Medieval Russian Social and Economic "Connectedness" in the 12th and 13th Centuries: Vernacular Textual Dissemination, Connection Arrays and Short-Pat

我提议的论文将考察12-13世纪俄罗斯部分城市的社会和经济“关联性”，正如桦树皮文献所证明的那样。在这里，社会联系被定义为亲友关系，经济联系被定义为与贸易相关的活动(以及可能被称为“同事”关系)，例如毛皮贸易。我的论文旨在回答几个问题。1)哪些城市通过桦树丛中的社会/经济网络连接起来(包括通过其传播手段：河流和公路路线以及信使)。2)这些跨越距离的网络有多强大(这可以用社会矩阵、关联矩阵、图论和数字人文技术来绘制)。我的论文旨在使用Gephi等数字工具来可视化这些网络，并将这项研究提供给该领域的其他人。我的论文将主要使用桦树皮文献，但也会参考其他文献(例如第一部《诺夫哥罗德编年史》)。这些eBirchbark文档中存在的社会和经济网络将使用社会网络分析方法进行分析--即图论、矩阵(社会矩阵和关联矩阵)以及用于可视化和处理文本数据的数字工具。

My proposed thesis will examine the social and economic "connectedness", as attested by birchbark documents, ofselect cities in 12th-13th century Rus'. Here, social connectedness is defined by kith and kin relationships, and economicconnectedness as trade-related activities (and what may be termed "co-worker" relationships) such as the fur-trade. Mythesis aims to answer several questions. 1) Which cities were connected by social/economic networks in birchbarkcommunication (including by its means of dissemination: river and road routes, and messengers). 2) How strong werethese networks across distances (which may be charted using sociomatrices, incidence matrices, graph theory, anddigital humanities technologies). My thesis aims to visualise these networks using digital tools, such as Gephi, and tomake this research available to others in the field. My thesis will primarily use birchbark documents, but other documents(such as the First Novgorodian Chronicle) will be consulted. The social and economic networks present in thesebirchbark documents will be analysed using social network analysis methods - namely graph theory, matrices(sociomatrices and incidence matrices), and digital tools for visualising and manipulating textual data.