DEMOGRAPHIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE 1946–1947 FAMINE (ON THE MATERIALS OF THE URALS)
The article deals with examination of the main parameters of the post-war 1946–1947 famine’s impact on the demographic sphere of the Urals. It considers the basic approaches proposed by Russian and foreign researchers to determine the level of excess mortality under conditions of the famine. Some of them were used to assess its scale in the Urals. The changes that took place in the processes of reproduction of the region’s population are revealed. Particular attention is paid to the structural analysis of mortality processes. The specifics of registration of deaths from alimentary dystrophy in the consolidated demographic forms are shown, their share in the corresponding group of causes of death is determined. The transformation of fertility processes is considered, the size of its decrease under the influence of the famine is established. The 1946–1947 famine led to an increase in mortality, it virtually interrupted a short period of post-war compensation of the population, which turned out to be insufficient and incomplete. Estimates of direct losses from the famine vary, but they all inevitably have the character of rough, tentative assumptions. On the one hand, this is due to the limitations imposed by the informative potential of the sources available to researchers today. On the other hand, the reason lies in an extraordinary nature of the very period, marked by a multitude of turbulent events that destabilized the situation, when it becomes almost impossible to find the demographic norm on which calculations should be made.