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Section 3. History and archaeology
Stepanova Liliia Gennadievna, Candidate of History Sciences, assistant professor, Head the Department of technology service and business communications, Academy of marketing and social information technologies, Krasnodar, Russia
E-mail: [email protected]
Historical conditions of forming the European and Eastern-European Nuptiality models
Abstract: The comparative method of studying the structure of families and peasant farms in different regions of the world, proposed by British researcher John Hajnal, was successfully applied in the study of demographic processes in various regions of Russia in the period ofXVII - the beginning ofXX centuries. Basically, the researchers used the sources of new time, which couldn't allow them to look at the deeper causes of the formation of a specific Nuptiality models in Russia. We have the unique mass sources of earlier period: the Novgorod scribe books. They contain a solid description of peasant farms on the territory of Novgorod land at the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. Due to Novgorod scribe books we can get information about the population of a peasant court yard on the North-West of Russia in much more earlier era, perform a comparative analysis "European" and "Eastern" nuptiality models and make a conclusion about the influence of certain historical conditions in the formation of these patterns.
Keywords: Russia, Novgorod land, Novgorod scribe books, European and Eastern-European Nuptiality models.
Introduction. J. Hajnal compared the demographic statistics of various European countries for the period of the XVIII - beginning of XX centuries and divided them into two large groups, the separation between which passed on conditionally-defined line from St. Petersburg to Trieste. Over the time of the centuries in the Eastern group we can see signs of early and universal marriage. There are 85 to 95 % of twenty-five year old married women and about 70-80 % of men in this group. Joining others in marriage is limited basically by specific biological reasons. There is a lack of marital relations for 30-40 % ofwomen and 50 % men in the Western group for this age. It was not typical for universal marriage rate for this Western model of family behavior, since 10 to 20 % of men had never started a family and remained alone for the whole life [13].
J. Hajnal tied the identified type of the "European" nuptiality with specific way of organization for western countries of peasant farming, which was based on a simple (nuclear) family, consisting of parents and their children. Traditionally, the aged head of the family in Western countries conveyed the farm to one ofhis sons and only ifhe had the immovable property could start a family. The other sons remained without an appropriate share of the real property and earned money by themselves: were employed, mastered new professions, and they found their farm. The issue of marriage in the absence of sufficient land and other property was postponed for indefinite term.
Unlike the "European" model cohabitation of several families in the same peasant farming was appertained for the "Eastern" model of nuptiality behavior. The old farm could be divided into new after the death of sons' father or during his lifetime if adult sons became economically independent and able to maintain their own farming without any parental help. However, for the "Eastern Europe" model was characterized a much larger proportion of very large peasant farming, consisting of dozens of people, relating to different generations [14]. For this model, it wasn't rarity a section of the farm between grandchildren.
In the study of nuptial behavior in Russia previously investigated the period of XIX-XX centuries. Belarusian historian V. L. Nos-evich studied the family structure and peasant farms in the study of "East European" model of nuptial behavior on the territory of the Russian Empire in the earlier materials. According to his calculations, the average number of yard in the XVI century in the traditional Belarusian village was 6 people, on average, the yard had 1.2 to 1.3 marital couples [15].
However, out of scientists' view there were some questions such as when the distinctive features of nuptial behavior began to form and how they were caused. At the same time, the existing sources about North and North-West Russia could tell us about multiple nuptial behavior that depends on many circumstances, and increasing the number of multi-family peasant farms during the XVII-XIX centuries [3, 56-58; 4, 37-38]. I. A. Chernyakova inhabited one- generation and two-generation families on the basis of absolute predominance (64 %) at the end of the XVII century peasant farms, tells us about the closeness of the "European" nuptiality model and Karelia inhabitants' family behaviour [12, 359-360].
Material and methods. Some conclusions about the numerical composition of the peasant farming in North-West Russia at the turn of XV-XVI centuries can be done basing on the study the data of the Novgorod Scribe books. In the end of XV century there were 37-38 thousand settlements in Novgorod, which were mainly small peasant farm yards [6, 49]. With over 40 % of settlements consisted of one peasant farm [1, 324]. The sample was formed the total number of settlements, which included 7 195 yards, where there were 10 499 men's souls. To build the sample of the Novgorod Scribe books of the late XV - early XVI century, the material was subjected to continuous systematic statistical processing. The economic indicators were selected from the scribe books' text, characterizing one-yard village, which consisted of one peasant farm, and economic indicators separately described the peasant farms of
Section 3. History and archaeology
multi-yards villages. They did not include the courts in the sample, where the landowners and their serfs, unplowables and other people.
Results and Discussion. As it turns out, on average, a farmhouse in the Novgorod land in XV-XVI century contributes 1.5 men's souls. This factor is slightly higher than the previously data in our historiography, which, in turn, is connected with various methods of retrieving information from the scribe books. According to previous data, there was 1.3 men's souls at a farm-house in the Novgorod land, but in some areas, this rate was increased to 1.6 [7, 274]. Undoubtedly, the average figures negate differences in some territories. Therefore, an analysis was conducted both on macro-and microarray of Novgorod land. In particular, the descriptions of1 247 farmhouses in Shelonskaya Pyatina were included in the sample, where 2 071 male resided, 2 963 yards with 3 421 male soul in Derevsky Pyatina, 1 859 yards with 3 130 men's souls in Vodskaya Pyatina, 906 yards with 1 560 male souls in Obonezh Pyatina, 220 yards with 317 men's souls in Bezhetskaya Pyatina. Despite of the differences in the number of peasant farms in this sample, there is an average of 1.7 people at a farm-house in Shelonskaya, Vodskaya and Oboneshskaya Patina. There is 1.4 person in Bezhetskaya Pyatina and 1.2 in Derevlyanskaya.
The area-based indicators are almost the same. For example, on the average there are 1.6 men's souls in the old Russian district at a peasant farm, 1.7 are in Perovsk and Novgorod districts, 1.6 male souls are in Koreisk Uyezd of Vodskaya Pyatina, 1.7 are in Novgorod distrist. There are also 1.7 men's souls at one peasant farm in Nagornaya part of Obonezhskaya patina, 1.8 are in Zaonezhskaya part. It's a little more only in Derevskaya Pyatina: on the average there is 1.05 man a yard in its Central part of and 1.2 is in the Northern areas.
It should be noted that the sribes recorded not only men, but also widows, daughters-in-law, buddies, neighbours, drones, solitary men, colonels in Novgorod scribe books. However, the widow was called only if there weren't adult males, and other categories of the population are mentioned quite rarely. In the historiography of the study of Novgorod scribe books, most researchers came to the conclusion that the men's souls which were recorded in the scribe books were the heads of families, i. e. married men. At the same time the researchers sorted out the yards among multi-family peasant families, which were jointly owned by married brothers, as well as the courts with the presence of cousins, sons-in-law, grandchildren and nephews [8, 143].
The analysis of selected indicators on the microarray allowed us to conclude about the presence of a large number of nuclear families consisting of one or two generations of relatives in the Novgorod land in XV-XVI century. Since that time, the North-West of Russia tended one-yard spread of settlements, we can say that existing land resources are allowed to produce the sections of families, and separated from his father's farm adult sons. The process of settlement in Novgorod was continued throughout the first half of the XVI century [11, 76-78], but they were very mixed. So, the number of peasant farms in the village increased significantly in Staraya Russian and Novgorod counties, but the number of one-yard villages simultaneously decreased. The number of one-yard settlements in
Derevsky Pyatina and Porhovskom uyezd of Shelonskaya Pyatina continued to grow, but the number of peasant farms in the village simultaneously reduced [2, 112-113]. In this time they marked the number of rural settlements in Vodskaya Pyatina was increased in due to development of land areas, which were remote from old settlements [10, 56-62]. The number of settlements in Zaonezh graveyards of Obonezh Pyatina increased slightly from the end of XV century till the end of XVII century; however they became larger at the expense of an increasing number of peasant farms [5, 263]. In the first half of the XVI century the number of settlements increased in Bezhetskaya Pyatina by 81 % due to the active development of its Eastern part [2, 185].
On the whole, the demographic situation in the Novgorod land at the beginning of the XVI century was quite safe. At this time the total population was 472 thousand persons. The population of Novgorod Patina in the first half of the XVI century was increased to 526 thousand people [9, 88]. The number of settlements has reached 40 thousand. That was the maximum value of the number in all history of the region [2, 153]. The most fertile and easier to cultivate the lands have been mastered in the course of peasant colonization in the previous centuries. In the first half of the XVI century peasant colonization was focused in the more remote areas of the Novgorod land, previously they were less convenient for farming. There is also the development of the territories were situated to the East of the Novgorod land, it happens because of shifting political and economic center after the annexation of Novgorod to Moscow.
Conclusion. There is a relatively smooth average of the number of peasant farms in patina and microarray to indicate the presence in the Novgorod land in XV-XVI centuries, small farms, consisting of parents and their children. Since the founding of new settlements, there are still undeveloped land, at this time, we have not seen a large number of multi-family peasant farms. During the XV-XVI centuries the main production unit of the region is the small peasant family.
For centuries the existence of multi-family peasant farms in the countries ofWestern Europe was limited by the principle of primogeniture, which was in close dependence on the historical land-use type based on the system of undivided land. Each plot was heritable to one of his sons and was the basis for the formation of small family. We can see the dependence between available land resources and family size also in the North-West of Russia in the XV-XVI centuries. However, an important difference from Western Europe is the availability ofvacant, undeveloped land in this region and the apparent lack of overpopulation of the territory. These resources helped to separate young families from the parental peasant farm and to make peasant transitions to vacant land.
Thus, at the turn ofXV-XVI centuries, the model of nuptial behavior did not conform to the classic "Eastern European" model in North-West Russia because a peasant farm was based on a simple (nuclear) family. At this time there was widespread cohabitation of several families in the same yard with the same peasant farm. The structure of the peasant farm and the family formed up on the basis of economic feasibility.
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