What can the registration data tell us about mortality and migration in the Great Soviet Famine of 1932/33?

The talk will first consider the reliability of the Soviet (ZAGS) registration data. Is it as Andreev, Darskii, Kharkova (ADK) suggest, so unreliable (needing 20-30% corrections at least) so that these data are virtually useless. Or is it like Vallin, Mesle, Adamets, Pyrozhkov (VMAP) suggest basically reliable?

I will start by looking at the one major source of distortion that we know about. This is the instruction to omit births and deaths from the population not registered in the region, or lacking evidence of local registration. I will show how this instruction was implemented, and what the available data tells us about the size and location of these excluded categories. I will suggest that this can provide us with meaningful indicators of the scale and location of displaced (famine migration or refugee) population.

I will then look at the detailed regional location of mortality, marriages and natality to see what these can tell us. I will consider the monthly chronology of mortality and the available data on age of mortality data to see what these can tell us.

I conclude by arguing that the results of these investigations provide meaningful results that suggest that these indicators are more meaningful than ADK would suggest.

The seminar will be organized on Wednesday, November 23, at 16:00 in Bolshoy Trechsvyatitelsky Pereulok, 3, room 526.

Report language: English, discussion: English and Russian

Please, confirm your participation until November 22, 12:00 on the web site http://goo.gl/forms/EZYvfU0Iy34nqu3k1 or contact Maria Vinnik (mvinnik@hse.ru)

We are looking forward meeting you!