The Buryats of Chita Region: Demographic Development in 1959–1989

Introduction. Research of ethnical demographic processes is in priority for demography ethnologists. The last differentiated according to the character of their social and economic development. Such works help us better understand the dynamics of the population in multiethnic regions, to identify further trends in reproduction and migration of different peoples. Historically, some ethnical groups in Russian Federation lived separately. Apparently, the research of number and reproduction of the Buryat population of the Chita region (Trans-Baikal Territory), which is one of the three regions of the predominant settlement of the ethnic group in Russia (together with the Buryatskaya ASSR and the Irkutsk region), is relevant. Data and Methods. Works by Russian demographer and scholar A. G. Vishnevskyi are applied as a methodological basis of the paper.The primary materials and sources are archival and statistical documents, published and unpublished, and data collections. In addition, historical and demographic methods are used. Results. We have revealed that the demographic transition among the Chita Buryats was slower than in other regions. There were different factors of the slowness. The first stage of the transition started in the late 1940s and lasted for almost three decades until the end of the 1970s. The second phase arose around the end of the 1970s until the beginning of the 1990s, when there was a significant drop in the birth rate. After that, the third stage started, when intra-family birth control increasingly spread in the society. Conclusion. As a result, the demographic modernization of the Buryat ethnic group in the Chita region proceeded with remarkable features: initially, with a strong reduction in mortality and a short demographic explosion. Thus, the reasons of the demographic transition’s peculiarities of the Buryats in Chita region are revealed and analyzed.

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