One of the most advanced and promising segments of the scientific breakthrough realized by local researchers in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries was to investigate the varied life of people in all its manifestations which was the main subject of the study on democratic direction. The main method of the Populist historiography is to study socially significant problems, as if to watch them "from the bottom". The method was consistently tested at the regional level on the separate territory, namely Kolyvano-Voskresensky (Altai) Mining District.

Key words: Populist journalism, artisan and attached peasants, Kolyvano-Voskresensky Mining District.