Features of the socio-economic development of Russia in the middle and second half of the 17th century. Russia in the 17th century
Economic development Russia in the 2nd half of the 17th century (agriculture, industry, the beginning of the formation of the all-Russian market)
Having recovered from the war and intervention of the beginning of the century, the country entered a new stage of socio-economic development. The 17th century was a time of significant growth of productive forces in industry and agriculture. Despite the dominance of subsistence farming, progress social division labor led not only to the flourishing of small-scale production, but also to the emergence of the first Russian manufactories. The industrial enterprises of merchants and the agricultural farms of large patrimonies and small service people threw an increasing amount of surplus product onto the market. At the same time, not only domestic but also foreign trade grew. The formation of the all-Russian national market was a qualitatively new phenomenon, which prepared the conditions for the emergence of capitalist production and, in turn, experienced its powerful reverse influence.
In the 17th century, signs of the beginning of the process of primitive accumulation emerged - the emergence of merchants, owners of large capital, who acquired wealth through unequal exchange (traders of salt, precious Siberian furs, Novgorod and Pskov flax).
However, in the conditions of the serf Russian state, the processes of monetary accumulation proceeded in a unique and slow manner, sharply different from the pace and forms of primitive accumulation in Western European countries. The Russian state of the 17th century did not have favorable conditions for its economic development: its trade and industry did not reach a level that could ensure the gradual elimination of the personal dependence of the peasant; remote from the western and southern seas, it could not establish independent, active maritime trade; the fur riches of Siberia could not compete with the inexhaustible values of the American and South Asian colonies. Drawn into the whirlpool of world trade at the very beginning of the capitalist era, Russia acquired the importance of a commodity market in the 17th century, a supplier of agricultural products to economically more developed countries. The process of initial accumulation of capital was slowed down by another condition. Huge land reserves, relatively easily accessible to settlers, contributed to the gradual thinning of the population in the historical center, thereby mitigating the severity of class contradictions and, at the same time, the spread of feudal relations to new, unoccupied territories.
The slowdown in the process of primitive accumulation led to important consequences for the entire subsequent economic development of the country. In Russia, the growth of commodity production for a long time outpaced the expansion of the labor market. Manufacturers sought to make up for the shortage of civilian workers by recruiting serfs to work at their enterprises. Russia found itself in the position of a country that was drawn into the global capitalist revolution and began to join capitalist production without having time to get rid of ineffective corvee labor. The result of this dual situation was not only the mutual interweaving of old and new production relations, but up to a certain point the simultaneous development of both. Feudal ownership of land continued to expand and strengthen, serving as the basis for the development and legalization of serfdom.
Agriculture
In the second half of the 17th century, grain farming remained the leading sector of the Russian economy. Progress in this area of material production at that time was associated with the widespread use of three-field farming and the use of natural fertilizers. Bread gradually became the main commercial product of agriculture.
By the middle of the century, the Russian people, through hard work, overcame the devastation caused by foreign invasions. Peasants repopulated previously abandoned villages, plowed wastelands, acquired livestock and agricultural implements.
As a result of Russian peasant colonization, new areas were developed: in the south of the country, in the Volga region, Bashkiria, and Siberia. In all these places new centers of agricultural culture arose.
But general level agricultural development was low. Such primitive tools as plows and harrows continued to be used in agriculture. In the forest regions of the North, felling still existed, and in the steppe zone of the South and Middle Volga region there was fallowing.
The basis for the development of livestock farming was peasant farm. Cattle breeding especially developed in Pomerania, the Yaroslavl region, and the southern districts.
Noble land ownership grew rapidly as a result of numerous grants by the government of estates and estates to the nobles. By the end of the 17th century, patrimonial noble land ownership began to exceed the previously dominant local land ownership.
The center of the estate or patrimony was the village or hamlet. Usually there were about 15–30 peasant households in a village. But there were villages with two or three courtyards. The village differed from the village not only in its large size, but also in the presence of a church with a bell tower. It was the center for all the villages included in his church parish.
Agricultural production was dominated by subsistence farming. Small-scale agricultural production was combined with domestic peasant industry and small urban crafts.
In the 17th century, trade in agricultural products increased noticeably, which was associated with the development of fertile lands in the south and east, the emergence of a number of fishing areas that did not produce their own grain, and the growth of cities.
A new and very important phenomenon in agriculture in the 17th century. There was his connection with industrial entrepreneurship. Many peasants, in their free time from field work, mainly in autumn and winter, were engaged in handicrafts: they made linens, shoes, clothes, dishes, agricultural tools, etc. Some of these products were used on the peasant farm itself or given as quitrent to the landowner, while others were sold at the nearest market.
The feudal lords increasingly established contact with the market, where they sold products and handicrafts received on rent. Not satisfied with the quitrent, they expanded their own ploughing and established own production products.
Mainly retaining a natural character, the agriculture of the feudal lords was already largely connected with the market. The production of products to supply cities and a number of industrial areas that did not produce bread increased. The southern districts of the state turned into grain-producing areas, from where grain came to the region of the Don Cossacks and to the central regions (especially to Moscow). The Volga region districts also provided a surplus of grain.
The main way of development of agriculture at this time was extensive: landowners included an increasing number of new territories into economic turnover.
Industry
Unlike agriculture, industrial production has advanced more noticeably. The most widespread industry is the home industry; Throughout the country, peasants produced canvas and homespun cloth, ropes and ropes, felted and leather shoes, a variety of clothes and utensils, and much more. These products reached the market through buyers. Gradually, peasant industry outgrows the domestic framework and turns into small-scale commodity production.
Among the artisans, the largest group were tax workers - artisans of urban suburbs and black-mown volosts. They carried out private orders or worked for the market. Palace artisans served the needs of the royal court; state and registered employees worked on orders from the treasury (construction work, procurement of materials, etc.); privately owned - from peasants, peasants and slaves - produced everything necessary for landowners and patrimonial owners. Craft in pretty large sizes developed, primarily among the drafters, into commodity production.
Metalworking, which has long existed in the country, was based on the extraction of bog ores. Metallurgy centers developed in the districts south of Moscow: Serpukhovsky, Kashirskoye, Tula, Dedilovsky, Aleksinsky. Another center is the counties to the north-west of Moscow: Ustyuzhna Zheleznopolskaya, Tikhvin, Zaonezhye.
Moscow was a major metalworking center - back in the early 40s there were more than one and a half hundred forges here. The best gold and silver craftsmen in Russia worked in the capital. The centers of silver production were also Ustyug Veliky, Nizhny Novgorod, Veliky Novgorod, Tikhvin and others. Copper and other non-ferrous metals were processed in Moscow and Pomorie (manufacturing cauldrons, bells, dishes with painted enamel, embossing, etc.).
Metalworking is largely turning into commodity production, not only in urban suburbs, but also in the countryside.
Blacksmithing shows trends towards consolidation of production and the use of hired labor. This is especially typical for Tula, Ustyuzhna, Tikhvin, and Ustyug Veliky.
Similar phenomena, although to a lesser extent, are observed in woodworking. Throughout the country, carpenters worked mainly to order - they built houses, river and sea vessels. Carpenters from Pomerania were particularly skilled.
The largest center of the leather industry was Yaroslavl, where raw materials for the manufacture of leather products arrived from many districts of the country. Worked here big number small “factories” - craft workshops. Leather processing was carried out by craftsmen from Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod. Yaroslavl tanners used hired labor; some “factories grew into manufacturing-type enterprises with a significant division of labor.
With all its development, handicraft production could no longer satisfy the demand for industrial products. This leads to the emergence in the 17th century of manufactories - enterprises based on the division of labor between workers. If in Western Europe manufactories were capitalist enterprises, serviced by the labor of hired workers, then in Russia, under the dominance of the feudal-serf system, the emerging manufacturing production was largely based on serf labor. Most of manufactories belonged to the treasury, the royal court and large boyars.
Palace manufactories were created to produce fabrics for the royal court. One of the first palace linen manufactories was Khamovny Dvor, located in the palace settlements near Moscow. State-owned manufactories, which arose back in the 15th century, were, as a rule, founded for the production various types weapons. State-owned manufactories were the Cannon Yard, the Armory, the Money Yard, the Jewelry Yard and other enterprises. The population of Moscow state and palace settlements worked in state-owned and palace manufactories. The workers, although they received salaries, were feudal-dependent people and did not have the right to quit their jobs.
Patrimonial manufactories had the most pronounced serf character. Iron-making, potash, tanning, linen and other manufactories were created in the estates of the boyars Morozov, Miloslavsky, Stroganov and others. Here, almost exclusively forced labor of serfs was used.
Merchant manufactories used hired labor. In 1666, the Novgorod merchant Semyon Gavrilov, having begun the creation of an iron-making manufactory, laid the foundation for Olonets factories. In Ustyuzhna, Tula, Tikhvin, and Ustyug the Great, some wealthy merchants began to found metalworking enterprises. In the 90s of the 17th century, the Tula blacksmith-artisan Nikita Antufiev, who became rich, opened an iron smelter. Some manufactories and trades were founded by rich peasants, for example, the Volga salt trades, leather, ceramic and textile manufactories. In addition to merchant manufactories, hired labor is also used in brick production, construction, fishing and salt-making industries. Among the workers there were many peasants-obrochniks, who, although personally not free people, sold their labor power to the owners of the means of production.
Trade
The growth of productive forces in agriculture and industry, the deepening of the social division of labor and territorial production specialization led to a steady expansion of trade relations. In the 17th century, trade ties already existed on a national scale.
In the North, in need of imported bread, grain markets were formed, the main of which was Vologda. Novgorod remained a trading center in the northwestern part of the state - a large market for the sale of flax and hemp products. Important markets for livestock products were Kazan, Vologda, Yaroslavl, fur markets were some cities in the northern part of Rus': Solvychegodsk, Irbit, etc. The largest producers of metal products were Tula, Tikhvin and other cities.
The main trading center throughout Russia was still Moscow, where trade routes from all over the country and from abroad converged. In 120 specialized rows of the Moscow trade, silks, furs, metal and woolen products, wines, lard, bread and other domestic and foreign goods were sold. The fairs – Makaryevskaya, Arkhangelsk, and Irbitskaya – acquired all-Russian significance. The Volga connected many Russian cities with economic ties.
The dominant position in trade was occupied by the townspeople, primarily guests and members of the living room and cloth hundreds. Large traders came from wealthy artisans and peasants. They traded various goods and in many places; trade specialization was poorly developed, capital circulated slowly, free funds and credit were absent, and usury had not yet become a professional occupation. The scattered nature of trade required many agents and intermediaries. Only towards the end of the century specialized trade appeared.
In Russia, the demand for industrial products increased, and the development of agriculture and crafts provided the opportunity for stable exports.
In imports from countries Western Europe Silk fabrics, weapons, metals, cloth, and luxury goods occupied an important place in Russia. Furs, leather, hemp, wax, and bread were exported from Russia.
Trade with the countries of the East was brisk. It was carried out mainly through Astrakhan. Silks were imported various fabrics, spices, luxury goods, furs, leather and handicrafts were exported. Russian merchants, less powerful economically than commercial capital Western countries, suffered losses due to Western competition, especially if the government granted duty-free trading rights to European merchants. Therefore, the government adopted the New Trade Charter in 1667, according to which retail foreigners were prohibited in Russian cities, duty-free wholesale trade was allowed only in border cities, and in internal Russia foreign goods were subject to very high duties, often amounting to 100% of the cost. The New Trade Charter was the first manifestation of the protectionist policy of the Russian government.
The main task of the country's economy in the first half of the 17th century. was to overcome the consequences of the “great Moscow ruin.” Solving this problem was made difficult by the following factors:
heavy human and territorial losses suffered by the country as a result of the “turmoil”;
low soil fertility in the Non-Black Earth Region, where until the middle of the 17th century. housed the bulk of the population;
the strengthening of serfdom, which did not create interest among the peasants in the results of their labor (landowners, with an increase in their needs, confiscated not only surplus, but also part of the necessary product, increasing corvee and quitrent);
the consumer nature of the peasant economy, which developed under the influence of the Orthodox communal tradition, which focused on the simple satisfaction of needs, and not on the expansion of production in order to generate income and enrichment;
increasing the tax burden.
Agriculture
From the end of the 10s to the beginning of the 20s, after the Peace of Stolbovo and the Deulin Truce, the expulsion of gangs of marauding interventionists, the end of the actions of rebel groups, the Russian people began to restore normal economic life. The Zamoskovny region, the center of European Russia, comes to life, the counties around the Russian capital, in the west and northwest, northeast and east. The Russian peasant is moving to the outskirts - south of the Oka River, in the Volga region and the Urals, in Western Siberia. New settlements are springing up here. Peasants who fled here from the center from their owners - landowners and patrimonial owners, monasteries and palace departments, or were transferred to these places, are developing new land masses, entering into economic, marriage, and everyday contacts with the local population. A mutual exchange of management experience is being established: local residents adopt the steam farming system, haymaking, apiary beekeeping, plows and other devices from the Russians; Russians, in turn, learn from local residents about the method of long-term storage of unthreshed bread and much more.
Agriculture did not recover quickly; the reasons for this were the low capacity of small peasant farms, low yields, natural disasters, and crop shortages. The development of this sector of the economy was greatly and long hampered by the consequences of the “Lithuanian ruin”. This is evidenced by scribe books - land inventories of that time. Thus, in 1622, in three districts south of the Oka - Belevsky, Mtsensky and Yeletsk - local nobles owned 1,187 peasants and 2,563 peasants on their lands, i.e. there were twice as many landless or very low-powered peasants as there were actual peasants. Agriculture, which experienced extreme decline at the beginning of the century, returned to its previous state very slowly. Novoseltsev A.P., Sakharov A.N., Buganov V.I., Nazarov V.D. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 17th century. - M.: LLC Publishing House AST-LTD, 1997. - p.518
This was reflected in the economic situation of the nobles and their suitability for service. In a number of southern counties, many of them did not have land and peasants (odnodvortsy), or even estates. Some, due to poverty, became Cossacks, slaves for rich boyars, monastery servants, or, according to documents of that time, lay around taverns.
By the middle of the century in the Zamoskovny region, about half of the land, in some places more than half, was classified by scribes as “living” rather than empty arable land.
The main way of development of agriculture of this time was extensive: farmers included an increasing number of new territories into economic turnover. Popular colonization of the outskirts is proceeding at a rapid pace.
Since the late 50s - 60s, immigrants in large numbers have gone to the Volga region, Bashkiria, and Siberia. With their arrival, agriculture began to be practiced in places where it had not existed before, for example, in Siberia.
In European Russia, the dominant farming system was three-field farming. But in the forest areas of Zamoskovny Krai, Pomerania, and even in the northern regions of the southern outskirts, cutting, fallowing, two-field, and variegated fields were used. In Siberia, fallow land was gradually replaced by three-field farming in the second half of the century.
Most of the crops were rye and oats. Next came barley and wheat, spring rye (egg) and millet, buckwheat and spelt, peas and hemp. The same is true in Siberia. More wheat was sown in the south than in the north. In the gardens they grew turnips and cucumbers, cabbage and carrots, radishes and beets, onions and garlic, even watermelons and pumpkins. In the gardens there are cherries, red currants, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, apple trees, pears, plums. Productivity was low. Crop failures, shortages, and famines recurred frequently.
The basis for the development of livestock farming was peasant farming. From it the feudal lords received draft horses for working in their fields and table supplies: meat, live and killed poultry, eggs, butter, etc. Among the peasants there were, on the one hand, those with many horses and many cows; on the other hand, deprived of any livestock. Cattle breeding especially developed in Pomerania, the Yaroslavl region, and the southern districts.
Fish were caught everywhere, but especially in Pomerania. In the northern regions, the White and Barents Seas, cod and halibut, herring and salmon were caught; hunted seals, walruses, and whales. On the Volga and Yaik, red fish and caviar were of particular value.
Subsistence agriculture was dominated by small-scale production. Hence the poor food supply for the peasants and chronic hunger strikes. But even then, the growth of the social division of labor and the economic specialization of certain regions of the country contributed to an increase in commodity circulation. The surplus of grain coming to the market was supplied by the southern and Volga districts.
In a number of cases, the tsar, boyars, nobles, and monasteries expanded their own plowing and, at the same time, entrepreneurial activity and trade.
The basis of production in the second half of the 17th century. in Russia still consisted of agriculture. It was the main occupation for the population of Russia. The peasantry was feudally dependent. In agriculture, soil cultivation methods that had been established in previous times continued to be used. Three-field cultivation was most common, but in the forest regions of the North, cuttings occupied an important place, and in the steppe zone of the South and Middle Volga region - fallow. These methods of cultivating the land, characteristic of feudalism, corresponded to primitive tools of production (plow and harrow) and low yields. The serfdom of the main producer, the peasant, did not provide the opportunity for widespread intensification of labor.
The land was owned by secular and spiritual feudal lords, the palace department and the state. By 1678, the boyars and nobles concentrated sixty-seven percent of peasant households in their hands. This was achieved through grants from the government and direct seizures of palace and black-plow (state) lands, as well as the possessions of small service people. The nobles created serf farms in the uninhabited southern districts of the state. If we take into account that by this time only a tenth of the tax-paying (i.e., tax-paying) population of Russia (posad people and black-mown peasants) was in a non-enslaved state, then we can come to the conclusion that a feudally dependent form of agriculture predominated.
Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of secular feudal lords belonged to the number of medium and small landowners. Geographical features Russia led to the fact that feudal economies were in constant dynamics. This was characterized primarily by the fact that farms were constantly strengthened. What was a nobleman's household like? mediocre, can be seen from the correspondence of A.I. Bezobrazov. As a true feudal lord, he did not hesitate to use any means if the opportunity presented itself to round off his possessions. Like many other landowners, he energetically captured and bought up fertile lands, shamelessly driving the small-time servants from their homes. At that time, the majority of landowners, mostly by force, resettled their peasants from the less fertile central districts to the South.
How distinguishing feature Another feature of the Russian serf economy is that after the nobles in terms of the size of land ownership, spiritual feudal lords occupied second place. In the second half of the 17th century. bishops, monasteries and churches owned over 13 percent of the tax yards. The Trinity-Sergius Monastery especially stood out. In his domains, scattered throughout European territory Russia, there were about 17 thousand households. The votchinniki-monasteries ran their own households traditional methods, i.e., using the same serfdom methods as the secular feudal lords, without bothering to introduce any new agricultural techniques to increase productivity.
However, in Russia there were lands where serfdom was almost undeveloped. Because of this, the population engaged in agriculture did not experience such serfdom here as in middle lane. First of all in better conditions In comparison with the landowners and monastery peasants, there were black-growing peasants who lived in Pomerania, where the lands were mainly considered state-owned. But they were also burdened various kinds duties in favor of the treasury, suffered from oppression and abuse of the royal governors and, ultimately, were also not very interested in improving methods of cultivating the land. In addition, in Pomorie, in force climatic conditions grain production did not develop much.
The feudal production unit was an estate, the center of which was a village, or small village, next to which stood the manor's estate with a house and outbuildings. Most often, the lord's estate was a votchina, i.e., hereditary possession. A typical landowner's courtyard in central Russia in the 17th century consisted of an upper room located on the semi-basement floor. There was a vestibule next to it - a spacious reception room. Next to the upper room there were outbuildings - a cellar, a barn, a bathhouse. The yard was surrounded by a fence, nearby there was a garden and a beekeeper. The richer nobles had much larger and more comfortable estates than the small landowners.
The village, or village, was the center for the villages adjacent to it. Most often this was due to the presence of a parish center - a church in which services were held. In a medium-sized village there were rarely more than 15-30 households; in villages there were usually 2-3 households.
The peasant yard consisted of a warm hut, most often with a stove without a chimney, a cold entryway and outbuildings.
To work in the garden, barnyard, and stables, the landowner kept slaves on the estate. The master's household was managed by a clerk, the landowner's confidant. However, the farming, which was carried out with the help of courtyard people, only partially satisfied the landowners' needs. The landowner himself was engaged in agriculture due to historically established patriarchal conditions. The landowners' main income came from corvée or quitrent duties of serfs.
The duties of the peasants included cultivating the landowner's land, harvesting crops, mowing meadows, transporting firewood from the forest, and cleaning ponds. In addition to performing low-skilled labor, peasants had to engage in construction and various crafts. Serfs were obliged, in particular, to build and repair mansions, to produce one or another handicraft product used on the estate. Of course, this work was performed not only by artisans who were in serfdom under their master. In addition to the corvee, they were obliged to deliver “table supplies” to the masters - a certain amount of meat, eggs, dry berries, mushrooms, etc. Each landowner, at his own discretion, demanded this or that amount of food from the peasants. For example, in the villages of boyar B.I. Morozov, it was necessary to give a pork carcass, two rams, a goose with giblets, 4 pigs, 4 chickens, 40 eggs, and also cow's milk and cheese.
A slight increase in domestic demand for agricultural products, as well as partly the export of grain abroad, encouraged landowners to expand their lordly plowing and increase their rent. In this regard, in the black earth zone, peasant corvée continuously increased, and in non-black earth areas, mainly central (with the exception of estates near Moscow, from which food was delivered to the capital), where corvee was less common, it increased. specific gravity quitrent duties.
The desire for maximum yields on the part of the landowners led to the fact that their own arable land expanded at the expense of the best peasant lands, which were allocated to the master's fields.
In areas where quitrent prevailed, the importance of cash rent grew slowly but steadily. This phenomenon reflected the development of commodity-money relations in the country, into which peasant farms were gradually involved. However, in its pure form, monetary rent was very rare. Most often it was combined with both food rent and various corvee duties.
New phenomena closely related to the development of commodity-money relations in Russia include the creation of various types of fishing enterprises on large landowner farms. These were the beginnings of capitalist production. In many ways, this phenomenon is similar to the capitalist degeneration of feudal estates in England.
Thus, the largest patrimonial estate of the mid-17th century. Boyar Morozov organized the production of prtash in the Middle Volga region. He also built an ironworks in the village of Pavlovskoe near Moscow and was engaged in distilling. This money-grubber, according to contemporaries, had such a greed for gold, “like an ordinary thirst for drink.” This is how the primary accumulation of capital took place.
In pursuit of profit, the example of Morozov was followed by other large boyars - the Miloslavskys, Odoevskys and others. However, at their industrial enterprises, the most onerous work of transporting firewood or ores was assigned to the peasants, who were obliged to work in turn, sometimes on their own horses, leaving their arable land abandoned in hot season of field work. Thus, the exploitation of serfs in industrial production gave early Russian capitalism its own peculiarity. Free wage labor was not widely used. Therefore, the passion of some large feudal lords for industrial production did not change the serf-based foundations of the organization of their farms.
On large feudal estates, some innovations were introduced in the use of land. Increasingly, landowners began to engage in gardening on their estates, and landowners who were passionate about agriculture built greenhouses for growing southern plants.
In 1503, after the war between the Moscow prince Ivan III and the Lithuanian prince, Russian state included Chernigov-Seversk lands, including such cities on the territory of modern Bryansk region as Starodub, Pochep, Trubchevsk, Radogoshch (Pogar), Bryansk, Mglin, Drokov, Popova Gora. From that time on, the Bryansk region became the southwestern outskirts of Russia for one hundred and fifty years.
Economy of the Bryansk-Seversky Territory
Natural conditions divided it into two parts - the very large Bryansk district and the Seversky Territory, or Severa, Severshchina, located south of it - as contemporaries called this area. The inhabitants of this territory were called Sevryuks, Seversky peasants. Due to impenetrable forests, many corners of the region lived in isolation, under the influence of centuries-old traditions. Even in the 17th century, contemporaries said: “Sevryuks are simple men and rarely appear in the Moscow state (that is, in the center of the country”).
This isolation was based on the subsistence economy that dominated in the 16th-17th centuries, which provided all the most important human needs locally. The forest was of great importance in the life of the population. In the Bryansk and Seversk forests it was preserved important role hunting squirrels, martens, stoats. The fur of these animals was valued and was even exported for sale to other cities. There were many wild bees in the forests, which made it possible to collect large quantities of honey. In addition to wood as a building and heating material, the forest provided mushrooms and berries, as well as material for some items of clothing, shoes, and household items.
Beavers lived in many small rivers, whose fur was valued since ancient times. There were frequent fishing grounds. On the rivers there were monastery and peasant mills, one, two and three in different villages of the Bryansk district.
Although the land here was quite fertile, agriculture was extremely poorly developed: a large amount of land was undeveloped. In many areas of the region, a three-field system was established, in which farmers divided the arable land into winter and spring and, in addition, left part of the land fallow, that is, unsown for some time to restore soil fertility. This farming system provided significant stability to the peasant economy: if a winter field sown in the fall did not produce the expected harvest, then a spring field cultivated in the spring could help out. Among the agricultural crops of the peasants in the 16th-17th centuries, rye was in first place, then oats, buckwheat, barley, wheat, peas, and millet. One English traveler, who visited Russia in the 16th century, wrote that Russian food “consists mainly of roots, onions, garlic, cabbage and similar plants.”
In the peasant economy, along with agriculture, there were various crafts. They were especially developed in the large villages of the Bryansk district, where the master could sell his products to fellow villagers or visiting people at the nearest fair. Such a village was, for example, Suponevo. Here were yards whose owners reduced their agricultural activities and worked more as blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, and potters.
The cities in the Bryansk-Seversky region were for the most part not so much centers of craft and trade, but rather fortresses, where the surrounding population fled in case of danger. The townspeople themselves consisted mainly of military and service people. In the 16th-17th centuries, peasants and townspeople fled to the southwestern outskirts of Russia, far from the center of Russia, and hid in impassable places. This flight was caused by various reasons: an increase in taxes due to the development of the state apparatus, the oprichnina policies of Ivan the Terrible, conflicts between peasants and landowners, and the enslavement of peasants and townspeople. The population of the Bryansk-Seversky Territory grew noticeably. Therefore, when in the second half of the 16th century the center of the country experienced economic decline - sharp decrease population, a reduction in arable land and a drop in state treasury revenues - the southwestern counties of Russia did not experience such a decline. By the end of the 16th century and in the second half of the 17th century, life in the Bryansk-Seversky region was on the rise. New villages were founded here and new lands were plowed.
Land tenure
It is the land with arable land, hayfields and meadows, with natural resources in the form of hunting and fishing places, with the working population living in these places, was the main economic basis of Russian society. Therefore very great importance had the legal status of a particular territory.
The bulk of the Bryansk-Seversky lands were the so-called black lands, that is, lands that did not belong to any private owners. They were considered state. Peasants and townspeople living on the black lands paid taxes to the treasury and performed various obligatory works for the state: repairing fortresses, cleaning ditches and ramparts around them, cutting down roads in forests, etc.
Another part of the land, also quite extensive, especially in the Severshchina, was considered a palace. The population living on such lands had to serve with their labor the palace of the Moscow Grand Duke and Tsar. Usually it supplied bread to Moscow. Among the palace lands, the huge Komaritsa volost, formed from smaller volosts at the end of the 16th century, especially stood out for its importance. Initially, the administrative center of this volost was Bryansk, and later Sevsk. The palace was Samovskaya volost in Karachevsky district.
An increasing part of the peasantry ended up on estate lands, which the state gave to service people - landowners for their military service. The peasants had to arm their landowner for service both during war and in times of peace, when the landowner was obliged to go out to defend the border. The main importance in local plots was often the collection of honey, and not arable land. Therefore, on such estates, the peasants gave the landowner a quitrent not in bread, but in valuable forest products - honey and the skins of wild animals (for example, two pounds of honey and two martens a year).
A special type of land ownership was monastic land ownership. The largest was the Svinsky Monastery. He had five estates in different parts Bryansk-Seversk land. The Spaso-Polikarpov Monastery, located in Bryansk, owned lands that covered almost the entire territory of the Kletnyansky district of the Bryansk region. They had landholdings: the Peter and Paul Monastery in Bryansk, Tikhonova Monastery in Karachevsky district, and the Cholsky Monastery near Trubchevsk.
The majority of the population of these lands were peasants. Due to the excess, and sometimes even part of the necessary product of their labor, the system of governing the country, its defense was maintained, and the spiritual life of Russia developed.
An intermediate position between peasants and landowners was occupied by service people according to the equipment (recruitment). These were archers, gunners, fighters (defended the city, standing on the fortress walls behind the tyn), city Cossacks and others. They carried out border service and defended cities, where the surrounding population fled from the enemy in case of danger. Unlike landowners, servicemen received land from the state not individually, but together - for one or another settlement or street in the city - Pushkarskaya, Zatinnaya, Streletskaya. They divided this land among themselves. There were no peasants on it, so service people had to work it with their own hands. Along with military service, those who served sometimes engaged in crafts and trade, receiving additional income. During the 16th-17th centuries, the number of such servicemen grew. They made up a larger part of the townspeople than artisans and traders.
The landowners of the Bryansk-Seversk lands were, for the most part, small landowners. Once upon a time, a landowner owned land on which 3-4 peasant households stood. Next to them were the courtyard and house of the landowner, which were in no way particularly different from the peasants. If the landowner was poor, then he plowed his field himself. He was not the complete owner of his estate, because it was state land, which was given to him for food, and not as private property. For example, the landowner did not have the right to cut down the forests in which honey was collected. The peasants could complain to the Grand Duke or the Tsar about their landowner. Provincial landowners were called city nobles and boyar children. Each of them was assigned to one or another city, where he arrived in case of military danger to perform service. The poorer landowners participated only in the defense of the city. The wealthier ones, who had many peasants, had to use the funds they collected to buy weapons and war horses in order to participate in long-distance military campaigns. For various duties, such servants had their estates reduced or deprived of all land ownership as punishment. The state strictly demanded that they fulfill their official duties. Professional military men and landowners ensured the defense of the country and protected the safety of all its inhabitants.
The urban trade and craft population in the Bryansk-Seversky Territory was very small. Historical documents speak sparingly about him. It is known, for example, that Starodub was a significant city. However, in the first half of the 16th century there were few permanent residents. In case of military danger, it could accommodate 13 thousand people. Bryansk also had Posad, which also played a prominent defensive role in the region. Trubchevsk stood on a large defensive line, consisting of earthen ramparts, forest fences - specially constructed rubble from felled trees, and observation towers. Most of the cities of the Bryansk region and Severshchina were fortresses. Very few of them had small gardens.
A special segment of the population of the Bryansk region at that time were clergy. In each city, in addition to the central temple - the cathedral - there were usually several more churches. There were also churches in the villages. In such churches it was served secular clergy, close in their living situation to townspeople and peasants. Sometimes in some areas he had to lead the struggle of the peasant population against the invasion of enemies. The black clergy lived in monasteries isolated from ordinary, worldly life. Monasteries were located in cities and rural areas. Most of them were small and only a few stood out for their wealth and number of monks. Since the clergy represented the most literate layer of society, through their activities they supported and developed the spiritual culture of the country.
Thus, the population of the region consisted of different layers - estates or class groups with their own rights and responsibilities. They differed in their occupations and position. The basis for the different situations of people lay mainly different types land tenure. The state, as the supreme owner of the land, distributed land as payment for military service, collected taxes for the use of land, and subjected all classes to a strict order of performance of public duties.
Socio-economic development of Russia in the 17th century
1.1 Agriculture
From the end of the 10s to the beginning of the 20s, after the Peace of Stolbovo and the Deulin Truce, the expulsion of gangs of marauding interventionists, the end of the actions of rebel groups, the Russian people began to restore normal economic life. The Zamoskovny region, the center of European Russia, comes to life, the counties around the Russian capital, in the west and northwest, northeast and east. The Russian peasant is moving to the outskirts - south of the Oka River, in the Volga region and the Urals, in Western Siberia. New settlements are springing up here. Peasants who fled here from the center from their owners - landowners and patrimonial owners, monasteries and palace departments, or were transferred to these places, are developing new land masses, entering into economic, marriage, and everyday contacts with the local population. A mutual exchange of management experience is being established: local residents adopt the steam farming system, haymaking, apiary beekeeping, plows and other devices from the Russians; Russians, in turn, learn from local residents about the method of long-term storage of unthreshed bread and much more.
Agriculture did not recover quickly; the reasons for this were the low capacity of small peasant farms, low yields, natural disasters, and crop shortages. The development of this sector of the economy was greatly and long hampered by the consequences of the “Lithuanian ruin”. This is evidenced by scribe books - land inventories of that time. Thus, in 1622, in three districts south of the Oka - Belevsky, Mtsensky and Yeletsk - local nobles owned 1,187 peasants and 2,563 peasants on their lands, i.e. there were twice as many landless or very low-powered peasants as there were actual peasants. Agriculture, which experienced extreme decline at the beginning of the century, returned to its previous state very slowly. Novoseltsev A.P., Sakharov A.N., Buganov V.I., Nazarov V.D. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 17th century. - M.: LLC Publishing House AST-LTD, 1997. - p.518
This was reflected in the economic situation of the nobles and their suitability for service. In a number of southern counties, many of them did not have land and peasants (odnodvortsy), or even estates. Some, due to poverty, became Cossacks, slaves for rich boyars, monastery servants, or, according to documents of that time, lay around taverns.
By the middle of the century in the Zamoskovny region, about half of the land, in some places more than half, was classified by scribes as “living” rather than empty arable land.
The main way of development of agriculture of this time was extensive: farmers included an increasing number of new territories into economic turnover. Popular colonization of the outskirts is proceeding at a rapid pace.
Since the late 50s - 60s, immigrants in large numbers have gone to the Volga region, Bashkiria, and Siberia. With their arrival, agriculture began to be practiced in places where it had not existed before, for example, in Siberia.
In European Russia, the dominant farming system was three-field farming. But in the forest areas of Zamoskovny Krai, Pomerania, and even in the northern regions of the southern outskirts, cutting, fallowing, two-field, and variegated fields were used. In Siberia, fallow land was gradually replaced by three-field farming in the second half of the century.
Most of the crops were rye and oats. Next came barley and wheat, spring rye (egg) and millet, buckwheat and spelt, peas and hemp. The same is true in Siberia. More wheat was sown in the south than in the north. In the gardens they grew turnips and cucumbers, cabbage and carrots, radishes and beets, onions and garlic, even watermelons and pumpkins. In the gardens there are cherries, red currants, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, apple trees, pears, plums. Productivity was low. Crop failures, shortages, and famines recurred frequently.
The basis for the development of livestock farming was peasant farming. From it the feudal lords received draft horses for working in their fields and table supplies: meat, live and killed poultry, eggs, butter, etc. Among the peasants there were, on the one hand, those with many horses and many cows; on the other hand, deprived of any livestock. Cattle breeding especially developed in Pomerania, the Yaroslavl region, and the southern districts.
Fish were caught everywhere, but especially in Pomerania. In the northern regions, the White and Barents Seas, cod and halibut, herring and salmon were caught; hunted seals, walruses, and whales. On the Volga and Yaik, red fish and caviar were of particular value.
Subsistence agriculture was dominated by small-scale production. Hence the poor food supply for the peasants and chronic hunger strikes. But even then, the growth of the social division of labor and the economic specialization of certain regions of the country contributed to an increase in commodity circulation. The surplus of grain coming to the market was supplied by the southern and Volga districts.
In a number of cases, the tsar, boyars, nobles, and monasteries expanded their own ploughing, and at the same time engaged in entrepreneurial activities and trade.
1.2 Craft
In the process of economic recovery of the country, crafts occupied an important place. Its share in the country's economy increased, the number of craft specialties increased, and the level of qualifications of workers noticeably increased. Craftsmen increasingly began to work for the market, and not for orders, i.e. production became small-scale. Feudal lords preferred to buy handicrafts in city markets rather than use the low-quality products of their rural artisans. Increasingly, peasants also bought urban products, which led to an increase in domestic demand and supply.
In some cities, 30 - 40% of residents were engaged in crafts. The growth of handicraft production and the expansion of markets led to the specialization of individual areas and the territorial division of labor:
Metal processing was carried out in Moscow, Yaroslavl, Veliky Ustyug; leather was processed in Vologda and Yaroslavl, Kazan and Kaluga; pottery production was concentrated in Moscow, Yaroslavl, Veliky Ustyug; wood processing was widespread in the Dvina district, Solvychegodsk, Veliky Ustyug and Vyatka lands. Jewelry business flourished in Veliky Ustyug, Moscow, Novgorod, Tikhvin, Nizhny Novgorod. The Novgorod-Pskov region, Moscow, Yaroslavl became significant centers for the production of textile products; flax - Yaroslavl and Kostroma; salt - Solvychegorsk, Soligalich, Prikamye with Solikamsk, and from the second half of the 17th century. - salt lakes of the Caspian region. Not only cities, but also a number of quitrent villages (Pavlovo on Oka, Ivanovo, Lyskovo, Murashkino, etc.) became centers of handicraft production. Osmanov A.I. Russian history. IX-XX centuries: Tutorial. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. Herzen; Publishing house "SOYUZ", 2001 - p.78
Among the artisans, the largest group was made up of tax workers - artisans of urban suburbs and black-mown volosts. They carried out private orders or worked for the market. Palace artisans served the needs of the royal court; state and registered employees worked on orders from the treasury (construction work, procurement of materials, etc.); privately owned - from peasants, peasants and slaves - produced everything necessary for landowners and patrimonial owners. Handicraft developed on a fairly large scale, primarily among draft traders, into commercial production. But this happened differently in different industries.
The master, as an independent manufacturer-craftsman, had students. According to the “everyday record”, the latter dressed up to study and work with the master for five to eight years. The student lived with the owner, ate and drank with him, received clothes, and did all kinds of work. Upon completion of training, the student worked for a period of time with the master, sometimes “for hire.” Students who acquired the necessary and significant experience or were tested by specialists became masters themselves.
The corps of artisans was also replenished through the export of townspeople from other cities to Moscow for permanent or temporary work. For the needs of the treasury and the palace, gunsmiths and icon painters, silversmiths, masons and carpenters were sent to the capital from other cities.
Russian history
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