Население Северного Казахстана в 1897–1926 гг.: этнодемографические характеристики (по материалам Акмолинской области/губернии)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to identify the content and specific features of the ethnodemographic characteristics of the population of Akmola Oblast in the late nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth century. The object of the study is the population of four uyezds of Akmola Oblast/Guberniya (Akmolinsk, Atbasar, Kokchetav, and Petropavlovsk uyezds), examined on the basis of census materials and other sources relating to Akmola Oblast. The article outlines the source base and research methods employed. It identifies the main trends in the transformation of the multiethnic population structure of Northern Kazakhstan in 1897–1926 based on the materials of the 1897 All-Russian Population Census, pre-revolutionary Reviews of Akmola Oblast, and the Soviet population censuses of 1920 and 1926 for Akmola Oblast/Guberniya. Changes in the size of the Kazakh population are analysed in considerable detail on the basis of the Reviews of Akmola Oblast for 1900–1915. It is not possible to trace changes in the size of the Russian, Ukrainian, and other ethnic groups for 1900–1910 using the Reviews, since the ethnic composition of the oblast’s population was not recorded for those years. Therefore, changes in the structure of the non-indigenous population are examined in greater detail only for the period from 1911 to 1915, based on the Statements on the Distribution of the Population of Akmola Oblast by Nationality and Estate contained in the Reviews of the oblast. The conclusion identifies two major trends in the formation of the multiethnic population structure of Northern Kazakhstan (Akmola Oblast/Guberniya), which correspond to the general patterns observed throughout Kazakhstan during this period. First, there was a sharp decline in the proportion of the indigenous Kazakh population; second, there was a rapid increase in the Slavic population in the uyezds of Akmola Guberniya.