Ще раз про архівний метод і наскільки він є архівним: нотатки на маргінесі студій колег

Abstract

In the twentieth century Archival Science begin to slowly move from humanities to social sciences. This is especially noticeable in the «Anglo-Saxon» countries where archivists have become an integral part of the educational programs of numerous schools of library and information studies. The movement from humanities to social sciences has imprinted on the nature of research and the content of those tasks that had to be solved by archivists. It definitely influenced on the methodology and hence on the theory of Archival Science. The «arsenal» of methods have been replenished due to the need to study the social activity of the archive, in particular its communication, status as links of culture, sign, text, social phenomenon, etc. If at first exemplary design for methods of Archival Science were, for example, History, Philology, Jurisprudence and other «representatives» of humanities, then from the second half of the twentieth century and currently, methodological borrowings of theories of social sciences and information sciences are practiced. Against this background, non-traditional «demarcation lines» of the object-subject sphere, terminological borrowings of Archival Science, interdisciplinary paradigm of knowledge and eclectic clicks of different theories within the limits of one science are practiced. Therefore, the discovery and outline of the locus of origin of Archival Science make it possible to understand the meaning and significance of traditional archival methods, the operation of which has a long history. Speaking about domestic studies on the methodology of Archival Science, we note that most of them also noticeably correlated with the origin of science.

The critical method of history, based on interdisciplinary capabilities, which archival method often uses to achieve «final interpretation» can borrow «external» knowledge. On the other hand, the archival method can integrate the results of the search with the conceptual and methodological «external» understanding of the document and arrive at relevant conclusions. Thus, the archival method uses the «interpretative framework» of the methodology of Archival Science in combination with the methods of other disciplines. Is it possible to solve all the research tasks of archivists using the archival method in the conditions of constant variation of the «archive background»? It is unlikely, but it is the foundation that will support the development of the methodology and the theory of science, to replenish and strengthen it, promoting the traditional ties between the sciences and caring for the involvement of new «allies». The future of Archival Science depends on serious international projects, creative interdisciplinary studies, ongoing interactive dialogue, the integration and globalization of the documentary archival heritage of humanity, the unification of the scientific community, researchers in the social sciences and humanities.