The strategy of Russia's demographic development: its determinants and centuries-old vector

The article gives the author's idea of the concept of "strategy" and its specification in relation to demographic development. The difference between the concept of "strategy" and the concept of "concept", which defines a particular policy, carried out in a certain tactical period of the country's demographic development, is shown. Such is, for example, the time of the collectivization and industrialization of the country in the Soviet Union or the 90s of the twentieth century in modern Russia, when the replacement of the socialist structure by the capitalist (market economy) was intensively carried out. The concept of "strategy of demographic development" means a unidirectional vector, focused on achieving certain results, calculated for a long historical period and conditioned not by momentary considerations or temporarily emerging situations, but by the fundamental national interests of the state. The article shows what economic and, most importantly, geopolitical features of a particular country determine the nature of its demographic development strategy. Based on the history of the formation of the Russian state, its territorial expansion, and the centuries-old attitude of the states that determined world politics to it, the substantiation of the geopolitically necessary strategic goal of its demographic development is given. It is shown that in the modern world Russia can maintain its geopolitical status, inviolability of borders, i.e. its territory with its natural resources and geographical advantages only if it builds up its demographic potential. The article examines the periods of the demographic development of Russia, the first of which dates back to the time of the formation of the Russian Empire up to the October Revolution. The second period covers the Soviet period with its pre-war and post-war years, during which, with a few exceptions, there was an upward demographic dynamics. In the third period, and this is the functioning of Russia as an independent state, in the demographic development of which radical changes took place. These periods have not only different socio-economic and political features, but also differ in the nature of population dynamics and changes in its geographical distribution.