DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2017.3.22964

Abstract: The article allocates particular attention to the source study of the documental complex of the "Letters of the Chernosotentsy and other people" from the aspect of their informational value in the reconstruction of the perception by the letters' authors of the role, authority and significance of the Union, the publication of "the Russian Znamya" and their leaders in solving critically important to the writers issues, disputed conflict situations and daily struggles. The analysis of the information contained in these letters was conducted from the point of view of the communicative approach: messages are examined as consisting of three components: author, transmitted message, addressee, which has allowed to analyze them in the context of a certain dialogue between contemporaries and the Union, including the examination of the relation of the correspondents to the addressees. The source study analysis included a series of stages: classification of correspondence according to addressee, characteristics of the "types" of messages depending to who's name they were addressed, analysis of the informational value of the messages for the study of the perception of the Union by its contemporaries. The examination of the letters has allowed to make the following conclusions: in the first place, the correspondents, as a rule, deliberately chose a particular addressee for their messages. The Union of the Russian People was for them an organization whose heads and governing bodies were well-known to them. Secondly, the authors shared the main ideas of the Union, which they clearly demonstrated through their messages. The correspondents sought those powers’ protection that were close to their views. Thus, the analysis of the perception of the Union by the letters' authors offers information not only for the reconstruction of the image of the Union in the eyes of its contemporaries, but also provides the basis to analyze the social mood in general. Thirdly, the characteristic trait of the letters is the paternalism actively broadcast by the authors that points to the preservation of the behavioral stereotypes characteristic of patriarchal society, including such a component as the desire to delegate the worry of solving one's daily problems to the political power capable of protecting and solving the conflict "in fairness".

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22922

Abstract: The subject at hand is complexes of documents “The Letters by the Black Hundreds and Other People” stored in the archival fund of the Russian People Union (The Russian Federation State Archive, F. 116) as a source to study public moods in the Russian Empire in the early 20th c. The employment of the complexes mentioned in a historical study poses a number of source studies problems. These are an authentic interpretation of texts; the development of letter content analysis methods; the analysis of informational value of letters for public moods study. The use of mass data demanded the employment of formalized analytical methods allowing revealing hidden information of “The Letters by the Black Hundreds and Other People” and increasing their informational return. Summarizing the source studies research based on content analysis one can say that the complexes of documents “The Letters by the Black Hundreds and Other People” are a valuable source for studying public moods in the Russian Empire in the early 20th c. Moreover, having aggregated all the opinions of correspondents related to political and socio-economic situation in the country within semantic categories and having counted their occurrence provided for reconstructing stable mental dispositions of the authors which can be characterized as conservative and monarchial ones.