THE PROBLEM OF PROPERTY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE OWNER PEASANTS OF RUSSIA XVIII - FIRST HALF OF XIX CENTURIES

Abstract

The problem of the correlation of the concept of «property» (or «private property») with the situation in Russia in the pre-reform period is insufficiently studied in historiography. There is no definite opinion about the time of the appearance of this concept in the socio-political life of the Russian Empire, about what was considered movable and immovable property (especially in the countryside) then, especially since about the middle of the XVIII century, how the owner (landowner) peasantry was perceived in legislation and in practice in this context – as movable or immovable property of landowners-nobles, whether the owner peasants themselves at that time had rights to movable or immovable property. To study the problem, the author draws on numerous materials of noble projects for solving the peasant question, published by him in a number of collections of documents, as well as data on legislation, memoirs, etc. At the same time, only a part of them is directly used in the study itself. The materials of pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern Russian historiography, as well as some studies of foreign historians related to this issue, are drawn. As a result of the analysis of sources, literature and materials of his own research, the author first raises questions, offering in some cases certain intermediate solutions, drawing attention to the need for historians to develop a certain consensus on the use of certain concepts in this context, since the materials of legislation and its implementation in the practical life of the prereform time allow for different interpretations. The work is in a certain sense a continuation of the author's research on the main components of serfdom in Russia in the last 1.5 centuries before the peasant reform of 1861.