A Historical and Demographic Description of the Tatar Population of Tobolsk Province in the Post-Reform Period (Based on the First General Census of 1897)

The aim of this article is the historical and demographic description of the Tatar population of Tobolsk Province in the post-reform period. To reach this aim, information is revealed about the number, structure and location of the Tatar population, its demographic and social characteristics, as well as the nature of the changes that took place in the last third of the 19th century. The author shows the changes in the number and settlement, the degree of urbanization, the age and sex structure that occurred in this group of population in the post-reform period based on a comparative analysis of data for the 1860s-1890s. The source base for the study was materials of the First General Census of 1897 and statistical data on Tobolsk Province for 1868-1869. In the course of the study, the author came to the following conclusions. The results of the Census of 1897 reflected the demographic state of the Tatar community of Tobolsk Province and the changes that took place in it. These changes were associated, in many ways, with the reforms carried out in the 1860s-1870s that aimed at the unification of the system of governance and the active integration of national borderlands in the national processes. The census showed a significant increase in the Tatar population of the province in the last third of the 19th century, which was associated with both the natural growth and the increased active migration processes in the post-reform period. The author shows that the Turkic-Tatar residents of the province who indicated Tatar as their mother tongue were heterogeneous in composition and included local Tatars, Siberian Bukharans and Tatar migrants. All of these groups mostly lived in rural areas and were engaged in agriculture. The degree of urbanization of the Tatar population in the post-reform period was weak and lagged behind both the overall indicators for Russia and the indicators for the Tatar population of European provinces. The results of the study reflect a significant difference in the level of urbanization between the Tatar and Russian residents of the province. Thus, despite the fact that, in the second half of the 19th century, the population of the national borderlands of the Russian Empire was gradually drawn into the orbit of the Russian capitalist economy, the Tatar population of Siberia was characterized by a very slow pace of integration into the Russian state system.

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