All Union Censuses as resources for historical demographic research of urban population in 1950-1980-s

Research article

Abstract

The results of All-Union censuses’ analysis as sources of historical and demographic research are represented in the paper. The Censuses characterize different groups of the population at a particular time. They form a large set of statistical materials distributed in various thematic tables. The sources of the paper are systematized into census tables submitted to the state archives, as well as statistical collections where the results of the censuses are presented in a concise form. The aim of the paper is to describe those census materials that are valuable for the research of demographic characteristics of the urban population. Internal criticism of sources and the method of comparative analysis are research methods. As a result, it is revealed that All-Union censuses with certain shortcomings included are generally an accurate statistical resource. However, the situation might be different for the population of individual republics and regions. The country's leadership insisted on hiding the information about the size and territorial location of certain categories of the population. The special census procedure was applied to military personnel, employees of local KGB bodies and employees of individual industrial enterprises, etc. Closed cities which population was also distributed across different regions of the country were not included into the census systematized tables. The author’s method for calculating the approximate size of population attributions, which requires Soviet-era statistics, and recalculations based on the results of the 2002 All-Russian Census is applied. Currently, most of the census materials can be easily found in central and regional archives and libraries. Certain difficulties occur while searching for some rarely found information that is obvious due to the fact that they have not yet been transferred to archives from departmental repositories. Thus, as a result of the analysis of statistical collections and tables, the census data relevant for the study of the urban population, their completeness and reliability are revealed in the paper for the first time. The specific features of publications of the results of different censuses are represented and the places of their storage are indicated. It gives an opportunity for scholars to introduce with the materials that can be a foundation for further description of the most important trends and patterns in the numerical, gender, age, social class, and national composition of the urban population in the 1950-s and 1980-s.