Periodical Press Materials of the Second Half of the 19th Century and Early 20th Century About the History of Public Education of the Kazan Educational District in Dissertations on Scientific Specialty “National History” of the Early 21st Century

Introduction. The topics of scientific and qualification works of the beginning of the 21st century reflect a multifactorial approach to the study of Russian regional history. The history of primary public education remains a relevant direction of Russian historiography. Methods and materials. The article uses historical-statistical and historical-comparative methods to analyze historical abstracts of dissertations and dissertations in which periodical press materials are classified as the main types of sources. Analysis and results. The territorial scope of the scientific and qualification works covers the entire territory of the Kazan educational district, and the chronological one is mainly the second half of the 19th to early 20th centuries. A quarter of all authors addressed a wide range of periodicals, but their dissertations demonstrate a superficial analysis of the periodical press, limiting them to listing the contents of publications. Only a fifth of the researchers addressed periodicals at the district level. Regional periodicals were used on an equal basis with central ones, but in terms of the number of newspaper and magazine titles, they were several times inferior to the latter. They used periodical press materials in four main areas of scientific research: taking into account public opinion, studying the chronology of events, preparing interdisciplinary studies, and supplementing other types of sources. An analysis of dissertations showed that the potential of the periodical press (central, regional, and local) as a comprehensive historical source on the history is underutilized. The diversity of the central and regional periodical press of the Kazan district has resource potential in modern scientific research.