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О чем пишут в дневниках? Тематическое моделирование на корпусе «Прожито»
The study explores the thematic evolution of Russian-language personal diaries throughout the 20th century, utilizing the extensive digital corpus of the "Prozhito" archive. The research employs topic modeling to process and analyze a vast collection of diary entries that would be unmanageable for detailed scrutiny using traditional close-reading methods. This methodology enables the identification of dominant themes and the formation of a representative sample for a comprehensive longitudinal study.
The findings reveal a distinction between perennial themes, which persist throughout the entire century, and period-specific topics that capture the spirit of particular eras. The enduring themes include personal life, food and nutrition, religion, news events, and cultural life. In contrast, distinct temporal markers include photography in the 1950s, space exploration in the 1960s, economic activity in the 1980s and the anticipation of the millennium in the 1990s. Ultimately, the study demonstrates how the application of digital methods to a collection of personal diaries allows for a novel observation of the dynamic interplay between "grand history"on the one hand and microhistory, reflecting how large-scale historical processes were experienced, interpreted and internalized by individuals, on the other. By bridging these narrative scales, the research constructs a more holistic picture of the past, showing how personal documents, when analyzed computationally, can enrich our understanding of historical consciousness.