National Population Dynamics in Asian Russia: The 1926–1989 Censuses

Abstract

This article uses data from the national censuses to analyze changes in the ethnic composition of Western and Eastern Siberia and the Far East between from 1926 to 1989. We identify the factors that led to these changes and clarify the impact of the main historical events on the ethnic picture of Asian Russia. We trace the differences in national composition between large economic–geographical regions and describe the settlement features of the main ethnic groups of Siberia, as well as their inclusion in the processes of modernization. We draw conclusions about the key role of migratory and assimilatory processes in the way the national structure took shape in the region during this period, with particular attention to the development of autochthonous peoples.

Keywords:

• national composition
• Western Siberia
• Eastern Siberia
• Far East
• migration
• assimilation
• urbanization

Notes

1. Here and hereafter, we use “Siberia” in its historical–geographical sense: all lands east of the Urals all the way to the Pacific Ocean, bounded on the south by Central Asia and China, and including three major economic–geographical raions: Western Siberia, Eastern Siberia, and the Far East (Iadrintsev, 2003, p. 6).

2. In the 1926 census, for example, socio-psychological and genetic (by kinship) approaches to defining nationality were essentially mixed. According to the instructions, it was required to make note “of what nationality the respondent considers himself. In cases where the respondent finds it difficult to answer the question, preference is given to the nationality of the mother” (Gozulov, 1936, p. 121).

3. Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1937 g.: Kratkie itogi (Moscow: Institut istorii SSSR AN SSSR, 1991); Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1939 goda. Osnovnye itogi (Moscow: Nauka, 1992).

4. In Tables 1–4, “Siberia” includes Western Siberia, Eastern Siberia, and the Far East.

5. KomZET: Commission for the Settlement of Jewish Workers, under the Presidium of the Soviet of Nationalities, Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R.