Centre for Historical Demography

Team Composition

Researches:

• doc. PhDr. Alice Velková, Ph.D. (team leader)
• doc. RNDr. Ludmila Fialová, CSc.
• doc. RNDr. Klára Hulíková Tesárková, Ph.D.
• RNDr. Barbora Janáková Kuprová, Ph.D.
• Mgr. Věra Slováková, Ph.D.

Students:

• Diana-Georgiana Lutz, MSc (PhD student)

Research projects

2023–2027 International project COST Action CA22116: The Great Leap. Multidisciplinary approaches to health inequalities, 1800–2022

The team members and students are involved in the international project COST Action CA22116: The Great Leap. The project takes a longitudinal perspective on the decline in mortality rates. Its aim is to uncover the roots and causes of factors that influence health inequalities across regions and countries in Europe and beyond. The leader of one of the five working groups is V. Slováková, who is responsible for coordinating the training programme.

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2020–2025 The project EXPRO, funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GACR): 20-19463X Social mobility of elites in the Central European regions (1861–1926) and transition of imperial experience and structures in nation-states (principal investigator Alice Velková, co-investigator Vlad Popovici, Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS)

Project website: https://elitesresearch.com

The interdisciplinary project, which is being carried out by an international team of scholars, employs a comparative approach to examine the transformation processes of modern European societies on the example of two secondary regions of the Habsburg monarchy: Bohemia and Transylvania. It focuses on the question of how social mobility, education, family and other ties of elite social groups contribute to de/stabilizing of the society as a whole. The research is conducted on two groups of members of the decision-making strata: higher-ranking state officials and deputies of the land diets, the Imperial Council in Vienna and the Hungarian Parliament. The project brings together a historical approach and demographic methods in an original way. It aims to investigate factors which had a significant impact on whether an individual would become member of the above-mentioned elite groups, to clarify the process of circulation of elites and the transition of imperial experience and structures into the newly created succession states. It shows links between career of an individual and his family ties and sheds light on demographic factors influencing the modern European family.

This research has established a close cooperation with the project "The Development of Modern Parliamentary Culture in the Czech Lands and Czechoslovakia." This project was conducted within the framework of the NAKI II programme (DG18P02OVV025), led by the National Museum, the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS, and the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. As a result, a unique joint database  has been created, partly accessible to the public.

In addition to the participation of the team members in a number of international conferences (see here for further details), two meetings of the international scientific community have been organised within the project to date.

Workshop Careers in Politics, Politics as a Career. Developments in the 19^th and Early 20^th Century Europe, Prague, 14–15 November 2022.

International conference Political and Administrative Elites in Europe. Theory and Practice in Historical Perspective, 10–12 November 2020 [online]

The most significant outcomes to date:

• Popovici, V., Velková, A. & Klečacký, M. (2024). Climbing up the Social Ladder: Social Mobility of Elites in East-Central Europe in the Long 19th Century. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110749144
• Pál, J., Popovici, V., & Sorescu-Iudean, O. (Eds.). (2022). Elites, Groups, and Networks in East-Central and South-East Europe in the Long 19th Century. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Schöningh. https://doi.org/10.30965/9783657795215

A comprehensive list of outputs can be accessed on the IS VaVaI Research, Development and Innovation Information portal. Further details and updates can be found and on the project website, where detailed information and updates are available.

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2017–2019 The Science Foundation (GACR) Project 17-11983S Testing the “grandmother hypothesis”: Transgenerational effect on reproduction based on parish registers from the 17th–19th century Bohemia (Principal investigator Alice Velková)

The objective of the project was to test the "grandmothers' hypothesis" on three historical demographic datasets from different Czech regions, namely the West Bohemian manor of Št'ahlavy, the Central Bohemian manor of Škvorec and the North Bohemian manor of Horní Police, in the 17th–19th centuries. The research focused on the potential impact of diverse cultural practices, including family structure, household composition and inheritance praxis, on the role of grandmothers in influencing the survival and future reproduction of their grandchildren. A distinctive feature of the proposed project was its incorporation of the socioeconomic status of the families under investigation into the research on under-five mortality. The research was able to identify a specific age group (children aged 1–2 years) for whom the presence of grandmothers contributes significantly to their survival. The finding that competition between family members may have had a negative impact on child survival in low socioeconomic households was of particular value, as it highlights the importance of research questions regarding the balance between cooperation and competition within family networks. Furthermore, it contributes to understanding the impact of these dynamics on broader demographic processes.

The most significant outcomes:

• Havlíček, J., Tureček, P. & Velková, A. (2021). One but not two grandmothers increased child survival in poorer families in west Bohemian population, 1708–1834. Behavioral Ecology, 32 (6), 1138–1150. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arab077
• Velková, A., & Tureček, P. (2021). Influence of parental death on child mortality and the phenomenon of the stepfamily in western Bohemia in 1708–1834. The History of the Family, 27(3), 434–452. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2021.1986738

A comprehensive list of outputs can be accessed on the IS VaVaI Research, Development and Innovation Information portal.

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2015–2017 The Science Foundation (GACR) Project 15-19601S (Principal investigator Ludmila Fialová)

The project aimed to map the changes in the reproductive behaviour of the Bohemian population in the 18th and 19th centuries by analysing datasets obtained by extracting parish registers for selected localities (Jablonec, Škvorec, Litoměřice). The project used modern methods of demographic analysis, in particular survival analysis and multi-state demography. Additionally, the project was of methodological significance insofar as it demonstrated the viability of utilising innovative analytical instruments in the domain of historical demography, while concurrently elucidating the alterations in reproductive conduct concomitant with the advent and trajectory of the demographic revolution in Bohemia.

The most significant outcomes:

• Fialová, L., Hulíková Tesárková, K., & Janáková Kuprová, B. (2019). The ‘high infant mortality’ trap’: the relationship between birth intervals and infant mortality – the example of two localities in Bohemia between the 17th and 19th centuries. The History of the Family, 25(1), 94–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2019.1650792
• Fialová, L., Hulíková Tesárková, K., & Kuprová B. (2018). 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, 43(2), 127–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363199017746322

A comprehensive list of outputs can be accessed on the IS VaVaI Research, Development and Innovation Information portal.

 

Defended qualification theses

Ph.D. theses

• Barbora Janáková Kuprová (2021): Obyvatelstvo na středočeském panství Škvorec od poloviny 18. do konce 19. století. Poznatky získané propojením tradičních a pokročilých metod historické demografie a metod historické sociologie (The population in the Central Bohemian manor of Škvorec from the middle of the 18th to the end of the 19th century. Knowledge gained using traditional and advanced methods of historical demography and methods of historical sociology)
  • 1. place in the competition of the Czech Demographic Society (ČDS) for the best qualifying thesis in the field of Demography or other related field in the category of dissertation theses

Master´s theses

• Iveta Zvoníková (2023): Demografické chování příslušníků elitních skupin ve 2. polovině 19. století (Demographic behavior of the members of elite groups in the second half of the 19th century)
  • 1. place in the SAS Prize Competition organized by the SAS Institute ČR in the Category of Bachelor, Diploma, and Dissertation Theses
• Filip Vlasák (2023): Sociální mobilita příslušníků elitních vrstev ve 2. polovině 19. století (Social mobility of elites in the second half of the 19th century)
• Diana Klečková (2021): Proměna rodinných struktur v jižních Čechách v 19. století (Development of the family structures in the South Bohemia in the 19th century)
• Štěpánka Zvonková (2021): Svobodné matky v Písku na konci 19. století (Unmarried mothers in Písek at the end of the 19th century)

Bachelor theses

• Adam Přenosil (2024): Evropané v USA ve světle sčítání lidu z roku 1920 (Europeans in the U.S. in light of the 1920 census)
• Roman Ďanovský (2023): Struktury obyvatelstva panství Český Šternberk na základě Soupisu poddaných podle víry (1651) (Structure of the population of the estate of Český Šternberk based on the Census of Subjects by Faith (1651))
• Michaela Řebíková (2022): Potraty a mrtvě narozené děti v městské farnosti rakouského Lince v letech 1913–1932 (Abortions and stillbirths in the city parish of Linz (Austria) in 1913–1932).
• Daniel Pajas (2022): Proměny rodinného života příslušníků politických elit v Čechách ve 2. polovině 19.století (Changes to the Family Life of Political Elite in Bohemia in the Second Half of the 19th Century.)
• Filip Vlasák (2021): Sebevražednost v české společnosti na přelomu 19. a 20. století (Suicide rate in the Czech society at the turn of the 20th century)
  • 3. place in the competition of the Czech Demographic Society (ČDS) for the best qualifying thesis in the field of demography or other related field in the category of bachelor theses.
• Iveta Zvoníková (2021): Úmrtí v Zemském ústavu pro choromyslné (Kateřinkách) v letech 1911–1925 (Deaths in the Psychiatric hospital Kateřinky in 1911–1925)