Development of the peasant farm and demoecological processes in the Orel Governorate in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries

We consider the poorly studied topic of demographic development and its impact on agriculture in Central Russia on the example of the Orel Governorate. The study described and revealed the reasons for the expansion of peasant arable land, as well as analyzed the rate of reduction of forest and hay resources during the studied period. Special attention is paid to the peculiarities of land use and processing of peasant plots. The study determined the ratio of natural and anthropogenic factors in the development of agricultural society in the Orel Governorate in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries on the example of peasant farms in the region. We identify trends in the strategy of demographic behavior of the rural population, mainly represented by the peasantry, and the influence degree of the growing population on the natural resources of the region. The main sources were statistical materials presented by various collections on land ownership and land use, as well as reviews and commemorative books of the Orel Governorate. A special place is occupied by archival documents stored in the State Archive of the Orel Region. A comprehensive study of sources is carried out using both traditional scientific methods (system analysis, structural approach, retrospective) and modern approaches (civilizational, mathematical statistics method). We establish the dependence of the increase in the demographic load on natural resources during the studied time and the presence in the region of all demoecological crisis signs the late 19th –early 20th centuries.

1. Aleksandrov N.M. Problemy agrarnoy Rossii (vtoraya polovina XIX – nachalo ХХ v.) [Problems of Agra-rian Russia (the Second Half of 19th – Early 20th Century)]. Yaroslavl, 2003, 63 p. (In Russian).

2. Davydov M.A. Ocherki agrarnoy istorii Rossii v kontse XIX – nachale XX v. (po materialam transportnoy statistiki i statistiki zemleustroystva) [Essays on the Agrarian History of Russia in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries (based on Transport Statistics and Statistics of Land Management)]. Moscow, Russian State University for the Humanities Publ., 2003, 568 р. (In Russian).

3. Karpachev M.D. O sotsial’nykh istokakh russkikh revolyutsiy nachala XX v. [On the social origins of the Russian revolutions of the early 20th century]. Vestnik Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Se-riya: Istoriya. Politologiya. Sotsiologiya – Proceedings of Voronezh State University. Series: History. Political Science. Sociology, 2015, no. 3, pp. 21-28. (In Russian).

4. Рerepelitsyn A.V. Krest’yanskoye khozyaystvo tsentral’no-chernozemnykh guberniy v poreformennyy period [Peasant Economy of the Central Black Earth Governorate in the Post-Reform Period]. Voronezh, Voronezh State Pedagogical University Publ., 2005, 203 p. (In Russian).

5. Esikov S.A. Vliyaniye demograficheskoy situatsii na sostoyaniye i razvitiye sel’skogo khozyaystva Tambovskoy gubernii v nachale XX veka [Influence of the demographic situation on the status and development of agriculture in Tambov Governorate in the early 20th century]. Vestnik Tambovskogo gosudarstvennogo tekhnicheskogo universiteta – Transactions of Tambov State Technical University, 1995, vol. 1, no. 1-2, p. 187. (In Russian).

6. Kanishchev V.V. Regional’nyye osobennosti ekologicheskikh protsessov v Rossii vtoroy poloviny XIX – nachala XX v. (Tambovskaya i Tverskaya gubernii) [Regional features of ecological processes in Russia in the second half of 19th – early 20th century. (Tambov and Tver Governorates)]. Vestnik Tverskogo GU – Bulletin Tver State University, 2010, no. 2, pp. 133-140. (In Russian).

7. Tsintsadze N.S. Demograficheskiye i ekologicheskiye problemy razvitiya agrarnogo obshchestva Rossii vo vtoroy polovine XIX – nachale XX veka v vospriyatii sovremennikov [Demographic and Environmental Problems of Development of Agrarian Society in Russia in the Second Half of 19th – Early 20th Century in the Perception of Contemporaries]. Tambov, 2012, 286 p. (In Russian).

8. Kanishchev V.V. (executive ed.). Ekologicheskiye problemy modernizatsii rossiyskogo obshchestva v XIX – pervoy polovine XX v. [Ecological Problems of Modernization of the Russian Society in the 19th – First Half of 20th Century]. Tambov, 2005, 125 p. (In Russian).

9. Mironov B.N. Blagosostoyaniye naseleniya i revolyutsii v imperskoy Rossii. XVIII – nachalo XX veka [Wel-fare Population and Revolution in Imperial Russia. 18th – Early 20th Centuries]. Moscow, Novyy khrono-graf Publ., 2010, 911 p. (In Russian).

10. Zhirov N.A. Pereselencheskoye dvizheniye krest’yanstva agrarnogo tsentra Rossii v kontse XIX – nachale XX v. (po materialam Orlovskoy gubernii) [Migration Movement of the Peasantry of the Agrarian Center of Russia in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries (based on the Materials of the Orel Governorate]. Voprosy is-torii [Issues of History], 2018, no. 10, pp. 130-137. (In Russian).