Ekaterinburg Population in 1861–1900: Prologue to Demographic Transition

This article examines the demographic development in Ekaterinburg from 1861 to 1900. The work provides a comprehensive analysis of the population composition and growth dynamics in the economic capital of Perm province, including an examination of gender composition and an assessment of both absolute and relative indicators of natural population change. The author refers to of published state and zemstvo statistics, published administrative documentation, and periodicals. The methods used include the calculation of general demographic coefficients, descriptive statistics, graphical and comparative analysis. As a result of the study of demographic processes in Ekaterinburg in the second half of the nineteenth century, it is possible to trace the gradual evolution of the city’s demographic order. Thus, the 1860s and 1870s were characterised by rapid population growth due to migration, a gender imbalance in favour of men, high variability in the number of demographic events, and natural population decline. In the 1880s, there was a significant reduction in migration, a decrease in mortality, primarily among infants, a return to a balanced gender composition, and the emergence of stable natural growth. By the 1890s, migration and mortality had declined even further, steady natural growth became an important source of population growth, and a serious gender imbalance in favour of women had developed. During the 1880s and 1890s, mortality exceeded fertility only three times: during the famine years (1883–1884, 1891–1892) and during the year of the “Russian flu” pandemic (1889). The transformation of Ekaterinburg’s demographic order from the 1860s to the 1890s actively involved the population of the surrounding rural and industrial areas through urbanisation and waves of migration resulting from agricultural and industrial crises. In addition, the modernisation of the reproduction regime played an important and gradually increasing role.