Towns and villages of Yakutia in the Great Patriotic War: factors affecting the population size

The study deals with the population size in towns and villages of Yakutia during the Great Patriotic War, the key reasons for loss (or gain) of the population in different types of settlements. Based on the available population figure and statistics of natural movement, the author analyzes the migratory movement (in the period under review, the statistical authorities did not collect the complete data on migration) and explains the composition of the departing and arriving groups in the region. The researcher describes the administrative transformation of rural settlements into industrial communities and evaluates the migration flows (subject to changed settlement status). The study compares the population size in 1941-1945 in Yakutia with one in the Russian Federation, as well as with Siberian regions depending on the type of the settlement. The author concluded that the population size in Yakutia was greatly influenced by such factors as a widespread mobilization to the battlefront and an extreme mortality of the rear population (as opposed to Siberian regions, where the mortality rate had declined). The Pearl-Pokrovsky coefficient (life Index) was derived for the population of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Russian Federation (they got similar figures). In Yakut regions with prevailing indigenous population, the mortality rate was higher than the average one in the Republic. The number of children born in Yakutia during the war was halved by 1959. The population of Yakutia and the Soviet Union as a whole reached the pre-war level until late 1954 and early 1955 that was ten years after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The number of inhabitants of rural areas in the Yakut ASSR was restored only by 1967-1968.