Переписи «выходцев из-за литовского рубежа» в западных уездах России второй половины XVII века

Abstract

This article focuses on the census books of 1666–1678 for the palace districts of Vyazemsky, Belsky, and Dorogobuzhsky counties, which contain information on settlers from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Detailed censuses of Vyazemsky and, especially, Belsky counties (which included data on the intermediate residences of the "emigrants") were compiled from the "countries" of local clergy, peasants, and landowners, at the behest of the Grand Palace, with the purpose of including a description of the households of the defectors. These books allow us to determine that the majority of the settlers came from the Belarusian Dvina and Dnieper regions – the environs and settlements of Vitebsk, Polotsk, Orsha, Ozernya, Usvyat, and Vilnius. It has been established that the period of departure «from beyond the Lithuanian border» covers a long period from the 1610s to the 1670s, with the largest share of departures occurring during the Russo-Polish War of 1654–1667. The author suggests that the data reflect the government's intentions to form palace volosts in the western counties.