometimes slow, and they will sometimes fail. I try to keep them current, but be patient with the unstable, ever-changing world wide web.
Each chronological entry in SAC strives to follow a predictable and recognizable form
As a rule, each entry outlines "answers" to the following questions =
- when?
- where?
- who?
- what?
- why?
- how [do we know]?
These are the classic "Five Ws & H" of good newspaper reporting.
When?
Chronological entries are separated by double angle brackets: <>. Each opens with the date (year, month & day, or season, in that order) followed by a colon. If the entry covers an extended period, a terminus ad quem [time up to which the entry extends] is then entered followed by a semi-colon and space. [EG]
Months and seasons are abbreviated, but recognizable. For example, au=August and no=November. June is "je", July is "jy", spring is "sp", for example. As in "au01" above, single-digit dates have a zero in front of them to format nicely with the double-digit dates. Given the uncertainties about early history, few are the times that can be defined down to the level of months and days.
NB! a peculiarity of the Russian historical calendar [SAC].
Where?
As a rule, the place of the action follows the time of the action. Many entries are worded in such a way that the opening of the narrative statement identifies place. I have employed an unconventional practice in which I use "USSR" and "USA" as nouns and adjectives when they appear at this point in the chronological entries.
Occasionally a hypertext iconographic figure "[g]" will follow a place. This allows a hypertext hop to the page titled "Geography" with a geographic table of the most important river drainage systems relating to Russian history. Try this example = "Tver [g]". Our course will ask you to develop a mental image of where the most important river drainage systems are on any map, such as you might find in the MAP ROOM [ID]. You want to be able to locate them on a map, old or new, pre-Soviet, Soviet or post-Soviet, even a mental map. Borders and certain names change, but high points (mountains), rivers and other drainages out of these high points, and finally the low pools (the seas into which these drainages flow) change very infrequently. Knowing them, you are set, no matter how many superficial place-name changes might be made over the centuries.
Who, What and Why?
Here follows a brief statement about the historical episode. Who did what and (occasionally) why are given brief answers.
Some of the text is underlined and in a different color. Underlining signifies a "hypertext" link. You may "click" on underlined text to hop to a location relevant to the word or words underlined. Often links are proper nouns but sometimes simple keyword phrases.
When hypertext links appear in the narrative of a SAC entry, you can usually hop from there to the next significant chronological moment in which the hypertext item plays a role.
Underlined book titles and coded sources in brackets are another matter, and they are taken up in the section that follows, were we ask the sixth essential historical question =
How [do we know]?
Historians, journalists, and citizens must cultivate the habit of asking informants, and in turn giving to those we seek to inform, clear indication of the evidence and sources that underpin any given statement about "what happened".
Underlined book titles in SAC entries will usually link you directly to the Knight Library entry for that title.
Underlined and coded source references in brackets link you to the SAC GLOSSARY which identifies the coded source reference and provides a further hop to the Knight Library entry for that title.
We distinguish two types of sources = primary sources and secondary sources [ID].
Of course, "how do we really know" is a far more complicated question than suggested by this simple distinction between primary and secondary sources. But at this point we need to concentrate on practical questions relating to "how do we use SAC" =
HOW TO USE SAC
Schematic rendering of a SAC entry
showing answers to the six questions
when, where, who, what, why &
"how do we know what we think we know" [more above]<>TIME:PLACE | PERSONS, INSTITUTIONS [W], EVENTS [PRIMARY SOURCES FROM ANTHOLOGIES IN BRACKETS] GO-guides (some hypertext)
*--SEPARATELY PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES [TXT]
[NB! "star,dash,dash"]
\\
*--SECONDARY SOURCESPrimary sources [ID] are embedded in the chronological SAC entries according to a standard form =
- EG#1= [VSB,1:27]. Click on "VSB" and you hop to the Glossary ID of the code with a direct link to the UO Library entry. The comma and number that follow VSB indicate volume. The colon and number indicate page
- EG#2= [Riasanovsky(1)]. The number in parentheses indicates chapter without a page number (in view of several editions of Riasanovsky)
- EG#3= [DMR2]. Some citations are followed directly by a number to indicate which edition
Secondary sources [ID] are separated out and entered at the bottom of the individual chronological entries to which they relate. Secondary sources are divided from the rest of the entry by double backslashes =
\\
[EG#1]
[EG#2]
[EG#3]
[EG#4]
[EG#5]A hint: the "importance" of entries is often indicated by a large number of primary and secondary sources attached [EG].
SAC chronologies contain a lot of useful information, and some of them contain hypertext linkages to other websites. But here's the rub = The best information you get from any SAC entry is about where to go in the library to read primary and secondary sources about the indicated topic. You cannot read them all, but you will have plenty of time this term to select those entries or groups of entries that interest you the most and seem most relevant to the big issues raised by the syllabus. Dig into these more deeply. Use your 9 hours per week beyond class meetings to build a general sense of our historical "course", but also to satisfy your own interests. You can find out more about this by checking the syllabi of individual courses =
HIST 245 or HIST 303 or HIST 345 or HIST 346 or HIST 445/545.SAC entries link to sources in several different ways. Sometimes a source link will hop directly to the Knight Library catalog, e.g., James Joyce, Finnigan's Wake. Now you know where to go for that source in the library. Sometimes a source link hops to a webpage primary text itself, e.g., an excerpt from Joyce's Finnigan's Wake = [TXT]. Now you are invited to read the source right there on your screen. Sometimes a link takes the form of a bracketed guide to primary-source anthologies, often presented in acronymic form, e.g., [VSB,1:200].
Let's try another experimental click on a coded hypertext abbreviation in order to hop to a more complete bibliographic citation in the SAC GLOSSARY. Here is an extremely helpful encyclopedia, better than most textbooks = [MERSH]. Notice that this and other GLOSSARY entries not only spell out what the abbreviation means but also provide a link to the Knight catalog for exact bibliographic information. MERSH is more fully presented on a page devoted to recommended self-directed library tours = Russian History in the KNIGHT Library Reference Division. Here is a fuller explanation about how to use the SAC GLOSSARY.
Some entries contain GO-guides to related SAC locations. For example, "GO 1223" invites you to check the entry for the year 1223 for related material. GO-guides may or may not provide hypertext linkage. When they do not, the point to which you are invited should not be far away on the same webpage.
An entry presented in very small script suggests marginality or an unfinished status. Large and bold script suggests broad significance or centrality (but the number of primary and secondary sources attached to an entry is clearer indication of significance).
Do not let yourself be disheartened by the fact that hypertext bibliographic abbreviations link to GLOSSARY [ID] and not to indicated texts themselves. A linkage to GLOSSARY identifies the coded reference and shows you where you can find and read the text itself. I say this elsewhere, but let me say here too: The authentic study of history requires a lot of time in the library with good, old-fashioned printed text, and it is this that makes the journey down the internet information highway useful as well as entertaining. It is certainly not the other way around.
Hypertext links and GO-guides, as shown above, are not spread uniformly throughout the chronologies. They are intended to get you started working on systematic ways of your own, using the FIND Function, to thread through the chronologies, over and again, following certain themes, hopping over unrelated entries. The FIND Function gives you personal control over long and/or complex internet pages =
FIND
Most web browsing systems allow you to search with keyword(s). Usually they do that in the following way = Simultaneously push "CONTROL" and the letter "F" ("f" will do as well). A menu box will open somewhere on your screen. Here you enter the word or phrase that you want to find. The machine is absolutely literal, so choose your keyword(s) and type carefully. In one way the FIND function may not be literal = It may allow you to search for a word or phrase without regard to lower or upper case. With some adjustment, the find function can be made to match case exactly, to be "case sensitive".
You don't always need my goad or guidance to use the F// function. Try your own FIND searches. Every epoch will have entries that contain certain universal keyword(s), for example, F/everyday life/ F/church/ F/war/ F/state/ F/government/ or F/serf/ etc. The FIND function allows you to search for any word or phrase within any page on your screen (whether an internet page, like one of our own SAC pages or a word-processing page). Note that searching from top to bottom of a SAC page gives you the word or phrase in its chronological order. As you do this, remember that a FIND search terminates with the last keyword(s) found on any given webpage. To continue a given FIND search on any SAC page, you must link to the next SAC page in chronological order and launch the FIND search again. At the bottom of each SAC page you will find a hypertext hop to the next chronological SAC page. It is sometimes difficult to get back to the launch point of a FIND search, so keep track of where you begin.
If you F/Moscow/ in SAC to 1682, you will come upon every entry devoted to that important princely stronghold, and in chronological order.
Sometimes it is good to think of FIND [CONTROL+F] as a search for an essential "morpheme" rather than a whole word. Here are some examples of what I mean =
For better or worse, all epochs yield rich results with F/war/. Now, of course, you will catch every use of words with the morpheme "war" within them, e.g., "forward", "Edward", or "Warren". However, you can move quickly past those instances, and most hits will be on entries about war, and they will be in chronological order. There are many "princes" and a number of "princesses" in the pre-Petrine period of Russian history (up to 1682). SAC yields a list of the most important ones when you F/prince/ (without matching upper and lower case). You will catch all princes and princesses, capitalized or not.
Similarly, if you F/German/ in SAC 1904-1917, you will come upon every entry containing the words "German", "Germans" or "Germany".
F/Turk/ (to catch "Turk", "Turks", "Turkey", and "Turkish", as well as every reference to Seljuk and Ottoman Turks), etc.
F/Chin/ to catch "China" and "Chinese"
F/Russi/ and F/Japan/ to get all standard English variations
F/Engl/ to get "England" & "English"
Be alert for some of the standard pitfalls, e.g.: "Spain" & "Spanish", "France" & "French". I strive for uniformity, but, for example, "Islamic" and "Muslim" are both used at different points. Be clever and be patient.
LOOP
I am always working on SAC to create hypertext "LOOPS" on important keyword(s). A chronological LOOP threads several points in time together in sequence and hops freely from SAC page to SAC page in order. When followed, a LOOP will carry you through a full chronological description of a given topic, allowing you in a final entry (the terminus ad quem) to return to the earliest moment (the terminus a quo).
Hopping to a chronological entry on a LOOP, you read until you find the next appearance of the hypertext keyword(s) that define(s) the LOOP. The next appearance might be early in the entry, or it might be toward the end. Sometimes you will read through three or four chronological entries [<>] in sequence before you locate the next appearance of the hypertext keyword(s). Everything you read before you find the next hypertext keyword(s) should be relevant. Be careful to read to the end of the entry with your hypertext keyword(s), even if the keyword(s) appears early in the entry. Again, the definition of "entry" is all text between "<>".
Once you complete a LOOP you can use "ALT+left arrow" [<---] to move chronologically backwards through each previous hop in the LOOP. You will soon return to your starting point. Now you may use "ALT+right arrow" [--->] to repeat the LOOP. Repetition is the mother of learning.
When the syllabus links to a LOOP, or when you come upon one yourself, it might not be at either terminus a quo or terminus ad quem. You might find yourself brought in somewhere in the chronological middle. In all cases, following the LOOP will take you on a complete chronological circle, or you can stop at any point and back up to where you came from, using "ALT+left arrow" [<---].
Most web browsers keep a "memory" of such travel, so variations on the BACK or FORWARD function allow quick repetition of any LOOP. I say again, "Repetition is the mother of learning". At terminus ad quem you can click backwards in time to terminus a quo and move forward, back to the point of original entry.
As you make these LOOPs, notice also that you sometimes cross other LOOPs. This device allows for suggestive intersecting LOOPS. Switching onto another LOOP brings you eventually back to the switch point where you can take up the original LOOP again. This does require some keeping track of your own movements through SAC....
Try one or two of these LOOPs: Notice that you drop in at a middle point on the HIST 345 Byzantine LOOP. The HIST 346 "Era of Great Reforms" LOOP circles from the beginning in 1855. The HIST 303 LOOP on Fascist Italy begins in a cluster of LOOPS relating to the years 1927:1937.
FIND searches, LOOPS and other linkages in SAC and in individual course syllabi help overcome the greatest problem of simple chronology, which is this: A chronology tends to be a list of one d----d thing after another, and that is not history.
Each link, LOOP, and FIND episode yields a micro history related to the keyword(s). Thus threading and rethreading your way through the complete and complex chronologies, searching out keyword(s), you will discover useful reading suggestions, in library or on the internet. You will build a very solid sense of history, topic by topic. So, I say a third time, "Repetitio est mater assignorum".
SOME IMPORTANT CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ABOUT SAC
I feel strongly that all students of history at all levels, but particularly at university level, need exposure to the daunting complexity of our business [TXT], its foundation on a rich vein of primary documentation and an even more extensive secondary literature. No one -- specialist or not, freshman or professor -- has exhausted this richness. No one person could. At the same time, I am convinced that university students at all levels respond to the challenge of search and the pleasures of personal discovery.
Employing SAC places a dual burden on me to help you reconcile yourself to the dark abyss of history and find contentment and significance in those facets you yourself are able to illuminate. Of course, I will be your guide and protector through this daunting woods called history. Oh, yes, along the way I do not shirk from sharing in lectures my own hrumphetic reconciliation, contentment, and illumination.
In the spirit of Johan Huizinga [ID] and Werner Jaeger [ID], allow yourself in this electronic realm to be a bit playful. Enjoy!
Remember always that SAC and the related syllabi are just parts of a larger picture. This course locates itself in four places: electronic SAC, lectures, library, and the lobes of your brain.
You will be surprised to discover how powerful your memory and understanding of history can become when you develop the habit of remembering the "when" and "where" (the TIME:PLACE) of major occurrences. You can build on this toward the habit of conceptual distinctions between types of historical experience [ID], such as between institutional developments and intellectual trends. Then you can develop a taste for thinking about the many ways these different types of historical experience might be thought to relate to one another. Along with this comes the habit of conceptual distinctions among the many different interests [ID] that motivate and shape human experience, and among the many different sorts of human groups [ID] who are variously motivated and shaped, and who thus experience events so very differently. My hope would be that these habits would then help you to read primary historical documentation for pleasure as well as instruction.
Another thing: Entries here touch on many different national histories. One of the great lessons of our era is this: fully satisfactory national history cannot fix its attention on only one nation-state.
For example, "Russian" history, in its complexity and completeness, is also the history of many non-Russian peoples [ID]. Add to this demographic complexity the following big feature of Russian history: unparalleled geographic extent [ID] (the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union represented one out of every seven square miles of the earth's dry surface -- roughly equal in extent to the face of the full moon). Russia today has dry-land or water borders with more than two dozen sovereign states, including the USA. Two features distinguish Russian history: rich multiculturalism of the population and the world's largest inventory of sovereign states along borders that stretch further than any other nation's. We must take a "world historical" approach to Russia.
We should take a world historical approach to all national histories. We should acknowledge that many varieties of historical experience are "shared" among various historical peoples.
This is not altogether a new idea. We are used to thinking that "Western Civ" and "Europe" have coherent and integrated histories, though neither of these terms are very distinct and neither refers to a single nation-state. And we are beginning to ask if there isn't a "world" history out there for us to discover.
These topics -- Western Civ, Europe and the world -- are "trans-national". But we must go further. We need to recognize that all national histories show traits of broader "shared" experience. Much that we might associate too narrowly with Russian or any other national history and therefore think of as distinctly national phenomena are also characteristics of other people's histories.
The composite ideas of "the West" and "Europe" are too limited to capture this truth, just as "the world" is too broad. In the other direction, the general traits of "German" or "Russian" or "American" history will always be found to apply only to defined portions of the population living within German, Russian or USA borders. So-called "national traits" or "the national historical experience" are often nothing more than the fond self-image of certain dominant cultural groups within those borders. Yet nation-states are distinct realities in certain regards and they do have their own histories. The challenge is to define just in what regards "nations" are distinct and in what regards they represent broader phenomena.
One standard and mind-numbing frame of comparison in European and world histories has been "The West" [LOOP]. West has meant selected aspects of a certain clusteration of northwestern European and North American nation-states. The characteristics of the wider world, as described in this "Whiggish" or English Liberal interpretation, have thereby been defined and judged in a narrow and unidirectional manner.
This largely unexamined concept "The West" has become a nearly universal trans-national analytical tool. But there are other tools, and they expand our intellectual horizon beyond "The West". West European and North American histories are themselves in need of broader and multi-directional exploration of "shared histories", just as world history is in need of greater concentration or focus. The West, Europe and the world are all in need of a more balanced integration with widely gathered but specific histories.
So, many chronological entries serve the purpose here of adding depth and resonance, a focused global perspective to the pure chronology of Russian or American or European historical experiences.
Thematic Constants
I have identified eleven thematic constants in SAC, some of them unconventional. The following statements identify these constants and give SAC users a "heads up" =
- The common expression "The West" is relatively meaningless and often deceptive
- Presume “Anthropological Unity” = human nature cannot be shown to have changed over known historical times, nor from one place to the next, though cultures can vary a great deal
- Remember the vital theoretical distinction between history and the past
- Use “civilization” as a non-judgmental word meant to distinguish a literate culture from culture in general. Civilization is a type of culture dependent upon written texts
- Avoid equating “the real” with “the actual”, for example =
- Do not confuse abstract grouping words with concrete grouping words
- Maintain and highlight the distinction between “nation” and “nation-state”
- Keep in view the relationship of power to authority
- Seek to understand the structures of distinction within every society, a hierarchy of enforced or reinforced behavioral practices and theoretical justifications that can be described as privileges, exemptions and duties (implied justifications of differentiation)
- Do not allow confusion among or between the following distinct concepts = democracy, market economics, freedom, equality
- Seek always to anchor long-term trends in short-term specifics and to contextualize short-term specifics in their long-term significance
Table of Contents
"A Student's Annotated Chronology and
Systematic Bibliography" [SAC]Go to the top of this SAC explanatory page
