Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The objective of the paper is to present the research techniques and to summarize the key findings of the study of the traditional demographic calendar that existed in Belarus during the late imperial period. The author considers demographic calendar as a stereotypic way of arranging demographic behavior of various human communities on a chronological basis within a calendar year. Relying upon the official Russian imperial statistics the author has calculated the annual nuptiality, fertility and mortality cycles in the daily life of the people in several Belarusian provinces - Grodno, Minsk and Mogilyov. The material is represented both in tabular and graphic forms. The author compares urban and rural variants, as well as matrimonial aspects of the Orthodox Christian, Catholic and Judaic calendars. Calendar parameters are explained taking into account the complex influence of many climatic, social, economic and cultural factors. It has been discovered, that at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries monthly and seasonal cycles of demographic events in Belarus followed certain established patterns. Rural and urban calendars were very similar especially when the universal natural (climatic and biological) factors prevailed. Such similarity was also due to the cultural continuity and integration processes. In the time of early urbanization and massive migrations urban culture basically had many typological characteristics of rural culture and vice versa. The urban demographic calendar with its more even monthly distribution of all demographic events contrasted vividly with the rural calendar. Such difference was due to the fact that natural and agrarian economic cycles less affected the life of urban dwellers while the religious traditions were also weaker among urban population. In general, ethnic and religious variants of regional demographic calendars that had both clear similarities and differences deserve further investigation.