A collection of documents “Magnitogorsk prewar” as a source for studying the history of industrialization (experience with the program MAXQDA)

In recent years, “digital history” or “historical informatics” are gaining popularity in the world and Russian historical science. This is due to the accumulation of new types of historical sources and the need for their storage and analysis, as well as the wide spread of information technology. Historical science, traditionally, working with collections of libraries and archives during the 1980's and 2000's was actively involved in the achievements of the “digital humanities”. Among the leading researches in the field of digital history it is necessary to note the works of A.Yu. Volodin, L.I. Borodkin, G.V. Mojaeva, M. Thaler, I.M. Garskova, P. Alkoven, P. Doorn, O. Boonstra, L. Breure. Significant works in the field of study of the content analysis are the study of A.I. Alekseev, A.G. Zdravomyslova, I.D. Koval'chenko, L.I. Borodkina, M. Olsen, R.L. Merritt. Despite the presence of a significant number of studies in the field of “digital history”, publications that demonstrate specific experience in the use of digital technology in history based on the program MAXQDA have not been distributed. This article describes the experience of content analysis of the materials of the collection of documents “Magnitogorsk prewar”. The object of the study was made by a computer program MAXQDA and its capabilities under specific historical research. The collection “Magnitogorsk prewar” includes both materials of the local periodicals (for example, the daily city newspaper “Magnitogorsk worker”, the city newspaper “Magnitogorsk metal” and a number of local multi-page publications) and unpublished archival documents (protocols, transcripts, plans and reports), selected in the Central, regional and local archives, as well as the materials of ego-documents. The computer program MAXQDA, created in 1989 by German scientists, provides a more in-depth and multidimensional content analysis. Various narrative documents, considered as an example in this paper, differ in diversity, broad chronological framework, a large amount of information and as a result become equal materials for historical informatics. The use of this program, as one of the leading in the field of complex analysis of the text, made it possible to obtain accurate data on the characteristics of the development of the city of Magnitogorsk during the period of forced industrialization (1930-1940) by year, the links between the content of articles and some general information about the language of publications in these years. The author showed a specific method of working with a historical source using the MAXQDA program (counting the frequency of word usage, working with tag clouds, the use of an interactive tree, the definition of semantic categories, the study of the context of the collection of documents in relation to indicator words, etc.). The obtained results allow to supplement the idea of the processes of industrial development of Magnitogorsk, as well as to visualize the main trends reflected in the source material.

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