Project summary

The project shall focus on a specific social group of the decision-making classes – members of parliaments and senior state offcials working at the turn of the 20^th century in the historic lands of Bohemia and/or Transylvania. Its goal is to find out in what way the first demographic transition manifested itself with the members of the elite groups and whether it was distinguished by certain specfic atributes that were being different from the behaviour of the rest of the society. The phenomena to follow will be especially the marriage strategies and reproductive behaviour in the way they were applied in the respective families (marriage age, number of marriages, number of children, interbirth intervals). The project should clarify whether the applied patterns of the demographic behaviour varied in particular generations in the studied period. Other factors that might have had an impact on the reproductive behaviour (denomination or nationality) should also be taken into consideration during the research. During the work on the project, it will be possible to use the data gathered in the Historical Population Database of Transylvania and in the Database of deputies and officials in Bohemia.

Selected publications of the research group

• FIALOVÁ, Ludmila - HULÍKOVÁ TESÁRKOVÁ, Klára - JANÁKOVÁ KUPROVÁ, Barbora. The 'high infant mortality' trap': the relationship between birth intervals and infant mortality - the example of two localities in Bohemia between the 17^th and 19^th centuries. History of the Family, 2019, ISSN 1081-602X. DOI 10.1080/1081602X.2019.1650792.
• FIALOVÁ, Ludmila - HULÍKOVÁ TESÁRKOVÁ, Klára - KUPROVÁ, Barbora. Determinants of the Length of Birth Intervals in the Past and Possibilities for Their Study A Case Study of Jablonec nad Nisou (Czech Lands) from Seventeenth to Nineteenth Century. Journal of Family History, 2018, 43 (2), 127-156. ISSN 0363-1990. DOI 10.1177/0363199017746322.
• VELKOVÁ, Alice. Přítomnost babiček v předindustriálních rodinách a jejich možný vliv na plodnost dcer (na příkladu panství Šťáhlavy na přelomu 18. a 19. století) [Presence of grandmothers in the pre-industrial families and their possible influen­ce on fertility of their daughters: the example of the Šťáhlavy estate at the turn of the 19^th centuries]. Historická demografie, 2017, 41 (2), 213-234. ISSN 0323-0937.
• HULÍKOVÁ TESÁRKOVÁ, Klára - KUPROVÁ, Barbora - PAVLÍK, Zdeněk. Trendy pojetí historické demografie: od tradičních témat a analýzy k současným otázkám a metodám zpracování. [Trends in the concept of historical demography: From traditional issues and ana­lysis to contemporary questions and methods of study]. Historická demografie, 2017, 41 (2), 235-250. ISSN 0323-0937.
• FIALOVÁ, Ludmila - VELKOVÁ, Alice. Obyvatelstvo České republiky ve 20. století. [Population of the Czech Republic in the 20th Century]. In: BENČOVÁ, Monika - KOMÁRKOVÁ, Anna. Muzeum a změna V. 1 vyd. Praha: Asociace muzeí a galerií České republiky, z. s., 2017, s. 103-120. ISBN 978-80-86611-77-8.

Current research projects of the group

• Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR) 17–11983S Testing the “grandmother hypothesis”: Transgenerational effect on reproduction based on parish registers from the 17^th–19^th century Bohemia (2017-2019)
• Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR) 20-19463X Social mobility of elites in the Central European regions (1861-1926) and transition of imperial experience and structures in nation-states (2020-2024)