Transformation of the Ethnic Population of Eastern Siberia: Post-Soviet Trends

Abstract—Using the results of the 1989 and 2010 censuses, an analysis is made of the post-Soviet transformation of the ethnic composition of the population of Eastern Siberia at three territorial levels: the macroregion as a whole, regions (federal subjects), and municipalities. Among the groups of peoples distinguished by the geographical feature, a decrease in the population size and proportion is characteristic for Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, the peoples of the Ural–Volga region, Germans and Jews; the population growth and an increase in the proportion correspond to the large and small indigenous peoples of Siberia, the peoples of Central Asia, Transcaucasia, and East Asia. The focus is on the Russian and indigenous peoples, who prevail in the total population. An increase in their total proportion for 1989–2010 has been revealed, which reflects a tendency for a decrease in ethnic diversity. A tendency has been established for a sharp increase in the polarization of ethnic space into “Russian” regions (Krasnoyarsk and Zabaikalskii krais and Irkutsk oblast) and “ethnic” regions (the Republics of Buryatia, Sakha (Yakutia), Tyva, and Khakassia). While in the first of them and Khakassia the share of Russians increased, in three republics, especially in Tyva and Yakutia, there is an active process of monoethnicization (“indigenization”). A zoning of the ethnic space of Eastern Siberia was carried out according to four components identified by the proportion of the Russian population in municipalities: the Russian ethnic core, the contact zone of the Russian megacore, and the inner and outer periphery of the Russian megacore. The post-Soviet dynamics of the ethnic space is characterized by the expansion of its two opposite key components: the Russian ethnic core and the outer periphery, which confirms the tendency for the polarization of the districts and cities into “Russian” and “ethnic.”