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Historical informatics
Reference:

Interactive map of social and cultural space of the Russian regional capital of the late XVIII - the first third of the XIX century (based on the materials of Tambov).

Vorobeva Elizaveta Mikhailovna

ORCID: 0000-0002-4453-2768

Assistant, Department of "History and Philosophy", Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin

392008, Russia, Tambov region, Tambov, Sovetskaya str., 181k, office 213

moreno_ool@mail.ru
Kanishchev Valery Vladimirovich

ORCID: 0000-0002-8372-4455

Doctor of History

Professor, Department of History and Philosophy, Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin

392008, Russia, Tambov region, Tambov, Sovetskaya str., 181k, office 213

valcan@mail.ru

DOI:

10.7256/2585-7797.2024.1.69765

EDN:

PDPYLT

Received:

05-02-2024


Published:

11-04-2024


Abstract: The object of the study is the social and cultural space of the city of Tambov in the late XVIII – the first third of the XIX century. The source base of the study consists of documents of several funds of the State Archive of the Tambov region, as well as plans of the city of Tambov in 1781, 1803, 1828 and 1832. The main goal of the study is to present the mechanism of creating an interactive map of the cultural space of the city of Tambov. In the research, in addition to classical historical methods, the systematization and analysis of statistical, record-keeping, cartographic and visual sources was carried out by using geo-information technologies. The main scientific result of the research was the samples of analyses of statistical and visual material of the interactive resource. The chosen platform made it possible to present the scientific results in the form of diagrams of the distribution of the share of different estates in separate quarters of the city, lists of demographic data on the population of Tambov; cards with reference historical data on the cultural heritage objects of the city. Specific results of the study include the determination of the number of quarters inhabited by these or those class groups, as well as the identification of whole groups of quarters marked by a noticeable homogeneity of the class composition of the population. The main methodological and technological result of the research is the provision of an efficient mechanism for analyzing urban space, systematization of data on its development and inhabitants, which can be available to a wide range of users. The information and technology of the proposed resource shows the possibilities of its use not only for research activities, but also for educational, excursion and museum work.


Keywords:

interactive map, cultural space, social space, urban planning, Google Maps, Tambov, regional capital, urban history, demographic information, plan

This article is automatically translated. You can find original text of the article here.

The study of the historical development of the social and cultural space of cities, the popularization of the historical heritage of regions are relevant scientific, heuristic and social tasks aimed at the scientific analysis of the development of the social structure and the preservation of historical memory of different strata of the urban population.

Almost forty years ago, L.I. Borodkin and his colleague at Moscow State University, N.B. Selunskaya, attracted the attention of Soviet historians to the "Philadelphia Social History Project" [1], during which American researchers analyzed historical changes in the social space of the city based on mass sources.

But the Soviet historical science of the 1970s and 1980s was not ready to accept such an approach, since it went beyond the framework of class theory. It took decades for Russian historians to come up with modern methods of studying social history, especially using computer technology.

Of course, there was a historiographical basis for studying the history of the social structure of Russian cities. With regard to our topic, we drew attention to the most important works by B.B. Kafenhaus [2], Y.R. Klokman [3], B.N. Mironov [4]. Although most of these and other authors described the composition of the townspeople mainly from class positions, they introduced into circulation a large array of facts that subsequently allowed us to look at the social history of the city not only from Marxist, but also from other methodological positions. This was most clearly manifested in the works of B.N. Mironov in the 1990s and 2010s [5] [6].

Modern historiography is represented by various studies on the social structure of cities and "living" urban people. It is especially worth highlighting the works of A.I. Kupriyanov [7], O.E. Kosheleva [8], A.B. Kamensky [9], L.V. Koshman [10], A.V. Belov [11].

The history of Tambov in the late XVIII – mid-XIX centuries is presented either in works of the most general nature on the history of the Tambov region [12] [13], or in narrowly thematic articles and abstracts at regional conferences [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20].

All the listed works by metropolitan and regional authors have been prepared using descriptive methods that are classic for historical science. It is only in recent decades that modern methods of analyzing information about cities, their buildings and socio-cultural space have been actively used.

Since this paper presents some results of the analysis of the social and cultural space of Tambov using the methods of historical informatics, it is worth referring to the developments of colleagues who studied the history of the city using information technology.

In general, the work on the "reconstruction" of Tambov's urban space is divided into two categories, based on the methods used in them: 3d modeling and geoinformatics. In the first category, the complex of works by D.I. Zherebyatyev and R.B. Konchakov stands out in particular [21] [22] [23] [24], which carried out a number of reconstructions of the city and city buildings. Together with V.V. Kanishchev, these authors participated in the preparation of a major article on the place of the nobility in the social space of Tambov, in which the results of reconstructions of various objects of the city at the end of the XVIII century were widely used [25].

It is also worth noting their participation in a major project – Tambov Lermontovsky. Within its framework, several 3d models of the city's buildings of the first third of the XIX century, a number of scientific publications, as well as an interactive map have been prepared. E.V. Baranova also took part in this project, which in turn was engaged in studying the Tambov space with the help of plans and using geoinformation technologies [26] [27].

Thus, in the study of the history of Tambov at the end of the XVIII – first third of the XIX century. some experience has accumulated in the use of methods of historical informatics. However, so far it is possible to talk about one-time cases of the use of such methods, rather than about a historiographical trend.

We also tried to take into account the work of colleagues from other regions that are close to the topic of our research.

The most interesting for us were the articles by A.A. Akasheva devoted to the analysis of cartographic sources of the late XVIII century.

Her analysis of the plans for the General Surveying of Nizhny Novgorod, conducted in 1784, is useful for studying similar mass cartographic sources on the history of other cities [28]. The article by A.A. Akasheva on the estate and land structure of Nizhny Novgorod based on the materials of the Owners' Catalog at the citywide plan of the end of the XVIII century is very close to the objectives of our study. Taking into account this experience, we also searched for cartographic and clerical sources that reflected the social structure of cities. In this article by A.A. Akasheva, we also drew attention to the technology of database development, which are especially necessary when creating interactive maps [29].

As an important example of linking cartographic and demographic information using geoinformation technologies, it is worth noting a major study by D.E. Sarafanov on the topic: "Socio-demographic development of the population of the south of Western Siberia in the space of church parishes in the second half of the XVIII – early XX centuries" [30]. In this work, in particular, an analysis of demographic processes in the territory of Western Siberia was carried out by creating a database on urban and rural parishes and processing it using GIS MapInfo Pro 12.01. The author set himself the task of studying only the parish space of cities and villages. Nevertheless, his proposed method is very useful for studying other social and cultural objects, phenomena and processes in cities in their historical development using GIS technologies.

We also took into account the experience of Omsk historians in creating an interactive map of disappeared settlements with traces of human economic activity [31]. For urban history, such an experience is interesting because many "traces" of lost urban infrastructure remain in ancient cities.

The method that we considered the most acceptable for conducting our research was first proposed by the scientific team of the creators of the "Interactive map of churches and parishes of St. Petersburg of the late XIX - early XX century of various Christian denominations" [32]. During this development, using the Google Maps platform, links to the following information were attached to the map: historical information about the church; a document with a list of metric books indicating the year, inventory and case number; links to images of these books that the user can study in the reading room or online. The parishes on the map are geographically highlighted and marked in different colors.

Having studied the examples of the use of various methods of analyzing and popularizing information about the social and cultural space, we tried to use these examples to select a methodology, as well as information content for an interactive map of the social and cultural space of the city of Tambov at the end of the XVIII – first half of the XIX century [33].

The purpose of this article is to present the mechanism for creating such a map, as well as some results of the scientific historical analysis of the information of the map of one year ("time slice") as a model for creating multi-temporal layers of geo-historical information about the localization of social strata and groups of the city "in the spirit" of the Philadelphia project.

To achieve the goal, the following tasks were solved:

- justification of the use of Google Maps in the creation of a scientific and educational resource;

- characteristics of the technology for creating a resource (the process of developing an object card, the definition of conventional signs used in the map);

- explanation of the principles of demonstration on the map of the social composition of the city's homeowners;

- presentation of samples of analysis of statistical and visual material of the map.

 

Sources and methods

 

The source base of the study was made up of a whole range of sources: documents from the funds of the Tambov City Duma (F. 16) and the Tambov Provincial Drawing Room (F. 29) of the State Archive of the Tambov Region (GATO), as well as plans of the city of Tambov 1781 [34], 1803 [35], 1828 and 1832 [36] years. We emphasize that the quarterly grid reflected on the plans has still been completely preserved in the ancient part of Tambov, which allows you to correctly overlay the plans of the XIX century on modern maps.

Reference publications were used in the work, which collected information about the city, its structure, and residents [37] [38]. Visual sources were especially used (a hand–drawn view of Tambov in 1799, as well as photographs of buildings and other objects of the city that fully or partially preserved their appearance at the end of the XVIII - first third of the XIX century).

 1

Fig.1. The Tambov plan from 1832.

The main method of research was the systematization of statistical, clerical, cartographic, visual sources for the complex content of an information resource. Geoinformation technologies (GIS) became the means of creating the resource.

When choosing a platform for creating an interactive map, we primarily proceeded from the fact that Google Maps makes it possible to create your own map, which is especially important for novice historical researchers who can relatively easily master this technology, conduct the first experiments on the analysis of historical and geographical information, provide the results of the analysis in an accessible form for discussion with colleagues.

Of course, we understood that the analytical potential of Google Maps is limited, and yet we tried to make the most of it. The research value of the platform primarily consists of its "convenience" for the systematization of information. In particular, it turned out to be possible to systematize data on the class structure of the city at the quarterly level and reflect them on the map. We also used a mechanism for calculating the shares of individual estates in the population and visualizing these shares in the form of diagrams. The chosen technology also allows you to determine the concentration of objects of various groups by blocks and administrative parts of the city. The possibilities inherent in Google Maps for linking cartographic data with text references and photo and other visual materials are important for analytical, educational, and educational purposes. All of the above provides an opportunity to implement the research component of our work.

Dissemination of research results can also be implemented through Google Maps. This platform is very popular. It is often used to navigate the city or find out the necessary information about infrastructure facilities.

 

Main results

 

Having determined the applicability of Google Maps when creating an interactive map of historical social and cultural space, we paid special attention to the methodology of creating our resource.

The first stage of the work was the selection of the base map, the template on which the necessary objects were applied. There are nine template options on the platform (a regular map, a satellite image, a relief map, a light political map, black and white with cities, a simple atlas, two types of physical maps and one, the "water resources" map). It was taken into account that the template can be changed while working on an interactive map. Not only the creator, but also the user has the opportunity to "switch" between the mentioned options, which allows you to make the resource as specific as possible, informative, understandable to the user.

The second stage of development is to determine what kind of objects need to be designated. The Google Maps feature was used, such as grouping objects by categories. Thus, the interactive map "Objects and buildings marked in the legends of maps of the late XVIII – first half of the XIX century." has seven categories of objects or layers: "Churches and monasteries"; "Administrative institutions"; "Trade"; "Drinking establishments"; "Significant houses"; "Educational institutions"; "Spaces." Not only the developer, but also the user can manipulate layers, leaving only the category of interest on the map or viewing everything.

Depending on the nature of the objects, various tools can be selected. So, when marking any objects that we are only interested in as points in the map format, it is rational to use the "Add marker" tool. Whereas when working with areas that need to be designated, whether they are neighborhoods, as in the framework of the study under consideration, or church parishes, as in the study of Shmeleva N.D., the use of the "Add line/shape" tool is justified. In general, it is possible to mark points, lines and shapes on the map of our resource, all of them have the ability to change according to the needs of the developer.

Let's briefly list other functions: changing the color (for shapes, dots and lines), changing the icon (for dots), adding photo materials and text information (for shapes, dots and lines), changing the thickness (for lines). All of these features can both convey important scientific information to the user and indicate artistic value for the resource. In particular, the icon will help you associatively understand which complex of buildings, institutions, institutions a particular object belongs to.

The need to introduce conditional signs depends on the task that the developer faces. When creating an interactive map of the cultural space of Tambov, several symbolic designations were used at once.

Firstly, colors were used in the case of marking points on the map, the color indicates the reliability of the attached information, the color of the blocks indicates which class or socio-professional group prevails in it. Several blocks were inhabited equally by representatives of two groups at once. In this case, a strip of the required color with an explanation was applied to the block. The following color markers were chosen: yellow (officials); light blue (burghers); blue (honorary citizens); orange (coachmen); green (odnokvortsy); burgundy (merchants); purple (military); light brown (clergy); dark green (peasants); gray (there is no information in the source); brown (there is no data about the group). The last two categories require additional explanation. In the first case, there is no information about the population of some quarters in the source. In the second one, we have data on the name of the owner, and what extensions the house had, but we do not have information about its belonging to a particular class or socio-professional group.

 2

Fig.2. Screen view of the map with the designation of the social structure of the city of Tambov in 1836.

 

The interactive map also has icons attached to points that associatively make it clear which category the marked object belongs to. The "cross" indicates buildings from the section "Churches and monasteries". Retail establishments are designated as a "package of goods". Drinking establishments are marked with "wine glasses". Residential buildings look like houses. Educational institutions are represented by the "graduate's hat" icon. Separate designations have been selected for administrative buildings. They are determined taking into account the specialization of the institution. So, the city police has the designation "police badge", the guardhouse – "fortress", etc.

3 

Fig.3. On-screen view of the map with the designation of individual objects of the city of Tambov in 1836.

 

An important methodological point is not only the selection of the necessary data, but also the principle of placing buildings of the past on a modern map. To increase the reliability of localization, not only the city plans of the studied period were used, but also modern resources (etomesto [39]), with which you can link old and new maps using control points. Thus, by comparing the sources with the modern outlines of the urban landscape and comparing the conclusions with the mentioned resource, it was possible to place all the studied objects on the map.

The markers of the objects reflect the evolution of the city in the historical period 1781-1832. The objects indicated on the plans of this period are reflected on the map by several points at once if they changed their location over time, or indicated by one point if they remained in the same place during this period. Thus, the noble assembly was located in different places in 1803 and 1828 and, accordingly, has two marks. The prison castle did not change its location from 1803 to 1832, its history is traced in the format of a single point.

The object card most often has the following structure: a screenshot of the location of the building on all plans of the period under study; an image of this building of a later period or a drawing; a historical summary with reference to the source of information and data about the immediate neighborhood obtained from the legends of the plans.

4

 Fig.4. On-screen view of the resource with a sample object card

 

Information of a different kind was attached to the blocks, namely: a diagram with information about the social composition of the owners of houses in this quarter; text information about the owners, namely: house number, rank, estate, last name of the owner, data on the annex to the house (shop, outbuilding, barn). The collected information is dated 1836, it was obtained while working with the "List of buildings standing in the city of Tambov" [40] located in the fund of the Tambov City Duma GATO.

This information allows you to imagine the state of urban space, its facilities and the population by the end of the study period. Provides food for the analysis of the results of the transformation of Tambov at the end of the XVIII century. as a "big village" (the term of A.T. Bolotov, who passed through the city more than once) into a true city. In particular, the analysis of the diagrams showed the predominance of neighborhoods with a "non-peasant" population.

Before specifying how many blocks are inhabited by one or another class or socio-professional group, it is worth making a few preliminary remarks. Firstly, the source contains data only on homeowners, and it is their class group that is taken into account. Secondly, neighborhoods are uneven in terms of the number of houses in them. Thus, the most densely built-up block was 50 (there were 58 houses in it), and the block with the lowest building density was 84 (there were 2 houses in it). Thirdly, the predominant group is the one with more houses in the block than each other individually. For example: in block 40 there are 13 petty–bourgeois houses, one house of an official, a representative of the clergy and merchants, two houses of the military, there is no data on the estate about eight landlords. However, despite the fact that there are more houses of representatives of other class or socio-professional groups in total than those of the bourgeoisie, the quarter is called the bourgeoisie.

 

Table 1. Distribution of Tambov neighborhoods by the predominant class or socio-professional group of homeowners (according to data from 1836)

 

Estate group

number of blocks

officials

22

The bourgeoisie

21

odnodvorets

11

military

7

merchants

6

coachmen

6

clergy

3

Honorary citizens

1

 

Considering the quantitative indicators of the distribution of objects, it is also worth noting that the objects marked on the Google Maps map are a partial sample. At the moment, not all objects of the studied plans are marked on it. The choice is directly related to the possibility of attaching full-fledged historical information to a particular object. But already now it is indisputably possible to say that most of the objects provided with information are localized in the central part of the city. This location is explained by the natural pace of urban space development.

It is also interesting that the two most distant objects from each other (churches in the name of the Apostle Peter and Michael the Archangel) are located 4.4 km from each other in a straight line. The closest objects were in the same building. These are the provincial government, the office building, the city police and the treasury chamber. Most of the marked objects are administrative institutions, which is natural, since they were the ones who periodically moved to other buildings. So, four buildings of the city police, two post yards, two volost boards, etc. are marked on the plan.

Conclusion

 

The whole range of information provided "gives scope" for further research activities. In addition to replenishing the already cited examples of analyzing the socio-cultural space of the city, the main direction for further development of the interactive resource is to deepen the methodology of historical and information analysis.

In the final part of the preparation of this article, we saw some contradictions in the content of the resource. Initially, the objects for the map were selected according to the problem-oriented principle. Therefore, once again the question arose about the ratio of problem-oriented and source-oriented resources. So far, we see a solution to the problem in the further clear use of such a geoinformatics tool as the distribution of homogeneous objects by layers. In general, we hope to create a source-oriented resource, the individual elements of which are displayed according to the user's interest.

The results of the analysis of the social structure of the city of one "time slice" obtained in the article give us reason to make plans to create layers of geo-historical information of different times. In the near future, we intend to create a new layer of information about the social structure of Tambov based on the city plan of 1852 [41], which can be filled on an interactive map with lists of householders of the city of Tambov with notes on documents for the right to own houses (1850-1851) [42].

In future plans, it is planned to combine data on the social composition of Tambov homeowners of the late XIX – early XX centuries, at one time introduced into scientific circulation by N.V. Strekalova [43] and O.M. Zaitseva [44], with data on the same quarters of the city in the middle of the XIX century.

Another area of activity is the desire to explore the possibilities of using the resource to establish links between the place of residence of certain social groups and urban infrastructure.

In addition to further scientific study of the created resource, it can be used for sightseeing activities around the city, as well as for introducing children to urban history through quest games.

As a result, we emphasize that the solution of a purely utilitarian "IT" task once again showed the "charm" of historical informatics, which requires the researcher to constantly deepen the source basis, methods and technologies of historical knowledge.

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The reviewed article is devoted to the study of the social and cultural space of the city (on the example of Tambov in the late XVIII – first third of the XIX century) using modern geoinformation technologies. For this purpose, a special multidisciplinary resource is being created, primarily for research purposes, based on the use of Google Maps as a geographical basis. The methodology of the article is based on the complexity expressed by the involvement of a wide range of heterogeneous sources and the use of geoinformation technologies. This path is not fundamentally new, but each time its choice is justified by the original results obtained. The relevance of the work is beyond doubt and is related both to the great interest of researchers and those interested in history in studying the features and patterns of urban development in the past (historical urbanism), and to the possibilities of applying modern methods of studying this material and using the results of research, not only in theory, but also in practice (museum business, exhibition activities, local history, etc.) areas. The scientific novelty of the article is expressed primarily in the formulation of the question of the relationship between the social structure of the city's population and the spatial distribution of selected social groups, which is not often the subject of special research. The article is well and logically structured: the statement of the question in the introduction; an impressive historiographical review, which seems extremely complete for articles of this volume; an overview of the sources used and justification of the chosen research methods; a presentation of the results achieved and, finally, an informal conclusion summarizing and determining the prospects for further work on the topic. As a result, a research resource on the history of the city of Tambov was created at the end of the XVIII – first third of the XIX centuries, which can also be used in scientific and local history activities. The article is written in a good scientific style and is read with great interest. Of particular note is the high-quality bibliography, which contains 39 items, including monographs and scientific articles, archival materials and digital resources. Due to the significant novelty of the materials presented and the technologies used, the article does not contain controversial issues as a basic element of discussion. The article makes a very good impression and is distinguished by the high scientific level and relevance of the problems under consideration. It can be recommended for publication after a little revision. Firstly, apparently, for some technical reasons, illustrations have not been uploaded to the text, which are extremely necessary from the point of view of the subject of the study, there are only indications of them and captions to them. Secondly, it is recommended in the introductory part of the article to expand the provision on the possibility of using the resource to establish links between the place of residence of certain social groups and urban infrastructure, which is summarized in the conclusion. In addition, it would be interesting to compare the different-time social location within the city in relation to these groups and draw appropriate conclusions, of course, if there is different-time material for studying dynamics. Another point is the need to mention the ratio of traditional urban development at different times and justify the use of modern maps on this basis. After that, the article can be published.

Second Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

Over the past few decades, our society has seen an increased interest in the history of our homeland, including everyday and regional ones. It is no coincidence that a series of everyday life is widely represented on the shelves of bookstores: Russian Russian traveler's Daily Life in the Off-Road Era, Everyday Life of a Russian Provincial City in the nineteenth Century: the Post-Reform Period, etc. However, many aspects of the social and cultural life of the Russian province of the XVIII - XIX centuries still remain unexplored. These circumstances determine the relevance of the article submitted for review, the subject of which is an interactive map of the social and cultural space of the Russian provincial city of the late XVIII – first third of the XIX century. The author sets out to analyze the social and cultural space of Tambov using the methods of historical informatics. The work is based on the principles of analysis and synthesis, reliability, objectivity, the methodological basis of the research is a systematic approach, which is based on the consideration of the object as an integral complex of interrelated elements. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the very formulation of the topic: the author seeks to characterize the mechanism of creating an interactive map using the example of Tambov, as well as "some results of the scientific historical analysis of the information of the map of one year ("time slice") as a model for creating multi-temporal layers of geo-historical information about the localization of social strata and groups of the city "in the spirit of the Philadelphia Project. The scientific novelty of the article also lies in the involvement of archival materials. Considering the bibliographic list of the article, it is worth noting its scale and versatility as a positive point: in total, the list of references includes over 40 different sources and studies. The source base of the article is primarily represented by documents from the collections of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, the Russian State Historical Archive, and the State Archive of the Tambov Region. Among the studies attracted by the author, we point to the works of E.V. Baranova, E.V. Sokolova and M.A. Petrova, whose focus is on various aspects of the study of methods of historical informatics. Note that the bibliography is important both from a scientific and educational point of view: after reading the text of the article, readers can turn to other materials on its topic. In general, in our opinion, the integrated use of various sources and research contributed to the solution of the tasks facing the author. The style of writing the article can be attributed to scientific, at the same time accessible to understanding not only to specialists, but also to a wide readership, to anyone who is interested in both the Russian province in general and the methods of historical informatics in its study, in particular. The appeal to the opponents is presented at the level of the collected information received by the author during the work on the topic of the article. The structure of the work is characterized by a certain logic and consistency, it can be distinguished by an introduction, the main part, and conclusion. At the beginning, the author defines the relevance of the topic, shows that "the study of the historical development of the social and cultural space of cities, the popularization of the historical heritage of regions are relevant scientific, heuristic and social tasks aimed at scientific analysis of the development of the social structure and the preservation of historical memory of different strata of the urban population." The author examines the process of creating an interactive map of Tambov, shows its results. The author draws attention to the fact that the results of the work show the process of "transformation of Tambov at the end of the XVIII century. as a "big village" (the term of A.T. Bolotov, who passed through the city more than once) into a true city." The main conclusion of the article is that the resource developed by the author can be "used for sightseeing activities around the city, as well as for introducing children to urban history through quest games." The article submitted for review is devoted to an urgent topic, is provided with 4 figures and a table, and its materials can be used both in educational courses and in the framework of historical informatics. In general, in our opinion, the article can be recommended for publication in the journal "Historical Informatics".