"Daily notes of Yegor Andreevich Kovrigin": analysis of a historical source

Abstract

Introduction. Diary manuscripts in historical scholarship are a curious material, which in most cases is a unique testimony of the era. Numerous such sources have been discovered and published on the Russian history of the 19th century. It was mainly the nobility and intellectuals who had the opportunity to keep diaries. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries they were joined by merchants. Materials and methods.The rarest phenomenon remains the diaries of city dwellers, in particular those of peasant origin. In 2009, Tambov historians prof. Kanischev and Lyamin published a unique material: the diary of E. A. Kovrigin, a Tambovite. Results. This source contains interesting information on the life of a man who belonged to the trade-industrial strata of the provincial town - the so-called "silent estate". The article presents an analysis of the diary in its historical context, in particular the notes concerning the author's participation in the State Mobile Militia. The part of the diary devoted to the author's participation in the Tambov militia is of particular interest because it allows us to compare the official data available to us - such as the route of the squads - with the real state of affairs. Conclusion. The study and analysis of the diary of Kovrigin not only showed us a portrait of a particular man and the details of his personal life, but also revealed important details of significant events in Russian history, the realities of everyday life of a 19th century man, and also showed by example how the mentality of a provincial man was transformed in the transition from a traditional to an industrial society.