Libmonster ID: BY-3031
Author(s) of the publication: V. M. KULAKOVSKY

Minsk. Nauka i Tekhnika Publishing House. 1975. 248 p. Circulation 2300. Price 1 rub. 47 kopecks.

The history of the cities of our country in the era of feudalism is devoted to many studies written both in pre-revolutionary and Soviet times. But, despite this, a number of problems of their development remain insufficiently covered. This applies primarily to the cities of those territories that were once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in particular, the cities of Belarus).

Many historians of the noble-bourgeois camp were interested in the feudal cities of Belarus (V. B. Antonovich, M. F. Vladimirsky-Budanov, A. F. Voronin, A. S. Grushevsky, etc.). Some of them, adhering to the theory of the decline of cities, associated it with the replacement of the Veche system by Magdeburg law, the enslavement of citizens by feudal lords, the offensive of Catholicism on Orthodoxy; others they paid attention only to issues of religious struggle. Soviet historians based on the analysis of general patterns and features of the development of the feudal formation created works in which they tried to characterize the history of feudal cities in a new way. In the works of V. I. Picheta, A.M. Karpachev, Z. Y. Kopyssky, V. I. Meleshko, A. P. Ignatenko and others, various aspects of the history of Belarusian cities are studied on the basis of the relationship between their social history and economic development.

But, unfortunately, both those and other historians paid little attention to private cities. There are studies by A. I. Baranovich about Ukrainian cities, P. P. Smirnov - about Russian cities, but only some brief information or comments about Belarusian private-owning cities of the feudal era are found in the works of I. I. Lappo, M. K. Lubavsky, A. S. Grushevsky. Scientists of People's Poland (z. Kuleyevskaya-Topolskaya, S. Pazyra, T. Opas) in a number of works consider certain issues related to the Polish private city of the XVI-XVII centuries. Their works are of undoubted interest, especially in the comparative-historical sense. Therefore, the monograph of Doctor of Historical Sciences A. P. Gritskevich, which examines the socio-economic development of the cities of Belarus that belonged to magnates and accounted for more than 40% of the Belarusian cities of that time, is perceived with particular interest. When writing it, the author used a large number of different sources, primarily archival documents.

Focusing on the emergence of private-owned cities, A. P. Gritskevich emphasizes that feudal lords were interested in creating and developing urban-type settlements in their possessions, since they received taxes, trade duties, various fees from residents, and handicrafts. Cities became military strongholds for them. Immediately, the author notes that the feudal lords enjoyed the right to establish urban settlements until the end of the XVIII century, but for some reason they do not name a single city founded in the XVI-XVIII centuries.

A. P. Gritskevich points out the difficulties that arise when establishing the boundary between the actual cities and the so-called towns. He writes that in his work "to distinguish a city from a small town, the criterion of population of an urban settlement was adopted, taken by Z. Kuleyevskaya-Topolskaya, Z. Y. Kopyssky and A.M. Karpachev

page 157

(300 smokes), taking into account the administrative and political significance of an urban settlement (centers of municipalities or large latifundia, ordinaries)", and here he also makes a reservation: "However, in relation to private-owned cities, it is impossible to apply such a criterion as urban self-government, since not all private-owned cities (even large ones) had self-government" (p. 37). Without objecting in principle to these provisions, it is impossible not to notice that they are not quite complete. Calculating the number of privately owned cities in Belarus, the author gives the figure of 17 (40% of the total number of 42) for the first half of the XVII century, and 25 (49% of the total number of 51) for the second half of the XVII - XVIII centuries.: "At the same time, 4 cities that received legal status (Kholopenichi, Chashniki, Lepel and Stvolovichi) can be considered as cities conditionally, since they were administrative centers for a short time" (p. 39). On the basis of this statement, the reader is entitled to conclude that the main difference between a city and a shtetl is not population, but administrative and political significance. It is only after reading the material on the development of handicrafts in private-owned cities that it becomes clear that the difference between a city and a shtetl is not only in the number of people and its administrative significance, but also in the level of economic development.

The author pays a lot of attention to such issues as land use in cities, and legal issues in particular. It shows that private cities were the centers of magnate fiefdoms. They received their land from the land fund of these fiefdoms. The community received land for "eternal times", but the feudal lord remained its owner. A. P. Gritskevich connects the question of land use (and not without reason) with the question of the formation of cities. He believes that "urban settlements, as a rule, were not created from scratch, but grew out of existing settlements on the developed and inhabited territory" (p. 44). This conclusion is confirmed by the history of the Beshenkovichs, who grew up from the village that belonged to them in 1490-1505. Not wanting to admit that the other part of the cities became privately owned due to the seizure of their feudal lords or the transfer of gifts to Lithuanian princes and Polish kings, the author makes a not entirely clear statement: "Part of the private cities of the XVI-XVIII centuries was preserved (!) on the territory of the former Old Russian cities (Turov, Zaslavl, Kopys, Slutsk, Kletsk, Kopyl, Bykhov)" (p.45).

The book shows that the main element of urban territory in private-owned cities was allocated for development areas, townspeople's estates, streets, and a shopping area. Separately, the city was provided with vegetable gardens, fields, meadows, pastures, and forests that were located outside the settlement, but on city land. Often the land was allocated for fields and vegetable gardens and within the city limits. Philistines who lived in a privately owned city enjoyed the right to own land plots. The nobles and the church had the same rights, but all the land remained the property of the feudal lord. The city, therefore, was, as the author concludes, as if one jurisdic, which was divided into several independent ones. In private cities, there were also castle yurisdiks. Burghers who lived in monastic and ecclesiastical yurisdiks performed their duties for the benefit of their owners (and not the city), as well as the magnate. In the 18th century, there was also some growth in the gentry jurisdicts. In conclusion, A. P. Gritskevich concludes (which, by the way, is not a direct consequence of the above) that since the magnate could always regulate the growth of gentry and spiritual yurisdicas, in the private - owning cities of Belarus "there was no factor that significantly hindered the development of social and economic life-the dominance of feudal yurisdicas" (p.57).

The monograph focuses on the study of the economic development of privately owned cities. Considering the crafts of Slutsk, Kletsk, Nesvizh, Kopys, Kopyl, Shklov in the XVI-first half of the XVII century, the author divides these cities by the number of professions into two types (medium and small). The largest number of professions were such types of crafts as woodworking, mineral processing, construction, metalworking and weapons fishing, food production, leather and fur production. Counting the number of professions makes it possible for A. P. Gritskevich to conclude that craft production in private-owned cities noticeably lagged behind the development of crafts in Korolev-

page 158

in Russian cities (123 professions against 200). In the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries, the number of professions increases compared to the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries (228 versus 123). Most of the artisans in this period were associated with the market, working to meet the needs of the urban as well as rural population. But the inconsistent and self-serving policy of the magnates in relation to the cities hindered the development of crafts and trade in them. It should also be noted that the number of handicraft professions can not be an indicator of the level of development of crafts in the city. It also depended on the number of artisans, their connection with the market, the volume of their products, and the quality of these products.

Handicraft production in private-owned cities, as in the royal ones, developed within the framework of a guild organization. Listing the number of workshops in different cities, describing their origin, composition, charters, shop foreman and her rights, the author concludes that craft production in private-owned cities was regulated by the decisions of the magnate.

Analyzing the development of trade in private-owned cities, A. P. Gritskevich comes to the conclusion that the trade policy of magnates was contradictory: on the one hand, in order to get more income, they patronized trade; on the other hand, by setting duties on imported goods at their own will and collecting payments for travel through their possessions, they created obstacles to the development of trade. The arbitrariness of the magnates, the weakness of the central government hindered the development of trade relations between the cities of Belarus, as well as with the cities of other parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and neighboring countries. Nevertheless, according to A. P. Gritskevich, such connections were still being established: merchants of private-owned cities brought their goods to Russia, Ukraine, Poland and other countries, and Russian, Ukrainian and Polish merchants came to the cities of Belarus. But, unfortunately, the author confines himself to stating the existence of economic ties between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, without confirming this conclusion with facts.

A. P. Gritskevich devotes a lot of time to the study of the question of the management of private cities. It shows that the highest power in the city, which belonged to the magnate - owner of the city, was approaching absolute. Magnates even had the right to sentence their subjects to death. Some of the cities of Belarus that belonged to certain feudal lords (Slutsk, Nesvizh, Kaidany, Birzhi, Lyubcha, Ushachi, etc.) enjoyed Magdeburg rights, but the magistrate himself obeyed the instructions of the owner of the city and its administration. Unfortunately, even here, not all of the author's conclusions are supported by actual material, as a result of which some of them are inconclusive, such as:: "On the whole, the magistrates of the privately owned cities of Belarus and Lithuania enjoyed greater rights than the municipal self-governing bodies of the royal cities (this is especially evident in the examples of the "gentry" magistrates, as the magnates themselves called them, of the cities of Nesvizh and Slutsk), but at the same time they were under the strict control of the city owner and his administration " (p. 200). It should be noted that in other places of the AP, too. Gritskevich talks about royal cities in general, without giving specific facts or even naming these cities.

The book thoroughly examines the fortifications of Slutsk, Nesvizh, Stary Bykhov, Mir, and Shklov, and emphasizes that all Belarusian private-owning cities, as a rule, had fortifications of various types, and that they "played a certain, sometimes very significant from a military point of view, role in carrying out the class policy of the feudal lords of Belarus and Lithuania" (p. 217).. Private cities were administrative and economic centers of latifundia and "strongholds of military power of magnates in the state, bases for conducting internecine wars, strongholds of separatist aspirations of magnates" (p. 247). They, as the author notes, "were one of the organic components in the development of the feudal society of Belarus, had a certain impact on the socio - economic and political life of the country" (p.242).

When evaluating the monograph positively, it should be noted that not all sections in it completely exhaust the issues that the author concerns. Thus, the study of trade in private-owned cities is limited only to stationary (shop) trade; fairs and auctions, as well as the participation of the urban population and transit and foreign trade.

page 159

A. P. Gritskevich only mentioned the appearance of magnate manufactories in the eighteenth century, but did not devote a single paragraph to them, thus refusing to study the prerequisites for the emergence of capitalist relations. We should also not ignore the occupation of urban residents in agriculture.

Despite the presence of some shortcomings and controversial provisions in the book, it significantly adds to our understanding of the history of feudal cities in Eastern Europe, revealing the specific features of the development of private cities. Belarus of the XVI-XVIII centuries.

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V. M. KULAKOVSKY, A. P. GRITSKEVICH. PRIVATE CITIES OF BELARUS IN THE XVI-XVIII CENTURIES // Minsk: Belarusian Electronic Library (BIBLIOTEKA.BY). Updated: 20.01.2025. URL: https://biblioteka.by/m/articles/view/A-P-GRITSKEVICH-PRIVATE-CITIES-OF-BELARUS-IN-THE-XVI-XVIII-CENTURIES (date of access: 10.02.2025).

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