Experiencing Enumeration: Local Reactions and Resistance to Censuses in Imperial Russia, 1863–81

Abstract

Abstract During the second half of the nineteenth century, statistics attracted significant attention from government officials and educated elites as a method of quantifying socioeconomic change and rendering human and natural resources visible through data. However, we still know little about how local communities responded to changing methods of gathering statistical data during the gradual shift away from forms of enumeration based on legal estates and households toward modern methods of individual enumeration by census. Rarely do we approach the history of censuses from the perspective of the census subjects to consider the experiences of those being counted. This article analyzes interactions between census organizers and local populations in the three Russian imperial Baltic provinces (Estland, Livland, and Kurland) in the second half of the nineteenth century. As a form of administrative intervention, censuses opened up a space for local populations to articulate opinions and question the overlapping layers of authority within the empire between local elites, the provincial administration, and tsarist government. Examining the history of censuses from the perspective of local communities in the Russian Empire demonstrates how attitudes and resistance to censuses were closely tied to particular local issues and concerns. The Baltic case study adds nuance to existing discussions on forms of census resistance by broadening the focus beyond identity politics and conflict over forms of confessional, linguistic, and national classification. Instead, census subjects in the Baltic voiced concerns about how the local authorities might use individual enumeration as a form of administrative surveillance and social control.