Jews of the Don in the 19th – early 21st century: geodemographic dynamics and reproductive processes in a regional community

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Abstract

The article analyzes the reproductive and migration processes, as well as the quantitative, spatial, gender, and age dynamics of the Jewish population in the Don region. It identifies the main periods of its geodemographic evolution in the 19th – early 21st centuries and examines the specificities of the settlement system and gender structure of urban and rural Jews. It has been established that the high level of urbanization and sociocultural modernization of the Don Jews activated the process of assimilation as early as at the beginning of the 20th century. Demographic losses of the community during the World War II predetermined its accelerated decline in the post-war period and further intensified assimilation tendencies. The reverse side of the growing assimilation since the 1920s–1930s has been the process of absolute growth and specific expansion of the regional group of mixed population with Jewish roots, which has not been recorded by the official statistics. For certain periods of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century, an assessment of this latent demographic component has been carried out. It is established that by the end of the 20th century, this group repeatedly exceeded the size of the ethnic core of the regional community and is currently a significant factor in the demographic reproduction and sociocultural life of the Jewish population of the Don region.

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Sergey Y. Suschiy

Federal Research Centre the Southern Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SSC RAS)

Author for correspondence.
Email: SS7707@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5131-3988

д. филос. н., главный научный сотрудник

Russian Federation, 41 Chekhov St, Rostov-on-Don, 344006

References

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. Quantitative dynamics of the regional community, its individual territorial groups and the population with Jewish roots A. Share of the Jewish population of the Don (%) (Calculated according to: Cities of Russia 1904; Reports 1880–1916; Memorial Book of the EG 1860, 1867; Census 1897; All-Union Censuses 1926–1989; All-Russian Censuses 2002–2021). B. Number of Jews in the Don (persons) (Calculated from: Cities of Russia 1904; Reports 1880–1916; Memorial Book of the EG 1860, 1867; Census 1897; All-Union Censuses 1926–1989; All-Russian Censuses 2002–2021). B. Dynamics of the number of Jews in the Don and the population with Jewish roots, mid-1910s – 2010s (thousand people, %) (Author’s calculations) * For the 1910s, demographic data

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3. Fig. 2. Age-gender structure and reproductive indicators of the Jewish population of the Don A. Gender ratio of the Jewish population of the Don (number of men per 100 women) (persons) (Calculated from: Memorial Book of the EG 1860, 1867; Census 1897; All-Union Censuses 1926–1989; All-Russian Censuses 2002–2021). B. Age structure (%) (Calculated according to: Gontmakher 1999; Census 1897; All-Union Censuses 1926–1989; All-Russian Censuses 2002–2021). B. Components of the demographic dynamics of the Don community, 1845–1916. (%). D. Reproductive indicators of representatives of various ethno-confessional groups of the Lower Don region, 1850–1900s.(Calculated from: Memorable book of EG 1860, 1867; Memorable book of Taganrogsky 1865: 26–28; Smirnov 1905: 7–8, 44–45). D. Reproductive indicators of the Jewish population of Rostov-on-Don, 1890–1902. (‰) (Calculated from: Smirnov 1905: 7–8, 19, 44–45)

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4. Fig. 3. Spatial and settlement dynamics of the Don community, 1870–2010 A. Dynamics of the Jewish population of the Department of Internal Affairs, 1867–1888. (persons) (Compiled from: Gontmakher 1999; Memorable books of the Department of Internal Affairs 1870–1916). B. Jews in the Department of Internal Affairs, 1873 (persons) (Compiled from: Gontmakher 1999). V. Jews in the Department of Internal Affairs, 1897 (persons, %) (Calculated from: Census of 1897). G. Jews in the five Don districts of the North Caucasus Territory, 1926 (people, %) (Calculated from: All-Union censuses of 1926–1989). D. Jews of the Rostov region, 1939 (persons) (Calculated from: All-Union Censuses 1926–1989; Voitenko 2005; Movshovich 2002). E. Jews of the Rostov region, 2010 (persons)

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