The Impact of the Great Patriotic War on Population Reproduction (Basing on the Materials of the Molotov Region)

Abstract

The Great Patriotic war had a disastrous impact on country’s demography. Much available research focuses on the study of human losses in Russia and individual regions, while widely using demographic statistics of state bodies, mainly regional, republican statistical offices and the CSO of the USSR. Their representativeness has been proven, and negative characterizations of registry office statistics (registration of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces) found in modern historical literature has no basis, except in cases where it was not possible to collect complete information. In this study, this corpus of documents is used to analyze reproduction processes in the Molotov region and their impact on demographic structures. Identified new sources (data on birth order, and data on maternal age, which appeared in the concluding period of the war) resulted in methods of demographic analysis (calculation of general, special, and private fertility rates) to obtain new data on the demographic situation in the region and the depth of the demographic catastrophe in which the country found itself in the war, the consequences of which are felt up until today. World War II plunged the country’s population, including territories deep in the rear, into a demographic crisis that resulted in changes in demographic structures, deformation of reproduction, disproportion in the ratio between fertility and mortality, and damage to the regeneration of generations, especially among males.