Demographic Processes in the Transition Zone from Industrial to Agricultural Provinces in the Central Russia at the Beginning of the 20th Century (On the Example of Oryol and Kaluga Provinces)

The article analyses the main demographic processes, namely, fertility, mortality, natural population growth and marriage on the example of Oryol and Kaluga provinces of the Central Russia. It is hypothesised that the provinces were in the transition zone from an industrial zone to a typically agricultural one; as a result, they could combine different variants of demographic behaviour of the population. The paper aims to study the peculiarities of demographic processes at the micro- (individual Orthodox parishes and settlements) and meso-levels (counties and provinces as a whole). Methods of mathematical statistics, as well as traditional methods of humanitarian research were used. Primary parish statistics (metric books), as well as surveys of provinces and other demographic studies were taken as the main source. It was concluded that the population of the studied provinces at the beginning of the 20th century has entered the zone of demographic transition from the traditional model of population re-production to the modern one. This process was considered in detail at the «grassroots level» based on the microdemographic analysis of individual Orthodox parishes.