Exploring Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graphs – Case of Correspondence Networks in Grand Duchy of Finland 1809–1917

Abstract

This paper argues for using methods and tools of Network Analysis (NA) to study contents of knowledge graphs (KG) in Digital Humanities (DH) research. As a case study, social and correspondence networks in the Grand Duchy of Finland 1809–1917 are considered with a focus on prosopographical data about historical people and, in particular, their correspondences (epistolary data). Letters have been an important form of communication, and networks based on letter metadata, letter’s content, and related biographical information can be used for rebuilding and analyzing historical social networks and for studying the flow of ideas and information. In correspondence network analysis, ego-networks focusing on only one person and his correspondents are common due to the nature of letter collections. Combining letter collections and biographical data helps move from ego-centric network approach towards sociocentric networks, as the larger network starts to emerge when letter collections from many individuals are brought together, although analyses still suffer from missing data. In this paper, we present results of the Constellations of Correspondence (CoCo) project that so far has created a KG of over million letters exchanged during 1809–1917 in Finland, reusing data of prosopographical KGs of the same period of time.