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A History of Russian Administrative Boundaries (XVIII - XX centuries).
Irina Merzliakova
It is still a problem to make Russian historical maps and geographical data available worldwide. The international academic community has not been able to make use of many existing Russian archival maps and documents. Even ten years ago the Russian archives were hardly accessible to non-native researchers. Almost all of the archival maps despite of their age and scale were considered classified information. This was an obstacle for research in various fields and had a negative influence on comparative studies of Russian history, geography and cartography in the international context. However, the reforms of the last ten years have changed the situation and have opened the archives and map collections in them for research.
In the Russian archives there are stored hundreds of thousand of large and medium-scale maps and related manuscripts describing administrative boundaries, the nature and economy of the country on the very detailed level. These are part of 16th – 20th Century surveys of forests, land property, military surveys etc. Every historian uses them to study localities. But the task to fulfil a detailed countrywide research based on such extensive map resources is quite beyond the limits of any individual researcher.
To remedy this, we are now planning to produce a database that will include an overview of the network of Russian administrative boundaries since 1775th up to second decade of the 20th century. The starting date is the year of the administrative reform of Catherine II that summarized the long-term period of modernization of administrative control over the regions. The principle aim of the project is to create the electronic reference system that allows users to: (1) view administrative borders at the local level (uezd and volost') and their temporal dynamics, (2) check the administrative affiliation of an area or village, (3) be easily used by the researchers for their own purposes, (4) be used together with the most common GIS.
We consider compiling the framework of the Russian administrative boundaries to be the decisive step to applying digital methods in Russian historical geography. This would provide the academic community with the spatial data and technological framework for the analysis of their own spatially related data. Furthermore, the project will provide a framework that other researchers may use to add their digital maps and data. This will solve technological problems common for the users and creators of digital historical data sets. Though all these goals are too ambitious to be fulfilled within a single project, starting the whole initiative may have a very broad promotional influence on the state of research in Russian historical geography.
Related URL: igras.geonet.ru
International Workshop on Historical GIS
Fudan University, Shanghai, August 23-25, 2001
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