Alexey Sergeyevich Khoteev,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Church Periodicals on the Example of the “Polotskie Eparkhial’nye Vedomosti” (“Polotsk Diocesan Gazette”) (1874−1918): An Attempt of Source Analysis
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2026-2-9
For the first time in historiography, the results of a source analysis of the church periodical “Polotskie Eparkhial’nye Vedomosti” (“Polotsk Diocesan Gazette”) (1874−1918) are presented. Brief information is offered on the program, editing, and censorship of this church journal. Issued materials are structured according to the following classification: legislative sources (imperial and synodal decrees, episcopal orders), office documents, reporting and accounting documentation, statistics, then publicist writing (news items, sermons and ceremonial speeches, articles on current topics), obituaries, memoirs, letters. The most characteristic or unique publications are highlighted. Particular attention is given to the regional specificity of the publication, which primarily reflects events in local church and social life. The most informative in this regard are the minutes of the annual diocesan meetings of deputies from the clergy, the documents of the Vitebsk and Polotsk educational district congresses, the reports of the diocesan guardianship, the inspector of church parish schools and women’s religious schools. The most informative sections of the Vedomosti’s publicist section included news items and articles on current topics, including historical publicist. The diversity of genres of the published materials allows the diocesan Vedomosti to be characterized as a significant set of historical sources for studying the legal, social, economic, and cultural activities of the Orthodox clergy.
Publishing: 28/04/2026
The article has been received by the editor on 16/01/2026
How to cite: Khoteev A.S. Church Periodicals on the Example of the “Polotskie Eparkhial’nye Vedomosti” (“Polotsk Diocesan Gazette”) (1874−1918): An Attempt of Source Analysis // Historical Courier, 2026, No. 2 (46), pp. 129−140. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2026/ISTKURIER-2026-2-09.pdf]
Links: Issue 2 2026
Keywords: source studies; church historiography; Orthodox periodicals; Polotsk diocese