Prosopography

Prosopography (from other Greek πρόσωπον “person, personality” and γράφω “I write”), sometimes also “prosopography” is a special historical discipline that studies the biographies of historical persons belonging to a particular era or locality who had common political, social or ethnic traits that occupied a certain position (for example, "supporters of Pompey ", "senators in the era of the Yuliev-Klavdiev dynasty ", "delegate workers at the I Congress of Soviet Soviets", " Decembrists ", "Persians in the Roman Empire", "white officers of the Russian army Admiral A.V. Kolchak "," foreign specialists in the USSR of the 1920-30s ”).

The prosopographic method is the creation of collective biographies, identifying a certain circle of people, posing a series of the same questions about dates of birth and death, marriage and family, social origin, place of residence, education, occupation, religion, etc. The prosopographic method identifies certain types .

The concept of “prosopography” was first used in 1573 in the work of Antoine du Verdier “Prosopography or a description of famous personalities from the creation of the world with their portraits.” The prosopographic method was used as far back as the 19th century. and revived in the 1970s, when a number of publications on ancient prosopography appeared ( Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire , works by M. Arnheim , A. Chastagnol , T. Barnes ). Then prosopographic studies were extended to both new and recent history . Based on various sources, computer databases are created on a specific topic and period.