Libmonster ID: BY-3029
Author(s) of the publication: N. G. KRIKUN

I. GIEYSZTOROWA. Wstep do demografii staropolskiej. Warszawa. Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. 1976. 311 str.

I. Geishtorova is known in Poland as a specialist in the field of historical demography. Her works are devoted almost exclusively to the population of the Polish lands of the XVI-XVIII centuries. A large place in them is occupied by the issues of establishing the reliability of certain types of sources. Recently, she has been paying considerable attention to the problems of methodology and methodology of demographic research in relation to Polish documentary materials. In this connection, of particular interest is her article on errors in the study of the natural movement of the population, which lie in wait for the historian in case of insufficiently critical attitude to the metric books of the XVII-XVIII centuries .1
I. Geishtorova's monograph can be considered as a result of her long-term study of individual issues and at the same time as a critical reflection of the available Polish literature and published sources. How much effort it cost can be judged at least by the fact that the demography of Poland of the XVI-XVIII centuries, reflected in the book, currently includes, according to incomplete data, more than 270 works and documentary publications related to the territory of the Polish People's Republic. By the way, a special serial publication "Demographic Past of Poland", published since 1967.2, has brought a noticeable revival in the coverage of the history of the Polish population ; it is the organ of the section of Historical Demography, established in 1964 under the Committee of Demographic Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The work is primarily intended as a source study introduction to the demography of the XVI-XVII centuries; the author also focuses on the methodology and methodology of demographic research. It should be noted that so far only the historiography of France, England, and Belgium has such works . 3 I. Geishtorova is well acquainted with Russian and foreign literature, which she uses for theoretical and comparative purposes. It did not ignore the Soviet literature, but it limited itself to two review articles (L. G. Beskrovny, V. M. Kabuzan, V. K. Yatsunsky - on the demographic balance of Russia in 1789-1815, published in France in 1965, and R. N. Pullat - on the state of historical demography in Soviet Estonia, published in 1965). in Poland in 1971) and several general studies translated into Polish. Unfortunately, we do not take into account the works of Soviet historians on the demography of Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus in the XVI-XVIII centuries, which are usually based on sources that are identical in type to those that relate to Polish lands. By the way, about literature on Ukraine of the XVII century. she could have gleaned information from an article by her compatriot Z. Guldon4 .

1 I. Gieysztorowa. Niebezpieczenstwa metodyczne polskich badan metrykalnych XVII-XVIII w. "Kwartalnik historii kultury materialnej", 1971, N 4.

2 "Przeszlosc demograficzna Polski". Tt. 1 - 8. Warszawa. 1967 - 1975.

3 L. Henry. Manuel de demographie hi-storique. Geneve - P. 1967, 1972; D. E. C. Eversley, P. Laslett, E. A. Wrigley. An Itroduction to English Historical Demography from the 16th to the 19th Century. L. 1966; R. Mols. Introduction a la demographie historique des villes d'Europe du XIVe au XVIIIe siecles. Vol. I-III. Louvain. 1954 - 1956.

4 Z. Guidon. Badania nad zaludnieniem Ukrainy w XVII wieku. "Kwartalnik historii kultury materialnej", 1965, N 4.

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The book focuses on the study and use of documentary materials that make it possible to characterize the natural movement of the population. The author proceeds from the fact that in the era of feudalism, during periods when there were no wars, mass epidemics, severe and frequent crop failures and, consequently, migration was relatively insignificant, the dynamics of population development was primarily and mainly determined by the rate of its natural growth. Therefore, the identification of indicators of this growth in a particular territory becomes particularly important; with their help, starting from any known quantitative data on the population, it is possible to trace changes in its composition by various parameters. Population censuses in Poland began to be conducted only from the end of the XVIII century, and censuses of fiscal and tax content, which are often used as the basis for demographic calculations, were conducted extremely rarely, and the reliability of their information, according to I. Geishtorova, is rather low, they reflected only the trend of development (pp. 4-5). In view of this, there is only one way out - to rely on such a source as church metric books, which have a number of advantages: they have been preserved in many parishes, mainly in the XVIII century.Often their data on marriages, baptisms and burials cover a significant period, they were filled out from year to year, they indicate the gender and age of people. At the same time, metric accounting was not perfect: it did not fully show the natural movement of the population. It is true that by the end of the eighteenth century the content of metric books became more and more reliable, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it was more or less adequate to reality (pp. 4, 7). In the light of this conclusion, it becomes clear, for example, that the increase in mortality in Polish lands, as recorded by the metrics of the 18th and 19th centuries, is solely the result of a more complete accounting of burials.

But if the metric data is incomplete before the end of the 18th century and later, then the question of how to use it in demographic research is legitimate. The answer to this question is given by I. Geishtorova in the second chapter (the first-about the main directions of Polish and foreign research in the field of historical demography-is an introductory, largely historiographical one), the most successful and interesting among the four chapters of the monograph.

Until the mid-19th century and even later, the book notes, human reproduction in Poland was characterized by an unlimited birth rate, while mortality and natural growth remained at the same level (meaning normal years-without prolonged wars and massive natural disasters). Since by this time the metric documentation, which has also become state records, has significantly improved, it becomes possible to transfer the population movement coefficients characteristic of the middle of the XIX century to the XVIII century (and in the first half of the XIX century) with the help of retrospection. In this way, the coefficients obtained on the basis of the metric books of the XVIII century are corrected, and the historian avoids uncritical use of sources (p. 80). But the Polish metric statistics of the nineteenth century were not equally reliable regionally. The statistics of Silesia, which was well studied by the great demographer T. Ladogursky, should be considered exemplary; it most closely corresponds to the demographic patterns of the period of unlimited fertility. Based on the conclusions of this statistic as a starting point, according to the expression and. Geishtorova, it is necessary to identify the shortcomings of metric accounting in the 19th century in the Kingdom of Poland, Galicia, the Principality of Poznań and Pomerania (pp. 66, 67, 105). However, sometimes there is a need to correct even the Silesian data of the XIX century, based on the advantages and disadvantages of the Polish official statistics of the XX century. Although the level of accounting for the population of interwar Poland is higher compared to the statistics of the nineteenth century, it is nevertheless not without drawbacks; knowledge of them can deepen our understanding of demographic processes both in the nineteenth century and in more distant times (pp. 42, 51, 59, 87).

This statement of the question deserves attention. But isn't I. Geishtorova's opinion too categorical? Does it not mean that the specifics of certain regions of Poland in the 18th and 19th centuries are too much leveled and ignored? If we agree with the author unconditionally, then the task of a historian analyzing metric accounting before the middle of the XIX century is reduced only to a source-study understanding, to detecting deviations of metric information from acceptable coefficients of the number of marriages, birth rate and mortality. To us, however, it seems that strict adherence to

page 188

these indicators are not always justified. The book shows that in the first quarter of the 19th century, natural population growth rates in Greater Poland and Pomerania were twice as high as in Silesia. I. Geishtorova rejects the latter figure as unrealistic, as if it was only a consequence of overestimation of the birth rate and underestimation of mortality in metric materials. But was this really the case? After all, both Pomerania and Greater Poland, like Silesia, belonged to Prussia. It is hardly necessary to underestimate the fact that the metric accounting in these lands was controlled by the authorities, who were guided by the same legal provisions and instructions. I. Geishtorova also insists on her fertility indicator (the ratio between the number of births and marriages) as usual until the mid-nineteenth century, considering it a criterion for determining the degree of reliability of metric records (pp. 242-244). T. Ladogursky does not quite agree with this, but does not rule out a lower coefficient of 5 .

Materials about the natural movement of the population can be an effective tool for revising established views, for example, on the size of the population. Thus, objecting to the fact that in the Kingdom of Poland, according to official statistics, the population increased approximately 3.5 times in 1820-1910, I. Geishtorova, using complex calculations based on the population census and metric data for the Duchy of Warsaw in 1810, convincingly proved that the dynamics of population growth in the Kingdom of Poland was close to that which is observed at the same time in Galicia and the Principality of Poznań (by 2.1 and 2.4 times, respectively) (pp. 72, 78, 89-90). However, the author made a number of inaccuracies in determining the population size of the Kingdom of Poland, and the birth rate used in her calculations is not motivated.

I. Geishtorova's observations on the age and gender structure of the population, the average population of a house, the ratio between the number of houses and families in the XIX-early XX centuries are very valuable, which is undoubtedly useful for studying these issues from sources of the XVI-XVIII centuries.

The paper specifically considers the metric books of the XVII-XVIII centuries as a source, although the presentation of this issue suffers from descriptiveness. The author also describes all other sources, some of which are directly and others indirectly related to demography. The first group includes the population census of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1789, parish lists of residents in 1790-1792, which actually had a state character, since they were compiled according to the decree of the four-year Sejm, various church statistics; the second group covers tax censuses-registers: levy, or lanovye, - the middle and second half of the XVI century.- XVII-XVIII centuries and livestock-the second half of the XVII century.

Not all of these sources were adequately covered in the book. More attention is paid to the collection registers, which are well studied by I. Geishtorova. But the author's belief in the indirectly demographic nature of the levy censuses is still too optimistic. Only a few people in Poland share it 6 . At the same time, the author underestimates the smoke registers. At one time, I. Geishtorova positively characterized the smoke lists of 1661, but then she began to treat them negatively. However, the population censuses for individual years (primarily for 1629, 1775, 1789, and 1790) are of exceptional interest to the demographer: as a rule, the population of Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries can only be calculated based on them. As for the information about smokes-residential buildings-for 1629, it is enough to get acquainted with the work of A. I. Baranovich7 to make sure of this. Unfortunately, I. Geishtorova bypassed such an issue as the evolution of smoke lists as a source. A detailed study of the podym censuses in Ukraine 8 proves the expediency of knowing this evolution.

5 "Przeszlosc demograficzna Polski". T. 7, str. 306.

6 For more information about fee registers, see: Z. Guidon. Uwagi w sprawie przydatnosci badawczej rejestrow poborowych z XVI w. "Zapiski historyczne" (Torun), 1966, z. 1.

7 O. Baranovich. Залюднення України перед Хмельниччиною. I. Волинське воеводство. Київ. 1930.

8 M. G. Krikun. Подимні реестри XVII ст. як джерело. "Третя республжанська наукова ксхнференція з архівознавства та інших спеціальних історичних дисциплін. Друга секція. Спеціальні історичні дисципліни". Kiev, 1968; his own. Подимні реестри першої і початку другої половини XVIII ст. "Історичні джерела та їх використання". Вип. 7. Київ. 1972.

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The author considers the sources only from the point of view of their general quantitative reliability, coming to the correct conclusions in general. But this narrows down the possibilities of using them. Thus, the parish population lists of 1790-1792 are of great importance for studying the structure of the population of residential buildings and families, and the population registers of the 60s-70s of the XVII century. If their data are comparable, they are almost the only mass source of the XVII century, with the help of which it is possible to study the social composition of the population of Poland.

In general, I. Geishtorova's informative monograph goes far beyond the historical demography of Poland. Many observations and conclusions of the author deserve serious attention of all specialists in this field of studying the past.

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