This collection, to one degree or another, reflects the positive processes characterizing the current state of the theory and practice of domestic source study. Here are articles devoted to a detailed analysis of individual monuments, and in different aspects: historiographic, source study, with a predominance of the methodology of textual analysis of annals, journalistic and legal treatises, source study, with a bias towards archaeography. Little-researched complexes of documents are analyzed, moreover, using specific sociological methods. An overview of folklore materials is given to identify the characteristic features of the historical worldview of the Russian peasantry.