The peasantry role in the urban population`s formation of the Tobolsk province at the turn of the 19th and 20th century

At the end of the 19th century, peasantry became one of the leading class sources of urban population growth in the Tobolsk province. However, this problem has not yet received proper attention in modern Siberian studies. The predominant attention to other classes and professional groups is probably due to the difficulty of correlating the peasantry with the urban lifestyle and society, the limited and scarce sources on the history of peasants living in cities, and the focus of research interest on agricultural migrations of peasants at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries (mainly from the European part of the Russian Empire, as well as intra-Siberian). Meanwhile, the influx of peasants into the cities directly influenced the social situation in the Tobolsk province. The peasantry role in the urban population's formation of the Tobolsk province is reconstructed in the article based mainly on statistical materials (the First General Census of the Russian Empire in 1897 for the Tobolsk province, one-day census of Tobolsk in 1882). Observations and judgments of contemporaries are also involved, relating to various aspects of the Tobolsk province cities' development. The article identifies the most "peasant" cities of the Tobolsk province. The reasons for the attractiveness of the urban environment for peasants, the numerical parameters of the external and internal migrations of peasants to the cities of the province are determined; an analysis of individual demographic parameters of this population category is given (sex, literacy level, nationality, etc.). Specific examples of changes in the demographic and economic characteristics of rural population who have changed the social and household practices are given to illustrate the social modernization's level of the Tobolsk province cities. The article concludes that the process of including peasants in urban society was dichotomous: on the one hand, peasants had directly influenced the socio-cultural appearance and socio-economic conditions of cities, on the other hand, they transformed themselves as a result of the urban environment impact and the refusal from the rural lifestyle. The first trend consisted in such demographic parameters of peasant migrants as the predominance of the male population over the female population, the low percentage of persons with physical disabilities, the “rejuvenation” of the marriageable age, the decrease in the general level of literacy of the population, etc. The second is illustrated by such facts as the relatively high percentage of literate people among “urban” peasants, the inclusion of women in the sphere of professional employment, etc. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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