The Translation of Medieval Sources and Historical Reconstruction: a New Perspective on the Problem of the Birth Year of the Bulgarian Tsar John II Assen (1218–1241)

Abstract

The article examines the important topic of the limits of interpretation when studying medieval sources through the prism of a particular example taken from the History of George Akropolites. Without sufficient information to establish the facts, scholars often resort to analyzing separate words and expressions from the source text, whose translation and interpretation may prove decisive in clarifying the information contained within it. As the present paper demonstrates, however, the possibilities of this approach are sometimes limited and do not always allow the study to be carried out to completion. In such cases, it is crucial to clearly distinguish between irrefutable conclusions, on the one hand, and assumptions, on the other. The superimposition of a number of hypotheses and a historical reconstruction based on them may lead to long-term negative consequences for researching a given scientific problem by giving inaccurate ideas about historical events, phenomena and processes, and may mislead the next generations of historians.