Historians of Altai State University are creating a unique web resource reflecting the process of modernization of the Central Asian outskirts of the Russian Empire

13 September 2020 Department of Information and Media Communications
Scientists of Altai State University are creating a historical web resource reflecting the dynamics of the socio-economic development of the Central Asian region of the Russian Empire.

The team of scientists led by Yulia Lysenko, Head of the Department of Oriental Studies of the Institute of History and International Relations at Altai State University, is completing the next stage of the project "Socio-economic modernization of the Central Asian outskirts of the Russian Empire: interdisciplinary methods of reconstruction and evaluation of efficiency", which received support from the Russian Science Foundation.

"In 2020, we came close to designing a web resource reflecting the dynamics of economic and social modernization of the Steppe and Turkestan Governors General of the Russian Empire. To do this, throughout the past year, we found, analyzed and structured statistical data on the profile sectors of the primary (agricultural production), secondary (industry) and tertiary sectors (trade, infrastructure) of the region's economy. This allowed us to form indicators for different sectors of the economy and build them into time series, chronologically covering the period from 1880 to 1916. This is a significant amount of information on demographic indicators, mining and processing industries, the number of workers employed at enterprises, production volumes, their technical equipment; various indicators of the dynamics of the development of agriculture - livestock, the volume of cultivated areas and the amount of the harvested crop. In addition, the web resource will present statistical indicators reflecting the dynamics of school construction, the categories of educational institutions, the involvement of the child population in the study region in the educational process, as well as a significant layer of indicators of urbanization processes,” explained the project manager Yulia Lysenko.

In addition, the web resource is designed in such a way that all statistical information can be visualized by a site visitor. On the interactive map of the portal, it is possible to display any indicator in the regional and district environment. The site user will be able to filter the displayed data by properties, sort the data, compare data, and build graphs. The user will be able to access the displayed texts - monographs, articles, and sources.

In the summer of 2020, after all restrictive measures caused by the coronavirus pandemic had been lifted, the research team of the project visited the Russian State Historical Archives (RSHA) in St. Petersburg, where they began to search new documents containing data on the tax system, internal and external trade of the Central Asian region. In addition to the annual Statistical Surveys of the regions of the Steppe and Turkestan Governorate-Generals, the researchers analyzed a new type of source - the loyal reports of the military governors of the Semipalatinsk, Akmola, Ural, Turgai, Fergana, and Syrdarya regions. This is a fairly voluminous and meaningful type of source, containing, among other things, information necessary for a web resource.

The research team of the project continues research work and prepares a number of articles for authoritative scientific publications dedicated to the features of modernization of the Central Asian outskirts of the Russian Empire.

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