The Armenian population of the Middle Volga region at the end of the 19th - the beginning of the 21st century

The paper is devoted to the dynamics of the Armenian population in the Middle Volga region (Ulyanovsk, Penza, Samara oblasts and the Republic of Tatarstan) over a long historical period: from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century. The sources of the study are the materials of the First General Population Census of the Russian Empire (1897), the All-Union Population Censuses (1926, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989) and the All-Russian Population Censuses (2002 and 2010). The author defines the most important stages in the formation of the Armenian diaspora on a regional scale. At the end of the XIX century. the Armenian population of the region was rather small and amounted to several dozen people. A noticeable increase in the Armenian population in the Middle Volga region was observed in the 1920s due to mass migration during the Genocide. At this stage, the organizational formation of the Armenian diaspora in the Middle Volga began, the first national-religious association was created in Samara. During the Soviet period, the number of the Armenian population of the Middle Volga region gradually increased mainly due to labor migrations. At the end of the 20th century, the growth rate of the Armenian population of the Middle Volga region increased significantly due to mass forced migrations. For most of the studied period, the Armenian population of the Middle Volga region was dominated by residents of the Samara (Kuibyshev) oblast: in 2010, their share exceeded 60.0%. The modern period of development of the Armenian diaspora in the Middle Volga region is characterized by a high level of self-organization of the community, which facilitates the adaptation of new settlers, their integration into the host community.