Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Bibliometric Analysis in Historiographical Studies 

 

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1980-2005 proved to be Moscow State University,

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 with 144 theses across 

9 academic branches. Next, with 1.5 times fewer theses, came Moscow State 

Pedagogical University.

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 Here, during the same period, 77 theses were 

defended across 4 branches of academia. In the third place was St 

Petersburg (Leningrad) State University,

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 with 48 works across 7 branches. 

In other establishments 28 or fewer defences were held. 

PhD thesis defences were held in 45 establishments between 1980 

and 2005. The lead institution in this regard proved to be Moscow State 

Pedagogical University (15 defences); with Moscow State University second 

(13), followed by St Petersburg State University (9). The All-Russian 

Research Institute of Art (State Institute of Art) and Rostov State University 

(5 defences) took joint fourth place. In other establishments, 1-3 defences 

were held. 

Based on systemically important signifiers of an academic school - 

thesis advisors, students, institutional unit and presence of a community 

tackling the theme within the school - information given by authors in their 

abstract was studied, namely, their academic advisors, the number of 

student supervisees of each advisor, and the academic and educational 

structures of their institution. These scientometric indicators made it 

possible to reveal already-formed or emerging academic schools in the 

framework of emigration studies. At the same time, it was noted that a 

single academic supervisor might accept theses on completely different 

subjects, the only thing in common being their relation to emigration 

research. The question arises as to whether such a chaotic and diverse array 

of works can be said to relate to a unified academic school. The author 

answers this question in the affirmative, based on the primary systematic 

importance of the indicators listed at the beginning of this paragraph, both 

the quantitative (the institutional advisor, his/her students, the institutional 

unit carrying out the study) and qualitative (presence of a community of 

researchers studying Russian emigration issues within the school) ones. 

Across the various universities and academic institutions in Russia, there are 

about 20 academic schools of historians and emigration experts. 

Thus, through examining the scope and nature of studies carried out 

in the 1990s - early 2000s, the emergence of a rapidly developing new 

discipline of emigration studies can be identified within Russian humanities. 

                                                 

45

 Federal State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education, Moscow State 

University named after M. V. Lomonosov, Moscow, Russia. 

46

 Federal State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education, Moscow State 

Pedagogical University, Moscow, Russia. 

47

 Federal State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education, Saint Petersburg 

State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia. 

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A. A. Pronin 

 

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Based on statistical data from this study, it is possible to further refine 

this statement. Among the academic disciplines within which studies into 

Russian emigration were undertaken between 1980 and 2005, the leading 

fields were philology (376 theses, or 41.6%), philosophy (192, 21.3%) and 

history (179, 19.8%). The remaining 156 (17.3%) theses were distributed 

between the fields of art history (44, 4.9%), pedagogy (31, 3.4%), economics 

(19, 2.1%), political science (24, 2.7%), jurisprudence (11, 1.2%), cultural 

studies (11, 1.2%), sociology (7, 0.8%), psychology (6, 0.7%), architecture (2, 

0.2%) and earth sciences (1, 0.1%). 

In other words, there are three main (“core”) academic branches - 

philology, philosophy and history - within whose frame the majority of 

developments in knowledge of Russian emigration history and Russian 

expatriate communities have taken place. Other theses were accounted for 

in related disciplines, while some works were distributed over a large 

number of branches of academia only distantly related to emigration 

studies. This finding confirms the expected pattern of dispersion of 

information: an arithmetic increase in the number of theses containing 

information on a specific topic of research leads to an exponential increase 

in the number of academic branches within which such research is being 

conducted. 

In terms of the number of specialities within each subject discipline in 

which Russian emigration studies took place between the years 1980 to 

2005, it was found that theses were prepared within 14 groups of specialties. 

Within Engineering (subject code 05.00.00) theses covering 4 specialities 

appeared, in History (07.00.00) - 7, Economics (08.00.00) - 8, Philosophy 

(09.00.00) - 9, Philology (10.00.00) - 12, Jurisprudence (12.00.00) - 2, 

Pedagogy (13.00.00) - 2, Art History (17.00.00) - 6, Architecture (18.00.00) - 

1, Psychology (19.00.00) - 3, Social sciences (22.00.00) - 4, Political sciences 

(23.00.00) - 4, Cultural Studies (24.00.00) - 3, and Earth Sciences (25.00.00) 

- 1. As you can see, the most ambitious field in terms of the number of 

specialties across which Russian emigration was studied, was philology. 

Russian literature (10.01.01) was found to be the undisputed leader 

among the academic specialties: during the period 1980-2005, 238 theses on 

Russian emigration were prepared within this frame. It is primarily within 

this field that the literature of the Russian diaspora is studied. In second 

place was History of the USSR (Russian History, 07.00.02), with 116 works. 

Third place (90 works) was shared by History of Philosophy (09.00.03) and 

Russian Language (10.02.01). Other specialist areas followed these by a 

considerable margin. 

The dominance of philologists and philosophers in the study of the 

heritage of Russian emigration can be explained, in the author’s opinion, as 

follows. Since the Petrine era (1689-1725), literature has consistently been 

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