B.V. Nosov (Moscow) “The Decline of the Commonwealth” and the Partitions of Poland in the Social and Historical Thought of the European Countries of the 18th – Early 19th Centuries Preliminary Remarks

The reasons for the divisions of the Commonwealth were, first of all, in the internal political position of the state itself. It was characterized as a political crisis, or anarchy. This situation was the result of the abuse of gentry liberties. At meetings of the Sejm since the second half of the 16th century. Liberum veto power. According to it, if at least one member of the Seimas opposed it, then no decision was made, and the meeting of the Seimas was terminated. Unanimity was the main condition for the adoption of the decision of the Sejm. As a result, most of the diets were disrupted. State administration was characterized by the omnipotence of magnates and gentry and the weakness of royal power in the person of the last king of the Commonwealth, Stanislav August Poniatowski.

The situation was complicated by foreign policy circumstances connected at the beginning of the 18th century. with military operations during the Great Northern War. The Commonwealth became a "visiting yard and tavern" for foreign troops. This situation allowed neighboring states to interfere in its internal affairs.

In 1772 Petersburg, a document was signed on the first division of the Commonwealth between the Russian Empire. Prussia and Austria. East Belarus went to Russia.

An attempt to save the state from destruction was the adoption by the Seimas on May 3, 1791 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth. The constitution abolished the division of the Commonwealth into Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, proclaimed a single state with a single government, a common army and finances. Although the Constitution laid the foundation for the withdrawal of the Commonwealth from the crisis, however, the time for reforming the state had already been lost.

In 1793, the second division of the Commonwealth took place. The central part of the Belarusian lands came under the rule of the Russian Empress Catherine II.

An attempt to preserve the independence of the Commonwealth in the framework of 1772. (before the first partition) was the uprising of 1794. led by a native of Belarus Tadeusz Kosciuszko. He led the uprising in Poland. In the previous period of his life, T. Kosciuszko spent seven years in America, where he actively participated in the struggle of the North American colonies against British colonial rule. He was personally acquainted with the first US President George Washington, was friends with one of the authors of the American "Declaration of Independence" Thomas Jefferson. T. Kosciuszko is a national hero of the USA and Poland, an honorary citizen of France.

The uprising was held under the slogan "Freedom, Integrity, Independence". The patriotic gentry, the bourgeoisie, and the clergy took an active part in it.

In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the uprising was led by Colonel Yakub Yasinsky. Here, an organ for leading the uprising, separate from Poland, was created - the Highest Lithuanian Rada. Under ZMV Kosciuszko to recreate the Commonwealth within 1772. found a response only among the magnates and the gentry ON. In the published document "Polonets wagon" T. Kosciuszko also promised to free those peasants who participated in the uprising from serfdom. As a result, the rebel detachments were replenished with cosiners - peasants armed with scythes. On the territory of Belarus, they accounted for up to one third of the number of participants in the uprising. However, the leaders of the uprising failed to achieve mass support of the population. It was crushed by the royal troops. In 1795 an agreement was signed on the third, final division of the Commonwealth between Russia, Austria, Prussia. Western Belarusian lands were ceded to Russia. The Commonwealth ceased to exist.

Left-bank Ukraine (Ukr. Livoberezhna Ukraine) is the name of the eastern part of Ukraine, located on the left bank along the Dnieper. It consisted of modern Chernihiv, Poltava, part of the Sumy regions, as well as from the eastern parts of the Kyiv and Cherkasy regions. In the east, Left-Bank Ukraine bordered on Sloboda Ukraine, in the south - on the lands of the Zaporozhian Sich.

This is exactly the left bank (highlighted in orange) that the Ukrainian foreman patted

As you can see in the picture (Slobozhanshchina, Donetsk region and Novorossiya. Never entered the cooled hetmanate)

May 14 marked the 230th anniversary of Catherine II's signing of the decree, in which, among other things, the empress ordered: settlements of the inhabitants, each of the villagers to remain in his place and rank, where he was written according to the current latest revision, except for those who have been absent before the state of this decree.

Thus, the free movement of rural residents from place to place was officially prohibited. The peasants were attached to the land, serfdom was legally established in the left-bank part of Little Russia (its right-bank part at that time was part of Poland, serfdom had existed there for a long time).

The anniversary, of course, is not festive. Although - for whom? For example, for modern Ukrainian "national patriots" this is probably a formal celebration. Still would! Such a reason to once again complain about the "Russian tsarist regime" and, in general, about Russia, which, they say, enslaved the Ukrainians!

And they do complain! And not only on the occasion of the anniversary. Arguments about Russia's "historical guilt" before Ukraine for serfdom have become an indispensable subject in the writings of "nationally conscious" authors who call themselves "historians".

Meanwhile, none other than Ukrainian historians (only real ones), ardent Ukrainophiles in their convictions, at one time claimed the exact opposite: it was not the Empress of All Russia who introduced serfdom in Ukraine. This is an unconditional "merit" of the local Cossack foreman. The "merit" of those very hetmans and their associates, who are now often elevated to the rank of "national heroes".

“The life of the Little Russian peasantry since the separation of Little Russia from Poland has been so little clarified that the opinion still prevails that until the end of the eighteenth century. this peasantry enjoyed complete civil freedom, which was lost by a mere decree of May 3 (May 14, according to the new style - Auth.) 1783, - noted, for example, Alexander Lazarevsky. “Meanwhile, a closer study of the subject leads to the opposite results.”

As the scientist pointed out, “with the vastness of power that the Cossack foremen used in Little Russia, it was not worth it for them to make special efforts to subjugate the peasants into subjects, and to become lords themselves from the foreman.”

Another major historian, Nikolai Vasilenko, fully agreed with Lazarevsky, who also believed that serfdom in Left-Bank Ukraine “flowed entirely from Ukrainian social relations, from Ukrainian life, and the Russian government in the 2nd half of the 18th century often had only to approve by its decrees what which, in fact, existed a long time ago already in life.
The outstanding Ukrainian woman historian Alexandra Efimenko wrote about the same. “This whole process,” she remarked about the establishment of serfdom in Ukraine, “was accomplished in a purely factual, and not legal, way, without any interference from state power. The decree of May 3, 1783, from which serfdom is considered in Little Russia, only gave a sanction, and with it, of course, stability, to the existing situation - no more.

“Kazachchina ... so clearly degenerated into a corvée that Catherine II had only to apply the last seal in order to approve the gradually developing serfdom,” Mikhail Drahomanov stated in turn. This prominent public figure and historian emphasized that "the serfdom of 1783 ... the people did not really notice at first, since the foreman of the Cossacks had already prepared everything for him." Moreover, Drahomanov admitted that, despite the mentioned decree, “Catherine II (“the great light - mother”) was very popular among our people, as well as among the intelligentsia.” That is, in their oppressed position, ordinary people did not blame the empress at all.

So who did enslave the Ukrainians?

As you know, during the liberation war of 1648-1654. Polish and Polonized landowners were expelled from Little Russia. The few Orthodox gentry who went over to the side of Bogdan Khmelnitsky retained their estates and land holdings, but not the peasants. There were no serfs left in Lesser Russia reunited with Great Russia. (But they did not disappear anywhere in Right-Bank Ukraine, which remained part of the Commonwealth until the end of the 18th century ... It is also worth mentioning here that serfdom in the Commonwealth was legally finalized by the Third Lithuanian statute back in 1588, i.e. already 61 years BEFORE, in 1649, the Cathedral Code in a much milder form established the indefinite fixing of peasants to the land in Muscovy ... Note. RUSFACT.RU).

However, the enthusiasm for the unification of Russia did not have time to subside at the Pereyaslav Rada, as representatives of the Cossack elders began to send petitions to Moscow, to their new sovereign, for granting them lands. These requests were usually granted.

Also, the hetmans of the reunited Little Russia began to issue universals confirming the right of the Cossack elders to own estates. Initially, it was only about the lands. But, starting from the 1660s, in the hetman's universals, wording about "ordinary obedience" appeared, that is, about various duties that the inhabitants of the possessions granted to the foreman had to perform.

During the hetmanship of Ivan Mazepa, "ordinary obedience" was clarified and detailed. The peasants were obliged to work two days a week for the newly-minted landlords. It should be noted here that the current idol of the Ukrainian “nationally conscious” public, Ivan Mazepa, did a lot to establish serfdom in Little Russia. Moreover, under him, not only the Commonwealth (peasants and the common people in general) began to be converted into citizenship, but also the Cossacks.

“Mazepa was a very educated person for his time,” explained the famous Ukrainian historian Vladimir Antonovich. - But he got his education in Poland. In the soul of the former royal page and courtier, well-known state and social ideals developed, the prototype of which was the gentry of the Commonwealth ... All his efforts were aimed at creating a gentry estate in Little Russia and putting the embassy and the Cossack rabble in relations similar to those existed in Poland between the nobility and the embassy.

It was under Mazepa in Little Russia that a massive distribution of villages was observed in the possession of the Cossack elders. Residents of these settlements, who did not want to work for the owners and tried to leave to live in other places, the hetman ordered "to seize, rob, take away, muzzle with knitting, beat with cues, hang without mercy." There were also frequent cases when land plots were taken away from peasants and ordinary Cossacks, forcing people to sign documents on their sale by force. At the same time, the former owners were allowed to continue to live and work in the same place, but already in the position of subjects.

“Little by little, orders were established in the Hetmanate that were very reminiscent of Poland,” Dmitry Doroshenko, a prominent specialist in the history of Ukraine, described the times of Mazepa. - The place of the former gentry was occupied by the Cossack society, from which its panship or foreman stood out. This panship converted the first free peasants into their subjects, and the further, the more and more this citizenship approached real serfdom.

It is noteworthy that even the ideologist of the Ukrainian movement Vatslav Lypynsky, with all his sympathy for the attempt of Mazepa and the Mazepas to "liberate" Ukraine in 1708-1709, considered the catastrophe that befell them near Poltava as retribution "for past sins, for venality, for the enslavement of the Cossacks."

With the collapse of Mazepinism, the process of enslavement slowed down somewhat. Peter I ordered the new hetman Ivan Skoropadsky "to look diligently and firmly, so that from the colonels and the regimental foreman and from the centurions to the Cossacks and the Commonwealth people there was by no means any burden and insults." But gradually the distribution of the Cossack elders into the possession of the villages and the conversion of the local inhabitants into citizenship resumed on the same scale.

Chernigov Colonel Pavel Polubotok (another current “national hero”) was especially zealous, having managed to transfer many of Mazepa’s confiscated possessions to himself.
To suppress the abuses of the foreman, the emperor, by his decree, established the Little Russian Collegium, whose task was to manage the region (at first, together with the hetman). An investigation has begun. Polubotok was behind bars. At least some of the Cossacks who were illegally converted to citizenship were given back their former rights. The process of distribution of estates again slowed down, but did not stop completely.

The general investigation of the phenomena, carried out in 1729-1730. (already under the new hetman - Daniil Apostol), established that in all of Little Russia at that time only a little more than a third of peasant households remained free. The rest (almost two-thirds!) fell into the allegiance of the Cossack officers. And after all, only eighty years have passed since the War of Independence, which completely eliminated such citizenship.

And the distribution of estates continued. It slowed down again only after the death of the Apostle in 1734 and the temporary liquidation of the hetmanship. In 1742, a special Commission of Economy was even created, whose duty was to protect free peasants and their property.

For the Cossack foreman, this was a heavy blow. The lands that were under the jurisdiction of the state institution could not be seized with impunity. Under the threat were the "rights and liberties of the Cossacks", by which the foreman understood only his own right to uncontrollably rob his own people. But this did not last long.

In 1750, the Economy Commission was liquidated. Hetmanship was restored. And the next hetman - Kirill Razumovsky - immediately resumed the practice of distributing estates (primarily, of course, to his relatives). Not only villages, but also towns were already being distributed, which is why the burghers began to fall into the number of subjects along with the peasants, which was considered obvious lawlessness.

So, for example, in January 1752, the hetman granted his brother-in-law Efim Daragan Boryspil “with all the proper Commonwealth people to that place” to “perpetual possession”.

After such "grants", the then Empress Elizabeth found it necessary to intervene. “It is certainly not unknown,” she declared, “that the hetman distributes entire cities, as well as villages, into eternal and hereditary possession of himself without a decree, which is why the number of Cossacks decreases, for better supervision and suppression of all such disorders, appoint a minister from the generals under the hetman, with the knowledge and whose advice the hetman would act in all local affairs.

The elder's appetites were somewhat moderated. However, not much. And when, after the resignation of Razumovsky in 1764, they summed up his management, it turned out that there were a meager number of free households in Little Russia.

True, the peasants who fell into citizenship, according to the law, still had the right to move from the estates seized by the foreman. Free passages were banned on the initiative of the Cossack foreman by the General Military Chancellery in 1739. But the central government in 1742 canceled this ban (by the way, in the same 1742, by decree of Empress Elizabeth, Great Russian officials in Little Russia were forbidden to enslave Little Russian peasants). Then the foreman did everything possible so that the right to free passage turned into an empty formality.

A procedure was established according to which those wishing to move to another place of residence were obliged to leave all their property to the owner of the former estate. So that the peasants did not leave secretly, they were forbidden to cross without the written permission of such an owner. In fact, this was already serfdom. And although the peasants could complain to the authorities in the event of an unreasonable refusal of the landowner to give permission to move, it goes without saying that the wealthy owner had much more ways to come to an agreement with local officials than the peasants who had been skinned by him.

As you can see, serfdom had only to be fixed by law. And issuing her decree in 1783 at the urgent request of the Cossack foreman, Catherine II, indeed, only applied the last seal to what already existed.

It is worth noting that, asking the Empress for this decree, the newly-minted landlords motivated their desire with economic considerations. They declared that as long as the peasants retained at least an illusory hope of a free transition, they would be lazy, relying not on their work, but on finding a better place where they could not pay taxes and not serve their service.

Probably, the laziness of some peasants actually took place. However, it is also undoubted that the free transition made it possible for the rural workers to evade the abuses of the landlords. Now there was no such possibility. However, it must be repeated: she was gone long before 1783.

One more thing. The decree of the empress attached the peasants to the land, but did not yet mean complete slavery. All the horrors of serfdom known to us today from literature lie on the conscience of the landowners themselves. And in Little Russia, the majority of landowners were of local, Little Russian origin.

And a well-known Ukrainian historian from Galicia, Stepan Tomashivsky, is a thousand times right, who at the beginning of the 20th century emphasized: “In vain, the enslavement of the peasants in 1783 is called the shackles in which Moscow shackled us. These shackles were made to the last carnation by the sons of Ukraine themselves.”

Lands of the former Kievan Rus (highlighted in red)

It is noticeable that in the days of Ancient Russia, Ukraine was only the third lot in relation to Russia and Belarus. This is despite the fact that Rurik came and captured Kyiv from the north from Novgorod (that is, from the territory of modern Russia). As you know, he came with Russia

... And they came and sat the eldest, Rurik, in Novgorod, and the other, Sineus, on Beloozero, and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. And from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed. The Novgorodians are those people from the Varangian family, and before that they were Slovenes. Two years later, Sineus and his brother Truvor died. And one Rurik took all power, and began to distribute cities to his men - Polotsk to that, Rostov to that, Beloozero to another. The Varangians in these cities are nakhodniki, and the indigenous population in Novgorod is Slovene, in Polotsk - Krivichi, in Rostov - Merya, in Beloozero - all, in Murom - Murom, and Rurik ruled over all of them.

But the Galicians, as you know, have their own truth, which they were taught in the Austro-Hungarian schools.
And to this day they consider all the wars that Russia has won to be "Peremoga, like the Muscovites stole from them"

So Russia is Galician, and Muscovites are Ugro-Finnish, and it is not Russia that needs to be afraid of Europe, but Ugro-Fin.

But Europe is not the Galicians, it remembers at the genetic level how the Huns fled from it Into the Black Sea steppes, who killed the Hungarian king Bela IV, who took Paris and captured Berlin four times. not a sleazy tribe of Galicians. Who are trying to convince that RUSSIA, TERRIBLE FOR EUROPE, is not RUSSIA, but THEY, THE SONS OF GALICIA. And Russia, it's only So, some kind of Ugrofin tribe. You shouldn't even pay attention to it. But Europe still remembers who is who! Only a fool wants to get involved with Russia, who does not understand how this could end. Europe knows this for itself, And does not want to repeat old mistakes.

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The aggravation of intra-class contradictions, the desire for expansion to the East, as well as failures in the Livonian War of 1558–1583. against Russia led to the unification of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Poland under the Union of Lublin in 1569 into one state - the Commonwealth. By this time, about 1.8 million people lived in Belarus. On the Belarusian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 162 thousand feudal lords, or 9% of the population, had their possessions. They accounted for 46% of all feudal lords of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (about 350 thousand) [History of the Belarusian SSR. - M., 1972. - T. 1. - S. 195; Narysy gictory of Belarus. - Minsk, 1994. - Part I. - P. 143]. The largest land holdings belonged to the state represented by the Grand Duke.

In the middle of the XVI century. The Grand Duke and his administration took certain measures to develop new areas in agriculture. In particular, the financial department adopted the Charter, according to which it was recommended to keep the peasants on the land, build roads, mills, develop forestry work, and develop useful ores. At the same time, the landowner became not only a tax collector, but also a trader in agricultural and forestry products. In private statutes of the 60s of the XVI century. also contained regulations to improve the efficiency of farming, the rational use of large gardens that had industrial significance [Chigrynov, P. G. Essays on the history of Belarus: textbook. allowance / P. G. Chigrinov. - Minsk: Higher School, 2000. - P. 166].

In the middle of the XVI - the first half of the XVII century. serfdom actually took shape in the ON. The peasantry finally turned into a disenfranchised class of feudal society. Adopted in 1588, the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania doubled the period of searching for fugitive peasants to 20 years [Statute of Vyalikaga of the Principality of Lithuania, 1588. Texts. Davednik. Kamentary. - Minsk, 1989. - Razdz. XII. – Art. thirteen]. According to its norms, those who had lived on the lands of the feudal lords for 10 years or more were included in the category of "dissimilar" peasants. Thus, the ten-year residence of a free man on the land of the owner made him a "hard stepfather." Serfdom was legally established by these legislative acts. In addition, the provisions of the Statute of 1588 allowed the feudal lords to punish the peasants at their own discretion: “... it will be a wave for every pan servant of his vodla to judge him with the right to punish” [Ibid. - Razdz. III. – Art. eleven]. The peasant became an object of collateral, purchase and sale both with land and without it. Every year the corvée, chinsh, natural dues increased. In some estates, corvée reached six days a week. The statute of 1588 finally secured the monopoly right to land ownership for the magnates and the gentry: “... I’ll just become a chalavek, not atrymaўshi spearsha hell us, gaspadara, freemen of the gentry, maentkaў i lands of the gentry, niyakim chynam, I can’t buy piles [Ibid. - Razdz. XII. – Art. 26]. Peasants found themselves on the lowest ladder of feudal society. A permanent or temporary owner - pan - could take away the land from the peasant, relocate him to another place, sell him with all his property, land or without it, pledge for a certain amount of money. At the same time, the buyer or creditor was given the full right to judge, punish and even take the life of a peasant.

The development of a deep crisis in the XVII-XVIII centuries. agriculture on the Belarusian lands as part of the Commonwealth was constrained by the preservation of the feudal-serf mode of production. Being the main productive force, the peasantry supported the gentry, the church, the army, grand ducal, feudal lands with their labor and at the same time was subject to heavy duties. The peasantry did not have the necessary amount of tractive power to carry out corvee work, cartage work, and the processing of fixed land allotments. In the east of Belarus, there were 300 horses per 100 peasant households, in the western part - 41 horses and 160 oxen [Dounar-Zapolski, M.V. History of Belarus / M.V. Dounar-Zanolski. - Minsk, 1994. - S. 197]. The area of ​​the average peasant allotment was 1/2 portage (about 10 hectares). The average yield of grain crops at the end of the XVI century. was one to three: for one measure of sown grain, three measures of the crop were harvested.

Numerous devastating wars had an extremely negative impact on the development of agriculture in the Belarusian lands during this period. The peasants had to restore the economy destroyed by the war, to revive again both the lands of the feudal lords and their allotments abandoned during the hostilities.

One of the basic principles of land relations in the XVII - the first half of the XVIII century. was the receipt by the peasant for use from the landowner of a piece of land, for which he performed exorbitantly high duties in favor of the feudal lord. The main of them in this period were corvee, dyaklo and chinsh. In accordance with this division, the peasants were divided into draft and chinsh. The constant duty of the peasants was the delivery of products to the lord's court before Easter and Christmas. Performing duties in the form of corvee, the peasants had to start work at sunrise and finish it after sunset. For absenteeism from work, the peasant must work in the lord's yard for two days, for the second day - four days. A peasant who did not go to work for three days or for six weeks, once a week, must work in the lord's yard all week in shackles [Narysy histori of Belarus. - Minsk, 1994. - Part I. - S. 245].

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the size of peasant duties began to increase significantly. If, for example, in the Korelichsky estate of the Radziwills in 1672, the peasants were serving corvee four days a week from the portage per family (plus one day from the smoke per week), then already in 1746 it increased to 12 man-days per week from dies. In some places, the corvée was 24 man-days per portage. In addition to work directly related to agriculture (plowing, sowing, caring for crops, reaping, haymaking, etc.), the peasants also carried out a number of other duties: they built and repaired the master's yards, roads, bridges, rafted timber, guarded the lord's property, delivered lordly cargoes to cities and ports, performed various services in the hunting of feudal lords, etc. In addition to the chinche rent, the peasants paid an additional 56 types of monetary fees: for the right to produce alcoholic beverages, for the right to have a hand mill, for permission to marry in another volost, etc. The peasantry was the main taxpayer in cash to the state treasury of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the form of a raise (for each smoke). In addition, state peasants paid an additional tax on the maintenance of the grand duke's army, and privately owned peasants - on the maintenance of the magnate army.

By the end of the XVIII century. the number of corvée peasants in the west and in the center of the Belarusian lands reached 70-75% of their total number, in the east cash rent - chinsh - prevailed. At the same time, the weekly corvée of draft peasants, compared with 40–50 years. 18th century increased by 30% and amounted to 10–16 man-days from the draft trail. Approximately the same amount increased the cash dues of the Chinshev peasants [Chigrynov, P. G. Essays on the history of Belarus: textbook. allowance / P. G. Chigrinov. - Minsk: Higher School, 2000. - S. 174].

Unbearable oppression, cruel feudal exploitation, arbitrariness of the gentry and lack of rights of the peasantry had a negative impact on its position and contributed to the intensification in the struggle for their socio-economic rights. The main form of resistance among the peasants was filing complaints to the Grand Duke and feudal lords against the arbitrariness of the local administration, as well as refusing to perform duties, primarily corvée, the escapes of peasants to other estates, to towns and cities, including those outside the GDL - to Russia, the left bank Ukraine. Sometimes peasant uprisings for the rejection of corvee covered vast feudal estates. So, at the end of the XVII century. peasants from the Slonim eldership and the Shklovsky county abandoned corvée and natural service. In 1696, the peasants of the Krichev starostvo, together with the townspeople, took up arms against an armed detachment that was collecting taxes. At the beginning of the XVIII century. Peasants' performances became more frequent in the Slutsk Voivodeship, Dubrovno and Bykhov counties. The largest peasant uprising was the Krichev uprising of 1740–1744.

On the socio-economic life of Belarus in the late 17th - early 18th centuries. Many years of war had an impact, which led to the destruction of productive forces, the ruin of the peasantry, the feudal economy, the decline of trade, and a decrease in the population. During the anti-feudal war of 1648–1651, the wars of the Commonwealth with Russia (1654–1667) and Sweden (1655–1660), there was a sharp decrease in the population in the Belarusian lands of the Commonwealth. Famine, epidemics and diseases caused by wars claimed the lives of about half of the population: out of 2.9 million people, only 1.5 million survived [Popov, L.I. Economic situation in Belarus in the second half of the 17th–18th centuries. / L.P. Popov // Economic history of Belarus: textbook. allowance / ed. prof. V. I. Golubovich. - Minsk: Ecoperspective, 2001. - P. 101].

Feudal anarchy, caused by the fierce struggle of the Belarusian and Lithuanian gentry against the omnipotence of the Sapieha family, for power and influence in the state in 1690–1700, which took on the character of a civil war, had a significant impact on the deterioration of the economic situation of the peasantry. During the years of hostilities, there was a sharp reduction in the area under crops, since more than half of the arable land was empty, as well as the number of cattle, horses, pigs and poultry. At the same time, feudal oppression intensified. At that time, each peasant household accounted for 12–14 different taxes and duties [Ibid. – S. 102].

In the process of restoring the economy destroyed by wars and feudal anarchy, the king, the church, the magnates and the gentry, as the main owners of the land, occupied a leading position. The largest feudal owner was the king of the Commonwealth, whose possessions were called economies and elders. Large landowners-tycoons owned dozens and hundreds of villages, several thousand peasants. Many of them also owned urban settlements [For example, the Radziwills owned Slutsk, Nesvizh, Kopyl, Gresk, Timkovichi, Smorgon]. The property of the middle feudal lords included several villages. The petty gentry owned small plots of land and a small number of peasants. The feudal nobility as a duty mainly used cash dues - chinsh and the expansion of the farm. Many feudal owners temporarily transferred the land of their farms to peasants and transferred them from corvee to chinsh at a rate of 30 to 60 złoty per year per drag.

By the 30s and 40s. 18th century in the west and in the central part of the Belarusian lands of the Commonwealth, farm farms have noticeably expanded and economically strengthened. The peasant economy was gradually restored, primarily due to the plowing of empty land, for the cultivation of which various benefits were introduced for the peasants.

Despite the noticeable economic growth in the agricultural production of Belarus, caused by the revival of agriculture in the post-war period, in general, the economic base of the Belarusian lands, even by the middle of the XVIII century. has not been restored. It did not even reach the pre-war level of the mid-17th century.

From the middle of the XVIII century. noticeable positive changes are taking place in the economic development of Belarus. If in 1717 about 1.5 million people lived in the Belarusian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then in 1791 - more than 3.6 million [Kozlovsky, P. G. Peasants of Belarus in the second half of the 17th–18th centuries. (Based on the materials of magnate estates) / P. G. Kozlovsky. - Minsk, 1969. - S. 25]. By the end of the XVIII century. the rural population exceeded the level of 1648.

In 1766, common BKJI measures of weight, volume and length were introduced. The government of the Commonwealth introduced a single duty, mandatory for everyone, including the gentry and clergy, who had not paid it before, and abolished internal duties.

Due to rising grain prices, the landowners in magnate estates increased their own plowing, including through the development of new lands. New estates were formed. Individual feudal lords, in order to increase the profitability of their possessions, took the path of a radical restructuring of their economy. Some of them liquidated the corvée and replaced it with chinch. Many landlords created industrial enterprises of the manufactory type. On the feudal lands, agricultural technology was improved, the number of livestock increased, and the yield of grain crops increased, which contributed to the expansion of commodity-money relations.

The consequences of destructive wars are also being eliminated in peasant farms. They began to develop empty lands, use cleared forests for arable land and hayfields. The average land allotment of peasants in this period per household was 0.63 voloks (about 13.4 hectares). The pre-war level (the second half of the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries) exceeded the rate of working cattle per peasant household and amounted to 1.6–1.7 teams [One team - two oxen or one horse].

The restoration of agriculture in Belarus after the wars was basically completed by the 1960s. 18th century in the west and in the center, by the 70s. - in the east. Wastelands have been eliminated everywhere. During this period, mixed rent dominated in Belarus. At the same time, cash and labor rent increased, while rent in kind lost its significance more and more. "So, the weekly corvee of draft peasants, which in the west of Belarus in the 40-50s was 8-12 days from the draft portage, increased to 10-16 days by the 70-80s. In the eastern part of Belarus, the corvée was less. About 10% of the peasants did not have their own farms and worked for hire in the master's farms or for wealthy fellow villagers. In addition to the corvée, the peasants performed the work of rafting timber, transporting goods, road repair and construction work. They still remained powerless. Any gentry for minor offenses he could kill, hang or give his peasant for debts to a usurer, etc.

The peasants increasingly responded to the strengthening of feudal oppression by escaping to other feudal estates, refusing to perform their duties, and setting fire to the landowners' buildings. One of the largest uprisings of the peasantry in Belarus was the armed uprising of the peasants in the Krichev starostvo in 1743-1774. Anti-feudal uprisings did not stop in subsequent years. Peasant unrest in the Mozyr district, which began in 1754 and lasted more than 20 years, escalated into an armed war.

According to the Four-Year Diet of 1788-1792 adopted on May 3, 1791. The Constitution of the Commonwealth strengthened the central power, expanded the rights of the bourgeoisie, established state guardianship over the serfs. However, the continued political and socio-economic weakness of the Commonwealth led to its division between Austria, Prussia and Russia in 1772-1795. Belarusian lands, where about 3 million people lived [Narysy gictoryi of Belarus. - Minsk, 1994. - Part I. - P. 267], became part of the Russian Empire. According to the second section of the Commonwealth (1793), the central part of Belarus was transferred to Russia. According to the third section of the Commonwealth in 1795, the western lands of Belarus went to Russia, and the Commonwealth as a state ceased to exist. In Belarus, a territorial-administrative division was carried out according to the Russian model, all-Russian taxes and duties were introduced.