History through Personality: the Anatomy of one Denunciation

Abstract

In science, including historical science, there is no single and exhaustive definition of the concept of “personality”. The latter is not infrequently interpreted in close relationship with high morality, as something belonging to an elite culture, loaded with positive connotations. At the same time, a more axiologically neutral interpretation of the individual “as a receptacle of the socio-cultural system of his time” (A. Ya. Gurevich), as “an individual in his social quality” (D. V. Panchenko) is also widely used. It is in this vein that the author of the article analyzes the actions of one of the “ordinary personalities” of the beginning of the 18th century — a small Tula industrialist S. D. Evtifyev. The denunciation he wrote to Senator Prince G. I. Volkonsky in 1712 turns out, despite the small volume, to be an extremely capacious document in content. It does not just reveal the mechanisms of avoiding customs taxation or the details of solving interpersonal conflicts, but allows through the actions of individuals mentioned in the source to reveal the social practices and motivations inherent in the Petrine era.