Differences in Socio-economic Transformations of Rural Communities in Russian Multi-ethnic Regions

Abstract

The article analyzes the differences in the rural communities’ transformation in some national republics of Russia. To verify the hypothesis put forward on the basis of a review of sources and field observations, demographic statistics, rural settlement and other indicators characterizing the rural population are analyzed. Among rural communities with different ethnic identities, there is a significant differentiation in the share of the rural population, birth rate and settlement structure. Differentiation is due to the different involvement of ethnic rural communities in urbanization processes and processes of social modernization. Analysis and classification of differences made it possible to identify options (inertial and modernization) and stages ("expansion", "from expansion to compression", "compression" and "disappearance in the previous format") of the post-Soviet rural communities transformation. Most of the Russian rural communities are undergoing active modernization. At the same time, in rural areas of Russia, there are still rural communities at the stage of "expansion" (largely Dagestani and Ingush rural communities). The discussion section presents a classification of ethnic rural communities in Russia according to their predominant variant and stage of transformation in the post-Soviet period. Based on the results of field studies, examples are given that confirm the presence of deviations from the predominant variant and stage of transformation of rural communities. For example, the leading factor in the differences in the variants and stages of socio-economic transformation of the surveyed Tatar and Chuvash rural communities of the Batyrevsky and Fyodorovsky districts is the development of the economic base of the region. Due to the more active Soviet industrialization of the economy of Bashkortostan, many communities in the Fyodorovsky district are at the stage of "compression" and "disappearance", while in the Batyrevsky district only in recent decades has the outflow of population to the cities accelerated. In addition, a comparative analysis of the rural settlement transformation of ethnic groups made it possible to confirm the universality of the stages of rural communities’ transformation. In the Batyrevsky district this is expressed, for example, in the temporary lag of depopulation of Tatar and Chuvash rural communities.