We dedicate this issue of the ISTORIYA to the blessed memory of our untimely deceased colleague, Doctor of Historical Sciences, leading researcher of the Department of Auxiliary Historical Disciplines, head of the Laboratory of Historical Geoinformatics of the Institute of General History at the Russian Academy of Sciences, President of the Interregional Association “History and Computer”, member of the Commission “Cartographic Heritage into the Digital” at the International Cartographic Association Alexei Anatolievich Frolov (25.09.1974 — 10.07.2024), widely known in Russia and abroad for his works on historical geography, source studies, the history of Russian cartography of the 15th — 19th centuries, as well as in the field of historical geoinformatics.

Part I. Topography of Knowledge: Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (ed. by Irina Konovalova, Aleksey Frolov, Elena Kazbekova)

This part of the issue is devoted to new approaches to studying the problems of the history of science, in particular, to examining the role of the spatial factor in the production, application and transfer of knowledge. The papers of the issue are based on the material of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. They examine regional features of the production and circulation of knowledge, which have always been contextual, that is, determined not only by time but also by place. The purpose of the issue is to offer the reader a cross-section of modern approaches to the study of various “spaces of knowledge”, where concepts and approaches only partially coincided with each other and therefore were significant only within a certain space.

The problems of obtaining, transmitting and using knowledge are considered in the papers in a variety of aspects. S. A. Kozlov, analyzing the ninth chapter of the famous treatise of Constantine Porphyrogenitus “De administrando imperio”, draws attention to the diplomatic channels of Byzantium, which, in turn, allows us to judge the local intermediaries in its contacts with Russia. In the paper by A. G. Emanov, on a wide range of medieval sources related to the practice of navigation in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, the forms of production of new knowledge in navigation science and teaching the art of navigation are reconstructed. The question of the influence of the spiritual origin and ecclesiastical career of Russian bishops on the development and spatial spread of book culture (primarily its elite segment) in Russia in the 16th century is studied in the paper by A. S. Usachev. The problems of knowledge transfer and communication in a foreign-language environment are considered by Z. E. Oborneva according to documents of Greek hierarchs and translators of the Posol’skii Prikaz, by K. S. Khudin — based on documents of foreign doctors of the Aptekarskii Prikaz, and by L. I. Shchegoleva — on manuscripts from the Russian State Library collection as an example of the early history of school education in Northern Greece at the beginning of the 18th century. The questions of the emergence and spread of Greek education in the Russian state at the end of the 17th – first third of the 18th century, the chronology and geography of this process are considered by D. N. Ramazanova: significant changes consisted in the fact that from the capital center of education founded by the Likhud brothers, the teaching of the Greek language and Greek book writing spread to other cities of the country, and Novgorod was the next in this process after Moscow. The transfer and reception of historical knowledge in the context of the formation of national historiography are studied by D. G. Polonsky using the example of the Slavic-Serbian Chronicle by Djordje Brankovic. The paper by T. A. Bazarova examines the problems of obtaining, the mechanism of transfer, generalization and use of knowledge about the natural and climatic features of the lands conquered from Sweden during the Northern War (1700—1721) and included in the Ingrian province. The paper by M. M. Dadykina, using the example of documentation of the salt industries of the monasteries of the Russian North, examines the problem of the formation and use of expert knowledge, primarily in the field of management of early forms of production and the financial sphere.

In a number of papers, the problems of the topography of knowledge are considered in the context of source studies. M. S. Petrova, analyzing the work of the Latin Platonist of the second half of the 5th century Martianus Capella “On the Wedding of Philology and Mercury”, underlines not only the belonging of this work to the Roman rhetorical tradition (and not the philosophical Greek), but also its noticeable influence on the development of Western European culture. The study of the geographical area of existence of news about the Rus of the 6th — 7th centuries in the Arab-Persian sources allowed I. G. Konovalova to put forward an assumption about the reasons for the appearance of such information in these sources. The study of the payment book of the Bezhetskaia Piatina of the late 15th — early 16th centuries conducted by P. V. Gavrilov allowed to establish the route of the scribes’ movement according to the mention of the churchyards of the region. In the paper by Yu. V. Stepanova, a detailed reconstruction of the border and the methods of its tracing are carried out using archival materials from the surveying of the Russian-Polish border after the conclusion of the Polyanovsky Peace Treaty of 1634. The topography of knowledge is considered in the paper by A. L. Gryaznov on the example of the archival storage system of the Kirillo-Belozerski Monastery of the 15th — 17th centuries, built on the geographical principle. Two papers provide a detailed analysis of little-known cartographic sources: two maps from the mid-18th century from the 192nd fund of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents (RGADA), concerning the history of the Ishim and Novoishim border lines (S. V. Rasskazov and K. Abdrakhmanov), and a land map of the Aleksinskii district from 1739—1740 (A. V. Deduk). In the paper by E. V. Kazbekova, on the example of the history of the icon of Saint Pankraty of Tavromenia from the collection of the State Russian Museum shows the importance of the topographic and temporal factors in determining the vector of historical research in the case of scarcity or non-identification of sources, the importance of the historicism method. The paper by E. V. Ukhanova analyzes the prospects for applying the method of mass spectrometry of the isotopic ratios of carbon δ13C and nitrogen δ15N in samples of parchment collagen and strontium δ87Sr in chalk, which was used in its production. They made it possible to determine the features of the creation of individual unique codes, reconstruct certain conglomerates of manuscripts and thereby restore the lost connections between them.

Part II. Heraldy (ed. by Alexander Tchernik, Darjya Staroskolskaya)

This part of the issue offered to the reader reflects not only the richness of the world of visual features, but also the diversity of modern research approaches. What goals and objectives, accessible to heraldic interpretation, did medieval ideologists set for themselves? The article by A. P. Tchernykh addresses the situation in which, despite the presence of a family coat of arms, the French national hero of the 14th century was visualized by another coat of arms. The inclusion of the image of Bertrand du Guesclin in the series of the Nine Worthies, exemplary warriors of the Middle Ages as the Tenth, was one of the ideological measures of the royal power of France at one of the stages of the Hundred Years' War. The image of Bertrand du Guesclin bearing a shield with French lilies in the chief meant high appreciation of him by the royal power. This was the coat of arms of a knight of French origin in the service of the French crown. The decision to bury him in Saint-Denis was a further development of his cult as a hero. The metaphor of the Tenth Worthy, which was super-positive for medieval society, is clearly connected with the formation of French national identity; it recalls the all-French struggle with the English. Gradually, this medieval visualization stopped working and practically disappeared by the turn of the 18th — 19th centuries.

Coats of arms were embodied in banners not only in the early stages of heraldry, but also in the 15th century. Using the material of Burgundian battle banners, A. V. Kurkin devoted his article to the problem of embodying representative images of the Burgundian state in banners. In an informative, encyclopedic article, the author analyzed numerous surviving sources — archival documents, chronicles, memoir literature, and studied about 150 drawings of captured Burgundian flags from the collections of Swiss museums. The problem of vexillological typology deserves special attention. Note that the inconsistency existed precisely in the names (banniere, pennon, estandart, guidon, cornette, pennonceaux, banderole), and not in the types of banners used. At the same time, the article contains an inexhaustible topic of the semantics of the pictorial content of banners - emblems, mottos, color schemes.

Heraldic terminology and the problems of its adequate translation into Russian became the subject of consideration by D. S. Staroskolskaia, which can only be appreciated.

Article by K. A. Elokhin is devoted to the signs that were minted on coins of the Middle East in the 13th — 16th centuries. The author suggests that some of these hereditary signs were borrowed from European heraldry. This is a complex problem that requires an analysis of Mamluk emblems and reliance on studies of European heraldry. The article is only an attempt to answer the question of the principles that distinguish Mamluk emblems, the question of the influence of the Mamluk state structure on it.

Widespread “common” visual features, despite their prevalence, do not become clearer. The article by E. V. Pchelov examines the metaphor of likening the monarch to the sun in Russian culture of the 18th - early 19th centuries. The sun is a common image used in relation to the supreme ruler. The origins of this tradition go back to the civilizations of the Ancient East. Later, this attitude was rethought from the standpoint of Christianity, when not only the ruler, but also Christ (“the righteous sun”) was compared to the sun. Likening the monarch to the sun also likened him to Christ. Such a comparison was characteristic of Old Russian culture since pre-Mongol times. During the era of the Muscovite kingdom, solar metaphors in relation to the Russian tsar entered into works of panegyric poetry. Since the era of Peter the Great, the relevance of the comparison was enhanced by the influence of Western European emblems presented in book engravings, numismatics and medal art. Almost all Russian monarchs were called the sun during the 18th — early 19th centuries. The attention of the researcher was drawn to the image of the rising sun associated with female monarchs, and in connection with the “revolutionary” accession of some of them to the throne, the analysis of the image is especially interesting. The metaphor of the sun “dispelling the darkness of the previous reign” fits in well with the concept of the relationship. It turned out to be so appropriate that it was also used by male sovereigns.

Heraldic manifestations of culture have access to everything: from the highest level of visual features — monarchs, to artisans — bakers and shoemakers. The article by K. V. Perekhodenko is devoted to the visualization of domestic craft associations - a topic of terra incognita in Russian heraldic studies. Considering the fact that the topic of visualization of Russian crafts has been practically not studied — and until recently it seemed that the sources did not allow this, the author raises the question of visualization coming “from below” or visualization as an event of power. Having discovered guild banners in museum collections of a number of Russian cities, the author tries to define them, offers terminology based on documents, tries to consider the functions of craft banner manifestations in Russia using specific examples. Guild banners exist in the same emblematic space with the coats of arms and are subject to the same laws. Their establishment was an attempt to integrate craft boards into the system of local government bodies, but the specific execution of these banners was entirely at the discretion of local craft boards and was regulated by the consciousness of “society”, which relied on the existing practice of visual expressions (in particular, church processions). The study of craft banners in the Russian Empire requires two approaches: as a unique type of civil banners that arose as an official sign of local government, and as a self-representation of the craft class at the level to which the local community was ready. The fact that visualizations of craft guilds exist testifies to a much more complex social structure of Russian society in its manifestations than its class model.

A significant place in the publications offered to the reader's attention is given to experiment — a method rarely encountered in humanitarian studies. The well-known researcher of Russian heraldry I. B. Emelin in his article experimentally studied the issues of heraldic description — blazon. He proceeded from the widespread thesis that any person familiar with heraldic terminology and heraldry itself should be able to create a drawing of a coat of arms from a description. But this is a rather naive assumption, easily refuted. During the experiment, two dozen heraldists were asked to draw an image of four randomly selected coats of arms from different historical eras of Russian heraldry from the 18th century to the present. The control group consisted of people unfamiliar with heraldry and several graphic neural networks. The author did not limit himself to stating and analyzed the main errors, as well as their impact on the study of heraldic symbols.

In the article by A. K. Grefenshtein an experiment on the independent creation of coats of arms by children aged 13–15 is analyzed. When children were asked to make a coat of arms of a family, class, school, city, they were given no information or methodological support. However, a brief discussion of the rules of heraldry and some examples of heraldry creation were necessary. Since coats of arms are a product of artistic creativity, comparison and evaluation of the heraldic merits of projects is always difficult. But in the course of the work, the peculiarities of the perception of coats of arms by young authors were revealed: age-related psychological characteristics, worldview ideas of modern schoolchildren. The most frequent starting point in the composition of a coat of arms were the interests and hobbies of the author, the professions of parents and relatives, family realities. A number of projects were created on the basis of generalized images of family, home and love. Among the coats of arms created by children canting arms are rare — no more than 20%. Note that in medieval coats of arms, as in modern ones, this share is higher. The experiment showed that heraldic creativity (even within the framework of optional classes) has great potential for initiating interest in heraldic culture among schoolchildren, which, in fact, prompts us to acquaint the reader with this experience.

A. E. Pisarev devoted his research to the topic of that special visual signs that, unfortunately, rarely attract the attention of researchers in our time. Camouflage clothing in the Soviet Army as the main type of everyday military uniform was introduced in the late 1980s. In itself it was a visual sign of specially trained units and subdivisions to perform special tasks. Camouflage among the Soviet military was associated with the concept of “elite”. Camouflage uniforms could not be purchased at Voentorg; issuance of camouflage was strictly monitored. Foreign camouflage was unavailable, and of little use for military personnel. Camouflage for a Soviet serviceman was an item of military fashion, the presence of which at all levels, despite the regulations, cannot be denied. At the same time, it was an item of shortage, as, incidentally, were many other things. As a result, the camouflage uniform turned out to be a marker of belonging to the “travelers” — a group of Soviet citizens allowed to work abroad (perceived by the population as a kind of elite of Soviet society) and, accordingly, a marker of a high level of personal entrepreneurial streak, everyday luck. In our opinion, the most important thing is the noted special attitude to the vest, in which the combination of white and blue stripes, it turns out, has an additional, ethnically conditioned meaning of a visual feature.

Even this cursory review is very eloquent in relation to the tasks, prospects and possibilities of studying visual features of the most diverse kinds.