Demographic changes in Lvov in the years 1829-1938

In the article, the author sums up the results of research on the issue of demographic transformations which had taken place in Lvov in the years 1829-1938. Due to a lack of archival sources, the paper relies on the published statistical data. Up until now, Lvov possessed neither a monograph concerning demographic issues, nor any detailed analyses of population changes which had taken place there in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the analysis, the author makes use of the crude birth and death rates in order to single out the individual phases of the demographic transformation. The first phase is typical of the demographic ancient regime and is characterized by high values of the birth and death rates. However the author goes beyond this observation and undertakes an effort to answer the question what was the cause of such high mortality in Lvov and how the contemporary city authorities tried to counteract these unfavorable factors. Subsequently, the author focuses on trying to define the time of commencement of the second phase of the transformation which began with the drop of the death rate. In spite of the fact that it is difficult to talk about precise dates, it seems that this process began at the turn of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th centuries. The author also draws attention to a certain lack of precision in estimating the number of inhabitants in the city, due to a considerable volume of migration which intensified towards the end of the 19th c.; this phenomenon could have exerted an influence on entering the process of demographic transformations earlier than might be inferred from formal observations. Apart from a general analysis, the author carried out community research taking into consideration such factors as gender and religious belief. If in the case of differentiation into gender, the results only confirmed the occurrence of inequality towards death among men and women, then in the case of religion, certain fundamental differences were observed. In the light of the conducted studies, it turned out that it was the Jews who entered the second phase at the earliest moment, which in turn led to an increased birth rate among the Jewish population. This process could have exerted a considerable influence on the perception of this religious group as a more expansive one at the beginning of the 20th century, not only in the economic, but also in the demographic sense.