An Industrial Enterprise in an Agrarian Region: The Influence on the Population Dispersal and Migration System (a Case of Pudem Iron Works, the 18th-19th Centuries)

Abstract

\n A feature of the Ural mining districts which developed in the second half of the 18th-19th centuries was that new industrial production was locally introduced into the existing agricultural settling system. To build a plant a new undeveloped plot was taken. The main criteria were the excess to natural resources necessary for manufacturing and transport routes. According to this principle many iron works and copper works were built in Udmurtiya. Pudem Iron Works were a case too. The main task was to evaluate the impact of the emerging innovations in economic activity on regional development. The formation of the settlement network was found in maps, written and statistical sources of the 17th-20th centuries. Historical data are used that demonstrate the initial stage of settlement, the period when Pudem Iron Works were in its prime and the years of decreasing manufacturing intensity. The use of historical maps demanded their transformation to a modern topological basis and the need to analyze the dynamics of the territory development required the construction of a geoinformation system of settlements. A comprehensive analysis provided for correlating the trends in the formation of a settlements network with migration processes. The initial formation of Udmurt agrarian settlements was influenced by external migrations. Cheptsa banks (the main river of the region) were the first to be developed. Later the banks of its tributaries were settled. After the first wave of external migrations the oldest settlements became the centers of internal settlement. Internal migrations occurred until the end of the 19th century. The analysis of the territory settlement dynamics has demonstrated that the creation of Pudem Iron Works (1758) practically did not affect the settling system of the region. Until the beginning of the 20th century the industrial component in the region was limited to the ironworks district and its nearest district. A characteristic feature of the 19th century is the external and internal migration of the Russian population. But at the same time the newly created settlements focused exclusively on the agricultural system of economy.\n