Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки (Mar 2020)

Analysis Issues of Infant and Child Mortality at the Old Believers of the Ural City

  • Iulia Viktorovna Borovik

DOI
https://doi.org/10.15826/izv2.2020.22.1.009
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 22, no. 1(196)
pp. 127 – 140

Abstract

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A large number of Old Believers is a feature of the confessional diversity of the Urals. Starting from the 18th century, Yekaterinburg was the main urban centre of Old Believers. There were fewer Old Believers than Orthodox Christians, but they were the largest religious minority of the city. However, there is no information about their everyday life routines in other Ural cities and parts of the region on the whole that had considerable Old Believer communities. Yekaterinburg was an exception where all Old Believer communities had official status from 1907 and kept their own metric books. The extant complex of unique documents from the period between 1907 and 1926 is a valuable source on the history of families and the local religious community, but it is also important for studying the local specifics of historical processes. The Old Believer metrics of Yekaterinburg are particularly valuable because the complex covers all the available directions in the village for the maximum period possible for this source. Because of the doubts Chasovennye had concerning the use of registering communities under the Edict of October 17, 1906, in their parishes, metric records were a rare thing. Metric books of the other concords, such as, most importantly, those of Belaya Krinitsa, can be found more often but they only cover a minor part of the Old Believer population and over a shorter period. This article discusses the problems and prospects of using data from Old Believer metrics, the degree of their reliability and completeness for the study of infant and child mortality.

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