Social structure of villages of the lower Vychegda region in the second half of the 17th century

The article is devoted to a current problem of studying of development of property and social differentiation in the city and the village during a transition era from medieval society to modern time in the conditions of formation of the All-Russian market. The author puts the task to reveal the structure of the population of the Lower Vychegda territory which belonged mainly to the government-controlled taxable lands and had been inhabited, mainly, by state peasants. In the article the social structure of rural settlements of the Lower Vychegda in the second half of the XVII century in connection with development of the market relations is investigated. The research is conducted on the basis of the sources which are stored in the Russian state archive of ancient acts. On the archival material of cadasters the level of social stratification of the region population is analyzed; the conditions contributing to the development of property and social inequality in the peasant village come to light; separate categories of country people are characterized. Social heterogeneity is considered as initial base for separation of a part of peasants from the land and own economy during the studied period. The author used such methods of scientific research as historical and comparative one; method of quantitative calculations and others. As a result of the conducted research the data allowing to speak in detail about heterogeneity of the country population and also to give the characteristic of various categories of the peasantry of the Russian North have been received. The author has elicited the fact of the partial and full dispossession of land which has captured over 1/3 of all population for the specified period and along with it the growth of number well-founded trade- people who were actively getting arable land is shown. The material characterizing existence of a number of categories of the peasants who had lost the lands and worked for owners is analyzed. In the article it is noted that in the peasant village of the Solvychegodsk County in the XVII century owing to freedom of land mobilization and expansion of market communications property inequality in the conditions of development of the commodity-money relations in the depths of still rather strong feudal system amplified.

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