The Russian-German trade in the review of the "Journal of Manufactures and Trade" in 1825-1834: the content-analysis practice

This article analyzes the Russian-German trade based on the materials of the monthly "Journal of Manufactures and Trade", Russian commercial magazine, which was published in 1825-1860, and covered a wide range of economic topics. Issues of a production and commercial nature were put on the central place, as it’s supposed by the name and structure of the «Journal». The most valuable period is the first 10 years of its issue. In these articles close attention was paid to various aspects of foreign trade. The task of our research was to identify key topics, which were related to Russian-German trade relations and covered in the Journal. It was also interesting to trace the changes in the thematic content in 1825-1834, during the period of changes in customs legislation both in Russia and in German countries. To solve these tasks, the content analysis method in the computer program MAXQDA was chosen. The relevance of the work is based on the poor study of the articles’ texts of the "Journal" in the context of trade problems. The research carried out the presence of stable trends in the coverage of foreign trade issues, however, textile production issues occupied a central place, while trade was considered as a second. The main conclusion of this article was the discovery of strong links between the indicators of trade items, which were established in our previous study of the statistics of Russian-German trade, as key (wool, silk, wood), and the mention of German states in the Journal's articles. Thus, the press information confirms the statistical data in the studied period under review. The results obtained can be used for further, more in-depth research on foreign trade issues, as well, as other topics covered in the Journal.

foreign trade, custom, Russian-German trade, The Journal of manufacture and trade, commercial press, silk, wool, trade fair, content-analysis, MAXQDA