"The Cossack tribe will live forever". Dynamics of population reproduction in the Trans-Baikal Cossack host territory (second half of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century)

The objective of our study is to describe the scale, tempos and modes of natural reproduction in the Trans-Baikal Cossack Host Territory and their chronological dynamics within the period from the 1860s up to 1914. The historical documentary sources of the study are: the then administrative statistics of the Trans-Baikal Cossack Host Territory population published in the annual reports of the Governor of the Trans-Baikal Region and the Trans-Baikal Cossack Ataman. Data are also found in the statistical reports of the Trans-Baikal Cossack Military Rear Headquarters and in other periodically compiled statistical information. The authors of this paper distinguish: a) all the population residing within the territory of the Trans-Baikal Cossacks regardless of people's social status; b) the Cossack population proper, belonging to the corresponding estate. As a result the authors calculated and explained both annual and gradual changes of the main parameters of physical demographic reproduction - the total mortality coefficient, birthrate and the natural increase coefficients. The calculations are based on multifactor approaches. The local data are given in comparison with those of the Trans-Baikal Region as a whole and the entire Siberia. The authors came to a conclusion that certain «costs-don't-matter» attitude to the population existed on the entire territory of Transbaikalia during the studied period. All the trends typical of traditional agrarian societies were there - high birth and death rates and uncontrolled reproduction. The birthrate even increased slightly in the second half of 19 th entury, but during the period of 1901-1914 the trend changed. 1908 shows a gradual decrease of mortality level. In the early 20th century the natural increase rate of the Cossack population in Transbaikalia increased every 4-5 years, as the entire population of Transbaikalia and the entire Siberian population. After 1908 the natural increase reached its peaks typical of the initial phase of the demographic transition. Thus we can conclude that the Trans-Baikal Cossack population, along with the population of other regions of Russia, were involved in the process of demographic modernization on the eve of WWI.