Reconstructing the Lives of Soviet Citizens: Digital Humanities Methods in the Cross-Check of Databases of World War II.

This article aims to show how methods from Digital Humanities can be used to gather information from different databases to investigate and reconstruct the biographies of the Soviet citizens who took part in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). This study is based on the records of the closed Soviet war crimes trials against those who collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation. The authors suggest using open Russian databases created by the Ministry of Defense to verify the information contained in trial records, including both testimonies of witnesses and interrogations of defendants. Moreover, by comparing various sources, researchers can review the data and add more information to official Soviet records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]