The Geography of the Spread of Roman Catholics in the Territory of Tomsk Province at the Second Half of the 19th Century According to Tomsk Parish Registers

Abstract

The results of the research of Tomsk parish registers from 1866 to 1893 are presented in this article with the help of statistical tables and a map. Based on geographical data of these registers the article indicates those names of places (from volosts to towns) where Roman Catholics (among them quite a number of Lithuanians) lived during the above mentioned time period. The research results allow stating that Catholics lived in all six vast districts of Tomsk province (Barnaul, Biysk, Kayinsk, Kuznetsk, Mariinsk, Tomsk), its 34 volosts and eight towns. Data from the Church register, synthesized by the author, as well as state statistics, prove that the majority of Catholics during those years lived in Kayinsk, Tomsk and Mariinsk districts. There were very few of them in three southern districts. Most of Catholics lived in Tomsk district (in 1869 – about 2460 people), especially in Tomsk town and volosts: Ishtimskaya, Semiluzhnaya, Bogorodskaya; in Kayinsk district (about 2380 people), especially in volosts: Ust’-Tart, Kyshtovskaya, Voznesenskaya; in Mariinsk district (about 1530 people), especially in volosts: Pochitanskaya, Zyryanskaya, Dmitriyevskaya. The data of the registers can be used as an independent historic source which testifies about the demography, priests, Catholic families and their settlements of a certain period of time. It would be useful to continue the work and create similar maps and tables for every period of time and every Siberian region by comparing these data, Church and state statistics, registers of confessions. The result of such work could be a historical atlas-guide, one of the most important tools for a historian.