Migrationen zwischen Land und Stadt in der Nachkriegssowjetunion am Beispiel von Nordkaukasus und Ural (1947–1979)

Abstract

Based on a variety of statistical sources the article explores demographic structure and origins of migrants in the post-WWII Soviet Union, using examples of the North Caucasus and the Urals. Next to post-war general population censuses of 1959, 1970, and 1979, the research utilizes unique yearly reports of the local administration concerned with internal migration in the two areas under study. While general characteristics of the migration streams in those areas largely corroborate observations of an earlier research on the subject, the Author also unravels substantial inter-regional differences which so far have gone largely unnoticed. These differences were to a large extent path-dependent and related to peculiarities of the settlement patterns, and overall developmental differences between the regions. Given these divergences, the Author argues, a methodological reflection on the accuracy of crude comparisons of the migration streams in the regions under study seems inevitable.

Keywords

• North Caucasus
• urbanization
• urban demography
• Soviet general censuses
• rural-urban migration
• Ural