Ševčenko's law

Ševčenko's law or Ševčenko's law of the dog and the forest is a way of describing the tendency of historians to repeat the coverage and the work of previous historians, to the disadvantage of general historical coverage. It was enunciated by the Polish-Ukrainian historian, Ihor Ševčenko.

The situation is compared to a dog and a forest. A dog going into a virgin forest picks a tree at random, and urinates against it. Despite the tree having no intrinsic outstanding attraction as an object for urinating against, other dogs subsequently entering the same forest will show a tendency to urinate against the same tree.

References

• Catherine Cubitt (2004). "3. Images of St Peter: The Clergy and the Religious Life in Anglo-Saxon England". In Paul Cavill. The Christian tradition in Anglo-Saxon England : approaches to current scholarship and teaching. Suffolk: D.S. Brewer. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-85991-841-1. 
• Franklin, Simon, and Shepard, Jonathan, The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200, (Longman History of Russia, Harlow, 1996), p. xxi