The term ‘prosopography’ is applied to studies in a wide range of Humanities and Social Science Disciplines. A common denominator linking these studies is that they all proceed from the collection and analysis of data relating to the careers and relationships of people within a particular group. For some prosopographical studies, the main objective is to compile and publish a dataset in a format which is valuable to students and scholars in a particular field of research; for others, the compilation of prosopographical dataset is simply the first stage in wider process of analysis and interpretation.
The application of computer technology has vastly enhanced the potential of prosopographical studies. In particular, it has made size manageable, and prosopographies these days are often very large. The key input in a prosopography’s value, though, and the major element in a project’s costs, is not the IT but the expertise of the staff involved in making the data-base and harnessing the IT power appropriately.
PDG has been funded by the Ilia State University (ISU) and its Institute of Linguistic Research to create a resource for scholars, students and anyone else with an interest in 20th Century Georgia and Soviet history. The objective of the project has been to compile a prosopographical dataset for Pre-Soviet and Soviet Georgia that is as comprehensive and accessible as possible given the available resources. Priority has therefore been afforded to achieving the greatest possible range and depth of coverage of the available primary sources, and to making the data as accessible as possible in the way it is presented and structured through the web interface. During this first two years of project, PDG has focused more on the compilation and presentation of data than on prosopographical analysis and interpretation.
© Prosopographic Database of 20th Century Georgia, Institute of Linguistic Studies. 2018 -