‘Little Adults’ of Early Yekaterinburg
Information on Children in the 1788 Urban Population Census
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24218446 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elena Borodinа (0000-0002-8128-5698, Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg), Svetlana Tsemenkova (0000-0003-3389-6723, Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 791-805 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-30 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Quaestio Rossica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2311-911X • E-ISSN: 2313-6871 |
| Publisher | Ural Federal University (PUBLISHER • RU) |
| DOI | 10.15826/qr.2026.3.1087 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
This article analyses the child population of Yekaterinburg based on the household census of 1788. The relevance of the study is due to the insufficient investigation of the historical and demographic aspects of childhood in Russian towns of the early modern period, including the mining and industrial centres of the Urals. Methodologically, the work relies on the micro-analysis of the contents of a primary accounting document – a draft ‘notebook’ from 1788, which formed the basis for the Yekaterinburg town register of inhabitants. The authors establish the total number of children and their social affiliation; it is demonstrated that most children came from families of artisans and workers, as well as peasants, townspeople, and military personnel. The age limits of childhood recorded by the census takers are identified and then correlated with the norms of legal capacity and criminal liability in eighteenth-century Russia, which remain disputed in historiography. Analysis of the structure of children’s employment shows that only a small proportion were attending school at the time, since education had ceased to be compulsory for the population previously under its jurisdiction after the departure of the mining and factory authorities from the city. A certain proportion of children under 15 were employed at enterprises, either as apprentices or labourers. Most children were engaged in their parents’ activities – helping in the household, in trade, or in other forms of earning. It is shown that in most cases children lived with their parents (predominantly in nuclear families), although cases of adoption (mainly among military personnel) and ‘fostering’ are also recorded. It is concluded that in the late eighteenth century, Yekaterinburg was a town of a transitional type: despite the growth of trade and artisan groups, the social composition of its child population retained an industrial character, and the boundary of childhood (15 years) was conventional, with many adolescents beginning their working lives earlier. The article introduces a little-studied source into scholarly circulation and demonstrates the potential of household censuses for an anthropologically oriented history of childhood.
| Highly cited | No |
|---|