Tracing the Sources of V.G. Tiesen­hausen in the Arabic Volume on the History of the Golden Horde

Abstract

Research objective and materials: This article is devoted to the analysis of the results of the work carried out on the sources used by Vladimir Tiesenhausen in the compiling the Arabic volume of the “Collection of Materials Relating to the History of the Golden Horde”. Results and novelty of the research: A comparative study of texts extracted by Vladimir G. Tiesenhausen in 1884, with their new editions, presented the following picture: one group of publications represents academic editions with quality translations, accompanied by professionally executed commentaries. Another part of the sources was published based on one part of existing copies. As practice shows, sometimes the older and complete copies of published works remained out of coverage in such publications; their existing editions are not taken into account. The third group of sources is composed of works that remain in manuscript form to the present day. One such work – “al-‘Aylam al-zakhir fi akhbar al-awa’il wa-l-awakhir” by Mustafa ibn Hasan al-Janabi – exists in numerous copies. Searches and the discovery of its copies in Turkish funds show such source studies’ problems as incomplete cataloging of manuscript collections, unprofessional descriptions by compilers of some catalogues, inconsistency in the provided titles of the works and the names of their authors. The autograph (Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Yeni Cami, no. 831) and two full texts (Köprülü Kütüphanesi, Fazıl Ahmet Paşa, nos. 1031, 1032) are of great value in the publication of “al-‘Aylam al-zakhir”. The result is the formation of a creative portrait for the author of a published work and the creation of a complete image for his work on the basis of its copies. This may ensure against potential errors.