No abstract

This article analyses sex ratios in late nineteenth – to early twentieth-century Russia focusing on the easternmost frontier of its European part – Perm Province with a population of about 3 million. High sex ratio at birth, in infancy, and childhood has been widely used to assess gender discriminatory practices in several countries, including some European ones. Russia is usually depicted as highly patriarchal with a low social status of women, always subordinated to their fathers and husbands. However, little has been done to study sex ratios. This article presents the first long-term research on sex ratio which relies on county (uyezd)-level information from the 1897 Russian census and the first Soviet 1926 census as well as the household censuses of 1887, 1900, and 1912. The authors also used local statistics based on the parish records with vital events. Additionally, they computed the sex ratios in different groups from birth to age at marriage, their dynamics over almost 40 years and their correlation with several factors including infant mortality rates, religious adherence, and occupations. They did not find signs of gender specific practices discriminating females right after their birth, during infancy or childhood. The research shows that average sex ratios at birth in Perm province were close to the biological norm 105, and its dramatic decrease in the following months was due to the high infant mortality rate combined with the girls’ biological advantage. This advantage, however, ended once they reached marriageable age.

This paper reconstructs Ekaterinburg’s economic landscape in 1914. The research is based on the 1910 city map and quantitative data from the 1914 city phonebook and relies on the space syntax method. During the study, the authors created a database including 390 local companies’ phone numbers before World War I classified in accordance with the Fisher-Clark economic sector model (primary sector — extraction of raw materials, secondary — manufacturing, tertiary — service industries, quaternary — finances and information services, quinary sector — administration, education, medicine, sciences, etc.). The research demonstrates that there were just a couple of primary sector businesses in Ekaterinburg in the early twentieth century. Most secondary sector plants and factories had been moved outside of the city, while the others were evenly distributed following the environmental regulations and proximity to labour force. Tertiary sector firms dominated in the western part of the city and formed a commercial district around Market Square. The quaternary sector companies had almost the same location, spreading further to the northwest. Quinary sector organisations were dispersed all over the city with a notable concentration in the center and north-western part. The reconstruction of the Ekaterinburg economic landscape reveals that its centre occupied the area around the dam that locked the Iset River running through the city and spread towards the west and north-west part in the early twentieth century forming the city’s future business district.

* Работа выполнена частично при финансовой поддержке РФФИ, грант № 15-06-08541 «Религиозное разнообразие евразийского города: статистический и картографический анализ (на примере Екатеринбурга в конце XIX-начале XXI вв.)» (анализ материалов переписи 1897 г.) и за счет Российского научного фонда, проект 16-18-10105 «Этно-религиозная и демографическая динамика в горной Евразии в конце XIX-начале XX в. на примере Урала и Скандинавии» (анализ материалов метрических книг).

Уральский федеральный университет Екатеринбург, Россия Известия УрФУ. Серия 2. Гуманитарные науки. 2019. Т. 21. № 3 (190) К л ю ч е в ы е с л о в а: брачность; возраст вступления в первый брак; городское население; Урал; метрические книги; переписи; базы данных.