Trandasir, Efim Petrovich, Beetroot Farmer?

[medals73]

Well . . . short of actually finding his name in the relevant decree (high on the universal list of thankless tasks?), I fear we are just engaging in wild guesswork. Guesswork isn't research, as has been pointed out, though it may edge us closer to research (or it may not).

There will always be those who choose to believe in the fairies in the garden and all the evidence in the world may not budge them in that belief nor will it confirm their existence.

[Al-muell]

Guys, the problem is that every historian does a bit of a guesswork, or, euphemistically put, deduction. Heck, there is even a method called "making conclusion out of sources' muteness", which means that we can mae conclusions out of the fact that sources don't say anything about a fact that we know from elsewhere (often the conclusion is that the fact didn't happen, so it was no fact at all, but sometimes it may tell us something more)

The historian may only work on the sources that are available - that's quite obvious. But You have to remember that not every source is reliable. For example - the award citations that we may find in the soviet archives - I have heard of at least one case when a general made his "frontline wife" get an OL for deeds that were a total fantasy. Since the documents are stored and cared for very carefully, we may assume that no fake citations can be found there, however the authentic documents may contain "colorised" or made up data as well as mistakes. And since we have no other sources available (whitness, camera footage etc.) we have to assume the story is authentic, so in other words: guess.

I remember that on one of the first classes on "Introduction to the historical research" course our professor stated that in fact, a historian does not reconstruct the past events, but "constructs events in the past". I can't say I fully agree with that statement, but I can see his point. What we don't know, we have to deduct from the available sources. Deduction is nothing else than guessing the unknown from the data available.

Sure, in this case we have a very few data available, so there's less confidence in the assumptions made (probably beetroot farmer), but they are the only ones we can make with what we have and they are better than nothing.

Sorry for repeating myself, I just wanted to make myself clear.

[Christophe]

I like this discussion. :thumbsup
Wiling to read more. ;)

Ch.

[medals73]

Originally Posted by Al-muell

I remember that on one of the first classes on "Introduction to the historical research" course our professor stated that in fact, a historian does not reconstruct the past events, but "constructs events in the past". I can't say I fully agree with that statement, but I can see his point. What we don't know, we have to deduct from the available sources. Deduction is nothing else than guessing the unknown from the data available.

Yes, I frequently said much the same thing when I taught the same course at our university. Absent a time machine, we cannot fully know the past, and probably not even then (ask an anthropologist). But (and this was in South Carolina) the real challenge was getting through to the students the prodound difference between a "guess (interpretation)" based on evidence and fact and a "guess (lie)" based on faith and what they wanted to be true. For example, most of the white students wanted to believe that slaves were happy under slavery, and so they conjured sources to buttress their longings. Wishing to know the reasons for the award of any labor order is common (and I have many guests who would love to have their history revealed) but our craving shouldn't lead us to assume that (1) because it was awarded on a given date and (2) because someone located one of the lists of awards on that date that (3) he/she must somehow be on that list. The logical and historical dangers are legion.

We should beware the historical equivalent of "creation science".

I have the same problem with collectors of WWI-era German groups: (1) you have a group of medals, (2) you conduct some very difficult research (and that amount of effort couldn't have been in vain, could it) and find someone with the same qualification, so (3) you assume that the group is "his" (ignoring possible others with the identical qualification?).

[PaulR]

Do these decrees have name listings?

[CtahhR]

They will do but currently that information is not available.