Demographic opinions of Georgian public figures of XIX century

Jamlet Janjgava

The demographic information obtained in the XIX century could not but become the subject of discussion of Georgian public figures. They familiarized themselves with demographic information that was being published.

In their publicistic works Ilia Chavchavadze, Vazha Pshavela, Akaki Tsereteli , Iakob Gogebashvili, Davit Kldiashvili analyzed quantitative indicators of the population, internal and external migration processes, extramarital fertility, regulation of fertility in the family, the causes of death-rate growth, as well as the negative results of migration of non Georgian population to coastal regions, etc. In the second half of the XIX century there took place planning of arrangements for studying of separate demographic problems and development of demographic conception. All this contributed to spreading of demographic knowledge among the population, though it took place in limited form because the demographic works published in Russian and low level of general education inhibited studying of demographic knowledge. And what is most important, at that time we had no national specialists in the field of demography. Painful national demographic problems, which concerned the number of the population, numerical growth of the nation and its vital interests become the subject of public figures’ concern.