This document is the methodological infrastructure of the database: the full timeline of AZR's life, the map of sources and archives, and a database schema in which every fact carries a source field and a reliability field. It is intended to serve as a uniform foundation for all the other documents.
1 · Chronology
Year
Event
Source
1854
Born 24 Shevat 5614 (22 February 1854) in Lyady, Gorki district, Mogilev Governorate
Tidhar
~1872
Married at 18 (to Henya-Leah, daughter of R. Shaul Lapitzkin); moved to Romanova, his father-in-law's town
Tidhar
1875
Called up for conscription into the Tsarist army; recorded as "wanted" (did not report), Gorki-Mstislavl district
JewishGen
1887
Began teaching at the Talmud Torah in Poltava; 17 years of teaching
Tidhar
~1890
Published his first story in book form, "Al HaPerek," and sold it himself from town to town (after his debut as a Hebrew writer, 1889)
Tidhar vol. 1/253
1889
Member of Bnei Moshe (Ahad Ha'am's society)
Tidhar
1897
Delegate to the First Zionist Congress, Basel
Tidhar vol. 1/254
1905/6
Immigrated to the Land of Israel (the Second Aliyah); librarian at "Sha'ar Zion," Jaffa. Conflicting sources: Tidhar = 1906; but Bialik's letters (Lachover ed.) place his departure from Odessa in Kislev 5666 (29 November 1905); see "Bialik's Letters to AZR"
Tidhar / Bialik's letters
1911
Edited the "Yizkor" anthology
Tidhar
~1914
Became a vegetarian (per "Davar" 1934, ~20 years without meat)
Davar, 8 Feb 1934
1919
Published "On the Ruins Wrought by the Halukkah" ("MeHurbanot HaHalukah") → excommunication in Safed and an order to burn the journal
Galili, press
1921
President of the Hebrew Writers' Association; opened the first Writers' Conference
Tidhar
1924
Jubilee volume for his seventieth birthday (editor: A. Zifroni)
Zifroni, 5684 (1924)
1945
Died 5705; buried in the Trumpeldor Cemetery, Tel Aviv
1875 conscription record; list of victims of the Lyady fires, 1850; Communities
open (account)
AZR archive at the NLI
Correspondence, personal documents (NNL_ARCHIVE_AL997008970351205171)
manual review
Genazim Institute
Minutes of the Writers' Association
physical
Central Zionist Archives
Lists/cards of First Congress delegates
physical/restricted
NIAB Minsk, fond 3410
Metrical books (births), Gorki district; Lyady 1858 revision list = ф.2151/оп.1/д.154; the "Mogilev Synagogue" database
archive inquiry
FamilySearch, catalog 708776
Metrical books of Mogilev city (not Lyady)
account
3 · Database Schema
Every fact in the database is stored with a source field and a reliability field, to preserve the methodology (facts only, a source for every detail, contradictions kept distinct):
// fact record
{ "id": "azr-birth-year", "subject": "AZR", "predicate": "birth year", "value": "1854", "sources": ["Tidhar", "Ben-Yehuda", "Geni"], "confidence": "high", // high | medium | low | disputed "relation_type": null, // blood | marriage | community | null "conflict": null // if disputed: both sides' versions
}
Field
Role
confidence
high (verified across multiple sources) · medium (plausible) · low (needs verification) · disputed (open contradiction)
relation_type
Distinguishes blood ties from ties by marriage and communal ties — a founding principle of the database
conflict
In a contradiction: both versions are preserved, not resolved one-sidedly
Guiding principle: a gap = "undocumented," not a guess. The boundary of the bloodline (section 9 in "The Lineage, Full Summary") is an example: four research channels stop at the same point, and this is recorded as the edge of the material, not as a hole to be filled by conjecture.