Научный диалог (Jan 2017)
Turkic Volosts of Verkhotursky Uyezd of 17<sup>th</sup> Century
Abstract
The questions of determination of the Turkic yasak volosts in the composition of Verkhotursk uyezd of the 17th century are covered. Up to the present time the dominant point of view is that nearly every volost of this uyezd of the 17th century was inhabited by the Voguls (Mansi), although this view is at odds with content of documents of that time, and with more recent data. Attention is given to interpreting the terminology of the documents of the 17th century: the concepts of “Bashkirs,” “Voguls,” “Tatars” were usually used in the documents of the 17th century as the names for ethnic and estate groups. The results of a comparative analysis of the documents of the 17th and 18th centuries are presented, which allow to confidently relate yasak volosts of South Verkhotursky uyezd of the 17th century to Bashkir volosts of the 18th century. The novelty of the research is the first distinguishing of Turkic volosts in the Verkhotursky uyezd. The authors of the previous works identified only residents of Tersyaksy volost as Turks, designating the inhabitants of other yasak volosts of the South Verkhotursky uyezd as “Voguls” even if the documents have consistently indicated that they are “Tartars,” i.e. Turks. The relevance of the study is determined by the increasing interest in ethnic and social history and the need to rethink many of the processes of 17th - beginning of 20th centuries from the standpoint of constructivism. The author dwells on the topic of the yasak population of Turkic yasak volosts of Verkhotursky uyezd, allegedly gone into other uyezds in the end of 16th-17th centuries. It is proved that in fact a significant part of the population of these volosts did not go anywhere. Yasak people just stopped to pay tribute to Verkhoturye and began to pay it to the Ufa uyezd. At that they remain on the same territories. Because they were no longer tax-paying population of Verkhotursky uyezd, they were no longer taken into account in the local yasak books. Thus they “disappeared” from the Verkhotursky uyezd documentation that gave grounds to some authors to believe that they left their lands and moved to other uyezds.
