2014 Third International Conference on Computer Technology in Russia and in the Former Soviet Union
Toolbox for Historical and Biographical Research
(Prosopographic Databases on Russian History)
Svetlana Ulyanova, Vladislav Sinepol
St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University
St. Petersburg, Russia
oulianova@mail.spbstu.ru, sinepol@mail.spbstu.ru
Keywords—e-history, prosopography, prosopographic
databases, relational databases
Modern historiography uses a systematic approach to
research past. The main difficulty is the need to process large
volumes of information and use relevant methods to analyze
and synthesize it. So, informational problems of research
come to the foreground. These also include development of
better technical means on the basis of databases and databanks
that would allow storing and using information not only about
an object itself, but all the “external” data that can be
aggregated and synthesized in place and time and thereupon
new interpretations can be searched for.
Intellectual forums where issues related to creation of
databases and databanks are discussed include conferences
and other events organized by the association of “History and
Computing” (national branch of the international association
of “History & Computing”, established in 1992) [1].
According to I. Garskova if in 1990 table databases dominated
in cliometrics, in 2000 other trends appeared: full-text,
prosopographic, historiographic databases; information
systems based on big collections of statistic and narrative data,
etc. [2].
Initially historiography interpreted the term of
“prosopography” as historiographic analysis. Its purpose was
to explore some historically significant social phenomenon or
structure by telling about people whose lives and actions were
closely related with corresponding phenomena and structures.
Appearance of the modern prosopographic research genre in
history is associated with the name of the British historian L.
Stone. In 1971 his article was published where he presented
his vision of the “old” and “new” prosopography. The “old”
prosopography studied relatively rare social elites whereas the
“new” (quantitative) one was meant to research much more
numerous sample collections. Moreover, there is need for
researching not only elites but “grass roots”, too. According to
the definition of L. Stone, prosopography is the investigation
of the common background characteristics of a group of actors
in history by means of a collective study of their lives, which
concerns their ways in implementing political actions and
options in social mobility and career ambitions [3].
Since 1990 prosopography has turned into a research genre
that studies mass data so as to create, based on statistics
analysis, dynamic “collective biographies” of certain social
groups, strata etc., keeping the chance to store and research
biographies of individuals that belong to these social groups
978-1-4799-1799-0/14 $31.00 © 2014 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/SoRuCom.2014.47
and strata. As early as by 2002, according to estimates by
Y. Yumasheva and G. Ivanova, domestic historiography had
designed more than 100 prosopographic databases [3]. The
authors explain the sharp growth in prosopographic research at
the beginning of the 1990s with the appearance of relatively
simple commercial DBMSs that have made it possible to
create databases and apply statistical methods of their
processing even for users that have not been specially trained
for that [4]. In a number of cases architects do not even
mention what systems they have used to develop their
databases.
In 1990-1996 the most popular DBMSs was dBASE III
plus; at the same period “Karat”, “FoxBase” (different
editions) and FILE FORCE application programs were used.
In 1992—1998 the DBMS of KLEIO was also used the same
as different purpose programs, such as STATISTIKA,
PROSIS, ANARKHIST, SOCIOLOG, etc. [5]. Since 1997 the
majority of databases have been developed in MS Access
environment (sometimes research can be done in MS Excel
electronic spreadsheets). As a rule, authors of such solutions
choose a toolbox in terms of its availability, MS Windows
compatibility and controllability (capability of correction,
refilling) of the DB [6].
An example of such a “standard” solution is the DB of
G. Dyachkov “Heroes of the Soviet Union” [7]. The author
analyzes a collective “Portrait of a Hero” and highlights
generational, national and political (membership in All-Union
Communist Party, All-Union Leninist Young Communist
League) features. At the same time the research does not
include dynamic characteristics, which can, most probably, be
explained with limited capabilities of the chosen DBMS.
Another example of a prosopographic database, built in the
Microsoft Access DBMS, can be the DB “Dispossessed
Peasants of the Southern Urals (1930–1934)” (DB “DPSU”
[8]. It mainly focuses on statistical (the DB contains almost
1500 entries) rather than biographical analysis.
Standard software tools are, to a large extend, orientated
on synchronized data processing, which limits capabilities of
historians to work with mass data. New technologies have to
be developed and closer cooperation of historians and
programmers is needed.
An example of a toolbox designed for the objectives of a
certain prosopographic research project can be the database on
personal records of workers in the oil producing firm
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“Tovarischestvo br. Nobel”, which was created by
P. Akhanchi (The Institute of History of the Academy of
Sciences of Azerbaijan) and I. Garskova (Moscow State
University) to study the labor market in the oil sector of Baku
and migration of workers to this region at the end of 19 and
beginning of 20 century. It is based on the data from 2000
personal records that contain both static (or unique)
information and dynamic data on every worker over the whole
period of his employment in the firm. The static information
includes data on the name, nationality, literacy, age, place of
birth and other data that were recorded on a single occasion as
the person applied for a job in the firm. The dynamic
information includes data that were recorded in case of their
change and were included into personal records if it was
needed (in case there were changes in qualification level,
marital status, place of work, wages and their reasons,
penalties and reward, accidents, etc.) [9].
The database architects set to themselves not biographical
but statistical research objectives. The main problem was to
build dynamic rows by all major indices for the period to be
researched based on the capability to pull in lists of workers
employed in “Tovarischestvo br. Nobel” at any instant of time
and calculate, on the basis of this lists, numerical values of
quantitative indices and a share of occurrence of separate
categories of qualitative indices (for example average age of
workers or a share of literate workers). To reach this objective
a menu manageable package of ATiSeP (Aggregated Time
Series on Prosopography) programs has been developed on the
DB language dBASE IV, designed to retrieve information
from the multi-file database and build dynamic rows of fields
of this database for each period of time selected by the user.
The system works with several files of the database: the major
file that contains static data on individuals (the number of
entries in this file equals to the number of individuals in the
database), reference file, containing at least one entry for
every worker on the date of his each application for a job and
each dismissal, and several additional files with the data on the
changes in various dynamic indices and their dates for all the
individuals that such data are available for.
The package contains the following modules: 1) a module
that builds up structures of the foregoing files; 2) a module
that builds up dynamic rows of yearly or monthly data; 3) a
module that builds up auxiliary (selective) files, containing
data on those individuals that are present in a certain period; 4)
a module that exports these selective files into a graphic or
statistic package for further analysis [10].
As we can see, the foregoing database complies with one
of the most important requirements for contemporary
prosopographic research – presence of “dynamic
characteristics” and presentation of the research results not as
a static “image” that characterizes a certain group of people at
a certain instant of time, but as a “collective biography” that
allows seeing changes that the group being researched were
experiencing in their lives over a certain period [11].
Analysis of biographic (in their broad meaning) data of a
rather big selection of representatives of a certain social and
professional group of individuals can provide us with an
interesting historiographic result. Thus, one of the most
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successful, in our opinion, projects is “Russian
Parliamentarians at the Beginning of the 20th Century”. The
information system, created by Permian scientists is full-text,
source orientated, operable through a web-interface and
focuses on multitasking research. It allows getting information
about the members of the deputy corps of the State Duma in
1906-1917, making selections of deputies by certain
parameters and thus doing prosopographic research [12]. In
technological terms this system is distinct with the use of
relevant applications of the PL/SQL language, when
programming, and implementation on the basis of the software
system of Oracle Application Server, which makes the
information system cross-platform [13].
Mass data by their origin have multifunctional
significance. They can be interesting for various problem
solutions. A historian has to use the information in a source to
its maximum extent. Processing sources as information objects
includes accounting for the structure of the information, its
classification, evaluation of its fullness and representativity,
analysis of psychological and other factors that have
influenced the character of the information, etc.
E-history is marked by the fact that features of the objects
being researched are not known in advance and the range of
variables being studied is practically impossible to foresee.
Difficulties of such research include the need for processing
large amounts of non-structured data and defining the required
quantitative indices that characterize certain sample
collections of these data. In historical research it is necessary
not only to fix an arbitrary number of variables but to justify
their selection, set up a hierarchy and systematically arrange
them in relation to each other. Here the difficulty is that the
structure of features and indices that is set in the source does
not necessarily coincide with the goals and objectives of the
research. So there is an issue concerning the selection of
variables that are needed for it. It is also true that a historian is
often unaware beforehand which of them exactly can be of
interest, which results in methodological complications and
possible alternatives in further work. So, prosopographic
studies call for historiographic, methodological and
technological solutions.
An example of such interdisciplinary search can be an
original software system designed to store and statistically
interpret data on historical individuals of an organization or an
industry that has been developed in St. Petersburg State
Polytechnical University.
Place and time structuring of data on creative biographies
of science and higher education representatives can give
valuable material to create a general picture of development of
the national intellectual potential, collective portrait of a
Russian scientist, professor at university. Analysis of a
number of sources (lives of scientists, their creative
biographies, memoirs of contemporaries, etc.) shows a
principal capability to formally describe an individual, their
creative and social biography. If such a description is
accompanied with a fairly flexible searching and grouping
mechanism, it is possible to get various qualitative features of
the groups that are being studied.
 The mechanism of relational databases is quite adequate
and universal to be a modern tool for this type of research. It
was used as a basis for a software system to store and
statistically process data on historical individuals of an
organization or sector (industry, science, education, culture,
etc.). The system includes a relational database that is stored
on a SQL-server and a client web-application that allows
editing the contents of the database (adding, modifying,
deleting entries); setting search requests at any level of
difficulty; regrouping results of search requests; setting
computation of the required quantitative parameters of data
selections (distribution, average values, dispersion, correlation
coefficients). Such an approach makes it possible to get access
to the database through a common web-browser and avoid
problems caused by the need for installing and maintaining a
special application on client computers. It is worth mentioning
that the developers have tried to reconcile two underlying
operational principles of any historical databases:
historiographic and problem-orientated. Demand for any
database, its importance and scientific potential as a whole
depend on how successful this reconciliation is. A researcher
does not only get an access to a large collection of structured
computer-added data but can also create in this structure in
any form any number of their own structures that are focused
on dealing with certain research objectives.
Any text and graphical data that can be converted in
electronic format are initial data for the application. On the
bases of such sources an entry about a person is generated in
the database and all the initial documents (in their electronic
representation) are logically linked to the entry about the
person and can be used in research in case of need.
The software system provides a means for organizing
requests to the database so as to get data selections for their
further processing and computing characteristic parameters.
The major feature of the application is a request for selection
of database entries that satisfy a certain set of conditions and
distribution of these entries by groups, computation of values
for the set criteria. A request is formed on the values a user
sets for any sub-collection of the search criteria. The set of
search criteria includes any combination of attributes that
characterizes an individual. The search criteria can be both the
criteria of the “range” type (for example, those, who were
born in a selected interval of years) and the criteria of the
“gets-into-the-collection” type (for example, those who
graduated from one of the stipulated universities – one or
more universities can be indicated). As a result of such types
of requests, the number of people whose data in the entries of
the database correspond to the selected criteria and the list of
these people are displayed.
The results of the requests can be grouped according to the
chosen parameters. Moreover, the entries that satisfy the
selected search conditions are divided into groups by the
values of the selected criteria of grouping. For each group both
the number of entries and the entries themselves that it
includes are displayed. If two or more parameters of grouping
are selected, each group is divided into sub-groups, for which
the number of entries and entries themselves are shown, etc.
The results of such requests can be represented in graphics as
bar charts.
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When designing client-server systems for storage, transfer
and display of text information the following features of such
systems are to be taken into account:
1. Quick access to the requested information and
capability to work with the same data for several users
at the same time. It can be carried out through a
distributed DB located on a multiprocessor server.
Search for information can be optimized through
parallel search in the distributed DB (on different
nodes of a multiprocessor server, information
clustering). Moreover, it is logical to position such a
system as SourceSafe, i.e. the user can copy some data
from the server, work with them and then synchronize
the changed data with the database. When checking
out the data other users can only see the information
but not modify it.
2. Data processing service (both for the information that
incomes and is stored). A Data Mining mechanism for
acquiring knowledge from the accumulated
information and Test Mining (text analysis), statistical
analysis of lexicographic groups, search for dependent
statements, selection of cause-and-effect chains, etc.
3. Separation of access rights for users (groups of users)
that is controlled by a business logic module. It
includes features like access granting or denial to the
requested information for reading, changing, deleting
of data.
4. The database can be administered and modified with
the help of a separate module of the system. It allows
separating such features as reading and editing data,
which makes the system less vulnerable to failures and
unauthorized access.
5. Access to the data with the help of an Internet portal
through a common web-interface that offers a
prospect to work both with the data using web-
browsers and web-services, which allow creating
specialized remote clients.
Based on the “Toolbox of Historical and Biographical
Research”, a team of authors (V. Sinepol, S. Ulyanova,
I. Aladyshkin, N. Kornet) created a new-type database:
“Professors of St. Petersburg Polytechnical University, 20th
century” (PSPbPU, registered in the State Information
Register in 2009, state registration number 0220913105).
This database includes advanced means of information
storage and formalization. Work with the client application is
divided into three interrelated parts: (1) registration of
individuals – input of the general biographical data and their
further editing (including search system by individuals); (2)
processing mass data by requesting selection of entries; (3)
directories (of higher educational institutions of the RF,
subdivisions of SPSPU, honorary degrees, majors of higher
education, etc.) that help the user deal with the materials of the
DB.
To facilitate input of the materials from sources and their
further editing, 13 key sections for distribution of the
information were developed:
 1) “Registration” which contains just general biographical
information: life period, place of birth and social background.
These data will be reflected in all further sections of data
formalization for any individual that are included into one
“field”;
2) Data on relatives (including their last names, first and
middle names and degree of kinship);
3) Education (including university, period of education and
major obtained);
4) Work career (data on the work period, type of
organization and its geographical location, positions occupied,
list of honorary degrees is given in addition);
4) Work in SPSPU (apart from the work period, positions
are included that were occupied at certain faculties,
departments, administrative roles, names of courses
developed);
5) Academic career (data on the year of graduate and post-
graduate courses completion, organization, dates of
Candidate’s and Doctor’s theses defense, field of science,
academic advisor and consultant, scientific rank, area of
expertise and academic titles);
6) Awards (years of receipt and their names are included);
7) Documents (references on published editions (headline,
name of the book, authors, place of edition, publishing house,
year of edition, pages, ISBN) and archive documents (name of
the archive, number of the stock, record, file, pages);
8) Publications (the section contains data on the general
number of patents and author’s certificates, general number of
publications and sometimes selective indication of the most
important scientific and methodological papers (including: co-
authors, titles, status of the publication, volume, year of
edition and type of the publishing house));
9) Work in editorial boards (includes information on the
work period and titles of editions);
10) Participations in exhibitions (year of participation, title
of exhibition, prizes are included);
11) Scientific-social activities (period, category of board,
level of membership are included);
12) Political activities (data on membership in a certain
political party, years of membership, period of participation in
the work of elective bodies).
As a result of the flexible structure of introduction, storage
and options of further information processing, a researcher
obtains broad facilities to form there their own requests,
oriented on certain research objectives.
The database “Professors of Polytechnic University” is an
electronic resource that provides a lot of facilities for
prosopographic research, and, undoubtedly, considerably
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broadens chances to reconstruct the types of careers for
Russian scientists and teachers of the higher education
institution, to analyze priority fields of scientific work, to
study, at a personal level, integration of national scientists into
European and the world science. The elaborated database, in
perspective, can be an important stage in researching scientific
schools, synthetic understanding about the scientific
community as a whole. The dynamic component of the
information in its data allows revealing the development
trends of the social and professional group of representatives
of the scientific community that is being researched. In the
long run it is possible to design larger scale databases on the
basis of the universal toolbox of historical and biographical
research that would embrace entire fields of industry, science,
education, culture, etc.
Thus, the use of digital history methods allows historians
to store and process text, statistic, visual and other historical
sources at a qualitatively new level, considering today’s global
trends in the field of computer complexes and information
technology.
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[1] Review of the themes of the AHC conferences over the last decade:
Garskova, I. New Trends in Historical Informatics: based on the
conferences held in the 2000s // Herald of Chelyabinsk State University.
2011. No. 9. PP. 144—153.
[2] Ibid. P. 148.
[3] Yumasheva, Y., Ivanova, G. History of Prosopography // Range of Ideas:
Algorithms and Technology of Historical Informatics. oscow, 2005. P.
123.
[4] Ibid. P. 130.
[5] Ibid. P. 134.
[6] Kosenkov, A. Regional Upper Social Strata in 1918—1953: Methods of
Developing and Processing an Electronic Prosopographic Database //
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[7] Dyachkov, G. Heroes of the Soviet Union: Features of the Collective
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[8] Rakov, . Database “Dispossessed Kulaks of the South Urals (1930-
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[9] Garksova, I. From Prosopography to Statistics: Methods of Analyzing
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[10] Ibid. . 125—126.
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