Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2016 number

The article deals with demographic transformations of the ethno-local groups of Kumandins and Chelkans as a result of the Great Patriotic War as exemplified by the age-sex structure. The Great Patriotic War produced catastrophic demographic effects on the indigenous peoples and resulted in more than 1000 deaths. The analysis of age-sex structure allows to reconstruct these effects. The research objective is to consider demographic transformations of the indigenous peoples as a result of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) by the example of ethno-local groups of Kumandins and Chelkans. Despite the considerable volume of publications about the Great Patriotic War, the problem of participation indigenous people of Siberia and the North in this war remains understudied. In particular, there are virtually no studies on the demography of indigenous peoples during this period. Research is based on data from the registers of farms of the Nizhneneninsk and Suzop Village Councils, the Solton district of Altai Region, and Malocheben Village Council in the the Turachak district, Oyrat Autonomous Region (now Altai Republic) dated to the early 1950s. In general, the data on the age and sex composition of the Kumandins of the Nizhneneninsk and Suzop Village Councils, as well as the Chelkans of Malochebechensky Village Council indicate that there was a demographic crisis during the postwar period. It was characterized by a gender disparity in favor of females, reduction of the share of children in the general structure of the population as a result of the low level of birth rate, increasing share of the elderly, a regressive type of age structure. Combat losses, along with the increased mortality of indigenous people as a result of deterioration of living conditions were the main causes of demographic changes.