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Tall Requirements and “Small” Reality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Boris N. Mironov
Boris N. Mironov*
Affiliation:
Institute of Russian History (St. Petersburg branch), Russian Academy of Sciences
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Extract

In my view, the skeptical comments of Steven L. Hoch, whether intentionally or not, undeservedly discredit human height data as an indicator of the physiological status and well-being of populations, and possibly represent the historiographical appearance of a postmodern intellectual ideology, whose representatives look with distrust on historical sources. Hoch repeats some traditional objections connected with data on height: 1) terminal height—that is, the height a person attains by the age of 20 to 25–is not a true indicator of the physiological status and well-being of a population; 2) the precision of height data falls below the standard scientific requirements for reliable indicators; 3) periodization of the dynamics of physiological status of the population and of basic data on height is impossible in principle; 4) the reasons for changes in physiological status cannot be subjected to rigorous analysis.

Type
Discussion
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , Spring 1999 , pp. 80 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1999

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References

1. Steckel, Richard H., “Height and Per Capita Income,” Historical Methods 16, no. 1 (1983): 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Morgenshtern, Oskar, O tochnosti ekonomiko-statisticheskikh nabliudenii (Moscow, 1968), 164, 174, 187, 198–99, 211, 243Google Scholar, trans, from the English, Morgenstern, Oscar, On the Accuracy of Economic Observations, 2d ed. (Princeton, 1965).Google Scholar

3. Mironov, B. N., “O dostovernosti metricheskikh vedomostei—vazhneishego istochnika po istoricheskoi demografii XVIII-nachala XX w.,” in Fursenko, A. A., ed., Rossiia v XIX-XXw. (St. Petersburg, 1998), 41–45.Google Scholar

4. Strumilin, S. G., Ocherki ekonomicheskoi istorii Rossii i SSSR (Moscow, 1966), 159.Google Scholar

5. The levy of recruits began in Russia in 1705. At first the requirements for recruits were simple: anyone between the ages of 15 and 20 who was “healthy and fit for service” was taken. The regime began to be interested in height in 1722, in view of the desire to create guards’ regiments of tall soldiers. In 1730 the first height limits were set (2.25 arshins, or 1, 434 mm) and new age limits were established (from 15 to 30 years). In 1736 the limit on height was raised: for 15-to 19-year-olds up to 1, 556 mm, and for 20- to 35-year-olds up to 1, 600 mm. In 1747 the age limit was set at 20 to 35 years, the height limit at 1, 600 millimeters. These standards remained unchanged until the 1840s; their further history is traced in my article. Polnoe sobranie zakonov, 1st sobranie (St. Petersburg, 1830), vol. 6, no. 4014; vol. 8, no. 5645; vol. 9, no. 7046; vol. 12, no. 9366.

6. The full text will be available in my book, Sotsial'naia istoriia Rossii perioda imperii, which I hope will be published in 1999. The editors of Slavic Review provided the opportunity for me to read Stephen Wheatcroft's article in October 1998, but Wheatcroft had read my article in July 1997. Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to discuss our differences. I would suggest that if this had occurred, our differences would have been eliminated and would not have provided convenient targets for our critics.