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This article analyses religious marriages which played an important role in preserving the identity of the Jewish urban population beyond the Pale of Settlement. It considers the basic legal provisions regulating Jewish marriages. The authors reconstruct wedding rituals typical of Russian Jews. They also analyse marriages contracted in Yeka­terinburg between the formation of the first families of Jewish soldiers in the 1850s until 1917. The main sources of research were the 8th Orenburg Batallion's archival records containing information on marriages of soldiers during their service; the database "Ural Population Register", containing transcribed data from Yekaterinburg synagogue's metric books for the period between 1906 and 1917; late 19th and early 20th centuries ethnographic descriptions of Jewish wedding rituals in the western provinces of the country. According to the authors' findings, soldiers of the 8th Orenburg Linear Batallion registered the first Jewish weddings in Yekaterinburg in the 1850s. They managed to communicate not only with their relatives remaining in the Pale of Settlement in the Western provinces of the Empire, but also with Jewish communities in Western Siberia. Permission to get married was granted by the commanders and demanded that the newly wedded be provided with their own accommodation. The research proved that Yekaterinburg Jews, with very few exceptions, contracted ethnically and religiously homogeneous marriages, which contributed to the preservation of their ethnic and religious identity. They observed religious regulations with regard to the time and date of marriage at least until 1917 and each marriage was accompanied by the signing of a marriage contract — Ktuba. The presence of a government rabbi was not mandatory; instead, the so-called spiritual rabbis or respected members of the community could conduct the wedding. ; В статье анализируется феномен религиозного брака, игравшего важную роль в сохранении идентичности еврейского городского населения, находящегося за чертой оседлости. В ней рассмотрены основные положения законодательства, регулировавшего браки иудеев; реконструированы свадебные обряды, практиковавшиеся российскими иудеями; проанализированы браки, заключенные в Екатеринбурге от появления первых семей солдат-иудеев в 1850-e гг. до 1917 г. Основными источниками исследования явились материалы делопроизводства Оренбургского линейного батальона № 8 за 1843–1858 гг., в которых содержалась информация о браках, заключенных солдатами во время службы; база данных «Регистр населения Урала», в которую были транскрибированы сведения из метрических книг Екатеринбургской еврейской общины за 1906–1917 гг., а также этнографические описания еврейских свадебных обрядов, практиковавшихся в западных губерниях страны в конце XIX — начале XX в. В результате проведенного исследования удалось установить, что первые еврейские свадьбы были проведены в городе солдатами Оренбургского линейного батальона, которые сохраняли связь не только с родственниками, оставшимися за чертой оседлости, но и с общинами Западной Сибири. Разрешение на свадьбу выдавало начальство, требуя, чтобы молодая семья была обеспечена собственным жильем. Браки проводились батальонным раввином, все рожденные в солдатских еврейских семьях мальчики проходили обряд обрезания. Было установлено, что евреи, за крайне редким исключением, создавали этнически и религиозно гомогенные браки, что способствовало сохранению идентичности; соблюдали религиозные предписания в отношении времени и дня заключения браков до 1917 г.; каждое бракосочетание сопровождалось подписанием брачного договора. При этом присутствие казенного раввина, официально признанного властями, было необязательным, обряд вместо него могли провести духовный раввин или уважаемые члены общины.

This article is devoted to the history of the Yekaterinburg Jewish community and the formation of its religious institutions between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is based on an analysis of legislative acts, archival documents, census data, local periodicals, and the early 20th century studies in local history. The paper discusses the development of the Yekaterinburg Jewish community, the formation of its religious institutions and location of prayer houses, and synagogues. The authors manage to reconstruct the appearance of the buildings used by the city Jews, as well as their interior and property, including the library. The authors argue that the Jewish religious community only began to form in Yekaterinburg in the late 1870s due to the formation of permanent Jewish population. The so-called Soldier Synagogue, operating in Yekaterinburg from 1851, disappeared in 1858, when all Jewish military men were expelled from the city. As soon as the city's Jewish community got its own officially recognised rabbi in 1905, it also got a right to keep its own metric books and have its own Synagogue. The number of Jews in the city grew constantly due to an influx of refugees first caused by pogroms in the western part of the Empire and then by World War I. The newly founded social institutions, both secular and religious, meant to support the Jews arriving in the city contributed to the preservation of their religious and ethnic identity.Despite the systematic attempts by the Soviet authorities to close the Yekaterinburg Synagogue between the 1920s and 1930s, the Jewish community was able to reopen it again and keep the right to operate officially and carry out religious practice until as long as 1961. ; Данная статья посвящена истории иудейской общины Екатеринбурга и становлению ее религиозных институтов в конце XIX — начале XX в. На основе анализа законодательных актов, делопроизводственных материалов, в том числе книг приказов и формулярных списков Оренбургского линейного батальона, данных переписей, местной периодики и сочинений краеведов начала XX в., а также метрических книг удалось определить этапы формирования общины и ее численность; уточнить количество и локализацию молитвенных домов и синагог в Екатеринбурге в начале XX в.; реконструировать внешний вид зданий, внутреннее убранство и имущество, в том числе библиотеку. В результате проведенного исследования было установлено, что еврейская религиозная община начала формироваться в Екатеринбурге лишь в конце 1870-х гг. в связи с появлением постоянного еврейского населения. Солдатская синагога, открытая в Екатеринбурге в 1851 г., исчезла в 1858 г. в связи с тем, что все военнослужащие-иудеи и члены их семей были выведены из города. В 1905 г. в общине появился свой казенный раввин, представлявший интересы религиозного сообщества, она получила право ведения собственных метрических книг и официального открытия синагоги. Численность иудеев в городе постоянно росла за счет притока беженцев, создавались новые социально ориентированные институты, способствовавшие сохранению их религиозной и этнической идентичности. Несмотря на все попытки властей закрыть Екатеринбургскую синагогу в 1920–1930-е гг., еврейская религиозная община смогла сохранить право на официальное существование.

This article compares interethnic and interreligious marriages in Russia and Norway during the decades around 1900. State churches dominated religious life in both countries with over 90 percent of the population but both were losing influence during the period we focus on—rapidly in Russia after the 1917 Revolution. The part on Norway employs nominative and aggregate census material which from 1865 asked questions about religious affiliation, while the Russian case study utilizes the database of church microdata being built for Ekaterinburg—a railway hub and an industrial city in the Middle Urals, in Asia—in addition to census aggregates. Our main conclusion is that religion was a stronger regulator of intermarriage than ethnicity. Religious intermarriage was unusual in Ekaterinburg, even if official regulations were softened by the State over time—the exception is during World War I, when there was a deficit of young, Russian men at home and influx of refugees and Austro-Hungarian Prisoners of War (mostly Catholics and Lutherans). The situation was also affected by the 1917 Revolution creating equal rights for all religious denominations. The relatively few religious intermarriages in Norway were mostly between members of different Protestant congregations—nonmembers being the only group who often outmarried. We conclude that representatives of ethnic minorities and new religions seldom outmarry when religion was important for maintaining their identity.

This article analyses one of the main characteristics of the demographic behaviour of Russian citizens, i.e. their age at first marriage and its dynamics in the early twentieth century. The authors examine the situation in Yekaterinburg, a compact but an intensively developing industrial city. Together with aggregated census data, the authors refer to microdata extracted from several city parish registers (metricheskie knigi), which they transcribed into the Ural Population Project database.As a result of the analysis of nominative data of parish registers, the authors establish the age of first marriages including both averages in the city as a whole and per parish which enables them to conclude about the citizens' demographic behaviour conditioned by their ethnic or religious affiliation, social status and migration patterns, and other personal characteristics.The analysis demonstrates that Yekaterinburg seems to be closer to the "European" marriage pattern, at least in terms of mean age at first marriage in men which grew with the beginning of the war. However, according to the 1926 Census and the age of first marriage and that of never married significantly decreased as compared to the imperial period. The results of the analysis of aggregated and nominative data for Yekaterinburg enable the authors to put forward an idea that following the revolution and the establishment of a new political regime, migration from western provinces stopped while migration from rural areas increased. Rural migrants brought their own marital patterns to the city which implied mandatory marriage. Living in an increasingly stressful environment as a result of World War I, the revolution and the civil war, migrants were trying to get married earlier than on average to secure family support for themselves. ; Статья посвящена анализу одной из важнейших характеристик демографического поведения городского населения России — возрасту вступления в первый брак и его динамике в начале XX в. В качестве объекта исследования выбран Екатеринбург, один из небольших, но интенсивно развивавшихся промышленных российских городов. Наряду с агрегированными данными переписей населения 1897, 1920 и 1926 гг. в качестве источников были использованы сведения метрических книг, которые были транскрибированы в базу данных «Регистр населения Урала». В результате анализа номинативных данных метрических книг был установлен возраст вступления в первый брак не только в среднем по городу, но и по отдельным его приходам, что позволило выявить особенности в демографическом поведении горожан, обусловленные этнической или религиозной принадлежностью, социальным, миграционным статусом и другими персональными характеристиками. На основе проведенного исследования сделан вывод о том, что дореволюционный Екатеринбург приближался к «европейской» модели брака, по крайней мере, с точки зрения среднего возраста вступления в первый брак у мужчин, а с началом войны этот показатель еще увеличился. Однако согласно данным переписи 1926 г., расчетный возраст вступления в брак и уровень окончательного безбрачия значительно снизились по сравнению с имперским периодом. Результаты анализа агрегированных и номинативных данных по Екатеринбургу позволили предположить, что после революции и установления нового политического режима миграция из западных губерний прекратилась, а из сельской округи — возросла. Переселенцы из сельской местности приносили в город традиционные брачные нормы, которые подразумевали обязательное вступление в брак. Находясь в состоянии стресса, вызванного Первой мировой войной, революцией и начавшейся гражданской войной, эти мигранты пытались вступить в брак раньше, чтобы получить социальную поддержку в кругу семьи.

Out-of-wedlock births are one of the important aspects of the demographic history in late imperial Russia. The percentage of children born to unwed mothers in the Russian Empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was lower than the general average in European countries. However, in the specific context of the Russian demographic order, with earlier age at marriage and more universal nuptiality than in Europe generally, the study of out-of-wedlock births and especially their spatial distribution, acquires special significance. This work is aimed at studying the dynamics of out-of-wedlock births in Perm province in the decades around 1900. The authors pay particular attention to out-of-wedlock births in the city of Ekaterinburg, using official statistics and the "Ural Population Project" database, URAPP based on parish registers with vital events in five city parishes. The authors reconstruct the dynamics of out-of-wedlock births in each of the twelve Perm province counties, reflecting a general downward trend, especially in counties containing a significant proportion of Old Believers. It is established that the average level of illegitimate births among the rural population was 4%, and in cities — 9%. The out-of-wedlock birth rate increased during times of wars and social upheavals, especially in cities differing from parish to parish. In St Epiphany parish of Ekaterinburg, the illegitimate birth rate reached 41% during the famine of 1892. Concurrently, at least 11% of the women, including some from relatively wealthy families, baptised up to seven "illegitimate" children in the parish. This gives grounds to perceive the phenomenon of out-of-wedlock births not only because of the unfortunate circumstances for young women, but also as a sign of modernisation in the sphere of family and marriage relations, slowed down by archaic legislation.

This paper studies female "singleness", which is defined as the status of being non-married, in the cities of Perm Province. Emphasis is placed on the two largest cities — Perm and Ekaterinburg — compared with the entire urban and rural population. The authors refer to aggregates from the city censuses taken in Perm and Ekaterinburg as well as the national censuses of 1897 and 1926 as the main sources. The study quantitatively analyses women's marital status in relation to age, place of residence, ethno-religious, and social affiliation, and calculates the rate of women who never married and singulate mean age at marriage. During the second half of the nineteenth century, in Perm and Ekaterinburg, the authors observe stability in the marriage structure among the female population. Over 50% of urban women and 33.6% of rural women aged 15 and older were not married: in the group under 30 years old, female "singleness" was determined by the fact that some girls were unable to marry. By the age of 40, a significant part of those "single" women were widows, and in the age group of 40–49, they made up the majority. Divorce was significantly less likely to be the cause of female "singleness" than non-marriage while still fertile. The differences in the level of female "singleness" in the Perm cities were influenced by the in-migration of female servants, whose background was often rooted in the peasant class, and the presence of a large monastery. During the new Soviet reality, renunciation of marriage as a life trajectory became infrequent, while the proportion of divorced people among those "single" increased noticeably.