The population of the cities of Tobolsk province (based on the materials of the 1917 census)

Zagorodnyuk Nadezhda Ivanovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9071-6998 PhD in History Senior Scientific Associate, Tobolsk Complex Scientific Station of Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 626152, Russia, Tyumenskaya oblast', g. Tobol'sk, ul. Ak. Yu. Osipova, 15 niz1957@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The topic of population is one of the main problems of the national history of the twentieth century. It is impossible not to agree with the point of view of D. S. Bakharev and E. M. Glavatskaya that at present the study of the city as a complex set of demographic, cultural and socio-economic components has been gaining increasing popularity in Russian historical science in recent years, special attention is paid to the city of the second half of the XIX – early XX century. The population of the city is one of the main objects of urban and historical research, but, unfortunately, it is the least widespread in Russian science. This is largely due to the source shortage ^{[2, p. 919]}.

At the turn of the XIX–XX centuries in Western Siberia, the influence of modernization processes was largely observed in the agricultural and industrial spheres, which was facilitated by state reforms. In the social sphere, some features of urbanization have been identified: an increase in the population of cities at the expense of rural residents and related spontaneous and state-controlled migration processes; an increase in the number of cities, the emergence of new types of urban settlements; the increasing role of cities in the social, economic, political, cultural spheres; the formation of a special "urban" culture, its dissemination elements in a rural environment.

The most difficult period for studying the population of cities is the period of the First World War and the Civil War. The deep crisis has led to spontaneity in demographic processes.

In modern historiography, the issues of population dynamics and demographic modernization in the cities of Western Siberia in the period under study were reflected in the works of T. M. Badalyan, L. M. Goryushkin, N. Ya. Gushchina, V. A. Zvereva ^[19], V. A. Isupova ^[12-14], V. A. Skubnevsky and Yu. M. Goncharov ^[27] and others.

V. A. Isupov notes that in Western Siberia at the beginning of the twentieth century, urbanization became an increasingly significant factor in economic and socio-cultural development. On the eve of the First World War, the proportion of the urban population of Western Siberia exceeded 8%. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Western Siberia was still an agrarian region. If in 1914 the share of the urban population of European Russia was 14.4%, then in Tomsk province it was only 8.8%, and in Tobolsk – 6.8% ^{[13, pp. 13-14]}.

The collective monograph "The Population of Western Siberia in the twentieth century" provides data on the number of urban and rural populations of Siberian provinces as of January 1, 1917. Thus, according to the results of administrative and police accounting, the urban population of Tobolsk province was about 130.2 thousand people – compared with 1914, it decreased by 12.8 thousand people, or 9.8%, rural – from 1914 to 1917 increased from 1960.3 to 1985.7 thousand people, by 1% ^[19]. During the three years of military operations (from 1914 to 1917), the number of citizens in the territory of the two main Western Siberian provinces – Tobolsk and Tomsk – decreased from 510 thousand to 494 thousand people ^{[13, p. 13]}. We should agree with S. N. Kosygina that this topic requires further development ^{[15, p. 92]}.

During this period, the census of the urban population of Western Siberia was conducted in 1917. The All-Russian urban population census of 1917, organized on the initiative of the Provisional Government, unlike the agricultural and land census conducted at the same time, has practically not been reflected in modern historiography. The exception is the work of the Siberian researcher V. A. Osprey, which, using the example of the Tomsk province, examines the peculiarities of the organization and mechanisms of activity of local census authorities during the 1917 censuses ^[24-26].

The urban census is closely related to the mechanism of preparation, conduct and primary processing of the results of the agricultural census of 1917, therefore, the works devoted to this topic are of particular interest for analyzing and identifying the features of these processes. The preserved census forms and primary processing materials made it possible to fully reveal the features and results of the agricultural and land census in Altai ^{[5; 20; 23]}, Tomsk ^{[1; 3; 4]}, Yakutsk ^{[16; 17]} and other Siberian provinces (regions).

In the historiographical review of the generalizing work of V. A. Skubnevsky and Yu. M. Goncharov ^[27], as well as S. V. Kosygina ^[15], it is stated that the population of the cities of the Tobolsk province during the First World War and the Civil War did not become the subject of special study.

The purpose of the work is to consider the features of the preparation and conduct of the census of the urban population of the Tobolsk province in 1917 on the basis of archival sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, and to analyze its results.

The relevance of this study is due, firstly, to the fact that the population censuses are a unique source of primary demographic information; secondly, the introduction of the materials of the 1917 urban census into scientific circulation makes it possible to fill the gap in the demographic characteristics of the population; thirdly, the historical experience of the urban census and its results will help recreate the dynamics of the urban population in in the context of the urbanization process during the First World War and the Civil War.

Sources, methods

In the State Archive in Tobolsk (GBUTO GA in Tobolsk) in the fund of the provincial Statistical Committee, documents of the primary processing of census materials of cities and urban settlements were revealed (f. I417, op. 1, d. 708, 716, 725, 727). Some information concerning the urban census in Tyumen is stored in the fund I180 of the State Archive of the Tyumen Region (GBUTO GATO). Unfortunately, the summary tables do not reflect such indicators as literacy and professional activity of the population.

To analyze documentary sources, a set of statistical methods was used, as well as historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-typological research methods, methods of graphical representation of the obtained statistical data.

Results and discussion.

In the spring of 1917, in order to resolve land and food issues, the Provisional Government announced the holding of another census of the Russian population. On April 18-22, 1917, a joint congress of zemstvo, city and government statisticians was held in Moscow, where agricultural and urban census programs were approved, the purpose of which, first of all, was to obtain information on land statistics for the preparation of a food plan for the 1917-1918 economic year.

The program for conducting censuses in Western Siberia was developed at the Congress of Siberian statisticians in Tomsk and approved by the Census Department of the Ministry of Agriculture ^{[6, L. 4]}.

The instructions for the census of cities developed in each province were based on general recommendations. The following settlements were classified as urban: "cities and other settlements with urban self-government; factories, factories and mining enterprises with settlements, even if located on allotment lands; settlements with a predominant non-agricultural population that do not have rural management; all settlements located within the railway exclusion zone; camps and military settlements finally, all villages with rural administrations that have lost their connection with agriculture" ^{[18, p. 15]}.

The program document "The Census of Citizens of Tobolsk 1917" outlined the following tasks of the urban census: "The census is conducted in order to compile voter lists in view of the re-election of members of the Tobolsk Provisional Committee of Public Tranquility on the basis of universal suffrage and in view of the upcoming elections on the same basis to the city government and the Constituent Assembly. In addition, the census is also carried out in the interests of the food business, in view of the upcoming replacement of old ration cards with new ones" ^{[6, l. 15]}.

In the provincial city, the census was entrusted to officials of the resettlement administration, the Department of agriculture, the treasury chamber, the Siberian bank, men's and women's gymnasiums, teachers' seminary, etc. ^{[6, L. 80]}. The Union of Employees of the Tobolsk Resettlement district, with the support of the Tobolsk Committee of Public Peace and the city government, entrusted itself with the organizational work on conducting the urban census. The general management of the census belonged to the Conciliation Commission of the Union of Employees of the Tobolsk resettlement district, district and subdistrict heads, registrars were appointed ^{[6, L. 15]}.

For the convenience of the work, each locality was divided into quarters (counting areas). The city census was carried out using three forms: household, apartment-by-apartment and quarterly cards. Each card was drawn up in two copies, using carbon paper. The first copy was intended for compiling voter lists, and the second was transferred to the city government to compile ration cards on it.

The census card had a title and nine columns. The title indicated the street name, apartment numbers, and city block. In the 1st column, the attitude towards the landlord (head of the family) was recorded: wife, daughter, son; grandson, servant; employee, guest, etc. Constantly absent family members, who are, for example, at war, were entered into the card. In the 2nd column, the surname, first name and patronymic were recorded, the 3rd – age (number of years as of May 1, 1917, the time of the first elections); the 4th – literacy level (from 5 years old); the 5th – nationality; the 6th – citizenship (Russian or foreign) 7th – residence in the city ("permanent resident" or "temporary resident", including those who are absent). In the 8th column, a note was made about the absence or presence of restrictions on voting rights under the law due to a criminal record or other reasons. They were considered to be limited in voting rights: 1) persons recognized as insane, insane and deaf-mute in accordance with the procedure established by law (cannot participate in elections at all); 2) sentenced by the court to punishments combined with deprivation or restriction of property rights (cannot participate in elections for three years after serving their sentence); 3) convicted by court for theft, fraud, embezzlement of entrusted property, concealment of stolen property, purchase or pawning, in the form of fishing, knowingly stolen or obtained through deception of property, forgery, usury, bribery, as well as those convicted of criminal acts against the right to vote (cannot participate in elections for one year after serving their sentence) and 4) the keepers of the houses of tolerance (cannot participate in the elections at all).

The main types of activities (11 groups were allocated) were indicated in the 9th column: 1) an official, 2) employees of public and private institutions, 3) employees of commercial and industrial enterprises, 4) domestic servants, 5) a merchant, 6) an industrialist (owner of a mill, gingerbread establishment, owner of a cab, etc.), 7) an artisan (carpenter, watchmaker, tailor), 8) a worker, 9) a farmer, 10) persons of a free profession (doctors, lawyers, artists, etc.), 11) students. This list was supplemented by three categories: "officer of the local unit", "clergy", "monk", "keeper of the house of tolerance" ^{[6, l. 16-18]}.

The card was drawn up for the household of each individual apartment. If more than one family or a group of people living in an apartment leading an independent household lived in the same apartment, then the card was drawn up separately for each group of such persons who wished to have their own ration card.

In addition, the card gave characteristics of the premises: the number of rooms, stoves in them, the type of lighting and heating. If the owner had cattle or was engaged in agriculture, then the corresponding columns indicated the number of heads of cattle, including horses, cows; the number of farms with crops (the number of tithes of mowing).

When describing shelters, almshouses and monasteries in which the residence was of a long nature, all the inhabitants were listed by name ^{[6, l. 233-236; 18, p. 15-16]}.

The alphabetical voter cards included the following information: surname, first name, patronymic, street name, house number and occupation ^{[6, l. 18]}. A card with a list of prisoners of war of Tobolsk has been preserved in the archive ^{[6, l. 151]}.

In July 1917, an agitation campaign was launched. The participants of the census were strongly recommended to "inform the population about the goals and objectives of the census, to urge the population to give complete and truthful answers and to be benevolent towards the census staff." The upcoming census was supposed to give the Constituent Assembly "the necessary materials covering the economic and economic situation of the population, its land use and land ownership, the very question of the size of the land fund suitable for agriculture, the age composition of the population, the size of grain farming, cattle breeding, inventory provision, crafts, land productivity and a number of other significant issues will be covered a census, if it is successful" ^{[6, l. 108]}.

Leaflets were distributed throughout the cities of the province, including from other regions. A leaflet signed by Irkutsk provincial Commissioner I. A. Lavrov has been preserved. It formulated the tasks of the census, which consist in accounting for land, as well as in preparing materials for holding elections to the Constituent Assembly. It was necessary, it was argued in the text, that the population should consciously relate to the upcoming census, give "correct answers": "Previous censuses were conducted by rulers who used people's means and forces for evil. Therefore, the people's distrust of them often extended to the bodies that carried out the census" ^{[6, l. 2-3]}. The events of the following months showed that, especially on the part of the rural population, there were facts of boycotting the census.

On August 24, 1917, telegrams were sent with the signature of the head of land management and resettlement in the Tobolsk province: "In the first half of September, in all cities of the Tobolsk province, according to the decree of the Provisional Government on the All-Russian Census, a census of the urban population will be conducted according to approved programs and forms, samples of which are attached. For the successful conduct of the census, the assistance of urban self-government is necessary, which I have the honor to convincingly request ..." ^{[9, l. 1-1 vol.]}.

The timing of the censuses was unfortunate for many reasons. The height of agricultural work, the time when "the day feeds the year", in this regard, the absence of individual family members and entire farms in the place of permanent residence. Dozens of facts of refusal by local residents to provide information have been revealed in rural areas. In cities, such an attitude is not documented, but the departure of entire families outside the settlement made it difficult for the scribes to work ^{[6, l. 51]}.

The contingent of employees, the report noted, "consisted of local forces, most of whom were very little familiar with statistical work and therefore very little prepared for the upcoming work," "it was impossible to invite a more qualified staff of workers, since there are absolutely none within the province." In addition, there were not enough competent instructors who had gained work experience in the previous year – during the 1916 census ^{[6, L. 4, 143]}.

The situation was aggravated by the illness of the head of the statistical department of the Tobolsk resettlement district, N. B. Sher, therefore, the accounting work was carried out under the leadership of the Tula statistician A. F. Pronin, who was sent by the Provisional Government ^{[6, L. 102-103; 22, p. II]}.

The main stage of the work could not be completed within the established time frame. The census was completed only by October 25, and documents from two of the ten cities of the province were delivered on November 1.

The information received gave the following picture. All the cities were divided into blocks. In nine cities (except Tyukalinsk) there were 1,173 blocks, of which 339 were in the largest city of Tyumen, 214 in Tobolsk, and 28 in Berezovo. 13,362 households, 22,712 households, of which 760 were single households, were rewritten in 10 cities ^{[7, l. 3]}.

The total population of the province, excluding farmers, was determined by the census at 1,889,479 souls, including those absent, including those called up for military service ^{[22, p. 1]}. 130,359 souls, 6.9% of the total population, were identified as urban residents, almost equally distributed by gender (Table. 1, 2). This is insignificant, but more than in published works ^{[13; 14; 19]}. Undoubtedly, insufficient accounting was carried out in relation to prisoners of war, some of whom were working outside the cities and the military during the census period, since by that time there were cases of desertion everywhere.

Table 1. The number of male population of the cities of Tobolsk province by age groups ^{[7, l. 3]}

In terms of population, Tyumen took the first place (40 thousand people), followed by Kurgan (35 thousand people) and Tobolsk (20 thousand people), in other cities the population was: 9-12 thousand (Tara, Ishim), 1.2–4.7 thousand (Surgut, Berezov, Tyukalinsk, Turinsk, Yalutorovsk).

Table 2. The number of female population of the cities of Tobolsk province by age groups ^{[7, l. 3]}

The age groups of the population gave the following ratios: the number of men of working age is more than 58%, women – less than 56%, male children 28%, female – 24%, adolescents – more than female (9.41 vs. 8.34%), in the last age group (old people) there is a noticeable predominance of women (10 vs. 5%) ^{[8, l. 31-32]}.

The predominance of men of working age against the background of mobilization requires further study of demographic processes in the study period with the involvement of other sources. Thus, the outflow of the male population was partially compensated by prisoners of war and "conscripts" (persons of German nationality who had Russian or dual citizenship and lived on the territory of the Russian Empire, registered during the war) stationed in the cities of the Tobolsk province. So, at the beginning of 1917, there were 26,710 prisoners of war and 538 "mobilized" in the province, of which up to 5 thousand people were stationed in each of the major cities – Tobolsk, Tyumen, Kurgan ^{[11, p. 97]}. And during the census in Tobolsk, the number of prisoners of war alone ranged from 5 to 10 thousand people.

Of the registered urban population, only 1.16% are marked as "temporary residents", the rest of the population is permanent, settled for this point. Although it was accepted as a sign of settlement to stay in place for at least 30 days, even under this condition, it is certain that not only prisoners of war sent to agricultural work outside their places of deployment, but also the military, who in some cities made up a significant percentage of the population, were unaccounted for.

Separate documents allow us to assert that the population of suburban settlements was included in the number of citizens. Thus, the summary of the results of the census in Ishim included data not only on the residents of the city (9591 people), but also on the station of the same name (499 people), two pier settlements – Alekseevsky (2124 people) and Serebrenikovsky (408 people), which amounted to 12622 people, 70 people less than presented in the final tables ^{[8, L. 59]}. Perhaps a similar picture was observed during the census of Tyumen, Kurgan, and other cities that merged with stations of the same name and other settlements.

The registration of the population of railway settlements was carried out extremely unsatisfactorily: information on the number of residents of settlements of the railway section between the stations Mangut and Zyvaevskaya (two stations, two settlements, several railway booths) has been preserved: in 264 yards, 505 farms, 1,155 male and 1,180 female souls were counted, a total of 2,335 people ^{[7, L. 3]}.

The results of the agricultural and land census were published in 1918 ^[22]. The general results of the Tobolsk province urban census conducted in 1917 were partially published in comparative tables based on the results of the 1920 census ^[21]. The data on seven cities of the Tobolsk province placed in them differ from those identified in archival documents (Table 3). 

Table 3. Information on the number of citizens of the Tobolsk province based on the materials of the 1917 census ^{[7, l. 3]} *

*Data from a published source are given in parentheses ^{[21, p. 21]}.

Conclusions.

The organization and results of the urban census were unsatisfactorily assessed by the organizers themselves: "The Census of cities further reflected the general devastation that gradually brought decomposition into all work, into all spheres of Russian life. The work was not carried out with due care, seriously, even conscientiously. Hence, there are many flaws, omissions, and questionable data. Sometimes it was very difficult to find senior staff, to take what did not satisfy. But it was necessary to make a census, putting up with the fact that under normal conditions it would be intolerable. And the census did not give what it was supposed to give... A number of previous censuses (food, elections) and in the population created an unfriendly attitude towards the census, and the ugly understanding of freedom by the masses led to the fact that evasion from the census, deliberately false answers, were often practiced. The proposed census results, in view of the above, do not represent great statistical value and are acceptable only because there is no better material ... a new census will be required..." ^{[8, l. 30]}.

The data obtained have nothing to compare with: the previous accounting of the urban population was carried out by the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1897, 1904 and 1910, in completely different political and economic conditions, but are important for subsequent censuses.

To some extent, we can talk about the preservation of urban trends. In 7 years, from 1910 to 1917, the urban population increased by 10%, from 118 thousand to 130 thousand. ^{[7, l. 3; 10, p. 1020]} and accounted for 6.9% of the total population. There was an increase in the number of residents of the cities of Tyumen, Kurgan, Turinsk, Yalutorovsk, Surgut. The census data recorded an equal ratio of the male and female population, with a predominance of the male working population.

The results of the 1917 urban census in the Tobolsk province require clarification and further study.