Historical informatics

The term “historical informatics” was introduced in the early 1990s by L. I. Borodkin . The basic concepts and approaches of historical informatics are developed at the Department of Historical Informatics of the Faculty of History of the Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov in collaboration with a number of scientific and educational centers united under the auspices of the inter-regional association “History and Computer” (AIK) ^[1] , established in 1992 . as a Russian branch of the International Association "History and Computing". Among the most active centers one should mention the Historical Archives Institute of the RSUH , Altai, Tambov, Petrozavodsk Universities, the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences . From the first years of AIC existence, Belarusian University has played a significant role in the development of historical informatics.

The prehistory of historical informatics in the USSR and Russia can be associated with the 1960s, when sources on the agrarian history of Russia in the XIX century. began to be processed using a computer. The development of historical informatics in Russia had a number of features, the main one being the continuity of the traditions of the national school of quantitative history, the leader of which was academician I. D. Kovalchenko.

The theoretical basis of historical informatics is the modern concept of information (including social information) and theoretical source study , and the applied basis is information and computer technology ^[2] . In historical computer science, it is customary to single out the resource (infrastructure) and analytical (focused on obtaining meaningful results) components ^[3] .

The areas of historical informatics include the electronic publication of historical sources, the development of historical databases and thematic Internet resources, historical geographic information systems, virtual 3d reconstructions of cultural heritage objects, the use of computerized methods and technologies for analyzing statistical, structured, textual, visual and other sources, computer simulation of historical processes, as well as the creation of specialized software and application of information ormatsionnyh technologies in history education (including online learning).

The Russian professional community, developing historical informatics, has its own periodical and serial editions. Since the early 1990s. The Information Bulletin of the Association “History and Computer” has been published (46 issues were published by the end of 2017), since 1994 a series of collections “A Circle of Ideas - New in Historical Computer Science” (12 issues). Since 2012, the quarterly journal Historical Informatics has been published.

A characteristic feature of research in the field of historical informatics is the collaboration of research groups within the framework of projects coordinated by AIC. Thus, projects on the study of the evolution of historical professions and on demographic history were implemented with the participation of historians from Altai, Tambov, S.-Petersburg, and other universities. Russian-Dutch project to study the evolution of labor motivation in the Russian industry of the XIX — XX centuries. was carried out by researchers from Moscow State University, Tver and Yaroslavl Universities, IRI RAN. An important result of these projects was the development of large-scale digital resources. A number of interdisciplinary projects in line with historical informatics were implemented by the Department of Historical Informatics at Moscow State University, including the project on the virtual reconstruction of Moscow's monastic kits and the project to create a large-scale information resource "The Dynamics of Economic and Social Development of Russia in the 19th - early 20th centuries."

At the initial stage of its development, Russian historical informatics generally followed the international (European) tendencies, although it had certain specific features. However, when in the mid-2000s. The development of historical informatics (historical computing) abroad has entered a crisis phase, this crisis practically did not affect the trajectory of the progressive development of Russian historical informatics, which remains one of the successful interdisciplinary areas in historical science.

After the mid-2000s. The European model of historical informatics has lost its identity and transformed into a significantly reduced form in the Digital History (digital history) - part of the Digital Humanities (digital humanities).

A comparison of the “digital history” with the historical informatics suggests that today there are significant differences between them . “Digital history” is mainly connected with the use of digital media in the tasks of presentation and visualization of digitized sources, in digital public history. Historical informatics is part of modern historical science, it includes a theoretical component related to the source study of electronic resources, uses analytical computerized tools and at the same time conducts testing of computer technologies in historical research.

• Digital anthropology
• Digital Humanities
• Digital story

• Borodkin L.I. , Garskova I.M. Historical informatics: reset? // Bulletin of Perm University . Series "History". 2011. Vol. 2 (16). Pp. 5–11
• Volodin A.Yu. Historical informatics // The Great Russian Encyclopedia : electronic version. - 2016. - July 31st. - The date of the appeal: 12.03.2019.
• Historical informatics: new methods and technologies of historical research // History electronic scientific journal. 2015. № 8 (41).

• Department of Historical Informatics, Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosova
• Department of Documentation, Archival and Historical Informatics of AltSU
• Laboratory of Historical and Political Informatics, PGNIU
• Samara Center for Analytical History and Historical Informatics
• Association "History and Computer"