Boyko P. Historical sources of formation of Oleksandrivsky povit (county) population in the last quarter of the 18th century-the early 19th century.

In this paper we first conducted a comprehensive study of historical sources of formation of Oleksandrivskypovit (county) population in the last quarter of the 18th century- the early 19th century. Considering the available archeographic publications and task-oriented heuristics in respective stocks of archive facilities and scientific libraries, we created a representative source research base.We explored information capability of sources of various kinds, artsand types which enabled us to reconstruct the process of population formation, social stratification of certain populated locations and of Oleksandrivskypovit, as well as legal regulation of colonization activities. We found that specific character of information coding in documentary sources, in particular,in large-scale descriptive and statistical ones, rendersimpossible the use of only one type of sourcesin order to estimate changes in number, social and ethnic composition of population within a county (povit), and still less within a particular populated location. Each type of sources has its specific information gaps distorting general patterns and resulting in inevitable occurrence of erroneous historiographical clich?s in case of source base generic limitation. Owing to involvement of wide range of source maps along with an accompanying documentation package, we explored not only the fact of existence or uprising of a certain populated location but also transformation of the latter.We created apersonified base of population of Oleksandrivsk and surrounding settlements in the last quarter of the 18th century- the early 19th century. It was found that among Oleksandrivsk inhabitants, guild masters and church officers were privileged, while military menconstituted a closed social stratum. We investigated therole of nonresidents in population formation. Thus, shovel-makers were extensively involved in construction of Oleksandrivsk fortress until 1774, whereupon they returned to their previous settlements which fact was evidenced by payment documents from shops of the line. Beginning from 1774,shovel-makers were replaced by convicts. The lists of convicts allowed determining when the convicts were transported and sent to work and in what number, of what offences they were convicted, where they came from and what was their ethnic origin. As for the ethnic composition of Oleksandrivsk population, Ukrainians were the largest group of population in the examined period (from 73 % in 1779 to 60.1% in 1809). The number of Russians changed from 26% in 1779 to 18.9% in 1808. We carried out reconstruction of population social stratification and determined the role of small groups in Oleskandrivsk based of church records and documentary sources.