Experience in building and analyzing the database "Annual Reports of Agricultural Organizations of the Bashkir ASSR for 1934-1940"

The author examines various aspects of building a source database based on the annual reports of agricultural organizations in a specific region of Russia. Special attention is given to explaining the chronological framework of the study. The peculiarities of the preservation of annual reports as a separate scientific problem are elaborated. The database covers collective farms, state farms, machine-tractor stations (MTS), and local agricultural governing bodies. The features of the funds from district land departments and the agriculture departments of district executive committees are highlighted as sources for locating collective farm reporting. The geographical peculiarities of the Bashkir ASSR as a research region are noted. The electronic resources of the National Archive of the Republic of Bashkortostan are explored, including the guide to the archive's fonds and its inventories. For the first time in historical science, the soil map of Bashkortostan is introduced into scholarly circulation. Work is done on grouping individual districts of Bashkiria by soil types. The author uses Microsoft Excel and Access DBMS software to create a relational database with a "one-to-many" relationship type. For the first time in historiography, the question of the systematic application of quantitative methods in relation to Soviet agriculture is raised. Within the framework of the database, four tables were constructed. The table of archival files serves as the structural basis while remaining an auxiliary dataset. The main role is assigned to the organization table, constructed using formulas based on the archival files table. Efforts were made to clean the data of the electronic directory of the National Archive of the Republic of Bashkortostan, and it was adapted to the period and topic of the study. The districts of Bashkortostan are divided into the chernozem (steppe) zone and the forest zone, with transitional territories indicated, revealing the complexity and limitations of the zoning method based on the principle of soil. A multi-stage algorithm for extracting information on the contents of annual reports in the archive inventories has been developed. Based on the database, an experimental study was conducted to form a sample of state farms, MTS, and collective farms for further statistical research. The variability of the collective farm sample based on different input tasks is demonstrated. The author shows the limitations of the database and the future prospects for its development in expanding the object and chronological framework of the research. The author plans to expand the database by incorporating economic indicators.