DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.23010

Abstract: The authors mainly focus on the aims and goals of Historical Information Science journal that continues to publish articles within the frames of this interdisciplinary domain as it originally did 5 years ago in a different format though. In Russia this domain has been related to computer technologies and mathematical methods use in history and education for 25 years already. The authors state that its basis is a complex of theoretical and applied knowledge needed to develop, process and analyze electronic versions of various historical sources. Characterizing methods and technologies of historical information science the authors note the broadening of their potential due to the “microcomputer revolution” of 1980-1990s and two decades that followed. The conclusion is that the main issue addressed by historical information science specialists is the question: How do new methods and technologies enrich historical studies? This question is sure to be the key one in new issues of Historical Information Science journal.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22195

Abstract: The article describes a new online project presenting the statistics of the Russian Empire foreign trade in 1896–1917. The project has electronic tables with data on exports and imports throughout the period understudy and some parameters can boast a longer time period. In particular, it is the first time when consolidated time series has been published that cover the volume of foreign trade with all the countries and regions throughout the whole registration period (since 1827). The souce problems are adressed as well. Statistics of the project and the structure of on-line tables are discribed in detail. This online project is the first step to publish the consolidated statistics of the Russian Empire foreign trade. These statistics were published annually and their study involves time series analysis. In 1902 a book of collected statisctics was published, but it requires substantial amendments which haven't been done since. Now this work is planned to be completed and data tables are already available on the project website.  

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22185

Abstract: The article studies the State Bank of the Russian Empire in its early period in 1860s – 1880s. The bank is studied as an example of government banks of the 17th-20th centuries that were gradually evolving into a full value central bank in the second half of the 19th century. The branch network statistics and gross loans in regions as well as the average loan rate calculation method are studied. Particular attention is paid to the following State Bank’s functions. Firstly, it is the key role in short terms credit system development in Russia or modern banking associated with commercial banks because the State Bank is the biggest commercial multibranch bank in the second half of the 19th century. Secondly, it is the credit function of the State Bank which aspects are loan (non-cash) issue, loans to private banks and the function of lender of last resort for banks as well as firms and companies that is characteristic of the period of central bank development. Thirdly, it is the State Bank’s core role within the frames of the developing national payment system. Fourthly, it is the public debt management, in particular, the State Bank’s role in placement of government securities with the help of credit instruments. These functions of the main commercial bank of the country had an important integrating impact on regional financial markets of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. In this article the State Bank’s functions are studied on the basis of statistical sources. The source for the State Bank’s statistics is annual reports which have not been systematically analyzed especially as far as regional aspect is concerned. Loan rate analysis techniques have not been tested for these data. That is why the article emphasizes source studies aspects of the State Bank’s regional statistics. GIS analysis is a special part of the paper. As far as regions are concerned, the branches of the early State Bank were located in the biggest financial centers (“anchor points” that provided for local financial markets’ development) as well as agricultural export zones in the central and southern parts of European Russia. As a result, new ways to study the early State Bank begin to take shape. These are integration of financial markets, specific character of bookkeeping at branches, difference between official and real loan rates.  

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22145

Abstract: The article presents the results of analysis of long time data series reflecting the intensity of peasant disturbances in various guberniyas of European Russia in the second half of the 19th century by means of self-organized criticality theory . The types of peasant protests are presented that depend on the regularity of protest intensity fluctuations in different guberniyas. It has been found that the population density and the average allotment of land exerted the most powerful influence on the formation of protest potential. A hypothesis has been proposed and substantiated that the presence of pink noise in changes of peasant disturbances intensity means that most of regional communities were in a critical state. This demonstrates serious risks of system stability throughout the period understudy. Inner social environment and structural features existed that led to leaping fluctuations and unexpected increase of peasant disturbances. Regional communities were prone to uprisings under the influence of quite usual factors.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22929

Abstract: Dynamics of the strike movement in Russia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries is analyzed. Multiple statistical data on workers’ fighting for their rights in this period provides for effective use of mathematical modeling to better understand the causes for workers’ protest activity increase that was especially high in 1903. In particular, one can evaluate the role of activists in the strike movement development as well as the influence of repressions on activists’ popularity. The mathematical model by Andreev A.Y. and Borodkin L.I. has been modified to describe the interaction of authorities, activists and workers. The use of the modified model to describe the strike movement dynamics is given as an example. To test the model’s adequacy the calculation data were compared with corresponding statistical indicators. The results demonstrate that the model is rather good at describing the changing strike activity in Russia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. When the influence of activists is generally low (1895-1899), it accounts for 10-20% of the strike movement. When it reaches the critical point, the role of activists in the strike movement growth increases sharply and becomes dominating in 1902 when this point is overcome. The model is also correct at describing the general trend of decreasing repressions by the authorities and the growth of activists’ influence.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22452

Abstract: The article discusses the role and importance of computer modeling in the reconstruction of historical and cultural monuments in Kyrgyzstan's part of the Great Silk Road. Due to a number of objective and subjective causes all monuments of ancient and medieval ages of Kyrgyzstan demonstrate that the abundant historical and cultural heritage has either not been preserved or has been partially or fully renovated thus resulting in its changed appearance. The authors have tried to carry out a 3D reconstruction of Koshoy-Korgon settlement on the basis of former practices aimed at reconstruction of fortification complexes, ancient settlements and historical landscapes. This settlement dates back to the 10th-12th centuries and was the nomadic and administrative center of the At-Bash Valley in the Karakhanid State. The process of Koshoy-Korgon virtual reconstruction was accomplished by stages on the basis of historical and archaeological studies with the help of  such programs as ArchiCAD, Photoshop CS3, Unity3D, Autodesk 3D Max, 3DWorldStudio. 3D virtual reconstruction of disappeared monuments of Northern Kyrgyzstan traditionally considered a region of nomadic cultures  will allow us to take a fresh look at architectural features of monuments along the Great Silk Road and scrutinize social, economical, cultural and political aspects of historical objects. 3D  reconstruction based on comparative analysis will provide for drawing parallels to find out the interpenetration of architectural styles of states along the Great Silk Road in Central Asia.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22025

Abstract: The study aims at a web-GIS that has been publicly-accessible since the early 2017.The article describes the sources used, the algorithm of their processing, the software, the structure of GIS-project attribute table, the ways to geocode digital copies of drawings as well as the methods of closer linking of drawing’s image to a location. Web-interface is characterized as well. It lets a user work with the resource through any browser with the help of scaling and navigation tools, text search, reading of selected object attributes, variation of raster transparence and choice of cartographic underlay. The article also describes the possibilities to address the initial attribute table and its lookup and view undeformed (not geocoded) large-scale drawing image (including the possibility to scale, move and rotate an object). In spite of different techniques of drawings execution as well as their different purpose and origin, the drawings studied are rather good at describing historic reality. This provides for considering a set of drawings as a document complex that can undergo general procedures of online publishing. The technologies used are mainly based on the employment of “open” software (from creation of desktop version of GIS-project to spatial libraries used to visualize web-versions). Optimization of web-GIS work mainly relates to minimization of traffic between a server and a client. To do this the work is organized so that downloading of all raster and most of vector objects starts only after the client’s computer sends a user query for a definite object to the server. The main result of the study is a free Internet access to the complex of Russian drawings of the 16th-17th centuries. The number of cartographic drawings totals 1000 and most of them have good images. 49 drawings have been found that had been left out by V.S. Kusov’s catalogue. Over 700 drawings have been linked to a locality and 140 have not been localized yet. An original method to localize a territory shown on the drawing on the map has been developed.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22339

Abstract: The article studies the issue of historical GIS development and offers methodical approaches and technological solutions realized by means of MapInfo and ArcGIS geoinformation systems. The key problem studied is the development of GIS-project “The Clergy of Altai Gornyi Okrug in the Late 18th c. – Early 20th c.” Special emphasis is laid on issues related to the development of a unified mathematical and cartographic basis for the GIS. A technological scheme have been developed and tested that includes operations with raster data and a group of operations with a set of vector data (GIS-layers). An important tool of the project is an opportunity to analyze GIS-statistical data on parishes and other territorial units by means of interactive maps creation. This basis provided for mapping parish population structure, settlement occurrence, church objects distribution, etc. The data sets gained as a result of the procedures employed allow for covering any attributive information and any spatial data irrespective of time. This provides for retrospective GIS-modeling and studying cause-and-effect relationship both in time and space.

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.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22842

Abstract: The article addresses the issues of network analysis within historical studies. It is a comparatively new trend to modernize techniques and methodology of history (though sociology has been considering this approach as one of the main ones starting with 1950s). The article discusses the specific character of network analysis within historical studies which can bee seen in the problems set, source structure peculiarities and methods of their analysis. Such studies have been carried out within the framework of Historical Network Analysis. The theoretical basis for the network analysis is a mathematical theory of networks (a branch of graph theory) proving the formal apparatus for describing the graph links, its clusters and nodes. The goals of micro and macro analysis of history oriented networks are set for the first time. The task to find networks of individuals on the basis of historical texts (ego type documents) is a special research issue. The article focuses on the projects dealing with the network analysis of the structure of Russian medieval political and polemical texts (when the problems of their attribution are being solved) as well as migration flows in Russia in the first quarter of the 20th c.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.21766

Abstract: The study focuses on the problems related to the publishing of electronic copies of archival documents in an electronic environment. Emphasis is laid on the adequacy, representativeness and credibility of both the electronic copy and the accompanying descriptions: archeographically deployed complete description of the original document and a description of the electronic copy as an independent object. The author considers the international experience in electronic publishing of historical document copies, the use of standards (formats) of bibliographic (MARC-based) and archival (EAD) descriptions as well as electronic image description standards (MOD, METS, FITS). To study this problem the author has employed historical-comparative, historical and typological methods providing for the analysis of pros and cons of the approaches addressed. Scientific novelty of the paper is in the problem of creation and development of a new domain of applied historical research - archeography in an electronic environment. This domain is interdisciplinary as it has to combine traditional methods and techniques of source studies, desk archeography, edition archeography, paleography, filigranology, etc. with technical methods of digitization (graphic image creation), description of electronic copies (files) and provision of their adequacy to original documents in the process of publication, storage and use.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.22689

Abstract: The article aims at analyzing the reports and messages of the 15th conference of the “History and Computer” association (AIK). The comparison of conference materials with the historiography of Russian historical computer science provides for characterizing theoretical and applied problems related to the use of information technologies and mathematical methods in history as well as revealing new trends of this interdisciplinary field nowadays. The attention is primarily given to such aspects as the development and interaction of modern information technologies, professional information sources as well as analytical methods and approaches. The study employs classification analysis and comparative analysis methods of the problematic field of AIK’s conference materials in relation to research domains and schools of thought that have been formed in historical computer science for the last 25 years. The informational basis is a full-text collection and a bibliographic database of AIK’s publications. The study demonstrates that the conference topics are in line with two main domains of historical computer science: an informational one aiming at creation and employment of informational infrastructure – electronic resources, data bases, historical GIS, 3D reconstructions of historical and cultural heritage objects, and an analytical one involving historical source processing and analysis with the help of computer modeling methods, mathematical statistics, content-analysis, network analysis and spatial analysis. Interaction of these domains provides the growing number of digital on-line sources with the necessary research tools.

DOI: 10.7256/2306-0891.2017.1.21938

Abstract: The object of the study is craftsmen's incomes. Territorial frames cover the whole of the Russian Empire including the central guberniyas, the Asian part of Russia, the Caucasus, the Kingdom of Poland and Finland. The study addressed groups of occupations and territories. The author examines in detail the earning capacity of farms in Kaluzhskaya, Vologodskaya and Voronezhskaya guberniyas accounting for budget survey data. At the second stage of the study the author employed the database "Home Crafts  of the Russian Empire" created on the basis of unpublished and published sources. The database includes 7 tables and over 10 thousand records and informs about incomes of craftsmen in relation to a handicraft type.The author employs such statistical methods as factor analysis and correlation software in MS Excel and SPSS Statistics. Microsoft Access DBMS is analyzed.It is the first time when the earning capacity of homecrafts has been studied to cover the whole territory of the Russian Empire. In contrast to income in kind characteristic of agriculture, homecrafts could boast cash income. Homecraft income was not directly related to the size of a peasant's ploughed area. The biggest homecraft income was in Finland, the Kingdom of Poland and Turkestan. High incomes were among craftsmen in the Caucasus and Yakutskaya Oblast. The conclusion is the low earning capacity of home crafts, their close relationship with agriculture and stability of multifunctional farms. These are the farms Stolypin's reforms placed stake on.