The socio-professional portrait of the officer corps of the academies of the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I: creation and analysis of an information resource

The article is a continuation of the research by the authors of the officer corps of the Russian army using information technology to create a collective portrait of the socio-professional identity of the officers of the Imperial Nikolaev Military Academy, the Nikolaev Engineering Academy, and the Mikhail Artillery Academy of the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I. The sources of the research included documents from the military department published online on the website of the Russian Military Historical Archive, presented in seniority lists of specific educational institutions at the beginning of 1914, seniority lists categorized by ranks, as well as historical reference internet resources on the historical issues. To form a collective portrait of the officers in our sample, the task was to identify the common and particular traits characteristic of the representatives of this group. In addition to measuring the socio-professional parameters of a specific group of officers in 1914, elements of the prosopographic method were employed, analyzing the indicators from previous stages of collective biographies of the studied group (origin, place of birth, education, combat experience, and the number of awards received during previous service). Based on the studied materials, a table was created using Microsoft Excel that reflected the main aspects of the socio-professional parameters of the officer corps of that time. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the application of a comprehensive approach to studying the main characteristics of the officers who served in the academies. As a result of the conducted analysis, 13 tables were constructed with data groupings on age, social and religious status, place of birth or registration, levels of general and military education, presence of combat experience, number of earned awards, ranks according to length of service, and positions held in the academies. The socio-professional image of the instructors and other officers of the military academies is examined in comparison with other groups of the officer corps, determining the specificity of this group in relation to the broader officer ranks. The article sets out the tasks of studying the career paths of the academy officers and the fates of officer families in the military-revolutionary era of 1914-1922. The authors specifically explain their desire to create a large database for studying the dynamics of biographies of different groups of officers, i.e., a prosopographic informational resource.

Russian army, officers, military academies, age structure, social origin, professional appearance, socio-demographic status, information resource, quantitative methods, prosopography