| Abstract [eng] |
The object of the Master’s Thesis is the internal migration of residents of Vilnius Province and the data characterising them. The aim of the research is to assess the internal migration in Vilnius Province in the second half of the 19th century. To achieve the aim several objectives have been set. First, to investigate and indicate the steps of tsarist government that made impact on peasant’s living; second, referring to experience of foreign researchers, to find an effective model for exploring internal migration. In Vilnius Province, many diverse people would live; therefore, in order to explore their mobility, primarily, it was needed to estimate demographic, natural and economic factors influencing internal migration of people. After that, having estimated a method of internal migration, it was applied at three levels: province, counties and volosts (small rural districts). The following conclusions have been drawn after carrying out the research. Frequent agrarian reforms carried out by the tsarist government were a gradual move towards termination of serfdom and unification of peasants both legally and economically. Wanting to adjust to the changes, peasants had to be externally mobile. Having surveyed experience of foreign researchers, the mathematical model of the polynomial distribution of internal migration was employed; it enables estimating a fact of internal migration at a given preciseness. The present research estimated (with the 0.999 precision) that internal migration in Vilnius Province existed throughout the entire period of the second half of the 19th century. Complexly applying the method of exploration of internal migration, the province counties to which and from which people would migrate have been found out. For instance, in the period 1850–1868, people from the rest of the counties, except for Švenčionys, of the Province would go to live in Vilnius County. The amount of such internal migrants was some 5.8 thousand people; and in the period 1875–1879 a reverse process took place in Vilnius County: it lost 225 residents. Internal migration of peasants hides in certain data characterising them; it has been found out that the data is stored in statistical reports on peasants of the Province. The performed research presents a background for further analysis of migration (especially its causes). Having compared research results with the census of residents in Russia carried out in 1897, it has been found out that the results supplement each other and basically do not differ. However, they suggest that the volume of internal migration in Vilnius Province counties was much lower than people’s migration among provinces. |
