Death and Marriage: World War I Catholic Prisoners in the Urals

The paper focuses on World War I Catholic prisoners kept in the Urals in 1915-1919: their numbers, nationality, mortality and marriage strategies. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious Urals, along with Siberia, was a territory where Russia had systematically sent prisoners of war and in addition received voluntary migrants from the west. During World War I, the Urals received both refugees and prisoners of war, many of whom were Catholic. Their vital events were registered in Ekaterinburg church books, which we have transcribed into a database and analyzed. Our main finding is that religious affiliation played an important role for the rows' demographic behavior. We argue that the Catholic rows not only joined the marriage market of Ekaterinburg in 1916, but also influenced the city's demography.