Libmonster ID: KG-1298
Author(s) of the publication: A. A. PREOBRAZHENSKY

F. Engels wrote in the preface to the third volume of Das Kapital that for Karl Marx"due to the variety of forms of land ownership and exploitation of agricultural producers in Russia, Russia had to play the same role in the department on land rent that England played in Book I in the study of industrial wage labor." 1
Since land ownership remained the material basis for the exploitation of the peasantry by feudal lords and the state in late feudal Russia, it was most slowly and gradually exposed to changing conditions, being perhaps the most conservative element of the socio - economic system. The feudal class took great care of its monopoly of land ownership. This was facilitated by the policy of the tsarist government. Let us recall that under the conditions of post-reform capitalist Russia, V. I. Lenin repeatedly noted the reactionary, inhibitory role of the remnants of serfdom in the form of landowning by landlords .2
Soviet historiography paid quite a lot of attention to the study of land ownership in the conditions of early and developed feudalism in Russia. As for the late Feudal period (XVII -? mid-nineteenth century), then this question, as we think, has not yet taken its proper place in the specialized literature. We can name only a few studies that are directly related to this topic as a whole , 3 although a lot of specific historical works, mainly devoted to individual feudal possessions, have been performed. This article attempts a comprehensive review of the problem, taking into account the state of historiography and drawing on legislative material for the XVII-early XIX centuries.

1 K. Marx and F. Engels, Op. 25, part 1, p. 10.

2 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 6, p. 311; vol. 16, p. 227, etc.

3 See P. A. Khromov. Economic development of Russia. Essays on the Russian Economy from Ancient Times to the Great October Revolution, Moscow, 1967, pp. 68-80; A. L. Shapiro. On the nature of feudal land ownership. Voprosy istorii, 1969, No. 12; V. A. Markina. Peasants of the Right-Bank Ukraine. Late XVIII-60s of the XIX century. Kyiv. 1971, pp. 15-29; A. A. Preobrazhensky. The structure of land ownership in Russia of the XVII-XVIII centuries " Yearbook on the agrarian history of Eastern Europe. 1966". Tallinn. 1971; E. I. Indova. On the question of noble property in Russia in the late feudal period. "The nobility and the serf system in Russia of the XVI-XVIII centuries", Moscow, 1975; V. A. Markina, A. L. Perkovsky. The latest historiography of the problem of structural changes in feudal land ownership in the second half of the XVII - first half of the XIX centuries. (on the example of Ukraine). "XXV Congress of the CPSU and tasks of agricultural historians. XVI session of the Symposium on agricultural history. Abstracts of reports and reports", Moscow, 1976.

page 46

During this period, there is a quantitative increase in feudal land ownership. By the middle of the 17th century, the land ownership of the "black" (state) volosts of the central uyezds was absorbed by the feudal lords, and the black-skinned peasants turned into serfs. The most active distribution of land to the nobility was in the 20s and 80s of the XVII century. In the hands of the nobles, especially those close to the royal house, also receive significant land funds from the palace department. In 1682-1711 alone, more than 270 volosts with more than 43.6 thousand peasant households and up to 500 thousand dessiatines of arable land were distributed to fiefdoms and estates, not counting huge haymaking and forest lands, that is, more than 1 million dessiatines .4
Up to a certain point, the government prevented large-scale feudal land ownership from entering the southern counties bordering the steppe. With the development of territories south of the Oka River and the advance of fortified lines to the area of Belgorod and Izyum in 1673, the previous prohibitions were lifted. The fertile lands of the Black Earth center and the Volga region are generously distributed to representatives of the feudal class. In the 18th century, the Chernozem center was transformed into the largest district of landed proprietors5 . The inclusion in Russia of the regions adjacent to the new capital of the state, St. Petersburg (Ingermanland), attracted feudal lords here, who received and captured almost 1 million desyatins here by the 1740s .6 Government land grants for service were successfully supplemented by the nobles with unauthorized violent seizures of state lands. With the annexation of Novorossiya and the Crimea in the last quarter of the 18th century, large-scale feudal land ownership was also introduced there, although it did not reach a dominant position here. By 1797, no less than 625,000 dessiatines had been distributed to landlords in the Crimea and Northern Tavria .7 Even in the territory of the state peasantry (Pomerania), the land ownership of local officials who have become nobles has been growing rapidly throughout the XVIII century .8
Expressing the interests of feudal lords, the Romanov government implemented legislative measures that legally established the land rights of the nobility. In the 20s and 30s of the 17th century, a massive revision of charters and other ownership documents was carried out with a view to their approval by the new dynasty. 9 The Council Code of 1649 on a national scale once again confirmed the exclusive right of the nobility to land ownership. The same goal was pursued by land descriptions and population censuses in the seventeenth century, especially in the United States.

4 Yu. V. Gauthier. Zamoskovskiy Krai in the XVII century. Opyt issledovaniya po istorii ekonomicheskogo byta Moskovskoi Rusi [Experience of research on the history of economic life in Moscow Russia]. Izd. 2-E. M. 1937, pp. 219, 230.

5 A. A. Novoselsky. Distribution of feudal land ownership in the southern uyezds of the Moscow State in the XVII century. "Historical Notes", vol. 4, 1938, pp. 26-30; V. M. Vazhinsky. Land ownership and the formation of a single-family community in the 17th century. Voronezh. 1974; V. I. Nedosekin. Socio-economic development of the Black Earth center of Russia in the second half of the XVIII century. Author's abstract. doct. Diss. M. 1968, pp. 14-17.

6 S. M. Troitsky. On some sources on the history of land ownership in Ingermanland in the first half of the XVIII century. "Source studies of the history of the Baltic peoples". Riga. 1970, p. 125.

7 E. I. Druzhinina. The Northern Black Sea Region in 1775-1800, Moscow, 1959, p. 262; S. Ya. Borovoy. On some features of the agrarian system of Steppe Ukraine in the pre-reform period. "Yearbook on the agrarian history of Eastern Europe 1962", Minsk. 1964, pp. 370, 371-372 and others; S. A. Sekirinsky. Types of duties of serfs of the Tauride province on the eve of the reform of 1861 Ibid., p. 351.

8 P. A. Kolesnikov. The peasantry and agriculture of the European North of Russia in the XVI-XVIII centuries. (On the question of the evolution of agrarian relations in the Russian state). Author's abstract. doct. diss. L. 1972, p. 25.

9 S. B. Veselovsky. To the question of the revision and confirmation of the granted letters in 1620-1630 in Detective orders. Moscow, 1907.

page 47

40s and 70s-80s of this century. A kind of apotheosis of the embezzlement of the country's land wealth by feudal lords was the general land survey, conducted in accordance with the manifesto of 1765 and lasting for several decades. One of the results of land surveying was the assignment to the nobility of at least 50 million dessiatines of the so-called "approximate lands" (that is, most often arbitrarily seized by feudal lords). No wonder the "noble class" enthusiastically welcomed the general land survey 10 . Indeed, the manifesto of September 19, 1765, explicitly stated that its main goal was "to ensure the state separation of all owners of the peace and security of their estates." 11
Although the distribution of land for service as a system was abolished from the time of Peter I and his immediate successors, it continued, as we know, to exist as large handouts to court favorites throughout the XVIII century. Under Paul I, in 1800, "commandery estates" were established, which were given to those awarded orders. Each order had its own quota of serfs ' souls. Cavaliers of the highest Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, for example, received 1 thousand souls, for the Order of Anna they were granted an estate with 100-400 souls 12 . Somewhat modified, the practice of granting did not stop in the XIX century. Even in the last decades of serfdom, tsarism attempted to improve the land security of the ruined landlords. For this purpose, for example, hundreds of noble families were resettled from the Smolensk and Ryazan provinces to Tambov and Simbirsk, where they were allocated land plots from the state fund. But since 1801, the distribution of inhabited lands to the nobles in hereditary possession has ceased. Estates with serfs ' souls are now obtained by landlords on a rental basis. At the same time, the grant of unpopulated land continued on a fairly large scale .13
Lenin mocked with merciless sarcasm those ideologues of the nobility of the early twentieth century who spoke of the" unselfishness " of the noble class and eternally loyal service to the fatherland. He wrote: "The distribution of estates, the granting of inhabited estates, i.e., the giving of thousands of dessiatines of land and thousands of serfs, the formation of a class of large landowners who own hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of dessiatines of land and drive millions of peasants to utter poverty by their exploitation-these are the manifestations of this unselfishness." 14 Lenin noted that " the beliefs of the gentlemen of the nobility are the same for everyone-from practitioners to romantics. Everyone firmly believes in their" sacred right "to hundreds or thousands of dessiatines of land looted by their ancestors or granted by robbers, in the right to exploit the peasants and play a dominant role in the state ..." 15 .

The quantitative growth of private feudal land ownership, which became decidedly predominant, was accompanied by serious changes in the qualitative order. The hierarchy of land ownership is significantly simplified. The final formalization of a single centralized state and its transformation into an absolute monarchy led to the elimination of intermediate stages of the feudal system.

10 L. V. Milov. Research on Economic notes to the general survey. (To the history of the Russian peasantry and agriculture in the second half of the XVIII century), Moscow, 1965, p. 18.

11 PSZ. T. XVII, N 12474.

12 PSZ. T. XXVI, N 19903.

13 A. Romanovich-Slavatinsky. The nobility in Russia from the beginning of the XVIII century to the abolition of serfdom. Ed. 2. Kyiv. 1912, pp. 67, 173.

14 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 4, p. 418.

15 Ibid., p. 420.

page 48

a hierarchical ladder. Already in the second half of the XVI century, the remnants of feudal fragmentation in the form of the last appanages were being eliminated. The well-born landed aristocracy-the bearer of separatist aspirations-partly disappears from the scene, partly merges with the service nobility. The land ownership of the descendants of the titled nobility of the appanage period continued to melt away during the XVII century, passing into other hands. Their place is taken by new people mainly from non-noble Moscow families, as well as those who have served under the new dynasty.

If in the reign of Mikhail Romanov there was still a system of vassalage in large feudal (including secular) patrimonies16 , then in the second half of the XVII century. it is preserved as an archaism only in the possessions of the highest church officials (the patriarch and metropolitans had their own vassals-nobles). But already at the beginning of the XVIII century. and this link is dying out. The social base of an absolute monarchy is now represented by broad strata of nobles-landowners. There are no more intermediate links between them and the supreme owner - sovereign. In addition, patrimonial land ownership in terms of growth rates in the XVII century is much ahead of the local one. In the center of the country, in the 1920s and 70s of the 17th century, the percentage of land under local law fell from 70 to 41,17 . In the colonized Meshchersk region, the displacement of the estate by the patrimony 18 is also noticeable .

This process was closely linked to even more profound changes in the structure of land ownership. Their most striking expression was the gradual convergence of the two main forms of feudal land ownership - local and patrimonial. The estate as a lifelong land tenure stipulated by the service gradually acquires the features of hereditary immovable property. Already at the beginning of the XVII century. Vasily Shuisky favors service people by transferring a fifth of their local lands to the patrimony. This peculiar norm of translation is preserved even under the first Romanovs .19 There is evidence that soon after the accession of Mikhail Fyodorovich, the local lands of the Ryazan Cossacks became the subject of purchase and sale .20 Land transfers from the category of estates to fiefdoms were carried out repeatedly and on a large scale in the second half of the XVII century. (for participation in wars, campaigns, and the suppression of popular movements).

The Code of 1649 examines in detail the land rights of feudal lords and authorizes the previously established practice of transferring estates in whole or in part from father to children. Although with restrictions, it was allowed to alienate estates through exchange (including estates for fiefdoms), donation, and also as a dowry .21 Under the exchange, most often hidden purchase and sale, because one or another degree of monetary settlements in the "exchange" of estates was allowed by law. Barter and exchange acts became the most common form of land transactions between feudal lords in the second half of the 17th century .22
16 V. P. Alekseev. The first Romanovs in power. "The Voice of the Past", 1918, NN 7-9, p. 218.

17 I. M. Kulisher. Istoriya russkogo narodnogo khozyaistva [History of the Russian National Economy], vol. II, Moscow, 1925, pp. 73-74.

18 L. G. Dubinskaya. Socio-economic situation of peasants in the second half of the XVII century. Author's abstract of the cand. diss. M. 1967, p. 13.

19 "Land grants in the Moscow State under Tsar Vladislav", Moscow, 1911, p. 34; see also S. S. Gadvyatsky. Awards to Novgorod civil servants and posadsky people in connection with the conclusion of a treaty with Poland in 1686. "Historical Notes", vol. 28, 1949, p.206.

20 N. P. Dolinin. Bit list of 1618-1619 local Cossacks of Ryazan. "Archeographic yearbook for 1963", Moscow, 1964, p. 400.

21 "Conciliar Code of 1649", Chapter XVI, art. 2 - 8, 13, 17, 33 - 34 etc.

22 S. A. Shumakov. Centurions, certificates, records. Issue 3. Moscow, 1904, pp. 123-124; G. S. Lyalina. On the characteristics of feudal land ownership in the second half of the 17th century "Trudy" Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo istoriko-archivnogo instituta, vol. 16, 1961.

page 49

In 1677, the obligation to register acts of exchange in the Local Order was abolished, and in 1682 the procedure for selling fiefdoms was simplified, which also facilitated land mobilization among the nobility .23 It was allowed to sell the owner of his estate, after which it became a fiefdom. The government more than once even ordered the sale to the patrimony of land that was in the estate in excess of the salary. In 1684, the rights to inherit estates and allocate part of the local dachas within the family of a serving person were significantly expanded. The scale of operations with fiefdom lands among the ruling class is indicated at least by the fact that the notebooks of the Local order only for 1688 - 1700 registered up to 10 thousand transactions of various kinds .24
The decree of Peter I of March 23, 1714 satisfied the long-held aspirations of the ruling class and marked the merger of the local and patrimonial forms of land ownership, turning the land assets of feudal lords into hereditary property. The decree gave absolute preference to large possessions over small ones, seeing in the process of dividing land assets and serfs ' souls between several heirs a threat to the welfare of the nobility ("they will come to such poverty that they can find themselves odnodvortsy, and a noble surname, instead of glory, the villagers will be, as there are already many examples (images) in the Russian people"). One of the reasons for this so-called decree on sole inheritance was that small holdings are unprofitable both from the point of view of the state fiscal service and in terms of landowner income from peasants. In the latter case, attention was drawn to the burdensome nature of peasant duties in favor of the landowner .25 The legislation of Peter's time introduced some restrictions on private ownership rights (mineral resources, forests, fishing, mills). The successors of Peter I, with some hesitation, preserving the "reserved" forests and the right to interfere in the development of mineral resources, made an important step towards the nobility. Fishing, board crafts and mills as state taxable items were transferred to the owners without re-payment. And by decree of 1782. Catherine II eliminated all restrictions on the ownership rights of the nobility, including the right to dispose of forests and minerals .26
Obstacles to the alienation of land holdings were not immediately removed. It was only at the end of 1730 and the beginning of 1731 that the government abolished any restrictions on the disposal of landed property of the nobility, which repealed the decree of 1714 and the additional paragraphs of 1725.27 . The indivisibility of inheritance especially affected the interests of wide circles of the "gentry", who made every effort to cancel the Peter's decree of 1714. This course of government was most fully expressed in the second half of the eighteenth century, when, according to the manifesto of 1762, the nobility was exempted from compulsory service .28 This law was justified, among other things, by the need to provide the nobles with the opportunity to engage in economic affairs in their own possessions. A decade later, according to the Empress, most of the nobles were not in the service, but in their estates.

In the 17th and first years of the 18th century, land ownership legislation-

23 PSZ. Vol. II, NN 692, 862.

24 A. G. Mankov. Notebooks of fortresses for peasants of the Local Order of the second half of the XVII century. "Research on domestic source studies", Moscow-L. 1964, p. 325.

25 PSZ. T. V, N 2789.

26 A. Romanovich-Slavatinsky. Op. ed., pp. 250-254.

27 PSZ. Vol. VIII, NN 5653, 5717.

28 PSZ. T. XV, N 11444.

page 50

The research institute of feudal lords revolved around two leading forms-fiefdoms and estates. After 1714, and especially after the official abolition of the concept of "manor" according to the decree of 1731 and the termination of" local dachas " according to the decree of March 21, 1736, other concepts became popular. Immovable estates, which meant inhabited and unpopulated land, houses, shops and other buildings, and from the middle of the XVIII century also factories, factories and mines, began to be divided into ancestral and acquired. The former included hereditary, as well as well-earned fiefdoms 29 and possessions obtained by transactions within a given family (from brother to brother, etc.) 30. As for the definition of a well-acquired estate, it meant everything that became property not by inheritance rights, but by other means, when the owner acquired it "by himself"31 . But if the landowner did not make his own orders about the acquired estate before his death, the acquired estate automatically passed into the category of ancestral property . Similarly, the ancestral property sold into the wrong hands was already recognized as acquired even after the repurchase .33 The last of its kind could freely dispose of it34 . The heirs of the person who became the owner of the acquired estate were also declared owners of the ancestral property, with this right remaining in all subsequent generations .35 The principle of preference for family estates was considered unquestionable among the nobility. It is not for nothing that Griboyedov's heroes dreamed of grooms for their daughters, who had "two thousand ancestral souls". Meanwhile, in everyday life, the owner of the family estate did not have any special advantages over the owner of the acquired one, and from the point of view of sales and other acts of alienation, he was even in more cramped conditions. In the second half of the reign of Alexander I, some changes are made to these orders. Estates purchased by the father from the son are now recognized as acquired, and then this rule applies to possessions purchased from other relatives .36
In accordance with the "highest" resolution on the report of the Attorney-General of the Senate in 1773, "the public is free to sell property to whomever it pleases, in accordance with the laws, and there is no prohibition for the seller to choose the buyer according to his own profitability."37 The chartered charter of 1785 granted the nobles complete freedom to alienate the acquired estate, while retaining some restrictions on the alienation of the ancestral one. Moreover, it abolished the confiscation of landlords ' possessions, which had hitherto existed on various occasions at the discretion of the supreme power .38 The heir assumed his rights regardless of the fate of his predecessor, even if the latter was subjected to severe judicial punishment. Subsequently, an exception was made for" state criminals " from the nobility . The sale of noble estates was now advertised. Only for 1795 in the newspaper " Moskovskie

29 PSZ. Vol. VII, N 5717; vol. XVIII, N 12830; vol. XXVI, N 19955.

30 PSZ. Vol. XII, N 8936; vol. XVII, N 12782.

31 PSZ. Vol. XXII, NN 16187, 16188.

32 PSZ. T. XXIV, N 17906.

33 PSZ. T. XXIX, N 22700.

34 PSZ. Vol. VII, N 4704.

35 PSZ. T. XVI, N 11783; t. XXVII, N 20244; t. XXXVII, N 28324a.

36 PSZ. Vol. XXXIII, N 26202; vol. XXXVIII, N 29547.

37 PSZ. T. XIX, N 14049.

38 K. V. Sivkov believed that in the first quarter of the XVIII century alone, at least 3 thousand persons of different social status were subjected to confiscation of property (K. V. Sivkov. Handwritten books of the beginning of the XVIII century, as a historical source. "Problemy istochnikovedeniya" [Problems of source Studies]. Sb. III. M. 1941, pp. 368-369]. Confiscations were a powerful lever of the absolute monarchy in the implementation of land policy (see E. I. Indova. Op. ed., p. 278).

39 A. Romanovich-Slavatinsky. Op. ed., pp. 263-264.

page 51

Vedomosti " printed 15 ads for the sale of various villages in the Penza governorate 40 .

By strenuously seeking full and unconditional ownership of land, the feudal lords acted under the influence of both the age-old desire for maximum power over the land and the serf population, and the desire to adapt to the new conditions of the era - the growth of commodity-money relations and the expansion of the market. During the period under study, commercial and usurious capital began to oppose land ownership more and more. The need for money was an incentive to organize commodity production in the possessions of feudal lords. Naturally, land also gradually becomes a commodity, although its circulation at first takes place mainly among the nobility. The legislation of the XVIII-early XIX centuries repeatedly noted all sorts of fraud in land transactions of landlords. There was a "sale" of the same estate to different persons at the same time. Some overly impatient heirs, even during the life of the testator, were in a hurry to sell the lost property, and so on. They even managed to sell the right to the expected inheritance.

However, having fulfilled their aspirations in the land issue, the Russian nobility was generally poorly adapted to the new situation. The acquisition of broad rights to dispose of landed property inevitably led to the rebirth of its feudal nature and its approach to private property of the bourgeois type.

The removal of restrictions on the mobilization of land assets of the nobility contributed to the formation of large serfdom latifundia, which were a characteristic phenomenon in Russia even after the reform of 1861. The process of polarization of land ownership among the ruling class has intensified. This is clearly indicated by the data of the XVII-XVIII centuries. In 1696-1698, large secular landowners who had more than 100 serf households accounted for approximately 3.3% of the total number of soul-owning nobles (about 500 out of 15 thousand), respectively, small and medium-sized feudal lords accounted for 96.7%. Up to 45% of the peasants lived in the possessions of large proprietors 41 . According to other estimates, at the very beginning of the XVIII century, 596 noble families and 235 "higher ranks", who owned more than 100 serf households each, even accounted for about 80% of the total number of households. 42 According to the audit census of the population introduced under Peter I, by the end of the first quarter of the 18th century, large landlords who owned more than 100 serfs made up 8.7% of the number of landowners and had 58.5% of peasants. By the middle of the 19th century, the process of ruining the small and medium-sized nobility was even more pronounced: 79.8% of serfs were already in the hands of large land owners (they now accounted for 24.3%) .43 One of the most striking examples of the growth of large land holdings of feudal lords is the history of the Yusupov family, which, in various ways,

40 B. N. Gvozdev. Some information about the industry of the Penza region in the XVIII century. Penza. 1925, p. 23.

41 " Essays on the history of the USSR. The period of feudalism. Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century Transformations of Peter 1". Moscow, 1954, pp. 186-187.

42 See Y. E. Vodarsky. The service nobility in Russia at the end of the XVII-beginning of the XVIII century. "Questions of the military history of Russia". Moscow, 1969, pp. 236-237; his. Population and the number of homestead lands in the 17th century (according to scribal and census books). "Yearbook on the agricultural history of Eastern Europe. 1964". Chisinau. 1966, p. 222.

43 N. M. Shepukova. On the change in the size of land ownership of landlords in European Russia in the first quarter of the XVIII - first half of the XIX century. "Abstracts of reports and presentations of the sixth session of the Symposium on Agricultural History of Eastern Europe". Vilnius, 1963.

page 52

by various means (grants, seizures, purchases, favorable marriages, etc.) they acquired huge possessions, becoming in the first row of land magnates in Russia. 44 No less revealing is the acquisitiveness of the Sheremetevs, who by 1860 had 714,000 dessiatines of land in 36 counties .45 A similar picture is observed by researchers when studying the origin of other major latifundia in Russia46 .

The tsarist government did not remain indifferent to the progressive ruin of broad strata of the "noble class". In order to strengthen the shattered position of the nobility, noble monopolies were introduced for certain types of production (distilling, etc.), internal customs were abolished, industrial enterprises (metallurgical plants, etc.) were transferred to landlords. Lenin noted that for the broad masses of the nobility, "subordination to the ruble has become a fait accompli long ago", and "in pursuit of the ruble" the upper class"for a long time he has been engaged in such highly patriotic affairs as the production of sea buckthorn, the establishment of sugar and other factories, participation in all sorts of hypocritical commercial and industrial enterprises..."47 .

Several decrees were issued (1730, 1746, etc. years), which threatened confiscation of the property of persons of non-noble origin who happened to own populated and unpopulated landlords ' land48 . At the same time, references were made to the Cathedral Code of 1649. The facts discovered by 1730 of the purchase of real estates with people by "boyar people", monastic servants and peasants were regarded as a violation of the existing order, as a result of which they were ordered to sell these possessions within six months to those "who should be ordered by decree", that is, nobles .49 But for the" capitalist " serfs, there was still an outlet. Despite the restrictions and various reservations, the acquisition of real estates by peasants was not prohibited in cases where they made a transaction with the permission and in the name of their landowner, and also presented a "letter of faith" from him during the registration of a bill of sale in absentia . Since 1766, palace peasants, and since 1789, economic and state peasants, have been legally permitted to purchase small, contiguously located landowner villages in public .51
At the request of large landowners, the tsarist government began to introduce majorates in 1774 (the first was the majorat of Count 3. I. Chernyshev). This was followed by decrees on the establishment of majorates of the gr. Ostermanovs, Stroganovs, etc. In 1845, Nicholas I approved the "Regulations on protected hereditary estates". Before the reform of 1861, at least 20 large noble estates were located on the mayoral law .52 In order to prevent the transfer of landlords ' lands into the hands of persons of non-noble estates, as well as to organize cheap credit for the nobility, the Noble Bank was created (1754), which issued loans secured by estates and serfs. Other credit and banking institutions that emerged in the second half of the 18th century (Medny

44 V. Kashin. Three hundred years of accumulation of land wealth by the Yusupov family. "Labor in Russia", 1925, book 2-3.

45 See K. N. Shchepetov. Serfdom in the fiefdoms of the Sheremetevs (1708-1885). Moscow, 1947, p. 26

46 See L. P. Minarik. The origin and composition of land holdings of the largest landlords of Russia in the late XIX-early XX centuries. "Materials on the history of agriculture and the peasantry of the USSR". Sb. VI. Moscow, 1965.

47 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 4, p. 419.

48 P. A. Khromov. Ocherki ekonomiki feudalizma v Rossii [Essays on the Economy of Feudalism in Russia], Moscow, 1957, p. 46.

49 PSZ. Vol. VIII, N 5633.

50 PSZ. T. X, N 7339.

51 PSZ. T. XXIII, N 16821.

52 A. Romanovich-Slavatinsky. Op. ed., pp. 555-556; A. M. Anfimov. Mayoral land ownership in tsarist Russia. "History of the USSR", 1962, N 5.

page 53

the bank, loan and security coffers, orders of public charity, etc.) took care of meeting the monetary needs of landlords 53 . And they steadily grew; this is evidenced by the fact that even the middle-class landowner N. A. Shakhmatov at the end of the XVIII century owed more than 68 thousand rubles, 54 rubles . Among the nobility, there was mutual lending, often on a usurious basis .55 According to S. Ya. Borovoy, in 1775-1859 the nobility debt increased many times: from 0.2 to 7.1 million souls and from 4.3 to 425 million rubles .56
It is symptomatic that the beginning of the 19th century brought major changes that weakened class distinctions in land transactions. Since December 1801, permission for representatives of non-noble estates (merchants, burghers, state peasants, freedmen) to "acquire land by purchase"came into force .57 The decree of 1803 on "free farmers" legalized the hereditary property of this group of peasants freed from serfdom. The decree of 1801 was quite energetically used by" capitalist " persons of non-noble estates. According to the Vedomosti of 1806, in the years 1802-1804, land worth 1,245,900 rubles and 1,766 chervonets were purchased from landlords in 34 provinces. In the first place among the new landowners were merchants, in the second - state-owned peasants. They accounted for about 85% of the purchased land. The largest land transactions (in terms of turnover) were made in the St. Petersburg, Tver and Moscow provinces, i.e. in provinces with a high level of commercial and industrial development .58
In 1817, it was confirmed that the law does not prohibit the sale of land of peasants, merchants and people of other ranks to persons of other estates .59 And in 1848, tsarism was forced to seriously deviate from the previous canons and accept the right of private peasants and other serfs to acquire land, houses, shops, and other immovable property .60 However, this required, as before, the consent of the landowner.

These phenomena set off the inconsistency of government policies in the field of land ownership and land ownership. Various measures that go in line with the previous serfdom course on the exclusive rights of the nobility were repeatedly taken in the pre-reform decades. The decree of 1841 prohibited noblewomen marrying persons of other classes from acquiring serfs with or without land .61 The following year, it was clarified that people raised to the dignity of nobility from the "serf state" should not own inhabited estates in places where they themselves or their fathers and grandfathers were taken into account by audits of the taxable population. 62 Decree on the so-called obligated peasants of 1842 skorrek-

53 P. Ya. Borovoy. Credit and Banks in Russia (mid-17th century-1861) M 1958, pp. 46-80.

54 E. N. Kusheva. Farm of Saratov nobles Shakhmatovs in the XVIII century. Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Department of Humanities, 1929, No. 8, p. 692.

55 N. I. Pavlenko. On the usury of the nobles in the XVIII century (to raise the question). "The Nobility and the serf system of Russia in the XVI-XVIII centuries".

56 P. Ya. Borovoy. Edict. op., p. 197; same. To the question of the debt of landlords ' land ownership in the pre-reform period. "Yearbook on the agricultural history of Eastern Europe. 1968". L. 1972, p. 198.

57 PSZ. T. XXVI, N 20075.

58 K. V. Sivkov. An important stage in the transition from feudal to bourgeois land ownership in Russia. Voprosy Istorii, 1958, No. 3, pp. 27-29.

59 PSZ. T. XXXIV, N 26649. At the same time, a decree is issued on the withdrawal from private ownership of land inhabited by state-owned peasants (ibid., N 27054).

60 PSZs. 2-e sobr. T. XXIII, N 22042.

61 PSZs. 2-e sobr. T. XVI, N 14335. This point is also familiar to the legislation of the XVIII century, in particular the land survey instruction of 1754.

62 PSZs. 2-e sobr. T. XVII, N 15657.

page 54

The state established access to the estate of free ploughmen in such a way that "without being constrained by the regulations on free ploughmen, the landlords retained their full right of patrimonial ownership of land ... and the peasants received from them plots of land for use for the agreed duties." In the villages of the obligated peasants, the patrimonial administration remained 63 .

Until the end of the eighteenth century, tsarism jealously protected the domain of the Romanov dynasty, which was the largest landowner in Russia .64 A special form of land ownership of the royal family since 1747 was the huge economy of the imperial cabinet in the Altai, associated with the operation of a complex of metallurgical enterprises, primarily silver smelters. Tens of thousands of artisans, workmen and assigned peasants worked here. Despite the differences of historians in assessing the nature of this type of property, it can be stated that it combined the features of private feudal and state ownership .

Secular feudal lords have long looked with envy at the vast land wealth of the church. The Conciliar Code of 1649 confirmed the government's policy of freezing the growth of the clergy's possessions as early as the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, during the second half of the XVII century, the church, despite significant land losses in connection with the "posadsky structure" of 1649-1662, slightly increased its land fund. Even in areas where the system of state feudalism prevailed (the European North, Siberia) at that time, about 15% of peasants lived in the possessions of churchmen. Huge fiefdoms were owned by the patriarch, as well as such monasteries as Trinity-Sergius, Iosifov-Volokolamsk, etc.

The ideas of secularization, which had long been developed by the nobility and townspeople, were implemented slowly and gradually (recall the time of the preparation of the Cathedral Code of 1649) .66 Under Peter the Great, restrictive steps are being taken, indicating the initial phase of secularization .67 It was only in 1764 that the state seizure of church property took place, which was of great importance in the redistribution of land ownership. However, this action was carried out in conditions when there were signs of the disintegration of feudalism, which affected the fate of the secularized lands and their population. Instead of distributing the newly acquired land fund to secular feudal lords (such a project, for example, was put forward by Prince M. M. Shcherbatov and defended by him many years after secularization , 68 and also found expression in the draft of the new Code of Laws prepared by noble deputies), the absolutist government took a different path, more in line with the changed situation. The former church-monastery peasants were renamed "economic", who used the land

63 "Collection of the Russian Historical Society", vol. 98, pp. 268-269. The Police Department's explanation of this decree is characteristic: it warns against "false disclosures about the alleged emancipation of peasants "(ibid., p. 271).

64 E. I. Indova. Palace economy in Russia. The first half of the 18th century, Moscow, 1964, pp. 79-80.

65 T. I. Agapova. Cabinet economy. 1747-1860 - ies (experience of socio-economic research). Author's abstract. doct. Diss. L. 1967; G. P. Zhidkov. Cabinet land ownership (1747-1917). Novosibirsk. 1973, et al.

66 "Acts of an Archeographic expedition", Vol. IV, No. 33, pp. 48-49.

67 I. A. Bulygin. Peter I's Church Reform Voprosy Istorii, 1974, No. 5, pp. 85-89.

68 "Readings in the Society of Russian History and Antiquities". Book III, ed. 2. Moscow, 1859, p. 87.

69 N. L. Rubinstein. The laid-down commission of 1754-1766 and its draft of a new code "on the state of subjects in general". "Historical Notes", vol. 38, 1951, p. 242.

page 55

on the basis that is close to the state peasants. By the way, the share of the latter in the XVIII century doubled from 19% to 39% of all audit souls 70 . The era itself strongly dictated the preservation of certain state land resources with the peasant population on them, which was economically more profitable than distributing serfs to feudal lords. Here one cannot but see a certain deviation from the original goals of secularization, which in itself is symptomatic as an indicator of the gradual decomposition of feudal land ownership and the serf system in general.

These or other concessions did not change the main thing - the reactionary nature of tsarist land policy. This was quite clearly reflected in the attempts to constantly interfere in the land affairs of the state village in both European Russia and Siberia. The authorities tried to impress upon the peasants that "henceforth the state lands should not be called their own" 71 . The peasants of the serf village were deprived of the opportunity to dispose of allotment land. In the 1731 instructions for the management of palace peasants, there was a special chapter "On the prohibition of peasants from dividing", which limited family divisions of land .72 The Law of 1769 stated that all "owner's land" belongs "to the owners proper, and not to the peasants settled on it." 73
State peasants in the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries were quite free to sell, buy , lease and mortgage their land plots, 74 but serfdom pressure was also felt in this area. One after another, government orders on the non-fulfillment of bills of sale for the lands of black-sown peasants of Pomerania follow. Land lawsuits are handled in the same spirit. An exception was made for merchants and posadskys of this region (although it was sometimes canceled), but even this was suspended by law in the late 60s of the XVIII century ,and from now on all owners of black-sown lands could not alienate them even within their own class, not to mention representatives of other social groups. 75 It was stated that land plots sold by state farmers of Pomerania should be returned to the state department "without money" with a warning for the future .76 For odnodvortsy and "non-believers", the ban on selling their land was introduced even earlier (in the 30s of the XVIII century).77 Later, it was repeatedly confirmed (for example, in 1838). Transactions on land plots that were their private property were allowed 78 .

In the second half of the 18th century, equalizing land use was gradually established in the state village (previously it was found there rather as an exception ), which constrained the existing rural economy.

70 N. M. Druzhinin. State peasants and P. D. Kiselyov's reform. Presuppositions and essence of the reform. Vol. 1. Moscow-l. 1946, p. 45.

71 Ibid., p. 25.

72 S. I. Volkov. Instructions to the stewards of palace volosts in 1731 "Historical Archive", Vol. VI. Moscow, 1950, p. 186.

.73 PSZ. T. XVIII, N 13235.

74 N. V. Ustyugov. To the question of land redistribution in the Russian North in the middle of the XVII century. "Historical Archive", vol. V. M. 1950, p. 42; N. E. Nosov. Formation of estate-representative institutions in Russia, L. 1969, pp. 240-284 and others; A. I. Kopanev. History of the peasants of the Russian North in the XVI century. Author's abstract. doct. diss. L. 1974, et al.

75 PSZ. T. XIII, N 9874; t. XVIII, N 13114.

76 PSZ. T. XVII, N 12659. To a much lesser extent, these measures affected the peasants of Siberia (N. F. Yemelyanov. Land ownership of Tomsk grain farmers in the XVII-first half of the XIX century. "Some questions of the history of Siberia". Issue 2. Tomsk. 1973).

77 PSZ. T. X, N 7409.

78 PSZs. 2-e sobr. Vol. VI, N 4524.

79 M. Ostrovskaya street. Land life of the population of the Russian North in the XVI-XVIII centuries. St. Petersburg, 1913, pp. 119-120, 162; N. V. Ustyugov. Op. ed., p. 42.

page 56

here, some freedom of land management is provided . Equalization of land use served as a response to numerous complaints of state peasants about the uneven distribution of land, coming from the impoverished strata of the village. The dominance of the rich and their active role in the de-colonization of the northern peasantry have been known since the XVI-XVII centuries. Udmurtia in the first half of the 18th century and Perm Gubernia in the first half of the 19th century provide examples of the progressive de-colonization of the state village .81 For the northern provinces, this phenomenon is also noted in the literature 82 . No matter how great the role of the community was in maintaining the conditions of simple reproduction of the peasant economy, the process of landless development affected the private - owning village, especially in areas with a commercial orientation .83
Bypassing traditional forms of feudal land use, land leases are becoming increasingly important, especially in the peasant environment. It had a twofold purpose. For the poorest and partly middle strata of the village, the main thing was to ensure their own existence. Such leases were traditional in the feudal countryside, and what was new was that they were increasingly carried out on a monetary basis, as, for example, in Siberia at the end of the XVIII century .84 But against the background of consumer rent from monastic peasants of the central counties in the XVII - early XVIII centuries. some large tenants are already appearing .85 This is precisely the nature of the land lease of well-to-do peasants, who develop the production of products for the market on the leased plots, that is, they become entrepreneurs .86 There are also merchant lands of serfs, which they disposed of on property rights 87 . And these facts were not uncommon in the serf village, as V. I. Semevsky, I. I. Ignatovich and other authors wrote about.

Purchases were made individually or jointly by the peasants of an entire village or fiefdom. The well-to-do stratum, if necessary-

80 N. M. Druzhinin. Gosudarstvennye krestyane i reforma P. D. Kiselev. Vol. 1, pp. 56-61, 95-96; B. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia (XVII century), Moscow, 1956, pp. 397-412.

81 M. V. Grishkina. K voprosu o razvitii sotsial'no-ekonomicheskikh otnosheniy v Udmurtii (do 60-ies XVIII v.) [On the development of socio-economic relations in Udmurtia (up to the 60s of the XVIII century)]. Zapiski Udmurtskogo NII IELYA, issue 2, Izhevsk, 1968; G. V. Yarovoy. Land plots of state peasants of the Perm province in the first half of the XIX century " Yearbook on the agrarian history of Eastern Europe. 1968", pp. 172-179.

82 P. A. Kolesnikov. Northern village in the XV-first half of the XIX century. Vologda. 1976, p. 278.

83 V. A. Aleksandrov. Rural community in Russia (XVII-early XIX centuries). Moscow, 1976, p. 37; L. N. Vdovina. Land redistribution in the peasant community in the 20-50s of the XVIII century (based on the materials of monastic fiefdoms). "History of the USSR", 1973, N 4; see also "Yearbook on Agrarian History". Issue VI. Problems of the history of the Russian community. Vologda. 1976.

84 L. M. Rusakova. Agriculture of the Middle Trans-Urals at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Novosibirsk. 1976, pp. 108-125.

85 I. A. Bulygin. Land lease of monastic peasants in the first quarter of the XVIII century. "History of the USSR", 1974, N 4; N. A. Gorskaya. Extra-land use of monastic peasants in the 17th century. "History of the USSR", 1977, N 1.

86 N. L. Rubinstein. Agriculture of Russia in the second half of the XVIII century (Historical and economic essays), Moscow, 1957, pp. 38-49; A. N. Sakharov. The role of rent in the peasant economy of the XVII century "History of the USSR", 1964, N 1, pp. 81-93; E. I. Indova. Land lease in the palace village of the first half of the XVIII century. " Yearbook on the agrarian history of Eastern Europe. 1962". For the first half of the XIX century, such facts are given by E. I. Indova (E. I. Indova. Serfdom at the beginning of the XIX century. Based on the materials of the Vorontsov patrimonial archive (Moscow, 1955).

87 V. N. Kashin. Land ownership of serfs. "Serf Russia", L. 1930. The author rightly writes that real life should not be obscured by the dense bindings of the "Complete Collection of Laws", which prohibited serfs from making land transactions; see also G. T. Ryabkov Peasant farming in the late XVIII-first half of the XIX century (based on the materials of the Smolensk Province). Author's abstract. doct. Diss. M. 1970, pp. 22-23.

page 57

belonging to the" capitalist " peasants, it dominated these operations. Along with small purchases of a consumer nature, there were one-time purchases that reached hundreds and thousands of desyatins. The peasants of the Assumption patrimony of Durnovo in Yaransky Uyezd, Vyatka Province, have made several purchases from neighboring landowners since the early 1920s. During the 30s, they purchased at least 10 thousand des. General Vinyarsky, Colonels Penhorzhevsky and Korsakov have 88 . Many of the peasants of the Yusupov fiefdoms were long-time owners of purchased land, as evidenced by the controversial cases of the first post-reform years, when landlords began to claim their rights to the property of yesterday's subjects. Sometimes "mundane" and individual purchases were made on populated estates, which further complicated land relations in the village. This was noted in the Sheremetevs', Yusupovs', and others ' possessions .89 The purchased lands of the peasants were often the object of various kinds of intra-patrimonial mobilization, and these lands were exempt from landlord taxation .90 The data collected by V. N. Kashin was significantly updated and refined by N. M. Druzhinin. It turns out that the purchase lands of serfs in 32 provinces often go back to the XVIII century (according to cases of land disputes - up to 2/3). The largest number of transactions falls on the provinces of the Non-Chernozem center (by the size of land areas as well).91 . This indicates that the areas of ancient development of serfdom simultaneously appear as the most "bourgeois" in terms of land mobilization.

The development of specialization of peasant farms in connection with commodity production also contributed to the emergence of serfs - land owners even before the reform of 1861, but in the grain regions of the south this phenomenon is less noticeable 92 . Over time, the role of such extra-land areas increases.

The power of money pushed back the power of land, which also affected the government's tax policy. Land taxation of the taxable population, inherited from the past, is gradually being replaced by household taxation, which is sanctioned by the financial reform at the turn of the 1670s-1680s. The introduction of population auditing and poll taxes at the end of the reign of Peter the Great is a further step in the same direction. From now on, the state fiscal service becomes indifferent to the land security of the peasantry as the main taxpayer. The same thing happened in relation to the landlords. Changes in the system of state support for feudal lords during the XVIII -first half of the XIX century (the abolition of mass distributions of local land, the strengthening of the role of monetary salaries for service) reflected these slow and contradictory shifts. Of particular importance was the monetary salary for the numerically growing bureaucracy of Russia .93 Although land wealth still came first, its monetary equivalent was becoming increasingly important. And in 1817 it was legalized to classify the capital of bes as ancestral real estate-

88 V. N. Kashin. Land ownership of serfs, pp. 186-187.

89 Ibid., pp. 184-185, 189-194, etc.

90 Ibid., pp. 208, 212, etc.

91 N. M Druzhinin. Merchant lands of serfs (according to the data of the Main Committee on the organization of the rural state). "Questions of socio-economic history and source studies of the feudal period in Russia", Moscow, 1961, pp. 181-184; see also V. A. Fedorov. Land ownership of serfs in Russia. (Based on the materials of the central industrial provinces). Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, istoriya, 1969, No. 1, p. 52.

92 B. G. Litvak. On the land ownership of serfs. "Materials on the history of agriculture and the peasantry of the USSR", Collection of V. M. 1962, pp. 238-247.

93 S. M. Troitsky. Russian absolutism and the nobility in the XVIII century. Formation of bureaucracy. Moscow, 1974, pp. 253-267.

page 58

term debt on bank accounts in the amount of at least 5 thousand rubles 94 .

The supreme power changes its attitude to the state land fund over time. The approach to state-owned land as an object of sale to private hands is becoming more and more noticeable. In the middle of the 18th century, a special department was created to deal with these matters, and with the general land survey, its functions were transferred to land surveying institutions .95 The sale of state-owned (including "frozen") land was carried out at public auction 96 . Unauthorized possession of state-owned land was prohibited, but violators could keep it for themselves, paying triple the price of 97 . This order was preserved at the beginning of the 19th century .98. The sales rules were repeatedly clarified during the study period. If there were claims of private owners to state-owned land plots, the latter were not allowed to be sold until the case was clarified .99
In this consistently developed line of government policy, prohibitive measures of a national or local nature break in. So, in September 1778, the decree of Catherine II of the Land Survey expedition read:: "We command that the sale of state-owned zasekas and all sorts of porozzhy lands in all the provinces of our empire be stopped until the future with our permission." 100 The reason for this step was that the implementation of the provincial reform and land surveying complicated the accounting and allocation of land sold. We must not forget the impact of the recent peasant war. In 1794, the sale of state-owned land was resumed so far in one Orel province, with the subsequent extension of the permit to other localities. In order to avoid difficulties in land sales operations, it was prescribed to abandon fixed prices and act in accordance with the prices of private land transactions .101 In connection with the intention to "sell the treasury lands for the sake of increasing our treasury and for the benefit of the general spread of agriculture and economy," the Empress simultaneously forbade the distribution of land to the population .102 However, at the end of 1796, Paul I again banned the sale of state-owned lands, limiting himself only to allowing them to be given as rent-based maintenance .103 In addition to considerations of the current order, the serf government also took into account the fact that the removal of any restrictions on the sale of state lands would open up access to the latter for non-noble estates. But it could not withstand the demands of the time for long. In 1810, by issuing an urgent domestic loan to pay off the national debt and strengthen the exchange rate of the assignation ruble, it was allowed to sell state-owned land to private individuals of "free states". It is characteristic that at the same time it was allowed to "Russian eminent merchants of various higher categories", including merchants of the 1st guild, "to acquire inhabited lands"104 .

If we take a look at the colonization processes that took place in Russia in the XVII-first half of the XIX century, we can see certain differences from the previous period. Again, these differences are related to changes in the structure of land ownership.

94 PSZ. T. XXXIV, N 26791.

95 PSZ. Vol. XVI, N 11781; vol. XVII, N 12540.

96 PSZ. T. XVI, N 11651.

97 PSZ. T. XVII, N 12540.

98 PSZ. T. XXVII, N 20547.

99 PSZ. T. XXXII, NN 24987, 24992, etc.

100 PSZ. Vol. XX, N 14801.

101 PSZ. T. XXIII, N 17227.

102 Ibid., N 17228..

103 PSZ Vol. XXIV, N 17622; cf. vol. XXV, N 18325.

104 PSZ. T. XXXI, N 24244.

page 59

The colonization of the suburbs during these two and a half centuries was mainly carried out by unauthorized peasant migrations, which the government could not effectively combat, not only because of lack of forces, but also because of state necessity. Until the seventeenth century, the movement of feudal lords to new lands sometimes outstripped peasant colonization, sometimes counterbalanced it. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the peasant colonization of the borderlands strongly prevailed, asserting there the (albeit flawed) principle of free-grabbing land use. In Siberia 105 , Novorossiya, the Crimea 106 , and the North Caucasus 107, there are sprouts of bourgeois land ownership, which is less restricted than in the central regions of Russia.

A serious departure from the monopoly of the nobility on land ownership and serf labor was the practice of transferring vast land plots to the possession of merchants-industrialists, which was especially widespread in the XVIII century.

It is true that the seventeenth century is also known for the land ownership of large representatives of the nascent bourgeoisie-guests who had the right to own fiefdoms .108 In 1679, according to the decree of the patrimony, guests were registered for the bill of sale in the presence of a subscription petition 109 . However, land ownership of the guests did not become widespread. Yu.V. Gauthier notes a limited number of fiefdoms among the guests within the Zamoskov Region (guests I. P. Sverchkov, Yurievs, A. I. Churkin). The highest representatives of the merchant class readily accepted fiefdoms as mortgages, but they themselves became hereditary landowners much less often .110 Guest N. Sveteshnikov received large land grants in the Volga region as early as 1631. By 1662, he had 112 peasant households here .111 The position of merchants in land ownership in the northern and Ural counties was more noticeable, which was mainly explained by the non-agricultural application of capital (primarily the exploitation of salt mines). Thus, in Solikamsk uyezd, there were holdings with a peasant population that belonged to merchants of the upper hundred (Anofrievs, Eliseevs) and even Posadsky (Surovtsev)112 . After the conclusion of the Eternal Peace with Poland by decree of 1687, there were cases of local dachas to Moscow guests for 650-700 chetyas, and to guest Ivan Yuryev-even 900 chetyas .113 Nevertheless, the fact that at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries this social group had only 277 serf households indicates the insignificance of land and soul ownership in the 17th century .114
Foreign merchants-breeders (Vinius, Marcelis, Boutenant, etc.) complain in the XVII century of land for the construction of industrial enterprises. Tula entrepreneur Nikita Demidov also received huge land holdings with peasants at the beginning of the XVIII century

105 V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilim arable land. Tt. I-II. Irkutsk, 1949-1957; M. M. Gromyko. On the nature of land relations on the state lands of Western Siberia in the 30-80s of the XVIII century. Izvestiya SB AS USSR, series of social Sciences, 1963, vol. 1; A. A. Preobrazhensky. Ural and Western Siberia at the end of the XVI-beginning of the XVIII century. Moscow, 1972.

106 E. I. Druzhinina. The Northern Black Sea region in 1775-1800. Southern Ukraine in 1800-1825 m. 1970.

107 V. A. Golobutsky. Black Sea Cossacks. Kiev, 1956; A.V. Fadeev. Essays on the economic development of the Ciscaucasia in the pre-reform period, Moscow, 1957.

108 "Cathedral Code of 1649", ch. XVII, art. 45; G. Kotoshikhin. On Russia in the reign of Alexey Mikhailovich, St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 139.

109 PSZ. Vol. II, N 767.

110 Yu. V. Gauthier. Op. ed., pp. 289-290.

111 S. V. Bakhrushin. Scientific works. Vol. II. Moscow, 1954, p. 233.

112 N. V. Ustyugov. Salt industry of the Kama Salt in the XVII century, Moscow, 1957, pp. 43, 57-58 and others; A. A. Preobrazhensky. Essays on the colonization of the Western Urals in the 17th and early 18th centuries, Moscow, 1956, pp. 28-31.

113 PSZ. Vol. II, N 1233.

114 Y. E. Vodarsky. Op. ed., p. 235.

page 60

in the Urals, he became the founder of one of the richest surnames of Russian latifundists .115
In 1721, persons of non-noble origin - "merchant people" - were allowed to buy land and peasants for manufacturing establishments, which was used by entrepreneurs from merchants, peasants, and posadsky people who had capital. The posession law introduced by this decree provided for the non-alienation of" villages "separately from enterprises, which was imputed to" both the gentry and the merchants " .116 Although this decree was later repealed, land wealth continued to pass into the hands of entrepreneurs in various ways, many of whom sought noble diplomas. One of the most influential breeders, I. R. Batashov, by the end of his life (he died in 1821) had almost 150 thousand dessiatines of land and 12.5 thousand souls .117 Dorogobuzhsky merchant N. S. Baryshnikov in the second half of the XVIII century, bypassing official prohibitions, on the basis of purchases and issuing loans to landlords, became the owner of more than 100 thousand dessiatines of land and more than 9 thousand souls of peasants. Having achieved the nobility in the service, he registered his acquisitions legally 118 . Similar examples are known in other counties of Russia .119 The government's policy on this issue has undergone many conflicts. By decree of 1762, the procedure established in 1721 was abolished and allowed only in 1798, and at the beginning of the XIX century the prohibition was again confirmed. Factory owners bought tens of thousands of dessiatins of land from Bashkirs for a song. In the southern Urals in the middle of the XVIII century, several industrial dynasties took root, thoroughly warming their hands on this operation (the Tverdyshevs, Myasnikovs, etc.) 120 . The right of concession was a tribute to the times. It opened up access to land ownership through industrial production.

In the 17th century, there were known facts of violation of the feudal right of land ownership in cases when it was a question of developing mineral resources for state needs. In the Urals, in the 30s of the XVII century, part of the land was seized from the Pyskorsky monastery for the construction of a copper smelter. However, the monastery received compensation: it was given land in another place. But the monastery did not receive anything for the lands selected in 1652 for state-owned salt mining on the Zyryanka River. In the same years, part of the land property of G. L. Nichetnikov's guest in the Urals was confiscated .121 The principle of mining freedom, proclaimed by the Berg Privilege of 1719, stimulated industrial construction and provided entrepreneurs with the subsoil of even private-owned, and not only state-owned, lands. But this act was such a serious interference with the landed rights of the nobility that the government repealed it in 1782 .

The growing importance of the emerging Russian bourgeoisie was reflected in the creation of the Russian bourgeoisie at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. A Russian-American company that has become the owner of significant territories

115 B. B. Kafengauz. Istoriya khozyaistva Demidovykh v XVIII-XIX vvakh [History of the Demidov household in the XVIII-XIX centuries].

116 PSZ. Vol. VI, N 3711.

117 E. Karnovich. Remarkable wealth of private individuals in Russia. St. Petersburg, 1885, p. 158.

118 N. L. Rubinstein. Agriculture of Russia in the second half of the XVIII century, pp. 36-37 (materials of G. T. Ryabkov and archival materials are used).

119 Ibid., pp. 37-38.

120 N. I. Pavlenko. History of metallurgy in Russia of the XVIII century. Zavody i zavodovladeltsy [Plants and Plant owners], Moscow, 1962, p.230, etc.; see also M. M. Kulsharipov. Tsarist land policy in Bashkiria in the late 18th and early 19th centuries Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, istoriya, 1972, No. 4, pp. 49-62.

121 N. V. Ustyugov. Salt industry of Kama salt in the XVII century, pp. 99-100, 107.

122 V. Yakushkin. Essays on the history of Russian land policy in the XVIII-XIX centuries. Issue I. XVIII century, Moscow, 1890, pp. 42-44.

page 61

in North America and on the islands. Merchant in its essence, this enterprise was in the position of a" state within a state", carrying out a wide-ranging commercial and industrial activity. The Russian-American company, being under the "highest patronage" and relentless control of the government, nevertheless represented a peculiar dissonance of feudal land ownership in the country. In particular, the company had the right to lease land and fishing grounds (including to foreigners) 123 .

But while admitting bourgeois elements to feudal land ownership, the tsarist government jealously respected the privileges of the upper class. In 1810, Alexander I allowed the merchant elite to acquire populated estates from the treasury and "own them on the right of landlords, while remaining in the merchant state and without any assignment of rights that especially belong to the noble estate" 124 .

Thus, during the 17th and early 19th centuries, various changes took place in feudal land ownership. Its quantitative growth and expansion to new territories are observed. Simultaneously with the simplification of the hierarchy of the feudal class, as absolutism is established, the legal and actual merger of local and patrimonial forms of land ownership is carried out. The ownership rights of secular feudal lords are expanded, land wealth becomes alienated hereditary property of the nobility, and this, in turn, contributes to the mobilization and polarization of land ownership. Large landowners of the latifundial type occupy dominant positions, while broad circles of the "noble class" are increasingly selling and mortgaging their estates.

In the context of the "new period of Russian history", opposing tendencies are gradually emerging, which is reflected in the legislation. The land monopoly of the ruling class is partially violated. In the countryside, rental transactions, buying and selling, and other land transactions carried out by persons from non-privileged classes are becoming widespread. One of the channels for the transfer of land to the nascent bourgeoisie was industrial entrepreneurship. The development inevitably went in the direction of transformation of private land ownership from estate ownership to wordless ownership . With regard to the pre-reform period, of course, we can only talk about the first stages of this process.

123 S. B. Okun. Russian-American Company, Moscow, L. 1939, p. 44, 222; A. A. Preobrazhensky. On the composition of shareholders of a Russian-American company at the beginning of the XIX century. "Historical Notes", vol. 67, 1967, p. 290.

124 PSZ. T. XXXI, N 24244.

125 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 17, p. 61.

page 62


© lib.am

Permanent link to this publication:

https://lib.am/m/articles/view/ON-THE-EVOLUTION-OF-FEUDAL-LAND-OWNERSHIP-IN-RUSSIA-IN-THE-17TH-AND-EARLY-19TH-CENTURIES

Similar publications: LKyrgyzstan LWorld Y G


Publisher:

Arman VardanyanContacts and other materials (articles, photo, files etc)

Author's official page at Libmonster: https://lib.am/Vardanyan

Find other author's materials at: Libmonster (all the World)GoogleYandex

Permanent link for scientific papers (for citations):

A. A. PREOBRAZHENSKY, ON THE EVOLUTION OF FEUDAL LAND OWNERSHIP IN RUSSIA IN THE 17TH AND EARLY 19TH CENTURIES // Yerevan: Library of Armenia (LIB.AM). Updated: 18.01.2025. URL: https://lib.am/m/articles/view/ON-THE-EVOLUTION-OF-FEUDAL-LAND-OWNERSHIP-IN-RUSSIA-IN-THE-17TH-AND-EARLY-19TH-CENTURIES (date of access: 09.02.2025).

Found source (search robot):


Publication author(s) - A. A. PREOBRAZHENSKY:

A. A. PREOBRAZHENSKY → other publications, search: Libmonster ArmeniaLibmonster WorldGoogleYandex

Comments:



Reviews of professional authors
Order by: 
Per page: 
 
  • There are no comments yet
Related topics
Publisher
Rating
0 votes
Related Articles
ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF MOSCOW IN THE AUTUMN OF 1941
Catalog: История 
7 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan
Мир квантуется и убивает вульгарную Хрематистику. Цифра уничтожает Злато и Серебро, и поделом.
Catalog: Экономика 
GREAT OCTOBER, SOCIALISM AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION
10 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan
A. E. KUPRAVA. CULTURE OF SOVIET ABKHAZIA FOR 60 YEARS: A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH
10 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan
CHANGES IN THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION OF DAGESTAN AT THE STAGE OF DEVELOPED SOCIALISM
10 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan
D. I. ISMAIL-ZADE. RUSSIAN PEASANTRY IN TRANSCAUCASIA. 30S OF THE XIX-BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY
10 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan
SPEECH OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPSU, COMRADE MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, AT THE PLENUM OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPSU ON MARCH 11, 1985
11 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan
IDEOLOGICAL WORK DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
11 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan
K. N. TARNOVSKY. REVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT, REVOLUTIONARY CAUSE (LENIN'S ISKRA IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CREATION OF A MARXIST PARTY IN RUSSIA)
11 days ago · From Arman Vardanyan

New publications:

Popular with readers:

News from other countries:

LIB.AM - Digital Library of Armenia

Create your author's collection of articles, books, author's works, biographies, photographic documents, files. Save forever your author's legacy in digital form. Click here to register as an author.
Library Partners

ON THE EVOLUTION OF FEUDAL LAND OWNERSHIP IN RUSSIA IN THE 17TH AND EARLY 19TH CENTURIES
 

Editorial Contacts
Chat for Authors: AM LIVE: We are in social networks:

About · News · For Advertisers

Digital Library of Armenia ® All rights reserved.
2020-2025, LIB.AM is a part of Libmonster, international library network (open map)
Keeping the heritage of Armenia


LIBMONSTER NETWORK ONE WORLD - ONE LIBRARY

US-Great Britain Sweden Serbia
Russia Belarus Ukraine Kazakhstan Moldova Tajikistan Estonia Russia-2 Belarus-2

Create and store your author's collection at Libmonster: articles, books, studies. Libmonster will spread your heritage all over the world (through a network of affiliates, partner libraries, search engines, social networks). You will be able to share a link to your profile with colleagues, students, readers and other interested parties, in order to acquaint them with your copyright heritage. Once you register, you have more than 100 tools at your disposal to build your own author collection. It's free: it was, it is, and it always will be.

Download app for Android