Usage of Ethnic Groups Names as Designations of the Yasak Populations and Related Problems of the Study of the Yasak Volost History: Trans-Urals During XVIIth Century AD

The article concerns the problem related to the source study as well as the social and ethnic history of the Urals and Siberia: what is a meaning of conceptions of the "Bashkir", "Vogul" and "Tatarin" in the XVII century documents? Source analysis demonstrates that the terms, on the one hand, were as a name for ethnic groups; on the other hand, they were used for the designation of the yasak population in the different uyezds. So, in Verkhoturye uyezd the yasak population was designated as "the Voguls", in Ufa uyezd - as "the Bashkirs", in Tura and Tyumen uyezds as "the Tatars". The yasak population was not ethnically homogeneous even in the same uyezd. It was especially clear in Verkhoturye uyezd where the Turks constituted substantial proportion of the yasak population but there were a small amount of the yasak Slavs and, certainly, the native Voguls (the Mansi people). All of them were designated as "the yasak Voguls" in the Verkhoturye uyezd documents. At the same time, the Turkic population of Verkhoturye uyezd maintained the close relations to the Turks from Ufa and Tyumen uyezds. The point is that the clan lands of some Turkic clans turned out to be divided between different uyezds. For example, a part of the Tersyak clan lands fell into Verkhoturye uyezd, a part - into Ufa uyezd and a part - in Tyumen one. Correspondingly, some of representatives of the Tersyak clan were named as "Voguls" in the documents, some - as "the Bashkirs" and some - as "the Tatars". This is only one example but it clearly demonstrated that we should not interpret the terms in the 17 century AD documents as the name of ethnic groups solely. The interpretation of ethnic (or, at least, the language one) affiliation of the specific groups of the yasak population is possible only be means of the complex analysis of the documents, including the later period. Some authors wrote that the yasak people of Synryanskaya, Tersyakskaya, Ayatskaya and Verkhne-Ufimskaya volosts of Verkhoturye uyezd left their territories in the different periods, and the lands remained unsettled. Due to the analysis of broader documental sources, it becomes quite clear that the population of these volosts did not leave anywhere; they simply started paying their yasak in Ufa instead Verkhoturye. They lived in the territory of the Verkhoturye uyezd but they were recorded as the yasak people of Ufa uyezd. In the other words, they stopped to be "the Voguls" and became "the Bashkirs" and information about them could be found in the Ufa uyezd documents. The comprehension that some of names of the ethnic groups were used in Russia as the terms for designation of the estate groups allows us to interpret more correctly some archive sources.

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