On the Crimean Tatar Tillage and Corn-Trade from the 15th to 18th Century (According to the Written Sources Accounts)

Abstract

The development of agriculture is directly related to the sedentarization of the nomads, primarily concerning the areas inside the Crimean Peninsula. Already in the fifteenth century, there appeared accounts on the practice of agriculture among the nomadic Tatar population in the Northern Black Sea Area. By the sixteenth century, the Crimean Tatar nobility established permanent stationary residences in the peninsula. The Crimean khans pursued an organized policy encouraging settled way of life of the ordinary population. The refusal of nomadism did not mean that the population turned to agriculture. The stationary residence in the Crimea allowed the former nomads to continue cattle-breeding, but with certain corrections, leaving a space for agriculture (the so-called “mobile cattle-breeding”). The account of seventeenth-century sources does not allow the conclusion that the Crimean Tatar economic life in the Crimean Peninsula radically changed by the moment. A certain amount of land resources was now used for farming, and a part of the harvest was exported from the Crimea. However, the sources inform that the Crimean Tatars used to ignore tillage and forced their numerous slaves to do this work. It was only the eighteenth century when, due to the economic and geopolitical changes in the region, agriculture became a really important economic branch among the whole population of the Crimea. Anyway, the development of this branch still was at a low level. The products of agriculture were more in demand inside the peninsula. A part of Crimean grain, primarily wheat, was sold abroad. This export became a significant but never the most important source which filled the khan’s treasury.