Suicides in the Russian empire after the abolition of the serfdom: official statistics and the real number of suicide victims

Aim: The article is devoted to the analysis of official statistics on mortality of 49 provinces of the European part of the country from suicides and the reasons for its incompleteness. Materials and methods: during the chronological period of 1876-1892 the Russian Empire started the collection and publication of information about deaths that came as a result of violent causes, as well as discovered dead bodies that can be regarded as a kind of “reservoir” of unaccounted violent deaths - f rom murders and suicides. To obtain a more complete picture of the mortality rate from suicide, the information of forensic medical examinations of dead bodies is used. Results: According to the statistics, among the total number of deaths from sudden, violent causes and accidents all around the Russian Empire, the causes of death remained unknown in 10.9 cases. The number of deaths from unknown causes in cities, in general, exceeded the number of similar deaths in villages - 15.4 vs...