Precincts of Police Officers in 1878: the Experience of Quantitative Research (on the Example of Kazan and Perm Provinces)

Abstract

The object of the study is the institute of police officers, introduced in the Russian Empire in the last quarter of the XIX century. The subject of the study is the district land plots created in the framework of the reform in the Kazan and Perm provinces. The purpose of the study is to analyze their quantitative characteristics. The theory of modernization is chosen as a general methodology. To achieve this goal, quantitative methods are used, first of all: formal quantitative, correlation and multidimensional (cluster) data analysis. The basis for the quantitative analysis was the "Information" on the distribution of provinces into the district plots (1878), deposited in the Russian State Historical Archive. The main conclusions of the study are the idea that the situation of the police constables of the Perm province was much worse than in Kazan, and the work of the constables was hindered by a significant number of the population of 1/3 of the police stations. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian historiography, correlation and multidimensional cluster analysis by the k-means method was used to analyze the uryadnik sites of the Russian Empire. As a result, for the first time, the classification of district plots was created. 1) sparsely populated; 2) Kazan-type; 3) scattered; 4) overpopulated; 5) too large; 6) scattered and overpopulated district plots were identified.