The Russian peasant family in the twentieth century: a structural-typological and dynamic analysis

ABSTRACT The study discusses the transformation of the peasant family in Russia in the twentieth century and focuses on the materials of the budget surveys of peasant households in the Middle Urals in 1928/1929 and in 1963. The population censuses of 1926, 1939, and 1959 allow us to compare the family structure in rural areas of the Urals diachronically and to chart the evolution of the Russian peasant family. While the Ural budget surveys reflect the national dynamics, they also bear the signs of specific regional characteristics: milder demographic effects because WOII, higher rates of urbanization in rural areas as a result of the accompanying migration processes. Our study has shown that the demographic transition in Russia was characterised by the following : a very fast, albeit belated, change in the family structure from 1920 to the 1960s; the family was affected by demographic disasters such as wars and political campaigns. As a result, the peasant family could not maintain the fertility rates at the replacement level. The structural-typological analysis and micro-level modelling of the family life cycle have demonstrated that peasant families had peculiar mechanisms of adaptation to internal and external pressures. While the life cycle of the traditional family household was largely determined by the peasant economy, in an urbanized society there were two main family types and, correspondingly, two types of the family life cycle. The reduced life cycle of the single parent family became secondary to the ‘model’ life cycle of the two parent family. Soviet modernization contributed to the transformation of ‘fragmented’ family forms into a typical version of the family landscape, not only in cities but also in rural areas.