Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2014 number

The paper examines recent (post-Soviet) research on reproduction of agricultural population of Siberia in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries. The author considers the reproduction of population as a complex process of physical, social and cultural renewal of generations. That is why his historiographic research is based on the studies in historical demography as well as in social history, ethnography, pedagogic history. The author describes how the theme has been studied over time and summarizes results of research on conditions and factors, social forms and technical content, stages and results of reproduction of the rural population within the territorial borders of the Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yenisei and Irkutsk provinces, Akmolinsky and Transbaikalian areas in 1861-1917. The author emphasized the great impact of some pioneering fundamental works on the problem. The writings by a demographer A.G. Vishnevsky, social historian B.N. Mironov, ethnologists M.M. Gromyko and S.L. Pushkarevoy are among them. The author insists on vitality of historical and demographic issues in the context of contemporary demographic crisis in Russia. Contrary to the dominant views the author argues that the demographic and sociocultural modernization and the leap in reproduction in Siberia began at the turn of centuries, almost simultaneously with European Russia. He also emphasizes the significant impact the church and religion had on the demographic process; presents the results of his long-term research on reproduction of the population of Asiatic Russia during the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries. He had been inspired by the idea to reveal demographic situation, characterize specific patterns of demographic (matrimonial, reproductive, migrational and vital) behavior and socialization of Siberian dwellers that in fact provided mechanisms of fixation and transformation of the Siberian population’s qualitative and quantitative characteristics.