Social Mobility of Rural Population of Yenisei Province in Late XIX — Early XX Century

Abstract

The sociocultural changes in the rural population of the Yenisei province at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries are considered in order to identify their nature and dynamics in the context of a complex dichotomy of traditionality and modernity. The factors that influenced the inter-class movements of peasants, the dynamics of vertical mobility, the formation of a new socio-cultural type of the peasantry are revealed. Based on the analysis of administrative statistics published in the “Memorable Books”, materials of the First All-Russian Population Census of 1897, as well as “Proceedings of local committees on the needs of the agricultural industry” in the Yenisei province and newspaper and magazine journalism, the author comes to the conclusion that the intensity of the migration flow, sharply increased at the beginning of the 20th century, gave rise to the contradictory dynamics of sociocultural processes in the Yenisei village. On the one hand, it contributed to the activation of the mobility of the rural population, overcoming the cultural isolation of the peasant communities, and accelerated the formation of a new social stratum — the rural intelligentsia. On the other hand, the conservation of class restrictions on the peasantry, the unwillingness of the imperial authorities to extend new social and civil institutions to Siberia, not only hampered the positive dynamics, but also led to the accumulation of protest potential.