Did the Abolition of Serfdom Affect the Life Cycle of Peasants in the Western Part of the Grodno Governorate in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries?

Abstract

The objective of the article is an attempt to find the answer to whether the agrarian reforms of the 1860s carried out in Russia affected the individual’s life cycle in peasant Catholic families in Podlasie which, after 1807, was included in the Grodno Governorate. In Polish historiography the subject of the individual and the family’s life cycle in the 19th century has not yet been adequately researched; hence these studies are intended to fill this gap, at least in part. In this paper a cross-section analysis of demographic phenomena was employed, which is based on three lists of the inhabitants of the large Podlasie parish of Trzcianne, drawn up in the years 1843–1910. The research value of the lists was evaluated with the help of three indexes: Whipple’s index, the total modified Whipple’s index (Wtot) and ABCC. The application of the cross-section method aimed at illustrating the dependence between the age and the status of the individual (children, household servants, householders, independent female heads of households, relatives and lodgers) in the household. The article devotes more attention to the pace of children’s leaving family homes, as well as the status of old people, i.e., 65 years old and above, always including their sex.

Keywords

• life cycle
• peasants
• status in the household
• lists of parishioners
• Grodno Governorate
• Podlasie