Participation of the Volhynian Gentry in the Urbanization Processes of Early Modern Volhynia: On the Problem Definition

Abstract

The article considers scholarly interpretations related to the urbanization process and its periodization, which may be different for Western and Eastern Europe and depend on the peculiarities of the society. The approaches and assessments common in Ukrainian historiography regarding the emergence and evolution of cities and the participation of the gentry in these processes are analyzed. It has been established that most of the city-founding initiatives in the early modern period in Volhynia were related to the activity of the nobility. The stages of founding cities, mutual influences during this process of the city and the village and the importance of the market as a factor that directly revived the new city are considered.In the article, based on the source material of the Volhynian record books of the 16th–17th centuries and previously published documents, several documents that certify the active participation of the gentry in the process of creating cities in the early modern Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) are analyzed. It is discovered that the process of founding a new city by a nobleman was quite a troublesome task and required great effort and maximum assistance, starting from finding a place in their own land for a new city and help in obtaining Magdeburg rights, ending with getting people in there, giving them “freedom” and the internal organization of a city’s life. It has been investigated that various factors could be the motivation for such initiative, such as those related to the external Tatar threat, and personal beliefs, when, according to the source, the locator realized that the functioning of the city would be better for him and his area. It was traced that besieging new cities, the nobles were interested not only in their appearance, but also cared for the population that had to live in them, as evidenced by the privileges granting exemptions from taxes for a long period of time (“freedoms”), which deprived the gentry of a theoretical profit. No less important in this sense was also the organization of economic life in the city and the constant mentioning in the location privileges of the right to hold auctions and fairs.