Chapter 8. Urban and rural families in late 18th century Saint Petersburg province according to the 5th tax revision (revizskie skazki)

Abstract

Family and other population history studies based on microdata is a rapidly developing strain in modern Russian historiography. Thus, the second half of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st centuries are characterized by active use of primary, individual level demographic data on the Russian population (Ulyanova, Troitskaya). In most cases Russian scholars have analyzed rural populations, peasants in particular, and only a few studies consider urban populations or the clergy (Avdeev, Troitskaya, Ulyanova; Postnikov). Our research is based on the revizskie skazki and focuses on a comparative analysis of demographic trends in different social groups registered in the late 18th century Saint Petersburg province: merchants and low-middle class city dwellers and peasants: privately owned serfs and those who belonged to the Tsars’ family. Revizskie skazki (hereafter referred as revisions) were originally fiscal registers designed to list all persons who were subjects to taxation. Peter the Great introduced the system in 1718 and there were ten such revisions run in 1719, 1745, 1763, 1782, 1795, 1811, 1815, 1843, 1850 and 1858 before the abolition of serfdom in 18611. Due their crosssectional nature, we can classify them as census-like, but they were not only kept for statistical purposes. In Saint Petersburg province, the revisions are well preserved and researchers have at their disposal significant amounts of information dating from the 18th and 19th centuries covering large areas. Of course, the 19th century manuscripts are preserved better than the 18th century primary data. For example, only a small number of documents remain from the fourth revision run in the 1780s. However, we found representative amount of the fifth revision’s primary data from 1795. Most of the revision lists used in this study are