This book is a significantly expanded version of the book originally published in Polish in 1991 as Rodzina w osiemnastowiecznej Warszawie [Family in eighteenth-century Warsaw]. Cezary Kuklo is a recognised historical demographer and author of a textbook on the demography of pre-partition Poland published in 2009. Kuklo is also head of the Center for the Study of Demographic and Economic Structures of Pre-industrial Central and Eastern Europe at the University of Bialystok. Compared to the original version, this English edition uses a wider selection of sources and contains additional statistical analyses of the collected material. The source base of the book, presented in the first chapter, consists of registers of the largest parish in Warsaw (one of five), censuses of Warsaw's population from the 1790s, wills, property inventories, real estate divisions, and so on.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, Warsaw experienced a period of dynamic development, with its multi-ethnic and multi-religious population increasing from 20,000 in 1700 to 110,000 at the end of the century. There were more than 14,000 Roman Catholics living in the Holy Cross parish in 1791. In the second chapter, the author examines the social and occupational structures of the parish and establishes basic demographic parameters of its population: sex and age ratios, marital status of its inhabitants, size and structure of households. The following chapters are devoted to nuptiality, births, fertility and mortality. Typical demographic analyses have been extended in individual chapters to include important social issues such as the role and place of elderly people, geographical origin of spouses, and inter-religious marriages. Where possible, Kuklo compares data concerning Catholic, Lutheran, and Jewish communities in Warsaw. He also draws attention to the impact of epidemics on the demographic parameters and reproductive behaviour of the population. The latter is examined in the context of legal standards promoted by both religious and secular authorities.
Kuklo's book is a unique work. It is the only book that provides such a comprehensive study of the demographic problems of a large pre-industrial city in Eastern Europe in the first phase of modernisation. Aside from typical features of traditional society, the author searches for traces of modernity. He asks whether, in the context of a decrease in an average number of children in fertile families, it is possible that Varsovians practiced birth limitation; whether living in a big city contributed to greater sexual freedom; and what care was provided for abandoned children. He also writes about an increase in the number of illegitimate births. The author, who devoted most of his career to researching the demographics of inhabitants of towns and cities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, provides a wide comparative background to his presentation of Warsaw. It is compared with other large cities in Poland (for example, Cracow), small towns typical of central and eastern Europe, and developing urban centres in western Europe.
In 63 tables, the book provides comparative data in the fields of demographic studies, traditional economic history studies and research concerned with the standards of living. The author's conclusions place his work within the context of scientific discussions about the Little Divergence and the European Marriage Pattern. Kuklo concludes that in comparison with western European cities, Warsaw was characterised by higher infant and child mortality and lower age at first marriage for women. On the other hand, the author emphasises that there are no significant differences between Warsaw and western European cities in terms of the size and structure of households (a considerable proportion of the households headed by single people, and a very small proportion of complex households), in the scale of premarital contraception, or in the number of illegitimate births.
Kuklo's book is one of many publications to emerge from a very dynamic community of Polish historical demographers. Unfortunately, most of its members, with the exception of Mikołaj Szołtysek, publish the results of their work in Polish. Meanwhile, the vast territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (900,000 km2), divided by the Hajnal line, is an exceptional research laboratory that deserves greater interest on the part of international historical demographers. Kuklo's work is a successful attempt to introduce Polish demographic data into international research. Presentation of further data concerning peasant and urban populations is a challenge facing scholars studying not only old Polish, but also Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian societies.
