Development of the Upper Don region in the first quarter of the XVII century: rural settlements of Yelets and Voronezh counties in 1615

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Introduction. The article is devoted to rural settlements of the Upper Don region in the first quarter of the XVII century. The geographical features of the foundation of the first rural settlements of Yelets and Voronezh counties are considered, as well as their social composition is presented. Methods and materials. The methodological basis of the research is represented by the fundamental principles of historical cognition, which is used in Russian historical science in the study of socio-economic processes of society and its structural components: historicism, objectivity and consistency. General scientific, comparative-historical, typological, structural-functional and probabilistic-statistical methods, as well as the principle of objectivity, are used to consider issues related to the development of rural settlements of the counties under consideration and their social composition. The fundamental source for our research was the Watch Books on the Yelets and Voronezh counties of 1615. Results. The author of the study concludes that despite the adjacent location of the territories under consideration, it cannot be said that their development was identical. The characteristic feature of the "cluster" principle of settlement, which became widespread in the Yelets district, was extremely poorly expressed in Voronezh. However, it is also necessary to note a number of common features, primarily related to the predominance of the largest administrative units, such as villages and villages, compared with smaller repairs and wastelands. In addition, the social composition of the first settlements was approximately homogeneous in its composition and included the main categories of the population, such as landowners with and without peasants, clergymen, service people and patrimony. Conclusion. The main distinguishing feature of the social composition of the first rural settlements was the small number of peasants. This was due to the fact that the first settlers practically did not have their own peasants, since they were still quite young and did not own land and estates.