Population of the Hetman State of the XVIIIth century: social and demographic history

Work number - M 49 FILED

Presented by V.G. Korolenko Poltava National Pedagogical University.

Author:Serdiuk I.O.

This work is a generalization of scientific studies that have been carried out in the period from 2007 to 2016.

In the present series of scientific papers for the first time in the national historical science a comprehensive social characteristics of the population of the Hetman State presented basing on the interdisciplinary, micro historical as well as on the historical and anthropological approaches and demographic methodologies. The population considered in terms of the theory of pre-modern traditional agrarian society controlled by the mechanisms of the mortality. The paper gives a new vision of the demographic characteristics of a society as indicators of progress of modernization processes, its openness to migration, degree of urbanization, and so on.

Based on underdeveloped domestic historiography sources - population census materials, legislative and administrative acts, court files – the work defines peculiarities of certain groups (cossacks, merchants, burghers, beggars, students, etc.), the relationships, the lives of people of all ages. It studies social history of childhood, working age and old age, and the understanding of the idea of the society in the Hetman State.

The features of the social and demographic behavior of individuals are also researched. There are detected differences of individual life strategies of different groups of contemporary society. Thesis determined the components of social life and demographic behavior of the population of the Hetman State, that had undergone major changes as a result of transformation processes of the XVIIIth century, and those that remained under the influence of the “old” traditions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The practical significance of the study lies in the substantial adjustment of scientific concepts of family life and marriage in Ukrainian traditional society. Idealized representations of these phenomena are the basis for many state documents, for example, "Demographic Development Strategy 2015", "Sustainable Development Strategy 2020". The results of this cycle of work will allow us to set realistic tasks aimed at developing and moving into the future, rather than returning to a fictitious idealized past.

The results of the research on the topic of work are described in 3 books, 31 articles (including 7 in foreign journals), and in 19 theses. The total number of references to the publication of the author is 50 (according to the Google-scholar), h-index = 4.