REPRODUCTION OF THE POPULATION IN ASIATIC RUSSIA: HISTORICAL DYNAMICS OF THE LATE 19TH - EARLY 20TH CENTURY
V.A. Zverev
Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, 28, Vilyuyskaya str., Novosibirsk, 630126, Russia
Keywords: Западная Сибирь, Восточная Сибирь, Степной край, Дальний Восток, историческая демография региона, компаративный анализ, воспроизводство населения, смертность, рождаемость, естественный прирост населения, West Siberia, East Siberia, Steppe Region, Far East, regional historical demography, comparative analysis, population reproduction, death rate, birth rate, population natural increase
Abstract
The historians and demographers studying the population reproduction in the Russian Empire pay not enough attention to the peculiarities of this process in some remote eastern regions of the country. The paper objective is to consider changes in the late XIX - early XX centuries that took place in Asian Russia - West and East Siberia, the Steppe Region and the Far East. The changes in quantitative indicators imply qualitative alterations in the mode and type of the population reproduction. The author examines the dynamics of the natural movement of the population both diachronically, taking each region separately in its timeline, and synchronically, comparing the Asian region to the European Russia as the demographic center of the country. Quantitative calculations are based on the statistical data provided by the reports of the Medical Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire. For the first time in historiography the author calculates annual natality and mortality indices and the population natural increase for 1897-1914. The attained dynamic picture is presented in the summary table and three graphs. The linear trends reflected in graphs demonstrate the variable directivity of the population mortality, natality and natural increase dynamics in the studied regions. The main conclusions drawn based on the dynamic table analysis are the following: 1) The traditional type of the population reproduction dominated in all eastern regions of the country, as well as in its European center, though some signals of the initial phase of demographic modernization appeared; 2) Concerning the population natural movement dynamics, Siberia and the Steppe Region had similar indices, while the situation in the Far East differed significantly from both; 3) Trans-Ural regions as compared to the European Russia showed essential specificity in demographic tendencies. The author presents some further ideas and considerations of pioneering in historical demography and regional studies.
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