An unnoticed contribution to demographic transition theory

Abstract

Alexander Kulischer [Alexandre Koulicher] (1890-1942), a former professor at the University of Petrograd (St. Petersburg, Russia) who emigrated to France after the Russian Revolution of October 1917, may be considered one of the pioneers of the theory of demographic transition. However, his contribution to the development of this theory has gone almost unnoticed and underrated. This article presents an intellectual biography of Alexander Kulischer and analyses his views on the demographic transition (demographic revolution), as he expressed them in his publications in German and in French in the first half of the 1930s. Two of these forgotten publications written in French are republished in the appendix to the article.