DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2022.3.38375

EDN: QFUVQQ

Abstract: Based on the collection of data on more than 20,000 airplane models created in the world in the XX century, and more than 40,000 records on their manufacturing, world airplane production dynamics was reconstructed year by year in pieces and tons. An analysis year by year by aircraft purpose and by leading countries is prepared. The output was calculated not only in pieces, but also by the total mass of structures. The second approach corresponds more precisely to the power of the aviation industry, allowing to differentiate labor and material costs in the production of light and heavy airplanes. These graphs are constructed and published for the first time. The role of leading countries in world production is revealed. It is shown that the decline in production after the First World War more pronounced not in Russia, but in the UK. It is shown that the USSR firmly held the second place in aircraft production in the world from the mid-1930s to 1990, and in the mid-1930s briefly came out on top in the world. The influence of the repressions of the 1930s on the aviation industry of the USSR, expressed in a noticeable decrease in the rate of new aircraft models development, is shown. It was revealed that in the second half of the XX century, the share of combat airplane in production was constantly decreasing, and by 2000 over 80% of the world's airplane industry capacity was occupied by the production of commercial aircraft.

Keywords: industrial history, history of the XX century, statistical analysis, quantitative history, historical databases, repression in the aviation industry, militarization of the economy, airplane purpose, aviation history, airplane industry

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2013.3.7967

Abstract:

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2018.2.24298

Abstract: This article is devoted to the analysis of the social composition and labor structure of the repressed population in the Altai and Oirot Autonomous Oblast in the period from December 1934 to July 1937. On the basis of the available information concerning the types of labor given to the repressed population and the data of the 1939 census, the author developed and analyzed the classification of labor divided into social groups and professional categories. The subject of this study is the social structure of the repressed population in the two regions under consideration on the basis of the developed classification. The author proves the thesis that during the period under study the overwhelming majority of the repressed population were peasants and workers - ordinary Soviet citizens. The article uses general historical methods (historical-comparative method, analysis, structural method) and quantitative methods (statistical analysis) for the examination of this topic. Based on the author's classification of the labor categories of the repressed population, the conducted analysis showed that the total percentage of repressed workers employed in collective farm constructions and petty employees was 66.7% and 68.8% for the Altai and Oirot Autonomous Oblast, respectively. Contrary to the existing opinion in scientific literature on repression as a form of "social cleansing", among "socially dangerous elements" the percentage of repressed people contrary to Soviet society is much smaller, which confirms the thesis put forward by the author during the period under study.

Keywords: Oirot Autonomous Region, classification of employment, USSR population census, social groups, labor structure, Memorial database, books of memory, employment statistics, Altai Region, political repressions

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2018.4.25404

Abstract: In this article, the author examines on a micro-level the securities market in Moscow in the 1910s. The author's focus is placed on the banking segment of this market, for which the main source is the complete set of bookkeeping records on demand loans guaranteed by securities (on-call credit) in the Moscow Bank (Ryabushinskiy Bank) for 1912. The research objects of this study are the clients (369 people), their accounts and the notes on the purchase and sale of securities on these accounts (12,406 transactions). Based on the results of the author's cluster analysis, the clients of the Ryabushinsky Bank differed in their behavioral patterns on the securities market: some clients bought securities only to open an account; others engaged in long-term investments; some sold their securities. In addition to this, the author identified a large and homogeneous in behavior group of stock speculators of different proportions. The stock speculation involved a special technique for buying shares with the subsequent quick sale. The author was able to identify a figurehead among the major clients, on behalf of whom the bank owners were speculating, as well as the group of securities market professionals who had direct access to the Moscow stock exchange and were more likely to serve their own clientele. Thus, the market of bank credit and the securities market were closely intertwined in Moscow in the 1910s, and the author's research was also able to demonstrate that the Moscow intermediaries had direct access to the St. Petersburg securities market, which broadens our understanding of how the regional securities markets worked in the 1910s Russia.

Keywords: the Moscow Stock Exchange, the Russian Empire, credit accounts, bank credit, joint-stock commercial banks, securities market, the Ryabushinskys, shares, bonds, bank lending

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2017.5.24088

Abstract: The subject of this study is the formalized classification of the surviving copies of the medieval Slavic text "Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem", which is the oldest transferred monument of Slavic law and one of the earliest texts in the Slavic language. To resolve the difficulty of textological classification, the authors propose a model based on natural assumptions regarding the process of copying texts and have developed a method using the idea of applying the fuzzy set theory. The advantage of the fuzzy approach is the building of a stemma of the existing copies with their given level of reliability, taking into account their possible contamination. The proposed method is based on a formalized analysis of the fuzzy relation preference matrix, formulated as a result of a pairwise textual comparison of copies. To quantify the contribution of every reading discrepancy, a typology of readings was created, as well as an indirect estimation method was developed. This article describes the first experiment of applying the fuzzy genealogical classification method to a large manuscript tradition (57 copies, about 6500 readings). The obtained results as a whole do not contradict the results of the traditional textological analysis or other formalized methods and allow us to specify the grouping of copies and their interrelations. The developed approach is universal and can be applied to the classification of other manuscript texts.

Keywords: textology, readings, fuzzy classification, contamination, fuzzy relation matrix, stemma, typology, fuzzy set theory, indirect expert method, weight coefficients

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2022.5.38868

EDN: GRMWYY

Abstract: The object of the study is the institute of police officers, introduced in the Russian Empire in the last quarter of the XIX century. The subject of the study is the district land plots created in the framework of the reform in the Kazan and Perm provinces. The purpose of the study is to analyze their quantitative characteristics. The theory of modernization is chosen as a general methodology. To achieve this goal, quantitative methods are used, first of all: formal quantitative, correlation and multidimensional (cluster) data analysis. The basis for the quantitative analysis was the "Information" on the distribution of provinces into the district plots (1878), deposited in the Russian State Historical Archive. The main conclusions of the study are the idea that the situation of the police constables of the Perm province was much worse than in Kazan, and the work of the constables was hindered by a significant number of the population of 1/3 of the police stations. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian historiography, correlation and multidimensional cluster analysis by the k-means method was used to analyze the uryadnik sites of the Russian Empire. As a result, for the first time, the classification of district plots was created. 1) sparsely populated; 2) Kazan-type; 3) scattered; 4) overpopulated; 5) too large; 6) scattered and overpopulated district plots were identified.

Keywords: police reform, police guard, Volga Region, correlation analysis, formal quantitative analysis, cluster analysis, Urals, Russian Empire, county, modernization

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2017.1.20339

Abstract: The subject of research is the soil resources of Valdai, the territory of which was included in the Derevskaya piatina of the Novgorod land in the 15th - 16th centuries, and in the 18th century in the Valdai district of the Novgorod province. Based on comparable material from the first Russian land cadasters and the Economic notes to the material of the General Land Survey, the author investigates the quality of the land used for arable farming and the yield of basic grain-crops, as well as the features of the agricultural mastering of this region. In the cadasters of the 16th century the land is named "rich", "medium" and "poor". This terminology is still incomprehensible because of its vagueness. At the same time, in the Economic Notes to the General Land Survey there is some information about the composition of the soil, agricultural cultures and the land's fertility. Today, the comparison of the information about the quality and yield of the lands allows us to find out what kind of lands was cultivated in a greater degree. For the analysis of the mass data contained in the cadasters from the middle of the 16th century and the Economic Notes to the General Land Survey at the end of the 18th century, the author used the quantitative methods of research. For the creation of a database containing information on the land's fertility in the second half of the 18th century in the Valdai district of the Novgorod province, Access 2010 was used, which allowed to tabulate data, to conduct a search of the records, to filter data, and to input inquiries in the database for information retrieving. While working with the mass material from the Economic Notes in order to include the necessary information in the database it was necessary to use the method of continuous selection. The research itself is based on the local approach to the understanding of the role of nature in the history of humanity. The created database allowed the author to estimate the quality of the soil in the Valdai district during the second half of the 18th century and for the first time to compare the obtained data with the information on the quality of the land in the middle of the 16th century. It was discovered that in spite of the diversity of soil in the Valdai district, the silt-covered soils were predominantly used in the 18th century despite the fact that they needed fertilizes. The most part of grain-growing was sowed on light soils - silt-covered with sand and silt-covered with stony sand. To a greater degree the sizable and good harvests of grain-crops in the Valdai district during the 18th century were recorded on grey-sandy soils which were named sod-podzol soils in the Economic Notes. However, the amount of plough-lands with grey-sandy soil made up less than one third part from the general array. On the basis of this study the author comes to conclusion that during the 16th -18th centuries new plough-lands gradually appeared in the Valdai district, while the old ones were ploughed off, and therefore perceptions about the richness and leanness of the land were changing.

Keywords: crop yield, cereals, priming, soil, land quality, scribe books, General Land Survey, anthropogenic factor, Valdai, natural environment

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2017.1.68594

Abstract: The subject of research is the soil resources of Valdai, the territory of which was included in the Derevskaya piatina of the Novgorod land in the 15th - 16th centuries, and in the 18th century in the Valdai district of the Novgorod province. Based on comparable material from the first Russian land cadasters and the Economic notes to the material of the General Land Survey, the author investigates the quality of the land used for arable farming and the yield of basic grain-crops, as well as the features of the agricultural mastering of this region. In the cadasters of the 16th century the land is named "rich", "medium" and "poor". This terminology is still incomprehensible because of its vagueness. At the same time, in the Economic Notes to the General Land Survey there is some information about the composition of the soil, agricultural cultures and the land's fertility. Today, the comparison of the information about the quality and yield of the lands allows us to find out what kind of lands was cultivated in a greater degree. For the analysis of the mass data contained in the cadasters from the middle of the 16th century and the Economic Notes to the General Land Survey at the end of the 18th century, the author used the quantitative methods of research. For the creation of a database containing information on the land's fertility in the second half of the 18th century in the Valdai district of the Novgorod province, Access 2010 was used, which allowed to tabulate data, to conduct a search of the records, to filter data, and to input inquiries in the database for information retrieving. While working with the mass material from the Economic Notes in order to include the necessary information in the database it was necessary to use the method of continuous selection. The research itself is based on the local approach to the understanding of the role of nature in the history of humanity. The created database allowed the author to estimate the quality of the soil in the Valdai district during the second half of the 18th century and for the first time to compare the obtained data with the information on the quality of the land in the middle of the 16th century. It was discovered that in spite of the diversity of soil in the Valdai district, the silt-covered soils were predominantly used in the 18th century despite the fact that they needed fertilizes. The most part of grain-growing was sowed on light soils - silt-covered with sand and silt-covered with stony sand. To a greater degree the sizable and good harvests of grain-crops in the Valdai district during the 18th century were recorded on grey-sandy soils which were named sod-podzol soils in the Economic Notes. However, the amount of plough-lands with grey-sandy soil made up less than one third part from the general array. On the basis of this study the author comes to conclusion that during the 16th -18th centuries new plough-lands gradually appeared in the Valdai district, while the old ones were ploughed off, and therefore perceptions about the richness and leanness of the land were changing.

Keywords: crop yield, cereals, priming, soil, land quality, scribe books, General Land Survey, anthropogenic factor, Valdai, natural environment

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2020.2.31837

Abstract: The research subject of this article is the mathematical modeling of the process of spatial settlement among medieval rural populations. Due to the heterogeneous features of land in different regions, the distribution of populations is not uniform. Along with the system of ordinary settlements, the presented model examines the system of the centers serving them. As such, there are settlements that have concentrated on themselves the functions of serving the entire surrounding population (for example, tribute collection centers or parish centers). The model assumes that the distribution of the system of centers is not uniform. The aim of the developed model is to describe the laws of such settlement systems. In order to achieve this goal, an innovative variational approach is developed, the essence of whichconsists in considering the process of historical settlement as a self-developing system, characterized by its parameters and needs. The use of the mathematical methods of variation calculations within the framework of this approach allowed the author to find the parameters of the existing systems for establishing centers and to quantitatively describe the relevant phenomena occurring within them. The testing of the proposed model is carried out on the basis of one rural settlement structure from the late 15th - early 16th centuries (Derevskaya Pyatina on the territory of Novgorod). A high degree of correspondence in the obtained theoretical results from empirical data allows the author to consider mathematical modeling as an adequate and convenient auxiliary tool for studying the process of historical settlement.

Keywords: population density function, pogost centers, calculus of variations, human settlement system, cadastral book, mathematical modelling, functional, correlation coefficient, hierarchy of centers, self-organization

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2020.4.33722

Abstract: This article conducts historiographical and quantitative analysis of the prime economic media in the Russian Empire of the late XIX – early XX centuries – “Journal of Finance, Industry and Trade”. The journal was issued from 1885 to 1917 being the official publication of the Ministry of Finance. The materials published in the journal contain reference and analytical information. High quality of the analytical articles was ensured by competent authors – prominent national economists of that time. The goal consists in studying the dynamics of reflection of complex economic processes that unfolded in the prewar 1913 in the journal. Characteristic is given to the composition of the team of authors in 1913. Quantitative analysis of the content of all 52 issues is conducted for the first time in accordance with the dynamics of quarterly distribution of the topics of analytical publications. The author suggests possible interpretations of changes in thematic specialty of the journal throughout the year, and formulates a hypothesis on correlation between these changes and the dynamics of industrial stock index developed by L. Borodkin and G. Perelman by analogy with the famous Dow Jones Industrial Average. Decline in journal’s interest to the industrial problems is noticed until the fourth quarter of 1913; then the favorable conjuncture on the oil market explains the frequency of occurrence of the category of “industry” due to the articles dedicated to oil industry.

Keywords: source analysis, authors of articles, Vestnik of Finance, mass media, pre-war year, economic processes, quantitative methods, rubricator, thematic categories, dynamics

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2017.1.21194

Abstract: The article examines the issue of the genealogical classification preserved in the copies of Medieval texts. For its understanding the authors propose an approach based on the use of the theory of fuzzy sets. This approach utilizes the matrix of the fuzzy preference relation, which is founded on the pairwise comparison of the lists with each other. Each element of this matrix is the summation of its components, whose value is determined by the end set of different value factors (types of lection). These factors are considered in their total sum in the form of weight coefficients, which are determined through expert means. In order to eliminate the unavoidable subjectivity in evaluating them, the authors of this work developed an indirect method of expertise. The aim of the proposed method lies in that the given factors are compared pairwise in their value with each other. This way the initial complex problem is substituted by the entirety of more simple ones. Meanwhile the experts operate not with quantitative, but qualitative evaluations. The proposed new approach of expert evaluation allows in a formal way to assess the value of one or another discrepancy in the text. Thus the use of the proposed method plays a key role in the fuzzy classification of the list of Medieval compositions (establishing a genealogical stemming). The use of the examined method is illustrated on a specific example of discrepancy typology.

Keywords: typologyafuzzy classification, fuzzy relation matrix, function of accessory, weight coefficients, stemmatology, typology, theory of fuzzy sets, indirect expert method, discrepancies, text analysis

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2017.1.68595

Abstract: The article examines the issue of the genealogical classification preserved in the copies of Medieval texts. For its understanding the authors propose an approach based on the use of the theory of fuzzy sets. This approach utilizes the matrix of the fuzzy preference relation, which is founded on the pairwise comparison of the lists with each other. Each element of this matrix is the summation of its components, whose value is determined by the end set of different value factors (types of lection). These factors are considered in their total sum in the form of weight coefficients, which are determined through expert means. In order to eliminate the unavoidable subjectivity in evaluating them, the authors of this work developed an indirect method of expertise. The aim of the proposed method lies in that the given factors are compared pairwise in their value with each other. This way the initial complex problem is substituted by the entirety of more simple ones. Meanwhile the experts operate not with quantitative, but qualitative evaluations. The proposed new approach of expert evaluation allows in a formal way to assess the value of one or another discrepancy in the text. Thus the use of the proposed method plays a key role in the fuzzy classification of the list of Medieval compositions (establishing a genealogical stemming). The use of the examined method is illustrated on a specific example of discrepancy typology.

Keywords: typologyafuzzy classification, fuzzy relation matrix, function of accessory, weight coefficients, stemmatology, typology, theory of fuzzy sets, indirect expert method, discrepancies, text analysis

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2020.2.32033

Abstract: The article considers the difficulties in formulating the correct methodological approaches for studying the Soviet print mass media. The article's research subject is the source study specifics of the sectoral newspaper of the USSR food industry during the first and second Five-Year Plans, which influence the choice of methods for analyzing this source. The author proposes an approach to studying this periodical based on a combination of classical sources and computerized analysis of editorial texts in the MAXQDA 2020 program, providing a brief description of the possibilities offered by the new version of this program to scholars studying media texts. The article concludes that the study of such a multifaceted historical source as the branch newspaper Pishchevik ("For the Food Industry", "Food Industry") should be carried out using content analysis, which will systematize the dynamics of changes in the agenda of one of the largest industries of the USSR in 1928–1937. The article considers the difficulties in formulating the correct methodological approaches for studying the Soviet print mass media. The article's research subject is the source study specifics of the sectoral newspaper of the USSR food industry during the first and second Five-Year Plans, which influence the choice of methods for analyzing this source. The author proposes an approach to studying this periodical based on a combination of classical sources and a computerized analysis of editorial texts in the MAXQDA 2020 program, providing a brief description of the possibilities offered by the new version of this program to scholars studying media texts. The article concludes that the study of such a multifaceted historical source as the branch newspaper Pishchevik ("For the Food Industry", "Food Industry") should be carried out using content analysis, which will systematize the dynamics of changes in the agenda of one of the largest industries of the USSR in 1928–1937.

Keywords: narrative sources, historical source, food industry, Soviet industrialization, first Five-Year Plans, Soviet newspapers, periodicals, content analysis, historical information science, MAXQDA

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2023.1.39571

EDN: GMGWPV

Abstract: The study deals with the most significant crisis in the history of Russian banking, which occurred when 49 municipal banks and 13 mutual credit societies went bankrupt from 1882–1889. Historians have explained the causes of the crisis in various ways; however, these explanations are not fully verifiable due to lack of consolidated quantitative data on operations for municipal banks and mutual credit societies. Therefore, a new quantitative data set on these credit institutions was composed for this study. Comparison of the dynamics of joint-stock commercial banks, municipal banks, and mutual credit societies for 1875–1895 revealed that the decline in municipal banks was particularly sharp and deep, and it did not correlate with the dynamics of other banking institutions. This paper proves that the municipal banks crisis was caused by the accumulation of bad loans, poor financial stability, and the lack of proper control by municipal councils and the Ministry of Finance. Overcoming of these problems launched a new phase of banking regulation and supervision in the Russian Empire, which has been underestimated in historiography. The “pushing out” of municipal banks from risky operations was necessary to protect the financial interests of the municipal self-government associated with these banks. However, the crisis also had a pronounced regional perspective because most of the bankruptcies occurred in the Central Black Earth Region, and therefore the crisis was caused by a contraction in agricultural exports due to falling prices, combined with local crop failures in the first half of the 1880s.

Keywords: Central Black Earth Region, historical statistics, banking supervision, banking regulation, credit risk, banking crisis, commercial banks, mutual credit societies, municipal banks, Russian Empire

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2017.6.25187

Abstract: The subject of this study is the natural resources of the peasant economy in the Borovichi Uyezd of the Novgorod Governorate which became the basis for its existence and land use throughout the 16th-18th centuries. The sources on which this work is based are the Reference Scribal Books of the Derevskaya Pyatina from the middle of the 16th century and the Economic Notes to the General Survey of the uyezd's land from the end of the 18th century. The study pays particular attention to the information contained in the first Russian cadastres concerning the animal and plant world, woodlands, quality and fertility of the land. The author used quantitative research methods. To solve the posed research problem with the aid of the Access 2010 interface, an electronic database was created based on the information from land cadastres of the 16th and 18th centuries and containing data on the composition of the forest and fauna world and soil resources of the Borovichi Uyezd. In order to extract information from the material of the Reference Scribal Books and Economic Notes, the method of continuous sampling was used. The research's novelty lies in its comparative analysis of the information regarding natural resources for the duration of several centuries on comparable territories. The main conclusion of this study is that the natural resources of the Borovichi Uyezd were more scarce compared to neighboring territories. This is evidenced by the species composition of animals and birds, of which no rare or valuable species were recorded in the uyezd's forests, as well as the rare occurrence of large animals. The mixed forests of the Borovichi Uyezd were not much different in its composition of trees from the neighboring uyezds, but the timber forest was of a lesser value. The soil of the uyezd in the main massif was considered average in terms of its fertility.

Keywords: peasant economy, birds, animals, forests, natural resources, Reference Scribal Books, cadastres, General Survey of Land, Novgorod Governorate, Borovichi Uyezd

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.2.12567

Abstract:

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.2.65476

Abstract: The article addresses the system of indicators, which characterize the course of the Soviet government’s confessional policy in the period from 1920s to the 1960s in the Kuzbass. The set of considered indicators includes structural elements and practical ties of the Christian communities, among which: the system of governing, the social and ethnic stratification, the gender and age structure, the resettlement of the members of religious communities, as well as the confessional and ethnoreligious system of interaction, which was established between communities and subjected to change under the influence of the governmental policy and the political situation of the moment. The methodological basis for this article is the systematic approach that regards religious communities as functional, hierarchically subordinated systems, endowed with complex internal structures, and for which the policy of the state acted as an “external environmental factor”. A correlation analysis has been applied to estimate the representativeness of the data in the complete records of the religious communities in the Kuzbass. And the historical-comparative methodology, in a diachronic manner, has been adopted to determine the set of structural elements and the practical ties of the religious communities that act as indicators of the state’s confessional policy. The scientific novelty of this work lays in the introduction of mass sources, constituted by the complete records of the protestant religious communities in the Kuzbass from 1920 to the 1960s, as well as the presented system of indicators, which include a series of structural-functional elements of the religious communities, allowing for an assessment of the direction and effectiveness of the state’s confessional policy in this specific time period. This research shows that a series of socio-demographic determinants of the religious communities, designated in the article, belong to the set of the most r eliable indicators.

Keywords: government confessional policy, Evangelical Christians-Baptists, complete records of the religious communities members, policy assessment indicators, the Kuzbass Protestants, confessional interaction, ethnoreligious interaction, protestant community stratification, religious community demography, religious people in the Soviet period.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2019.6.31310

Abstract: The article is focused on the little-studied problem of how Russian commercial banks, private and state-run, credited agricultural production enterprises and agricultural trade in the second half of the 19th century. The dominant economic theory during those years did not consider agriculture to be part of the commercial banks' responsibility, and this industry's clientele affiliation is poorly reflected in banking statistics. However, the actual contribution of banks in agricultural regions met the urgent needs of the economy. The author analyzes banking practices for servicing wholesalers and landlords using archived and published material of the Oryol Commercial Bank (1872-1908) and the branches of the State Bank of the Russian Empire operating in the governorates of Central Chernozem, South and West of European Russia. The article calculates the turnover of the two banks' operations related to providing services to agriculturers for 1866-1901. Based on this data, the author reveals a protracted economic crisis in the Oryol Governorate in the 1880s, linked to a fall in agricultural prices, unfavorable railway tariffs, and a series of low crop yields. As a result, in the 1890s, the Oryol Commercial Bank had expanded its network of branches outside the Oryol Governorate. Sharp fluctuations in the 1880s weighted down operations of exporting goods, while operations related to local consumption remained relatively stable, which disproves the so-called concept of “hungry exports”. The policy of the State Bank, which set out to expand banking services to agriculture in the 1890s, must be evaluated through the fact that similar operations undertaken by a private bank were significantly more developed in the territory under examination.

Keywords: credit against commodities, discount of bills of exchange, agricultural trade, grain trade, agriculture, state bank, commercial banks, historical statistics, Oryol governorate, Central Black Earth Region

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2022.6.39231

EDN: SWDBVD

Abstract: This study deals with the causes of the crisis of municipal banks in the Russian Empire in the 1880s. The focus is on the most difficult years of 1882–1887, when 39 banks were closed. In total, 60 out of 287 banks (more than 20%) left the market between 1878 and 1893. Municipal banks were accountable to city councils, which were responsible for these banks’ operations; therefore, their success or failure had a serious impact on cities’ fortunes. This study is based on the public accounting statements of municipal banks from 1877–1894. Through a financial analysis, it proves that the crisis was largely caused by the weak stability of the banks’ operations. Many banks did not employ sufficient care to insure the risks of their operations in case of a possible crisis, throwing an excessively large proportion of their highly liquid assets into circulation. This behavior left them virtually defenseless against a panic withdrawal of deposits. Similar trends were observed in many banks, but the surviving banks were on average more conservative than those that eventually closed during the crisis. By the mid-1890s, the financial stability of municipal banks had markedly improved, which was largely the result of tightening regulations.

Keywords: financial stability analysis, banking regulation, bank run, banking crisis, municipal banks, commercial banks, liquidity, public financial statements, historical statistics, Russian Empire

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.3.13746

Abstract:

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.3.65795

Abstract: Keeping social peace and preventing complex, lengthy labor conflicts in factories during the years of World War I became one of the crucial priorities of the owners and managers of industrial companies. Many of them were willing within reason to meet the demands of the workers on improving their economic situation. In the first place, the article exposes how the workers’ demands, put forward individually or during strikes, were influencing the entrepreneurs and factory administrators’ decisions to increase work wages and narrow its differentiation level. Secondly, the author examines which complementary measures were undertaken by the managers in order to provide the workers with items of first necessity in case of the prolongation of the war. Thirdly, the article determines the level of differentiation in textile workers’ wages in two periods of time (June 1914 and June 1916) to define how much this indicator changed during two years of war based on workers’ qualification level (profession), age category (adults, adolescents, children), and gender. This research is founded on archival material, which permits to analyze labor conflicts and workers’ economic condition during the years of World War I on a micro level (in a series of individual companies). As well, this study uses statistical methods (including the correlational analysis). The article demonstrates how under the influence of workers’ demands there was an increase in their wages and a decrease in their differentiation during World War I. During these years, the welfare policy of enterprises, beside wage increases in correlation to costs of living, included other elements, some of which proved effective and were consequently adopted by the government which sought to develop efficient measures for keeping order and discipline in industrial companies – a particularly critical issue in a time of war.

Keywords: labor conflicts, textile-workers, World War I, workers’ economic condition, differentiation of work wages, correlation index, strikes, enterprise social welfare, factory shop, workers’ demands.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2013.3.62983

Abstract: The article describes the experience of content analysis of the “For Industrialization” newspaper editorials from 1932 to 1937 – the closing years of respective five-year plans. Quantitative analysis of articles content showed the changes from the first five-year plan to the second: during the first five years, the majority of entries were related to economy, while the second five-year plan seems to have increased the popularity of the issues of social and political nature, as well as those related to ideological upbringing. On the one hand the article contains realistic descriptions of industrialization process and on the other hand it reveals the main vectors of ideological influence on the reader’s mass consciousness.

Keywords: history, USSR, industrialization, 1930s, content analysis, press, Soviet periodic, first five-year plans, USSR Supreme Economic Council.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.4.13928

Abstract:

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.4.66119

Abstract: The author analyses the repressive mechanisms of the period, disclosed on the basis of a study of archival material. The first part of the article consists of a brief historiographical overview of the studies on this subject. The dominant opinion in scientific literature is that regional officials, usually following central instructions, fabricated investigational materials on the principles convenient for their regional authorities. The second part is dedicated to the examination of the repression dynamics on the main social groups: agriculturalists, industrial workers and officials. The dynamics’ data is divided by years and the author attempts to thus distinguish small repression campaigns of regional scale. The author comes to the conclusion that in most cases the repressions were conducted within one social group, with investigation files containing examples of interceding lines of repression of various social groups; however, the existing data is not enough to expose definite tendencies. Agricultural workers and administrators suffered most from the repressions. On the basis of archival investigation files, in conjunction with the deductive and inductive methods, the author distinguishes three repression mechanisms: “bottom-up”, “top-down”, and their synthesis – “mixed” type. In the given timeframe, the “mixed” type was the most common: it was characteristic for group investigations, falsified in a significant number of cases.

Keywords: repressions, regions, Altay, “memorial book”, database, investigation files, social groups, dynamics, campaigns, mechanism of repression.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.5.14668

Abstract: The article reviews the dynamics of the resettlement movement on the territories of the Tobolsk and Tomsk governorates in 1906–1911. It presents a comparative analysis of two Siberian lands and examines the influence of external factors on the nature of the resettlement. The historiographical study sheds light on the various points of view regarding the nature of the resettlement policy, however the widely-accepted conclusion holds that the resettlement of peasants from European Russia to Siberia made for a significant rise in the economy of the given region, which was reflected in the flourishing of grain, mill productions, butter industry, and also in the development of stock-breeding. The source study allowed the detection of the main laws and decrees that accompanied the resettlement policy. On the basis of the resettlement dynamics to the Tomsk and Tobolsk governorates, the author comes to the conclusion that owing to its geographic location and environmental particularities the Tomsk governorate was more densely populated. There also existed true resettlement in comparison to the Tobolsk territories, where there is resettlement information that does not correspond to reality. In the course of the analysed period, there was an outflow of settlers from the Tobolsk governorate to the Tomsk one, especially to the lands of the Altai mountain region. Nevertheless, there were a high percentage of those returning to their homeland, since migrants did not have enough material sources for the establishment of households in new places. However, despite certain problems implementing the resettlement legislation, based on the quantity of settled migrants and the data on the economic development of the region, the resettlement policy to the regions of Western Siberia in 1906–1911 can be considered as a successfully achieved part of the agrarian reforms.

Keywords: dynamics, legislation, Altai region Cabinet, Tobolsk governorate, Tomsk governorate, Siberia, P. A. Stolypin, resettlement, comparative analysis, Siberian economic development

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2014.5.66341

Abstract: The article reviews the dynamics of the resettlement movement on the territories of the Tobolsk and Tomsk governorates in 1906–1911. It presents a comparative analysis of two Siberian lands and examines the influence of external factors on the nature of the resettlement. The historiographical study sheds light on the various points of view regarding the nature of the resettlement policy, however the widely-accepted conclusion holds that the resettlement of peasants from European Russia to Siberia made for a significant rise in the economy of the given region, which was reflected in the flourishing of grain, mill productions, butter industry, and also in the development of stock-breeding. The source study allowed the detection of the main laws and decrees that accompanied the resettlement policy. On the basis of the resettlement dynamics to the Tomsk and Tobolsk governorates, the author comes to the conclusion that owing to its geographic location and environmental particularities the Tomsk governorate was more densely populated. There also existed true resettlement in comparison to the Tobolsk territories, where there is resettlement information that does not correspond to reality. In the course of the analysed period, there was an outflow of settlers from the Tobolsk governorate to the Tomsk one, especially to the lands of the Altai mountain region. Nevertheless, there were a high percentage of those returning to their homeland, since migrants did not have enough material sources for the establishment of households in new places. However, despite certain problems implementing the resettlement legislation, based on the quantity of settled migrants and the data on the economic development of the region, the resettlement policy to the regions of Western Siberia in 1906–1911 can be considered as a successfully achieved part of the agrarian reforms.

Keywords: dynamics, legislation, Altai region Cabinet, Tobolsk governorate, Tomsk governorate, Siberia, P. A. Stolypin, resettlement, comparative analysis, Siberian economic development