This article is a logical continuation of my pseudo research handicraft activity. It was reflections on the heroic development of the Far North in the 17th century that led me to the idea of the demography of that time.
To begin with, I will present the thought on which I ended the previous article, namely: And how quickly humanity is multiplying and is history not too long compared to the rabbit agility of people.
I looked through many articles on the demography of the Russian family. Got the following very important moment for me. In peasant families, as a rule, from 7 to 12 children grew up. This was due to the way of life, the enslavement of the Russian woman and, in general, the realities of that time. Well, at least common sense tells us that life was less suitable for entertainment back then than it is now. Now, a person can occupy himself with a wide range of activities. But in the 16-19 centuries there were no televisions, as well as the Internet and even radio. But what to say about radio, even if the books were a novelty, and then only church ones, and only a few could read. But everyone wanted to eat, and in order to drag the farm and not die of hunger in old age, many children were needed. Moreover, the very creation of children is an international fun and does not lose its relevance in any era. Moreover, this is a godly business. There was no contraception, and it was not needed either. All this leads to a large number of children in the family.
They were married off and married early, before Peter, 15 years old was just right. After Peter, closer to 18-20. In general, 20 years can be taken as childbearing age.
Also, of course, some sources speak of high mortality, including among newborns. I don't understand this a little. In my opinion, this statement is unfounded. It seems like old times, no scientific and technological progress in terms of medicine, no institutes of obstetrics and gynecology and so on. But I take my father as an example, in whose family he had 5 brothers and sisters. But all of them were born in a rather distant village without these obstetric tricks. From progress there was only electricity, but it is unlikely that it could directly help health. In the course of life, just as few of this village turned to a doctor for help and, as far as I could see, the absolute majority lived up to 60-70 years. Of course, there was everyone everywhere, whom the bear picks up, someone drowns, someone burns in the hut,but this loss is within the statistical error.
From these introductory notes, I make a table of the growth of one family. I take as a basis that the first mother and father begin childbearing activities at the age of 20 and by the age of 27 they already have 4 children. We do not take into account three more, for example, they died suddenly during childbirth or then did not follow the rules of life safety, for which they paid, and some men were generally taken into the armed forces. In short, they are not the successors of the clan. Each of these four lucky ones, for example, has the same fate as their parents. They gave birth to seven, four survived. And those four, whom each gave birth to those whom the first two gave birth, did not become original and followed in the footsteps of mothers and grandmothers and each gave birth to 7 more children, of whom four grew. Sorry for the pun. Everything is clearer in the table. We get the number of people from each generation. We take only the last 2 generations and count them. But, since a man and a woman are needed for successful childbearing, we assume that in this table there are only girls, and another identical family gives birth to boys for them. And then we calculate the birth rate for 100 years. We divide the sum of 2 generations of people by 2, since we have to add a man from a neighboring family to each girl and divide the resulting number by 4, we had so many people in our conditions, in the first level of this pyramid. That is, dad mom is from families where only boys and only girls are born. All this is conditional and only in order to represent the level of possible birth rates for 100 years.that in this table there are only girls, and boys for them are born by another identical identical family. And then we calculate the birth rate for 100 years. We divide the sum of 2 generations of people by 2, since we have to add a man from a neighboring family to each girl and divide the resulting number by 4, we had so many people in our conditions, in the first level of this pyramid. That is, dad mom is from families where only boys and only girls are born. All this is conditional and only in order to represent the level of possible birth rates for 100 years.that in this table there are only girls, and boys for them are born by another identical identical family. And then we calculate the birth rate for 100 years. We divide the sum of 2 generations of people by 2, since we have to add a man from a neighboring family to each girl and divide the resulting number by 4, we had so many people in our conditions, in the first level of this pyramid. That is, dad mom is from families where only boys and only girls are born. All this is conditional and only in order to represent the level of possible birth rates for 100 years.in the first level of this pyramid. That is, dad mom is from families where only boys and only girls are born. All this is conditional and only in order to represent the level of possible birth rates for 100 years.in the first level of this pyramid. That is, dad mom is from families where only boys and only girls are born. All this is conditional and only in order to represent the level of possible birth rates for 100 years.
That is, under these conditions, the population would increase 34 times over the year. Yes, this is just a potential, under ideal conditions, but then we keep this potential in mind.
Promotional video:
If we tighten the conditions and assume that only 3 children get to the reproductive process, we get a coefficient of 13.5. An increase of 13 times in 100 years!
Now let's take a situation that is absolutely catastrophic for the village. Nobody pays a pension, the cow has to be milked, the land has to be plowed, and all the children are 2 pieces. And with this we get a fertility rate of 3.5.
But this is just a theory, even a hypothesis. I am sure that I did not take into account a lot of things. Let's turn to the great Wiki.
Additions from 04/05/16
one of the comments on another page pointed out to me that the calculations were absurd, since with the birth of 2 children in a family, no increase can be observed. There will be just a change of generations. Moreover, even a certain minus will naturally appear, since not everyone will be lucky to survive. Here mathematics gives way to common sense. I will add more correct 2 tables with a minimum number of children 2.5 per family and 3 children. At the same time, the tables are now constructed with the condition of observing the principle that it is a woman who gives birth to children. as well as the total number of male and female people over 100 years should be equal. The coefficients turned out: 4.25 for a family of 2.5 children and 8.25 for 3 children in a family. 2.5 children were realized due to the fact that 2 conditional families were taken and one of them gives birth to 2 children per generation and the second 3. In the next generation, on the contrary, the first gives birth to 3 children, the second 2. It may seem to some that there are not enough men for women, but I repeat that the tables are conditional, for clarity, with an equal distribution of men and women. This means there are hundreds more families, among which there are the necessary number for marriage.
As I already said, even some oversights and non-absurd conventions do not change the picture at all. And of course they don't change the essence of the article in any way.
End of supplement.
Returning to the topic of the development of medicine, which defeated high mortality. I can't believe something, in the great medicine of the designated countries, And in my opinion, the high growth in them only in comparison with the low growth of European countries, and before that it was at the same level.
And Russia in the 19th century, judging by the same Vicky, was the 2nd most fertile in the world, after China.
But the main thing we see is population growth of 2.5-3% per year. And a modest 3% per year turns into an 18-fold increase in population in 100 years! An increase of 2% makes a 7-fold increase in 100 years. That is, in my opinion, this statistics confirms the possibility of such an increase (8-20 times in 100 years) in Russia in the 16-19 centuries. In my opinion, the life of peasants in the 17-19 centuries was not very different, no one treated them, which means that the growth should be the same.
We have roughly understood that humanity can multiply at times in a very short time. Different reviews of the Russian family only confirm this, there were many children. My observations also confirm this. But let's see what the statistics tell us.
Steady growth. But if we take the lowest coefficient of 3.5 times in 100 years, which is MUCH less than 2 or 3% per year, which some leading countries have, then even it is too large for this table. Let's take the interval 1646-1762 (116 years) and compare it with our coefficient 3.5. It turns out that the poorest demographics should have reached 24.5 million in 100 years, and made only 18 million in 116 years. And if we count the increase over 200 years within the boundaries of 1646, then in 1858 there should be 85 million, and we have only 40.
And I want to draw your attention to the fact that the end of the 16th and the entire 17th century for Russia is a period of great expansion in a territory with very difficult climatic conditions. With such an increase, I think it is hardly possible.
To hell with him with the 17th century. Maybe someone was missing somewhere or the quantity was compensated for by quality. Take the heyday of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. The year 1796-1897 is indicated as a good 100 year interval, we get an increase of 91.4 million in 101 years. At that time they had already learned to count and mastered absolutely the entire territory, at the maximum of which RI died. And let's calculate how much the population should have been with an increase of 3.5 times in 100 years. 37.4 * 3.5 makes 130.9 million. Here! It's getting close. And this despite the fact that the Russian Empire was the leader in fertility after China. And also do not forget that over these 100 years Russia has not only given birth to people, but among 128.9, as far as I understand, the population of the annexed territories is also taken into account. And to be honest, in general it is necessary to compare in the redistribution of the territories of 1646. It generally turns outthat at a meager coefficient of 3.5 it should have become 83 million, but we have only 52. Where are there 8-12 children in the family? At this stage, I am inclined to believe that there were still a lot of children, rather than in the statistics cited, or whatever this work of Mironov should be called.
But you can play with demographics in the opposite direction. Take 7 million people in 1646 and interpolate back one hundred years by a factor of 3, we get 2.3 million in 1550, 779 thousand in 1450, 259 thousand in 1350, 86000 in 1250, 28000 in 1150 and 9600 in 950. year. And the question arises - did Vladimir baptize this handful of people?
And what if we also interpolate the population of the entire earth with a minimum coefficient of 3? Let's take the exact year 1927 - 2 billion people. 1827th - 666 million, 1727th -222 million, 1627th -74 million 1527th - 24 million, 1427th - 8 million, 1327th - 2.7 million … In general, even with a coefficient of 3, in the 627th year 400 people should have lived on earth! And with a coefficient of 13 (3 children in a family), we get a population of 400 people in 1323!
But let's return from heaven to earth. I was interested in facts, or rather at least some official sources, from which you can rely on information. I took Vicky again. Compiled a table of the population of large and medium-sized cities from the beginning of the 17th century to the end of the 20th. I drove all significant cities into Vicki, looked at the date of the city's foundation, and the population tables and moved them to myself. Maybe someone will learn something from them. For the less curious, I recommend skipping it and moving on to the second, in my opinion, the most interesting part.
When I look at this table, I remember what was there in the 17th and 18th centuries. You have to deal with the 17th century, but the 18th century is the development of manufactories, water mills, steam engines, shipbuilding, iron making and so on. There should be an increase in cities in my opinion. And our urban population begins to at least somehow increase only in the 1800s. Veliky Novgorod, founded in 1147, but in 1800 only 6 thousand people live in it. What have you been doing for so long? In ancient Pskov, the situation is the same. In Moscow, founded in 1147, 100 thousand already live in 1600m. And in neighboring Tver in 1800, that is, only after 200 years, only 16,000 people live. In the northwest rises the capital city of St. Petersburg, with 220 thousand people, while Veliky Novgorod passed just over 6 thousand. And so in many cities.
What happened in the middle of the 19th century
Regularly, "underground" history scholars stumble upon the mid-19th century. There are many incomprehensible wars, great fires, everything incomprehensible with weapons and destruction incomparable with them. Here is at least this photo, where the date of construction is precisely indicated on the gate, or at least the date when this gate was erected, 1840. But at this time, nothing could threaten or harm the abbey of this gate, and even more so simply destroy the abbey. There were clashes between the English and the Scots in the 17th century, and then quietly.
So I, exploring the population of cities on Wiki, stumbled upon something strange. Practically in all Russian cities, there is a sharp decline in population in about 1825 or in the 1840s or in the 1860s, and sometimes in all three cases. There are thoughts that these 2-3 failures are actually one event, which was somehow duplicated in history, in this case in censuses. And this drop is not by percentage, as in the 1990s (I counted a maximum of 10% in the 90s), but a decrease in the population by 15-20%, and sometimes 30% or more. Moreover, in the 90s, a large number of people simply migrated. And in our case, they either died, or people got into such conditions that they could not bear children, which led to this effect. Remember the photographs of empty cities in Russia and France in the mid-19th century. We are told that the exposure is great, but there are no shadows from passers-by,maybe this is just that period.
I would like to note one more detail. When we look at the demographic gap, we compare it with the value of the previous census, the second minus the first - we get the difference, which we can express as a percentage. But this will not always be the right approach. Here is the example of Astrakhan. The difference between 56 and 40 years is 11,300 people, which means that the city has lost 11,300 people in 16 years. But over 11 years? We do not yet know whether the crisis was extended for all 11 years, or it happened, for example, in a year, in the 55th year. Then it turns out that from 1840 to 1855 the trend was positive, and another 10-12 thousand people could have been added and by 55 there would have been 57,000. Then we get the difference not 25%, but all 40%.
Here I look and I can not understand what happened. Either all the statistics are falsified, or something is very confused, or the guardsmen wandered from city to city and massacred thousands of people. If there was a catastrophe, like a flood, then in one year everyone would be washed away. But if the catastrophe itself happened earlier, and then a sharp change in the world paradigm followed, as a result of the weakening of some states, more affected and the strengthening of less affected, then the picture with the guardsmen takes place.
Below, for the sake of example, I would like to superficially make out a couple of oddities in the cutouts.
The city of Kirov. There was a very small decline in the population in 56-63, not great, only 800 people were lost. But the city itself is not great, although the devil knows how long was founded, in 1781, and before that, too, it had a history dating back to the era of Ivan the Terrible. But to start building in the unremarkable city of Kirov, Kirov region with 11 thousand inhabitants in 1839, in honor of Alexander I's visit to the Vyatka province, a huge cathedral and to call it, of course, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is strange. Of course, it is 2 times lower than Isaac's, but it was piled in several years, not counting the time it took to collect money.
Moscow.
It began to lose population considerably in the early 18th century. I admit the possibility of an outflow of the population to St. Petersburg in the middle of the 18th century, after the construction of a road in 1746, along which, by the way, it was necessary to get there for a month. But, in 1710, that year, where did 100 thousand people go? The city has been under construction for 7 years and has already been flooded a couple of times. I cannot accept that 30% of the population with their skardbom is not clear how they leave the pleasant Moscow climate, the inhabited city, to the northern swamps in the barracks. And where did more than 100 thousand people go in 1863? Are the events of 1812 happening here? Or let's say the troubles of the early 17th century? Or is it all the same?
One could somehow explain this by some kind of recruiting or a local epidemic, but the process can be traced throughout Russia. Here Tomsk has a very clear framework for this cataclysm. Between 1856 and 1858, the population declined by 30%. Where and how do so many thousands of conscripts go without even having railways? To central Russia to the western front? True, it can also defend Petropavlovsk-Kachatsky.
One gets the feeling that the whole story is mixed up. And I am no longer sure that the Pugachev uprising took place in the 1770s. Maybe these events were just in the middle of the 19th century? Otherwise I don’t understand. Orenburg.
If we put this statistics into the official history, it turns out that all the disappeared people are recruits for the call to the Crimean War, some of whom later returned back. Yet Russia had an army of 750 thousand. Hopefully in the comments someone will appreciate the adequacy of this assumption. But, all the same, it turns out that we underestimate the scale of the Crimean war. If they went so far as to sweep almost all adult men out of large cities to the front, then they swept them out of the villages as well, and this is the level of losses in the 1914-1920s, if in percent. And then there was the First World War and the Civil War, which took away 6 million and do not forget about the Spanish woman, which only within the borders of the RSFSR claimed 3 million lives in a year and a half! Incidentally, I wonder why such an event receives so little attention in the same media. Indeed, in the world, it carried away from 50 to 100 million people in a year and a half, and this is either comparable or more than the losses of all sides in 6 years in World War II. Isn't there the same manipulation of demographic statistics, in order to somehow comb the population, so that there are no questions about where these 100 million people went, say, in the middle of the 19th century.