Folk Principles of the Organization of Cossack Fisheries in the Azov and Caspian Regions

Abstract

The article reveals the folk principles of the organization of fisheries and the worldviews behind them in the Cossack communities of the Azov and Caspian regions in the imperial period of their history. Despite the participation of official structures in organization of industries, they were based on the people’s own ideas about the proper use of natural resources in which human labor was not invested, as well as about their fair distribution. In the first case, in all Cossack troops, with the exception of that of the Ural, there was a gradual transition from the free use of water resources to an equalizing transfer, which took into account only the interests of the Cossack population of the region, and Cossack widows and orphans. In the Ural Cossack army, until the beginning of the 20th century, the ancient principles of using water lands were preserved, the basis of which was the idea of equal opportunities for all participants in the fishery. When distributing the fish catch, the people’s ideas about the collective (communal) share and its symbolic distribution were fundamental, which involved allocating three main “pieces”: to the tsar (in the Urals), to the church and for the commemoration of the dead, as well as to the “disadvantaged” categories of the Cossack population (in the whole army). The Cossack communities also showed extreme concern for the safety of fish resources determining the timing of fishing, types of tools, and introducing multiple prohibitions and regulations. The organization of some types of fishing in the region shares some principles with the military organization of Cossacks.