Yankul O. «Kharkiv Calendar» (1869–1917) as a historical and historiographical source

The dissertation deals with the complex analysis of the statistical and information miscellany «Kharkiv Calendar», and also to the edition which preceded it – «Commemorative Book of the Kharkiv Province» with the application – «Kharkiv Miscellany». The actuality of the chosen topic is due to the fact that such mass publications in the Russian Empire have not yet been the subject of proper analysis in the professional literature. The appearance of such collections is a reliable marker of the development not only of statistics as a science, but also an indicator of cultural and educational development of society as a whole, including in the regional dimension. Contemporary online projects related to the digitization of commemorative books and calendars of the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries, bibliographic descriptions, the first analytical attempts show that interest in such periodicals is growing today. The author considers the preconditions for the emergence of the «Kharkiv Calendar», the publications that preceded it. In total, the focus is on 68 volumes, which include all issues of the «Commemorative Book of the Kharkiv Province» (7 volumes), «Kharkiv Calendar» (49 volumes) and «Kharkiv Miscellany» (12 volumes). The present work is the first comprehensive investigation of these publications, which are important sources on the history of Kharkiv region of this period. The three sections consistently consider the theoretical and methodological principles of work, the preconditions for the emergence of publications and specifically characterize the materials on regional history, which were published on the pages of the «Kharkiv Calendar» and its application. The conclusions summarize the main results and make wishes on the directions and objectives of subsequent research. The personal contribution of the author consists in creating a special study where the «Kharkiv Calendar» and the publications that genetically related with it are comprehensively analyzed with the use of historical, source studies’ and historiographical methods and approaches (see Introduction). In addition, the definition of calendars and commemorative books of the Russian Empire as «statistical and information miscellanies» was clarified. This definition was chosen because such publications were based on statistical materials, and other information was a supplement to them. It was proposed to refer these publications to separate types of periodicals.