Yu. P. Shabaev Institute of Language, Literature and History, Federal Research Center “Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences”, Syktyvkar, Russian Federation, [email protected]
V. M. Peshkova Institute of Sociology, Federal Research Sociological Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation, [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Introduction: external migrations played a significant role in the process of formation of the territorial community of the Komi Republic. However decisive changes in the social and cultural composition of the population and its settlement began in the 1930th, when the republic became one of the centers of the GULAG (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps). Since the mid-1950th, demographic processes have been determined by mass labor migration, and since the early 1990th – by large-scale outflow of the population. Migrations have had and continue to have a significant impact on demographic and ethnodemographic changes, as well as on the peculiarities of family and marriage relations in the republic.
Objective: an assessment of the nature of demographic processes in Komi, as well as in the republics with a Finno-Ugric population, and the influence of these processes on the socio-cultural positions of modern peripheral youth, including orientation towards family and family values.
Research materials: field ethnographic materials, official statistics data, survey of student youth in 2019 in Komi, Udmurtia, Mari El and Mordovia (N=1200) and in 2022 in Karelia, Arkhangelsk region, Komi, Udmurtia, Mari El, Mordovia (N=1600). The surveys were conducted based on the methodology developed by Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2017.
Results and novelty of the research: the Komi Republic is experiencing a deep demographic crisis caused by a large-scale outflow of the population, especially young people. A significant portion of young people are planning to leave the region. It would seem that in such a situation both the institution of family and other traditional values for young people will lose their importance, but as our research shows this is not the case.
Key words: migration, family, ethnicity, youth, ethno-demographic processes, Finno-Ugric, Komi
Acknowledgements: the publication is supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant No 22-18-00377 “Family on the Move: Theoretical and Empirical Problems in the Context of Labor Migration in Russia”.
For citation: Shabaev Yu. P., Peshkova V. M. Migrations, family and ethnicity in a complex regional community // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric studies. 2024; 14 (3/58): 787–799.