Household censuses of Yekaterinburg in 1728 and 1788 as a source on the history of the population of the city

Scientific article

doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2024-4-1003-1018

For citation

Borodina, Elena V., Tsemenkova, Svetlana I. (2024). Household censuses of Yekaterinburg in 1728 and 1788 as a source on the history of the population of the city, Herald of an Archivist, no. 4, pp. 1003-1018, doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2024-4-1003-1018

Borodina, Elena V., Tsemenkova, Svetlana I., B. N. Yeltsin Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia

Household censuses of Yekaterinburg in 1728 and 1788 as a source on the history of the population of the city

Abstract

The article presents the results of the research aimed at studying the source potential of the sub-ward censuses of early Yekaterinburg, created in 1728 and 1788. These documents were found by the authors in fond 271 “Berg-Collegium” of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) and fond 8 “Yekaterinburg City Duma of Perm Province / Yekaterinburg, Perm Province (January 12, 1787 - May 1919)” of the State Archive of the Sverdlovsk Region (GASO). State Archive of the Sverdlovsk Region (GASO). Despite the long tradition of studying documentary materials containing information about the population of the Russian Empire, not all of them are currently involved in the scientific turnover. In historical and demographic studies, priority attention is paid to censuses and revision tales - documents that had fiscal significance. At the same time, the so-called police or administrative censuses, as a rule, are out of the scientists' field of vision. However, they may contain more accurate data on the inhabitants of a particular settlement, as they include information on the actual, rather than legal, population of the territory. The authors analyzed the purposes of creation and information capabilities of two administrative censuses of Yekaterinburg at different stages of the fortress factory's existence: in the first years of its creation and at the stage of official consolidation of its status as a city. The formulary analysis of the documents allowed us to establish their peculiarities, similarities and differences. The census of 1728 can be called the first document, which recorded data on the class and professional affiliation of the yard owners of the emerging city, the structure of the settlement, the ratio of the number of men and women living in it. The materials of the 1788 census are in the form of a draft. Nevertheless, they help to get an idea of the changes in the employment structure of the population of the city, which became a district center in 1781, the number of men and women. Both censuses allow us to learn not only about the population of Ekaterinburg, but also about the number of households, as well as the composition of the inhabitants living in each household. In addition, the documents provide information on the number of farmsteads in public and private ownership. The authors came to the conclusion that the household censuses of Yekaterinburg are important sources on the history of the city, which are characterized by the comprehensiveness and reliability of data transfer. The information obtained from the census documents makes it possible to reconstruct the socio-demographic history of the city: changes in the population size, sex and age composition, property status of residents, employment structure.

Keywords

History of Russia, history of the Urals, history of the population, population records, sub-household census, source study, formula analysis, Russian Empire, Yekaterinburg, historical demography.

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About the authors

Borodina Elena V., Ph.D. in History, B. N. Yeltsin Ural Federal University, Department of Russian History, Ekaterinburg, Russia, +7-922-208-61-50, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Tsemenkova Svetlana I., Ph.D. in History, B. N. Yeltsin Ural Federal University, Department of Russian History, Ekaterinburg, Russia, +7-922-119-06-03, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Grant information

The article was prepared with the financial support of the RNF grant (project No. 24-18-00080 “Anthropology of the mining and factory center: social stratification of early Yekaterinburg in 1723-1781”).

The article was received in the editorial office on 08.05.2024, recommended for publication on 20.09.2024.