Abstract: The aim of the study is to reconstruct the demographic strategies of rural societies. The object of the study is individual settlements and village councils (groups of settlements) of the Tambov and Tver regions (a total of 2861 settlements and 371 village councils). The presented work is undertaken within the framework of a large project on fractal modeling of demographic strategies of the agrarian population of European Russia in a long historical retrospective – since the middle of the XIX century. The chronological framework of the article covers not only the agricultural crisis of the 1990s, but also a certain recovery of some rural settlements in the 2000s - 2010s. To conduct experiments with the proposed computer model, a database was created in which the main parameters of the studied settlements and village councils are presented in a formalized form. The authors conclude that, despite all the differences, the demographic strategies of Tver and Tambov settlements evolve within the same pattern: Tver and Tambov regions are simply in slightly different phases of the same process. Peasant society in the Tver region has less potential as a migration donor and a base for natural growth. The older and northern Tver Region has been following the path of de-settlement and urbanization for a longer time. Tambov peasant society is somewhat less depleted and, therefore, could demonstrate great demographic success in the case of a successful demographic policy.

Abstract: This paper outlines factors that impacted the change of demographic behavior of the rural population of the Central Black Earth Region from the middle of the 19th century to the late 20th century. Factor scores have been determined when modeling demographic processes in 1,500 rural settlements. The authors rely on a classical view that late traditional society was highly dependent on negative natural events, characterized by low migration and strong ties of birth rates with death rates. It has been shown that extraordinary positive factors (the rise of zemstvo medicine in particular) stimulated unlimited natural growth. Short-term stress factors (wars, hunger and epidemics) led to compensatory reproduction. The authors also come to a conclusion that modernized society (the latter half of the 20th century) had more complicated relations between demographic behavior factors. The evolution of modernized micro-communities (individual settlements) was subjected to a great number of nonlinear effects. The data demonstrate that the agrarian society at the time continued the move to natural growth although to a lesser extent than during the previous stages. However, the results of such an intention were largely neutralized by migration.

Abstract: The article presents the results of analysis of long time data series reflecting the intensity of peasant disturbances in various guberniyas of European Russia in the second half of the 19th century by means of self-organized criticality theory . The types of peasant protests are presented that depend on the regularity of protest intensity fluctuations in different guberniyas. It has been found that the population density and the average allotment of land exerted the most powerful influence on the formation of protest potential. A hypothesis has been proposed and substantiated that the presence of pink noise in changes of peasant disturbances intensity means that most of regional communities were in a critical state. This demonstrates serious risks of system stability throughout the period understudy. Inner social environment and structural features existed that led to leaping fluctuations and unexpected increase of peasant disturbances. Regional communities were prone to uprisings under the influence of quite usual factors.