The Guzmán’s of Mendoza - acclaimed classical musicians

During the 19th century in Chile and for three generations, the Guzmán’s were acclaimed classical musicians. The literature indicates that their patriarch Fernando Guzmán and his son Francisco arrived in Chile from Mendoza, Argentina in about 1822. There is little or no information regarding their heritage, origins and the correct composition of their large family. There are many errors and assumptions in the literature as to the number and paternity of several of them; it is intended to correct the misinformation and provide documentary evidence of the family origins, heritage and composition. The research makes use of the Mendoza Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths Parish Books from the 18th and 19th centuries, legal documents, and published material. It is confirmed that Fernando Guzmán was born into slavery, one of five children of Maria Juana, an African slave owned by the Santo Domingo Convent of Mendoza. Fernando married Juana Agustina, also a slave of African descent, owned by the Molina Sotomayor family. Fernando and Juana Agustina had 13 children, several of whom were also born into slavery. The Guzmán’s were a family of classical musicians par excellence. To celebrate their life and work, this research identifies and reports how the family was composed and how it evolved.

A FEW REMARKS REGARDING EVIDENCE FROM THE INTERROGATION OF A WITNESS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SUBJECT OF A COMMUNITY INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN A CRIMINAL CASE (ARTICLES 214 OF THE CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE)

The author discusses the role of documentary evidence in the form of the background survey in criminal proceedings. He also examines the possibilities and scope of verification of its content by interviewing as witnesses the person who conducted the evidence and the persons who provided information as part of the background survey. He emphasizes that it is justified in this case – in the context of the principle expressed in Art. 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure – different approach to admitting and taking evidence from the testimonies of witnesses on the circumstances covered by the background survey. The article attempts to select typical cases in which it would be advisable to admit evidence from the testimonies of witnesses for the circumstances identified through the background survey.

“General Face-hitting”: The Travel in Time and Space

The article under studies traces the formula of “general face-hitting” from the poem “The Dream” (“U vsiakoho svoya dolia...”) by Taras Shevchenko in the world’s socio-political and folklore-literary contexts. It analyzes Ivan Franko’s essay “Reasons for Evaluating Taras Shevchenko’s Poetry”, where this catchphrase has been used for the first time, as well as describes some dramatic facts from the life of the court Russian poet Vasily Trediakovsky. Special emphasis has been laid on the concept of supreme violence in the history of dictatorial regimes (on the examples of the works of various genres by foreign authors). In particular, fictional and documentary evidence of characteristic abuse of subordinates during the reign of the Empress Anna Ioannovna, as well as numerous cases of assault by the Russian Tsar Peter I and the Prussian King Frederick William I have been revealed. Some expository episodes that remind of a grotesque scene of a brawl are regarded in the History of the Ruthenians, in oriental parables, in the works by Voltaire, Alexander Pushkin, Alexander Herzen, Valentin Pikul, Peter Aleshkovsky, Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak, and others. The relevance of this disgusting phenomenon, inherent in any totalitarian system, has been outlined.

Trade on the North Eastern Bank of the Lagos Lagoon: A Focus on Ejinrin Lagoon Market, 1851–1939

This article discusses trade and market activities on the north eastern bank of the Lagos Lagoon. Our particular focus is on the Ijebu lagoon market of Ejinrin. During the period covered by this study, Ejinrin was a meeting point for traders from Lagos and those from southeastern Yoruba hinterland. Traders reportedly attended the market not only from Ijebuland but also from places such as Gbongan, Ile-Ife, Ilesha, Oyo, Ilorin, Okitipupa, Owo, Epe, Orimedu, Atijere and other towns in Yorubaland. Colonial records show that attendance at Ejinrin reached between 20,000 and 26,000 on a market day by the end of the nineteenth century and by 1908, the market was rated as the largest market in the whole of the western provinces of Nigeria. Such was the strategic importance of this market that it supplied Lagos with the bulk of the palm oil shipped overseas during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. Thus, the lagoon market occupied a very important place in the local economy of the Ijebu and that of Lagos. This article is an attempt to understand this aspect of the indigenous economy of Nigeria. It is an attempt to analyze and document the history of commercial activities in this geographical zone of the Lagos (Ijebu) Lagoon. The study relied largely on documentary evidence got from the National Archives, Ibadan and extensive oral evidence collected from those who, at one time or the other, had attended the market.

Married Dostoevsky? The History of Relations between V.V. Rozanov and A.P. Suslova

The article examines in detail the history of the relationship between A.P. Suslova and V.V. Rozanov in connection with the notion existing in the historical and literary science that Rozanovs marriage to Suslova was based on his deep interest in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky and his desire in such an unusual way to penetrate deeper into the secrets of the life and work of the author of The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. However, an appeal to various documentary evidence shows that Rozanovs marriage motives came from the warehouse of his nature and constituted a complex of rather complex reasons, among which the human, and not literary, research principle still dominates. The desire for a benevolently objective study of the life history of A.P. Suslova makes it possible to clarify at the modern scientific level the important facts of the biography of F.M. Dostoevsky and V.V. Rozanov, to free them from the stratifications of legends and myths.

Hamlet of ʽAin el-Gedida in Dakhla Oasis

This article discusses archaeological and documentary evidence from the late Roman settlement of ʽAin el-Gedida (located in the Dakhla Oasis of Upper Egypt), with a particular focus on the site’s likely identification as an epoikion, i.e., a small rural center associated with the management of a large agricultural estate. ʽAin el-Gedida was first excavated by an Egyptian mission in 1993–1995 and immediately raised interest among scholars working in the oasis, with the site being preliminarily identified either as a rural village or a monastic settlement. More recent excavations and study seasons, conducted (from 2006 to 2010) by a Columbia University (then New York University) mission directed by Roger Bagnall, has allowed investigators to gather a substantial amount of new data. This evidence, published in 2018 and more recently in 2020, supports the likely identification of ʽAin el-Gedida as an epoikion over other types of settlements. In this article, the data from ʽAin el-Gedida are discussed in light of what is known from documentary sources about epoikia, as well as modern Egyptian ezab. Worthy of note is that not many other agricultural hamlets of a comparable size have been extensively excavated and published thus far. It is also remarkable that, while written evidence on epoikia abounds, the site of ʽAin el-Gedida may provide the first available archaeological evidence for this type of settlement; therefore, it may offer new and useful data on the layout and organization of epoikia in late antique Egypt.

Per le future edizioni del testo della Historia Augusta

This paper presents partial results of a wider codicological study of the Historia Augusta manuscript tradition: it aims to shed new light on the historical relationships between the Palatine codex and a second family of fourteenth and fifteenth-century manuscripts, known as Σ. It offers new documentary evidence of what has been ignored or underestimated so far by scholars, with the purpose to show not only the independence of such a group of testimonies but also their usefulness for the restitutio textus.

A global inventory of historical documentary evidence related to climate since the 15th century

Climatic variations have impacted societies since the very beginning of human history. In order to keep track of climatic changes over time, humans have thus often closely monitored the weather as well as natural phenomena influencing everyday life. Resulting documentary evidence from archives of societies enables invaluable insights into the past climate beyond the timescale of instrumental and early instrumental measurements. This information complements other proxies from archives of nature such as tree rings in climate reconstructions, as documentary evidence often covers seasons (e.g., winter) and regions (e.g., Africa, Western Russia, and Siberia, China) that are not well covered with natural proxies. While a mature body of research on detecting climate signals from historical documents exists, the large majority of studies is confined to a local or regional scale and thus lacks a global perspective. Moreover, many studies from before the 1980s have not made the transition into the digital age and, hence, are essentially forgotten. Here, I attempt to compile the first-ever systematic global inventory of documentary evidence related to climate extending back to the Late Medieval Period. It combines information on past climate from all around the world, retrieved from many studies on historical documentary sources. Historical evidence range from personal diaries, chronicles, administrative/ clerical documents to ship logbooks and newspaper articles. They include records of many sorts, e.g., tithes records, rogation ceremonies, extreme events like droughts and floods, as well as weather and phenological observations. The inventory, published as an electronic supplement, comprises detailed event chronologies, time series, proxy indices, and calibrated reconstructions, with the majority of the documentary records providing indications on past temperature and precipitation anomalies. The overall focus is on document-based time series with significant potential for climate reconstruction. For each included record series, extensive meta information and directions to the data (if available) are given. To highlight the potential of documentary data for climate science three case studies are presented and evaluated with different global reanalysis products. This comprehensive inventory promotes the first-ever global perspective on historical documentary climate records and, thus, lies the foundation for incorporating historical documentary evidence into climate reconstruction on a global scale, complementing early instrumental measurements as well as natural climate proxies.

The Miroir des dames in Fifteenth-Century England

This article outlines the circulation and readership of a continental French text called the Miroir des dames in England during the fifteenth century. Three surviving manuscripts can be connected with England: one belonged to the Duke of Bedford, another to Henry VII, and a third was created in England and copied from Bedford's manuscript. Documentary evidence indicates that at least two further manuscripts of the Miroir circulated in England. These manuscripts and references demonstrate the continued reading and copying of French texts in England among a select circle of bibliophiles.