The First Demographic Transition in Galicia as an element of modernization – Rzeszów against the background of the largest cities in Galicia: Lviv and Kraków

Abstract

The article concerns selected aspects of the modernization of Galician society as illustrated by demographic changes in Rzeszów in the 19th century. The subject of the study is the first demographic transition consisting in the reduction of the value of the birth and death rates. In the case of smaller cities, such as Rzeszów, the use of nineteenth-century statistical data raises doubts among historians. The re-analysis, taking into account the current state of research, provides the premises for the conclusion that in Rzeszów at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the symptoms of the first demographic transition were noticeable.