Reports of the census takers of the second household census of 1678 as a historical source: the Starooskol and Yablonov counties

The article deals with the analysis of the reports of the census takers of 1678, collected from the population of Starooskol and partially Yablonov counties by the scribe G.I. Shishkin and the sub-clerk I. Ral’in during the second household census. This source was found in the Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts (RGADA) as part of the territorial set of the scrolls of the Voronezh Land Tenure Administration (Pomestnyj Prikaz) and is introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Despite the fact that a large number of works have traditionally been focused on the materials of scribe records in general and the census books of the 17th century in particular, the reports of the census takers, with rare exceptions, have not come to the attention of the Russian historiography researchers and have not become the subject of special study. At the same time, in the absence of the surviving summary materials of the household censuses of 1678, the use of such a source is especially relevant in the study of the socio-economic history of a number of regions in the south of Russia and the Belgorod line region, where significant administrative and territorial changes took place in the second half of the 17th century. Within the framework of the conducted study, the form of the census takers’ reports was analyzed, the dynamics of the decrease of the taxable population of the Starooskol county was revealed. Particular attention was paid to checking the completeness of the reports by a comparative method, as well as to assessing the reliability of the source with regard to the potential concealment of households. Finally, it seems promising to study the reports of the census takers from other counties, which in quantities over 100 scrolls are deposited in the funds of the Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts and can provide some other information that is not available for analysis when using the census summaries only.

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