Abstract: The article studies the increase of aircraft speed during 1913-1918 in the main countries participating in the First World War: Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia, the USA and France. It is the first time when the average speed of aircraft has been calculated. This involved the collection of data on the production of aircrafts by types and years. A separate comparison was made for combat planes and fighters - a class for which speed is of particular importance. The author has specified data on the amount of planes manufactured within the period understudy as well. He has collected data on airplane production in 1913-1918 and their performance within a database of 2450 records. It is shown that in 1913 the average plane speeds in six countries mentioned above were similar, but by the end of the war the allies (Great Britain, France and Italy) took the lead while Germany and especially Russia lagged behind. In Germany the lag occurred in 1917-1918 and in Russia mainly in the first two years of the war rather than during those revolutionary years. The author concludes that this lag is caused by the increasing share of locally manufactured planes in Russian aircraft industry that reached 50% in 1917-1918.

Keywords: historical database, Russian aircraft design, industry, airplane performance, airplane manufacturing, aviation history, Great war history, aviation, fighters, airplane's velocity growth

Abstract: Mathematical modeling is increasingly popular to study spatial distribution of population. This trend is determined by the necessity to study the dynamics of population quantity and density, reconstruct lacking data, search for population displacement factors and evaluate their influence on this process. The current study develops the model describing the system of centers distribution (the settlement structure) of the one-level hierarchy. Such a modeling aims at searching for basic factors and evaluating their influence on the process, associating optimum parameters which characterize the system of centers distribution. The model developed by the author is based on the innovative approach of S.M. Gusein-Zade which makes it possible to describe the regularities in the location (distribution) of heterogeneous settlements and other centers on the territories. The variations calculus methods applied as well as the concept of Pareto optimality allows one to find parameters of the existing systems of centers location and quantitatively describe the phenomena occurring in them. The model has been tested to study a medieval rural settlement and has proven adequate and correct. It has been demonstrated that the process of free population displacement was caused by two counterbalancing factors: a centripetal one (concentration of settlements around their centers) and a centrifugal one (displacement of population near the farmland).

Keywords: Pareto equilibrium, calculus of variations, human settlement system, scribe book, central location theory, Poisson distribution, Mathematical modelling, population density function, functional, linear regression

Abstract: The article studies history and archeology of ancient and medieval Chersonesus via its computer reconstruction. The authors are a group including a historian, an archeologist, an architect, a painter and a computer graphics designer. Two periods have been reconstructed. These are the beginning of the New Era and the 10th century. The source base of reconstruction are materials of archaeological reports, photographs, drawings, plans and schemes of archaeological monuments of Chersonesus, materials of topographical survey. The research methods are a historical and typological method to accompany 3D reconstruction of different buildings and structures and a method of analogs to create variants of building/structure reconstruction since some building and structures are badly preserved and this hinders reconstruction. The research novelty is the fact that is the first complex computer 3D reconstruction of Chersonesus. It is the first time when all buildings and structures (earlier 2D reconstructed) have been 3D reconstructed. The authors are the first to propose and substantiate a graphical reconstruction of a two-storied basilica, reconstruct the south-west part of the defensive wall completely destroyed by construction works at the end of the 19th century. The article concludes that a complex 3D reconstruction of an archeological site is of both a research and an applied importance as it provides for determining characteristics of buildings and structures and promoting an archeological object, creating movie projects and illustrating books. The efficiency of a combination of computer programs such as SketchUp, 3DMax and Google-Earth online service has been proven.

Keywords: defensive wall, basilica, archeology, computer reconstruction, 3D modeling, Cherson, Chersonese, ancient theater, insula, temple

Abstract: The article summarizes the study addressing the resettlement of the Karelians in the Upper Volga Region in the middle - the second half of the 17th century after entry of a part of Karelia into the Swedish state. The study applies GIS-technologies and focuses on the location and the number of the Karelians in the Upper Volga Region. The study is based on written sources: scribal descriptions and acts. For localization purposes the authors used additional sources of the 18th-19th centuries such as General Land Survey data, statistical descriptions and maps. They have created GIS layers with “Korelyane” settlements. The layers show resettlement dynamics from 1640s to the late 1670s. Attributive tables include data on population numbers. The research novelty is a detailed picture of mass resettlement of the Karelians in the Upper Volga Region and stages of this resettlement. The earliest settlements of “korelyane” are localized in Bezhetskiy Verkh on manorial and monastery lands. In the 1650s-1660s palace Karelian territories are formed in Bezhetskiy Verkh, Novotorzhskiy uezd and the southern part of Bezhetskaya Pyatina and Derevskaya Pyatina. In the 1670s the Karelians continued to resettle on manorial and monastery lands. By the late 1670s “korelyane” had settled the territories near such rivers as Mologa, Medveditsa and Tvertsa. They grew in number too. The author is the first to use some new sources to analyze resettlement and demography of Karelian immigrants in the central regions of Russia in the 17th century. 

Keywords: peasantry, Migration, GIS-technology, uezd, lokalization, resettlement, Karelians, parish, demography, estate

Abstract: The article studies personal alphabetic indexes to transcripts of State Duma meetings in the early 20th century. Alphabetic transcripts indexes are important as they structurally demonstrate activity of each Duma member thus allowing one to qualitatively and quantitatively estimate deputies’ work. The article traces changing approaches to publish information about personal characteristics and parliamentarians’ activity and studies the source structure and content dynamics. The research methodology is based on the analysis of historical XML markup texts. To solve the research problems the author has developed a scheme of XML markup of indexes texts. Their structure included tags to describe the main source parameters such as source metadata, deputies’ personal characteristics and activities during sessions of the first through the fourth convocations of the Russian parliament. Tag analysis provided for estimating the degree of precision deputies’ activity was described as well as changing structure of data presentation and find permanent information about deputies and variable data in different session indexes. The results of this study allow one to estimate the information potential of the source in its dynamics, make up for incompleteness of data with information from transcripts and analyze the nesting of tags to classify deputies according to activity characteristics.

Keywords: schema XSD, deputies' activity, sourse structure, historical corpora, XML-markup, the State Duma, verbatim report, Index, content analysis, parliament

Abstract: The article is the first part reviewing audiovisual archives and presentation of their collections in the Internet. In this series of articles the author will deal only with audiovisual documentation on transparent (film) or specialized media. In case archival collections include born-digital audio recordings, photos, video films and video fragments, this will be stipulated in particular. The first article studies audio archives and collections that can be conventionally divided into several categories. The first one is musical archives containing records of folk music, classical music and popular music; radio archives. From a historical point of view, reports and interviews are of interest in these collections as they reflect history of everyday life and mentality of contemporaries of historical events. The second category is audio archives of research centers studying ethnography, anthropology, oral history, memorial (personal) history, linguistics, etc. The research methods are historical and systemic, historical and comparative, historical and typological as well as historical and descriptive methods. The study is a historiographical review of the current state of audiovisual information archives in Russia and abroad and presentation of their collections in the Internet. Finding aid, digitized collections, permanent electronic expositions and thematic online exhibitions are a small list of forms to present audiovisual information.

Keywords: scientific reference, edison cylinders, schellac, oral history, memorial archives, audio archives, radio archives, musical archives, audiovisual archives, online publications

Abstract: The article addresses five mechanisms to create past in the mass consciousness of internet users that have been singled out when analyzing the project “1917. Free history”. They are the construction of an event belt of the past through a game, the use of persons’ and institutions’ authority, the use of an authoritative format of data description, the use of special type of historical sources (personal origin sources as well as emotionally charged poems and prose) and the use of strict direction of content publication. The analysis was made in the framework of R. Barthes’ structuralist theory of myth and Yu. M. Lotman’s studies of the role of games in human life ("theater outside the theater"). The article is the first to select and analyze a myth by studying news posts by participants of a virtual historical network within 4 days in December 2017 and January 2018. The study concludes that the history of 1917 events reconstructed within a social network format is a mythology that successfully flourishes in the mass historical consciousness of Internet users since thousands of people are subscribers to the project understudy.

Keywords: Russian revolution, historical online resources, Internet resources, history of Russia, public history, digital history, mass historical consciousness, social network, Internet media, constructing history

Abstract: The article discusses reflections of history students history related to digital media resources of public history. It is mainly about the project “1917. Free history” which published various materials about personal 1917 daily events and moods. The student read the media resource and its critical analysis publications and wrote their essay reviews estimating them. The article is in line with modern current debates of historiography on the problem of “history consumption”, development of principles and criteria for professional assessment of digital historical media resources. The estimates of digital media resources in total are of interest from two points of view. Firstly, this is the young audience who are accustomed to digital information. It is “their environment”. Secondly, these are opinions of future professional historians. As can be seen from the presented materials, the majority of students agree with the critical estimation of the media projects of public history reviewed.

Keywords: Digital Humanities, interactive systems, diaries, digital history, digital resources, mediaresources, public history, students, historical source, network project

Abstract: The article analyzes reports made at the 16th conference of the Association “History and Computer” (AHC). Comparative analysis of the association’s conferences over the past years allows one to see both traditional and new trends national historical information science follows in the digital age, identify the main theoretical and applied problems related to the use of information technologies and mathematical methods in historical research when information resources rapidly grow and require adequate analytical methods and approaches. The article continues the work to classify and dynamically analyze topics addressed at by AHC’s conference participants as well as study the main ways national historical information science has been on since the early 1990s. The informational basis of the study is a growing full-text historiographic collection and a bibliographic database of AHC’s publications. The study has demonstrated that the conference reports correspond both to the information trend to create and use digital resources, databases, historical GIS, 3D reconstructions of historical and cultural heritage objects and to the trend to process and analyze historical sources with the help of computer simulation methods, mathematical statistics, content analysis, network and spatial analysis i.e. analytical tools necessary to grasp large arrays of digital online sources.

Keywords: content analysis, databases, digital resources, analytical methods, information technologies, conference, historical informayion science, virtual reconstruction, simulation, digitizing

Abstract: 23rd annual conference “CHNT Congress Visual Heritage” was held in Vienna from 12th to 15th November 2018. The conference focused on application of digital technologies to study cultural heritage and work with museums. Over 400 participants from 41 countries (29 from Europe, 6 from the Middle East and Asia, 5 from North and South America, 1 from Africa) visited this meeting. 239 reports were presented at 17 sections, 4 workshops, 2 training courses, 5 round table discussions and 9 general sections. Participants addressed such research methods as preservation and visualization of cultural heritage objects, photogrammetry, laser scanning, 3D-modelling, museum software development and many others. The article gives a review of the conference by a delegate from Lomonosov Moscow State University. The article describes the main aspects of the conference, key reports, the main sections and methodological problems of digital cultural heritage discussed.

Keywords: building informational modeling, photogrammetry, virtual reconstructions, technologies of 3D-modeling, international conference, preservation of cultural heritage, laser scanning, digital museums, digital humanities, digital archaeology