Russian Journals in the Subject Category “History” in Scopus: Key Indicators and Impact Assessment at the International Level

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of Russian journals indexed in Scopus in 2021 by the category “History.” The purpose of the study was to assess the current level and influence of Russian historical journals on the basis of a comparison of their bibliometric indicators with data from journals in France and Germany. Sources and methods. The sources were the data of the Scopus international scientometric database, the SCImago Journal & Country Rank portal, the Russian Science Citation Index, and the Internet sites of journals. Conclusions and discussion. The important features of Russian journals that need to be taken into account when analyzing their bibliometric indicators are revealed: the late start of indexing in Scopus, the presence of more works from other socio-humanities, a large number of articles published annually, the affiliation of the absolute majority of historical journals to universities and research institutes, and the predominance of the journal distribution model by the type of open access. Open access to Russian journals compensates for a high percentage of publications in Russian (85.5%) and a high proportion of Russian authors (82.8%). In terms of citation indicators, Russian journals are superior to French ones and inferior to German ones. Based on the analysis of the “extreme citation” of individual Russian journals, options for correcting it are proposed. Despite the higher self-citation rate of Russian journals (40%), they have higher ratings on average, both at the national level and in comparison with historical journals in France and Germany. The question of defining the boundaries between the specializations of the journal in a closed scientific discipline, going beyond which can be assessed as artificial self-citation, is raised separately. Doubts are expressed about the possibility of a rapid reorientation of Russian journals from the European and American areas of cooperation to researchers from other regions.