Prosopography: on the question of periodization of the application of the method in historical research

Abstract

The subject of this article is the history of the development and application of prosopography in historical research. The author proposes a periodization of the history of prosopography - a research method and an interdisciplinary direction of research (an auxiliary applied discipline). Particular attention is paid to the criteria for identifying the periods of development of prosopography and the history of the emergence of analytical (quantitative) prosopography, its source database, research methods and features of research. The source of useful materials is an extensive complex of materials collected by the author over the past 30 years. More than 5,000 publications on prosopographic studies carried out by foreign and russian historians in the period from the infection of the 19th century until now have been collected. The main research methods used by the author in this work are the historical-comparative and historical-chronological methods, the method of analyzing historiographic sources used at different times to create and analyze information from prosopographic databases; the results of their processing, including the interpretation of income in the past development, as well as the presentation of prosopographic projects on the Internet and the use of modern information technologies. The scientific novelty of the study is carried out in the original classical periodization of prosopographic studies, combining foreign and domestic historiography of prosopography and studying it as the only premise.