Russian Empire Census
The Russian Imperial Census of 1897 was the first and only census performed in the Russian Empire (the Grand Duchy of Finland was excluded). It recorded demographic data as of 28 January [O.S. 15 January] 1897.
Previously, the Central Statistical Bureau issued statistical tables based on fiscal lists (ревизские списки).
The second Russian Census was scheduled for December 1915, but was cancelled because of World War I, which had begun during 1914.[1] It was not rescheduled before the Russian Revolution. The next census in Russia only occurred at the end of 1926, almost three decades later.
Organization
The census project was suggested during 1877 by Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, a famous Russian geographer and director of the Central Statistical Bureau, and was approved by Czar Nicholas II in 1895.
The census was performed in two stages. For the first stage (December 1896 — January 1897) the counters (135,000 persons: teachers, priests, and literate soldiers) visited all households and filled in the questionnaires, which were verified by local census managers. For the second stage (9 January 1898 [O.S. 28 December 1897]) the counters simultaneously visited all households to verify and update the questionnaires. The census was performed during winter as the population was less mobile then.[2] Despite this being the only imperial census, historians are able to estimate the Russian Empire's population during earlier times by collecting city censuses.
The data processing required 8 years using Hollerith card machines. Publication of the results started during 1898 and ended in 1905. In total, 119 volumes for 89 guberniyas, as well as a two-volume summary, were issued.
Data fields
The questionnaire contained the questions following:
- Family name, given name, patronymic or nickname (прозвище)
- Sex
- Relation with respect to the head of the family or household
- Age
- Marital status
- Social status: sosloviye (estate of the realm), rank or title (сословіе, состояніе, званіе)
- Place of birth
- Place of registration
- Usual place of residence
- Notice of absence
- Faith
- First language (родной язык)
- Literacy
- Occupation (profession, trade, position of office or service), both primary and secondary
In the census summary tables, nationality was based on the declared primary language of respondents.
The first page of a census form from Kiev Governorate.
The second page of a census form from Kiev Governorate.
The third page of a census form from Kiev Governorate.
A description page for a census form from Kiev Governorate.
Census results
The total population of the Russian Empire was recorded to be 125,640,021 people (50.2% female, 49.8% male; urban 16,828,395, median age 21.16 years).
By native language
| Native language | Number | % |
|---|---|---|
| Russian[lower-alpha 1] | 55,667,469 | 44.31 |
| Ukrainian[lower-alpha 2] | 22,380,551 | 17.81 |
| Turkic[lower-alpha 3] | 13,373,867 | 10.64 |
| Polish | 7,931,307 | 6.31 |
| Belarusian[lower-alpha 4] | 5,885,547 | 4.68 |
| Jewish | 5,063,156 | 4.03 |
| German | 1,790,489 | 1.43 |
| Lithuanian[lower-alpha 5] | 1,658,532 | 0.96 |
| Latvian | 1,435,937 | 1.14 |
| Armenian | 1,173,096 | 0.93 |
| Romanian | 1,121,669 | 0.89 |
| Georgian[lower-alpha 6] | 1,097,154 | 0.87 |
| Dagestani languages | 1,091,782 | 0.87 |
| Mordvin | 1,023,841 | 0.81 |
| Estonian | 1,002,738 | 0.80 |
| Udmurt | 420,970 | 0.34 |
| Tajik | 350,397 | 0.28 |
| Karelian | 208,101 | 0.17 |
| Greek[lower-alpha 7] | 186,925 | 0.15 |
| Bulgarian | 172,659 | 0.14 |
| Ossetian | 171,716 | 0.13 |
| Komi | 153,618 | 0.12 |
| Finnish | 143,068 | 0.11 |
| Permyak | 104,691 | 0.08 |
| Circassian[lower-alpha 8] | 103,247 | 0.08 |
| Other | 1,927,494 | 1.53 |
| Total | 125,640,021 | 100.00 |
By religion
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| Faith | Number | % |
|---|---|---|
| Eastern Orthodox | 87,123,604 | 69.34 |
| Muslim | 13,906,972 | 11.07 |
| Roman Catholic | 11,467,994 | 9.13 |
| Jewish | 5,215,805 | 4.15 |
| Lutherans | 3,572,653 | 2.84 |
| Old Believers | 2,204,596 | 1.75 |
| Armenian Apostolic | 1,179,241 | 0.94 |
| Buddhists | 433,863 | 0.34 |
| Reformed | 85,400 | 0.07 |
| Mennonite | 66,564 | 0.05 |
| Armenian Catholic | 38,840 | 0.03 |
| Baptist | 38,139 | 0.03 |
| Karaite | 12,894 | 0.01 |
| Anglican | 4,183 | 0.00 |
| Other Christian denominations | 3,952 | 0.00 |
| Other non-Christian denominations | 285,321 | 0.23 |
| Total | 125,640,021 | 100.00% |
Population by modern-day countries
- Russia 67,476,000 (from this Siberia 5,758,822)
- Ukraine 23,430,407 (from this Crimea 1,447,790)
- Poland (Vistula basin) 9,402,253
- Belarus 6,927,040
- Kazakhstan 4,000,000
- Lithuania 3,135,771
- Georgia 2,109,273
- Uzbekistan 2,000,000
- Moldova 1,935,412
- Latvia 1,929,387
- Azerbaijan 1,705,131
- Estonia 900,000
- Armenia 797,853[5]
- Kyrgyzstan 750,000
- Tajikistan 646,000
- Turkmenistan 350,000
Largest cities
Largest cities of the Empire according to the census:
- Saint Petersburg – 1,264,900
- Moscow – 1,038,600
- Varshava (Warsaw) – 626,000
- Odessa – 403,800
- Lod (Łódź) – 314,000
- Riga – 282,200
- Kiev (Kyiv) – 247,700
- Kharkov (Kharkiv) – 174,000
- Tiflis (Tbilisi) – 159,600
- Vilna (Vilnius) – 154,500
- Saratov – 137,100
- Kazan – 130,000
- Rostov-on-Don – 119,500
- Tula – 114,700
- Astrakhan – 112,900
- Ekaterinoslav (Dnipro) – 112,800
- Baku – 111,900
- Kishinev (Chişinău) – 108,500
- Helsinki – 93,000
- Nikolayev (Mykolaiv) – 92,000
- Minsk – 90,900
- Nizhny Novgorod – 90,100
- Samara – 90,000
- Orenburg – 72,400
- Yaroslavl – 71,600
- Dvinsk (Daugavpils) – 69,675
- Vitebsk – 65,900
- Reval (Tallinn) – 64 572
- Libava (Liepāja) – 64,489
- Yekaterinodar (Krasnodar) – 65,600
- Tsaritsyn (Volgograd) – 55,200
Data availability
Each enumeration form was copied twice, with the three copies filed in the Volost (county) archives, the governorate archives, and the Central Statistical Bureau in St. Petersburg. The copies in St. Petersburg were destroyed after they had been tabulated.[6][2] Most of the copies stored locally and regionally have also been destroyed; however, the complete census for the Arkhangelsk and Tobolsk governorates has been preserved, and the census for portions of several other governorates is also extant.[7][8]
Assessment
The results may have been influenced by national policy of the authorities: the population of Russian ethnicity was somewhat exaggerated.[9] Thus for example, the number of Poles is underrepresented.[10][11] Imperial officials classified the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages as belonging to the Russian group and labeled those nationalities as Little Russian for Ukrainians and White Russian for Belarusians.[9]
Notes
- Classified as “Great Russian”.
- Classified as “Little Russian”.
- Including Turkmen, Tatar (later known as Azerbaijani), Turkish, Karapapakh, and other Turkic dialects and languages.
- Classified as “White Russian”.
- Including Samogitian.
- Including Imeretian, Mingrelian, and Svan Kartvelian languages, in addition to standard Georgian.
- Pontic Greek was mainly spoken by Greeks of southern Russia and Greeks of the Caucasus.
- Includes Adyghe and Kabardian.
References
Citations
- http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/rosstat/smi/stat_2012-10-10.pdf
- "Russia Census". FamilySearch. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
- Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. Распределение населения по родному языку, губерниям и областям (in Russian). Demoscope Weekly. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
- "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". 2010-11-05. Archived from the original on 5 November 2010. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
- Korkotyan, Zaven (1932). Խորհրդային Հայաստանի բնակչությունը վերջին հարյուրամյակում (1831-1931) [The population of Soviet Armenia in the last century (1831-1931)] (in Armenian). Melkonyan Foundation. p. 167.
- "Russia, Jewish Families in Russian Empire Census, 1897". Ancestry. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
- "1897 Census of Imperial Russia". Find Russian Heritage. Archived from the original on 2018-02-05.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - "Documents of the First General Census of the population of Russian Empire in the Ukrainian Archives". Alex Dunai's personal website. Archived from the original on 2019-04-17.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - Anna Geifman, Russia Under the Last Tsar: Opposition and Subversion, 1894-1917, Wiley-Blackwell, 1999, ISBN 1-55786-995-2, Google Print, p. 118-119
- Piotr Eberhardt, Jan Owsinski, Ethnic groups and population changes in twentieth-century Central-Eastern Europe, M.E. Sharpe, 2003, ISBN 0-7656-0665-8, Google Print, p.27
- Jerzy Borzęcki, The Soviet-Polish peace of 1921 and the creation of interwar Europe, Yale University Press, 2008, ISBN 0-300-12121-0, Google Print, p.10
Sources
- Первая всеобщая перепись населенiя Россійской Имперіи. Под редакцiею Н. А. Тройницкаго. — СПб.: Изданiе центральнаго статистическаго комитета министерства внутреннихъ делъ, 1905. (The First Total Census of Russian Empire. A publication of the central statistical bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Editor N. A. Troynitsky.)
- РОССИЯ. Полное Географическое Описание Нашего Отечества. Под ред. П. П. Семенова-Тян-Шанского. — СПб., 1913. (Semenov-Tyan-Shanskiy, P. P. (Ed.): RUSSIA. Complete Geographical Description of our Fatherland. — St. Petersburg, 1913. This latter work reproduces most of the results of the census, and is a good deal easier to find in western libraries than the original publication.)
- Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. Распределение населения по родному языку и регионам (First General Russian Empire Census of 1897. Population breakdown by mother tongue and regions) (Demoscope.ru) (in Russian)
- The First General Census of the Russian Empire of 1897. Breakdown of population by mother tongue and districts in 50 Governorates of the European Russia (1777 territorial units)