The Informative Potential of "Reference Books about the Persons of the St. Petersburg [Petrograd] Merchants ... [1865-1916]" for the Study of the Entrepreneurs of the Waste

Kyzlasova Irina Semenovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9058-1464 Senior Researcher, N.N. Miklouho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Russian Academy of Sciences 119334, Russia, Moscow, ul. Leninsky Prospekt, 32a, office 1914 i_kyzlasova@mail.ru

Smurova Ol'ga Veniaminovna ORCID: 0000-0003-4103-1957 Doctor of History Independent researcher 156022, Russia, Kostroma region, Kostroma, Stopani str., 48, sq. 7 Olga-smurova@mail.ru

The post—reform era and the beginning of the XX century are the time of radical transformations of the entire economic, political and administrative system of Russia. During this period, the country entered the era of industrialization, by the end of the XIX century. modernization processes were especially intensified ^[1], which significantly affected not only industrial production, the agrarian, financial sphere and public consciousness, but also the daily life of the population. They caused the formation of new social strata and groups, as well as the transformation of the former estates, in particular, under the influence of the intensive involvement of peasants in non-agricultural spheres of labor, there was a change in its socio-cultural appearance. The period under consideration is one of the most difficult, not amenable to unambiguous interpretation, as evidenced by the discussion that unfolded about the works of B. N. Mironov ^{[2, 3, 4]}, in which a considerable place is occupied by the problems of the formation of the Russian business class. This makes it relevant to search for new sources and approaches, as well as to consider already known materials in a new perspective.

In Russian historiography, the development of capitalism is considered in various aspects, and for a long time the main attention was paid to the analysis of socio-economic and political history. In recent decades, a multifactorial approach to the study of history has begun to actively develop, taking into account the impact of climatic, geographical, demographic, ethno-cultural, and other factors, among which human is not the least. In this paradigm, modernization cannot be represented as a spontaneous process, it depends on the efforts of specific people, so it is important to study the actors of this process, the direct creators of new forms of production, trade, services, etc. The study of the actions of individuals or small communities will allow you to see how they change reality and affect the course of history.

In the post-reform period, the entrepreneurial stratum of society underwent significant transformations. Representatives of various estates began to be included in its composition much more actively than before, which led to the erosion of the former class framework and the formation of a new social structure in which the social and property status played a decisive role. That is, the Russian bourgeoisie was an extremely heterogeneous class, in which, along with persons belonging to the business elite and associated with the top of the bureaucracy, there are owners of small enterprises, people from the peasantry, philistinism and clergy. This highlights the need to study individual social groups and microgroups that made up Russian business circles. The temporal nature of the socio-property situation, the variability of the economic state and the associated social status also deserves attention.

Thus, in order to obtain a more objective picture of the main patterns and features of the formation of the Russian bourgeoisie, it is necessary to analyze in detail its social composition, using innovative methods and techniques of research of already known sources on the history of domestic entrepreneurship. In particular, it seems productive to turn to the analysis of "Reference books on persons of the St. Petersburg [Petrograd] merchants and other ranks, joint-stock and unit companies and trading houses ... ^[1865-1916]", consisting of 50 volumes ^[5], which recorded immigrants from different provinces of Russia and from abroad, those who have expressed a desire to engage in entrepreneurship in the capital. It is obvious that the most effective tool for working with such a large array of data is an electronic database, however, before starting to create it, it is necessary to compile a kind of catalog of persons recorded in these Books and identify their unifying features. This article presents the characteristics of this unique source, the cognitive potential of which has not yet been sufficiently used by historians to reconstruct the history of the formation of the Russian business class.

As a first step, the task was set to collect a database of biographical information, which is the basic stage of prosopographic research, without which further analysis and interpretation of data, formulation and solution of research tasks are impossible. The object of the study we chose a social group of outsiders — immigrants from the Kostroma and Yaroslavl provinces, whose peasantry made up a significant proportion of the population in the capital and by the nature of their activities had the most tangible impact on both its economy and everyday life. In addition, this is a region from which the departure to work in the capital was traditional, it existed at least since the beginning of the XVIII century. The chronological framework of the study is set by two major historical events: The Great Reform and the beginning of the October Revolution. In the post-reform period, there was an intensification of this phenomenon associated with an increase in the role of monetary dues and the formation of a large category of personally free peasants who did not have sufficient land to run a full-fledged economy, and were forced to look for an opportunity to earn in other, non-agricultural, spheres. The upper frame is due to the fact that the revolutions of 1917 disrupted the stable development of the economy and radically changed the prevailing economic behavior of the population, at the same time the publication of "Reference Books" stopped.

Characteristics of "Reference books""Reference books" were published annually in St. Petersburg (since 1865), Moscow (since 1867) and Odessa (since 1912), where merchant councils existed.

Their appearance was connected with the procedure for obtaining certificates and tickets for conducting trade and fishing activities, including by persons who came from different provinces of Russia and abroad. "Reference books" began to be compiled by order of the foreman of the St. Petersburg merchant class on the basis of information available in the Merchant Council ^{[6, 7]}. In the Introduction to them (it practically did not change throughout the entire period of publication), their purpose was formulated: "they are necessary for references in the production of public elections and in general the resolution of various issues concerning persons of St. Petersburg merchants and other ranks ... who have received certificates" ^{[5, b/p]}. Probably, some small percentage of entrepreneurs did not get into the "Reference Books", since the study of the life history of specific persons reveals that some, evading the payment of duties, deliberately sought to circumvent the existing law. In particular, this is evidenced by the "Journals of general verification of commercial, industrial and handicraft establishments on the sites of St. Petersburg for the 90s of the XIX century." ^[8-10].

The "Reference books" are published in electronic format ^[11], which greatly simplifies working with them: it is possible to automatically search by specified parameters, in particular by geographical names.

History of study"Reference books" attracted the attention of researchers in the mid-1980s in the context of the characteristics of the social composition of the Moscow bourgeoisie at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries ^[12-14].

A little later, their detailed analysis was undertaken by G. N. Ulyanova when studying the personalities of merchants and their charitable activities ^[15-17]. Using the methodological possibilities that opened up, for the first time she used "Reference Books" to compile a database of data on Moscow merchants-benefactors ^{[16, 18]}.

St. Petersburg "Reference books" began to be studied a little later, from the beginning of the 2000s, except for the publication of I. B. Kotler ^[19], who considered them in the philological aspect. M. N. Baryshnikov and A. I. Osmanov turned to this source as part of the study of the social structure of St. Petersburg entrepreneurship in the second half of the XIX–early XX centuries ^[20]. In addition, M. N. Baryshnikov attracted "Reference Books" to characterize the leading groups of St. Petersburg entrepreneurs, the demographic and ethnic composition of the merchant class ^{[21, pp. 96-107]}. A. I. Osmanov investigated this issue in a broader chronological framework (late XVIII–early XX century) ^{[22, 23]}. Moreover, it is quite natural that the multi-generational surnames of famous merchants, for example, such as the Eliseevs, came into the field of view of the researcher. "Reference books" were also used by K. K. Vishnyakov-Vishnevetsky when studying the important issue of the number and role of foreigners in the structure of St. Petersburg entrepreneurship in the post-reform period ^{[24, 25]}.

The possibilities of "Reference books" in the study of the phenomenon of the departure of Kostroma residents to work in the capital, primarily in St. Petersburg, were first considered in 2006 in the article by A. I. Osmanov ^[26], as well as in the dissertation by O. V. Smurova ^[27] and somewhat later in her article, in which, as an example, there was The "Reference Book" of 1913 is analyzed, which allows to characterize the situation before the outbreak of the First World War ^[28]. The use of "Reference books" in historical research is very promising, and attracts more and more supporters ^[29-31], which indicates that their resource is far from exhausted.

Characteristics of "Reference books" as a historical source"Reference Books" is a valuable source on the socio—economic history of Russia in the post-reform period.

They reflected the processes of formation of a new social stratum — the bourgeoisie, which had its roots largely connected with the circle of peasants, burghers and merchants in the sphere of trade and commercial activity. Thanks to this source, it is possible to reconstruct many aspects of the life of a peasant who has achieved a certain level of well-being and realized the dream of social ascent. Although they represent different classes (peasants, burghers and merchants), but, as a rule, the latter also came from peasants, and the "Books" only record different stages of social formation.

The conducted subject-thematic analysis of the information contained in the "Reference Books" allows us to outline a number of issues that can be considered on their basis. We will demonstrate their informative potential by the example of the data contained in them about immigrants from Kostroma province. First of all, the materials of the "Books" give an idea of the district and gender and age composition of the waste workers. The vast majority of them were residents of the north-western counties of the Kostroma province, which confirms the information from printed sources of the pre-revolutionary period. In addition, the natives of Bolshye Soli Posad (brothers K. and S. Popov) were few, but very significant in terms of their activities. Natives of Kineshemsky, Sudislavsky, Yuryevetsky counties are also noted. The gender composition of the owners is extremely asymmetric. Women are very rare among them, as a rule, they replaced husbands who had passed away or were listed as owners purely formally with sons engaged in family business.

"Reference books" allow us to characterize the types of activities that are in demand in St. Petersburg and traditional among waste workers. Kostromichi possessed the skill of wood processing, so among those who received certificates were contractors, owners of carpentry, furniture, parquet, cork workshops, owners of wood yards, as well as holders of a funeral home and a "coffin shop". Also widely practiced types of occupations are painting and furnace craft (masters of furnace work). Shops selling plumbing, wallpaper, and glass accessories also corresponded to the construction orientation. The trade in food and household goods is very common, and there was a certain specialization here. So, among the Chukhlomichi, trade in meat and fish, green goods, vegetables, fruits, wines prevailed, among the Galicians — leather goods, among the Buevlans — fur, hats, caps. It is characteristic that the inhabitants of the localities adjacent to the Yaroslavl province perceived in the waste those types of activities that were characteristic of Yaroslavl residents — tavern fishing. At the same time, there are also quite rare types of entrepreneurship that are not related to the traditional handicraft occupations of the exit county, for example, disinfection and trade in chemical goods, the maintenance of an apartment bureau and a reference office ^{[5, 1887, p. 315]}. The territorial-communal principle of the organization of work in waste is well traced. Natives of the same locality formed a kind of micro-communities with the preservation of forms of interaction characteristic of the peasant community. This provided them with the support of fellow countrymen and additional sources of income, as well as gave stability to economic activity.

According to the "Reference Books", the tactics resorted to by the otkhodniks when searching for their niche in the economic life of the capital are reconstructed in detail. As a rule, they empirically found the most suitable type of activity for themselves, trying different approaches to its organization. For example, initially they arranged a trade in food products, which was natural for a villager, and then, after living in the capital for some time and catching the conjuncture, they switched to trading in non-food products. Or, starting to trade several groups of goods at once, then stopped at one, which, apparently, was the most profitable. There was also an opposite tactic: at first they preferred one type of product, and then gradually expanded the list, while combining food and non-food products. Sometimes trade was combined with usury. One can observe various strategies for the development of trade: in some cases, the number of outlets increased gradually. In others, several stores were opened at the same time, which suggests that the necessary capital was earned by the previous generation.

The study of fishing activity also demonstrates the variability of the attempts made to organize it. There are quite a lot of people who were steadily engaged in one business, and the occupation was associated with the production traditions of the place of departure (woodworking). Along with this, there were also those who, having abandoned their initial activities, became owners of drinking establishments. There were also reverse cases: from trade to contracts. A very common phenomenon is a combination of fishing activities with tavern business. These cases indicate that the accumulation of capital made it possible to switch to diversification of activities in the hope of ensuring greater stability of income and preventing bankruptcy. Moreover, intuitively, the peasants-otkhodniks chose the safest and most accessible type of diversification for them — conglomerate (unrelated or unrelated diversification), which consists of conducting two different, unrelated types of entrepreneurship. This allowed them, if necessary, to redirect profits from one area of activity to another, which at the moment turned out to be more effective. Although in trade, rather, one can notice the predominance of horizontal (related) diversification — an expansion of the range of goods and an increase in the number of stores ^{[32, p. 173]}.

The nature of the occupation largely determined the choice of place of residence. Judging by the "Books", the largest number of Kostroma residents lived in the same areas where they worked: The Spasskaya part, trading in its essence, in which there was a Gostiny Dvor, various rows and markets, separate shops, a large number of taverns, etc.; and the Moscow part — industrial. Along with this, there are Kostromichi-otkhodniks in some other parts of the capital: Rozhdestvenskaya, Liteynaya, Petrogradskaya, etc.

Unfortunately, the "Reference books" do not record financial indicators of trading and entrepreneurial activity (the volume of working capital, net profit), therefore, to judge its effectiveness, one can only focus on information about the change of social status. For example, an entry into the I merchant Guild testified to the successful development and increase in profitability of enterprises. It was this category of otkhodniks, who achieved significant success, who became migrants, acquiring houses in the capital. In addition, the owners of the houses could be contractors and merchants. We emphasize that only a small part of the otkhodniks had their own houses in St. Petersburg, the rest, as a rule, rented a dwelling for a long time, almost throughout their working age. Not only owning a house can serve as an indication of relocation, but also living in St. Petersburg with the whole family. Although among the latter there were those who were not the owner of the house. Finally, another proof of permanent life in the capital is participation in the public life of the city, primarily religious and charitable. From this point of view, the example of the activity of I. I. Kapustin is very indicative, who began his charitable activities in 1865 as an "eternal member" of the Orthodox Goldingent brotherhood and twenty years later was an honorary member of the Demidov House of Charity of Labor and there a church elder, an honorary member of the Intercession Society of Sisters of Mercy, an elected merchant class, a member of St. Petersburg Charitable Society, and also represented in many other organizations ^{[5, 1884, p. 34]}. Such activity, of course, testified to the growing status of the individual, it expanded the circle of his acquaintances, including business, and, ultimately, contributed to the successful conduct of business.

Due to the fact that persons have been recorded in the "Reference Books" for many years and even tens of years, it is possible not only to obtain static information, but also to trace the career of a peasant-otkhodnik, his elevation to a peasant-migrant, i.e. to find out who managed and from what time to switch to philistinism or merchant class. "Reference books" show that social ascent often required the efforts of two generations.

Using the prosopographic method for the analysis of "Reference books"The above description and characteristics of the informative capabilities of the "Reference Books" became possible thanks to the compilation of a sample of information about Kostroma peasants and migrant peasants in St. Petersburg, which is made in Excel spreadsheet format and is a prosopographic data bank.

The prosopographic method has long been successfully used in historical and social research [33-37; 38, pp. 216-222; 39]; numerous publications are posted on the Prosopography Research portal ^[39]. An exhaustive analysis of its application, capabilities and productivity, as well as the characteristics of the interdisciplinary direction formed on its basis, are contained in the fundamental article by Yu. Yu. Yumasheva ^[40]. Prosopographic studies involve the identification and study of a certain group of people who have any common characteristics. Moreover, their isolation can be based on a variety of grounds: geographical origin, belonging to a particular denomination, occupation, social origin, social status, etc. In the case of waste workers, this group is clearly distinguished due to the method of carrying out work related to the relocation of an employee to a locality other than his permanent place of residence.

The essence of the prosopographic approach, according to the authors of one of the most authoritative textbooks on prosopography, is to identify and accumulate information that "goes beyond the life of individuals. It [prosopography] is aimed at the general aspects of people's lives, and not at their individual history. Typical research objectives are social stratification, social mobility, decision-making processes, (non)functioning of institutions, etc." ^{[41, p. 41]}. In other words, records containing information about individual persons should form a common array of information with a single structure, which can subsequently be subjected to a comprehensive analysis.

An important property of the prosopographic data bank is the preservation of information about each individual included in it, which allows, if necessary, reconstructing his life history. The typification of a variety of biographies, in addition to the opportunity to present a collective portrait of the studied community, reveals the general patterns of the formation of this group, its functioning in specific historical conditions and creates a modal biography of the otkhodnik. According to the leading expert on this method, Katherine Keats-Rohan (K. S. B. Keats-Rohan), "despite the fact that every effort is being made to identify individuals among the studied population, the focus is not on the individual as such, but on the whole set of individuals as a whole. Thus, the analysis is based on considering the whole group with reference to its constituent parts; the goal is to explore the interaction between a set of variables in order to understand certain historical processes, and not to create a kind of composite personality designed to represent the whole" ^{[42, p. 143-144]}.

To create a prosopographic data bank, the format and completeness of the information contained in the source is extremely important, since this determines its structure. The greater the number of persons who possess most of the characteristics (categories of repetitive information), the more convincing and reasonable the overall structure looks. From this point of view, "Reference books" are an ideal source, since throughout the entire period of their publication they contained unified information about each person — structurally and thematically homogeneous characteristics. Due to this circumstance, the problem of processing and changing the information of the source document to adapt it to the structure of the data bank is minimized, i.e. it is possible to avoid those actions that Ralph W. Mathisen, professor of history at the University of Illinois, called putting information in a "straitjacket" (a 'data strait-jacket') ^{[43, p. 100]}. This allows indexing, i.e. to identify the parameters inherent in the characteristics, which can be divided thematically and thereby outline possible research directions. Biographical, family, demographic, social and professional topics are highlighted.

The presentation of information in Excel spreadsheet format is explained by the simplicity and convenience of working with them: you can add and update information almost indefinitely, refine it and correct errors. In addition, the program provides an opportunity to conduct a text search by specified parameters, and the availability of analytical tools — to conduct research. In particular, to establish links between the same type of attributes (for example, year of birth and year of arrival in St. Petersburg; place of work and place of residence), as well as the possibility of including information in the form of links to files (for example, illustrations) and hyperlinks ^[44]. With the help of a system of internal hyperlinks, new connections are created within the data array itself, so that kinship, fraternal, neighborly, and business ties are revealed. Currently, data entry continues and tools are being developed for research on specific problems, the formation of samples according to specified criteria, the principles of text search across the entire array of information.

At the moment, the prosopography being created includes more than 200 personalities from Kostroma Province, these are both business owners themselves and their family members. The authors plan to include in it in the future all persons from Kostroma and Yaroslavl provinces mentioned in the "Reference Books", from the beginning of their publication to the termination of publication during the October Revolution, since the informative potential of prosopographic research is largely determined by the volume of available materials, i.e. the number of records collected about specific persons, and also detailing information about each of them.

The study of records relating to different persons and to different years made it possible to determine the entities (main types of objects) and attributes (characteristics, parameters) that make up the content of the data bank. Since the "Reference Books" contain uniformly ordered information, the layout of the data bank follows their structure. A specific person is selected as the main object (entity), and the attributes (fields) are the year of birth; social origin; social status; religion; education; place of exit (separate locality, county, province); date from which the fishing certificate is selected; wife; children; occupation; place of work in St. Petersburg; commercial certificate; estate (merchant) certificate; place of residence in St. Petersburg; availability of real estate; career; awards; charity; source; notes explaining facts and information in need of clarification; illustrations (they will be drawn from other sources). Attributes contain both static (i.e. unique) and dynamic information about each person. Static information is full name, nationality, year of birth, place of birth, social origin and other indicators that have not changed over time. Dynamic information (family composition, occupation, place of work and place of residence in St. Petersburg, availability of real estate, career, awards, etc.) included information that was re-entered in the books when they were changed.

Thus, already at the first stage, the collected information allows you to get both knowledge about real people who made up a considerable part of the capital's business class and reconstruct their life paths, and to collect various statistical data about its composition: social origin, age structure, education, occupation, marital status, household composition, etc.

At the second stage of working with the "Reference Books" and the compiled sample (data bank), the authors propose to import Excel tables into Access, which will form a prosopographic database (DB). Ralph Mathesen identifies nine advantages of prosopographic databases, which generally coincide with the advantages of other electronic databases. Among them are the speed and accuracy of access to information, multiplicity, diversity and ease of access, ease of refinement, ease of obtaining information, etc. ^{[43, p. 98]}. This step will make it possible to use one or another program, depending on the tasks.

At the same time, the generated database will be of a source-oriented type, which implies the creation of an analog model of the source document in order to fully reflect its content. The value of source-oriented databases has already been noted by researchers. It consists in focusing on primary mass historical sources (various population registers); inclusion of the entire array of preserved documents or records; use of a data format that provides storage, import, integration of multi-time resources and their collective use; accessibility to the scientific community. Another important reason determining the priority of source-oriented databases is their resource nature, i.e. the ability to repeatedly refer to them to solve various problems ^{[45, p. 3; 46, p. 250-251]}, in our case — for specific research on the history of the post-reform period of Russia.

Aggregated data can be further investigated with the help of external tools, using the approach proposed by I. M. Garskova "from prosopography to statistics" ^[47]. Thus, it will be possible to make the transition from a large array of microdata about specific individuals to the reconstruction of the collective portrait and the life path of the offshooter — a representative of the small and middle bourgeoisie, i.e. to the macro level, thus using the optics of both a microscope and a macroscope ^{[48, pp. 175-176]}. Based on the database, it is possible to analyze various aspects of the functioning of this social group for a long time, in particular, strategies and dynamics of entrepreneurial activity, its intensification or vice versa decline, types of diversification and inclusion in entrepreneurial activity of other family members, the dynamics of social status in the social structure of society, as well as the socio-cultural consequences of withdrawal (for example, education, training in a profession in demand in the city, changing the circle of marriage partners, etc.).

ConclusionAs a result of the source analysis of the "Reference Books", their subject-thematic content and potential for studying the problems of the formation of the Russian bourgeoisie in the imperial period are revealed.

The prosopographic data bank formed on their basis, including out-of-towners and migrants from Kostroma Province, is an effective tool for studying the composition of the business class of St. Petersburg for more than half a century, the sources of its recruitment, the prevailing areas of capital application, business development strategies. In addition, it is possible to trace the ways of regional and social movements, trends in intergenerational social mobility and identity transformation, marriage and career strategies of the outgoing and displaced people — immigrants from peasants and burghers. The analysis of personalities makes it possible to reconstruct the social appearance of individual age cohorts of otkhodniks and explain the strategies of behavior of the most passionate part of the peasantry for a long time. Thus, the informative possibilities of "Reference Books" are much broader than just a set of fiscal and socio-economic information, on their basis it is possible to reconstruct the real economic, political and socio-cultural processes that took place in Russia.

The prospects for using the collected materials are very diverse, they will serve as the basis for works on sociology that are very much in demand in the current situation in connection with the study of the social composition of society and its changes, social psychology, historical demography, regional and local history, etc., as well as, not least, for genealogical research that is closely related to historical and social memory. The study of pre-revolutionary forms of existence and mechanisms of functioning of small and medium-sized businesses is becoming particularly relevant right now, since they are being reanimated in a transformed form at the present time, playing a significant role in modern conditions.

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