Non-orthodox Labour in early modern Russia

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Non-orthodox Labour in early modern Russia

Hans-Heinrich Nolte



Abstract

While the Tsardom Russia in Early Modern Times till the 18^th century experienced a constant demographic loss to slavehunters supplying the markets of Muslim Empires, there also was an influx of NonOrthodox Prisoners of War (from Muslim Tatars to Protestant Swedes) and socially weak people from annexed territories. Most Jasak-paying communities remained ethnically Non-Russian, but some Non-Orthodox “foreigners” by being sold or selling themselves left their communities and entered the status of peasants respectively kholops. These mostly were integrated into the Russian Orthodox flock. By prohibiting Orthodox people to serve in NonOrthodox households clergy and government hoped to safeguard laypeople against other creeds, but strengthened the labour-market of Non-Orthodox servants. Muslim estate-owners, Armenian merchants, German doctors, Scottish officers etc. wanted servants in house and garden to care for their households and keep their social standings. Non-Orthodox servants, referred to but not regulated in the basic law of 1649, remained ethnically Non-Russian and confirmed Russia's character as “multi-ethnic Empire”.

Key words: Non-Orthodox servants, Early-Modern Russia, 17^th century, peasants, serfs.



НЕПРАВОСЛАВНЫЙ ТРУД В РОССИИ РАННЕГО НОВОГО ВРЕМЕНИ

Ганс Генрих Нольте

Аннотация. В статье речь идет о статусе неправославных инородцев, находившихся на службе в России в XVII в., но начинается статья с рассмотрения положения православных холопов. Вопросы о крепостном праве в России, формах зависимости, функционировании рынка труда до сих пор остаются дискуссионными в исто - рической науке. Данным очерком автор вносит свой вклад в обсуждение проблемы рабства в России, используя источники религиозного характера, Соборное уложение 1649 г. и др., а также привлекая обширный круг исследований по русской истории. В то время как царская Россия раннего Нового времени до XVIII столетия испытывала постоянные демографические потери от «охотников за рабами», снабжавших рынки мусульманских империй, имел место приток иноверных полоняников (от татар-мусульман до шведов-протестантов) и социально слабых людей с присоединенных территорий. Большинство ясачных общин оставались этнически нерусскими, но некоторые неправославные «инородцы» путем продажи себя покидали свои общины и вступали в статус крестьян и, соответственно, холопов. В основном они были интегрированы в русскую православную паству. Запрещая православным служить в иноверных домах, духовенство и правительство надеялись оградить мирян от других вероисповеданий, но усилили рынок труда иноверцев. Мусульманские землевладельцы, армянские купцы, немецкие врачи, шотландские офицеры и т. д. нуждались в слугах в доме и в саду, чтобы заботиться о своем домашнем хозяйстве и поддерживать их социальное положение. Неправославные служащие, упомянутые, но не имевшие правового статуса в Соборном Уложении 1649 г, оставались этнически нерусскими и подтверждали характер России как «многонациональной Империи».

Ключевые слова: рабы-иноземцы, раннее Новое время в России, XVII век, крестьяне, крепостные.

Introduction

Alessandro Stanziani has shown, that “serfdom as such was never introduced in Russia”, while “forms of dependence were no doubt extreme” and pleaded for looking more at the labour markets [67; 83, p. 158]. This text will concentrate on Non-Orthodox servants, but start with a sketch of Orthodox ones, hoping to add to the discussion on slavery in Russia [97, vol. 2, pp. 1173-1209]. To a large degree using sources from religious history [55] the text also offers a note to the history of ethnic groups in Russia.

The Ulozhenie, the basic law of the Russian Tsardom upon which the estates of the realm agreed in 1649, offers a symbolic picture of society starting with God, going on with the Tsar and ending with the Cossacks on the borders [11, 1985, vol. 3; 35; 46; 80]. A considerable part of the population was Non-Orthodox [56], mentioned in the Ulozhenie but without an own chapter. Especially Muslims in Russia [41] belonged to many social groups and legal statuses, from princes [69] via peasants to jasyry / polonjaniki (Prisoners of War) [52].



Peasants and Kholops

On peasants there is an own chapter [43, pp. 64-68; 46, pp. 173-183; 48]. At the end of a long process, they were `assigned to the soil', but remained personally free. In the 17 <sup>th</sup> century it was not legal to sell them, but the soil might be sold with peasants `fixed' to it (krepostnyye) [50,S.62-67; 79, pp. 63-65]. Their fiscal burden was increased in the Petrine reforms - they not only had to pay head taxes, but also to provide recruits. During the reign of Catherine II most peasants lost their right to appeal directly to the Empress, and their lords gained the right to send them to banishment (katorga). But despite of the tendency to minimize their status Russian peasants kept social agency. A common form of >negotiation< with the noble owners of land was to run away, an extreme form to take part in the rebellions of the peripheries from Don to Jaik. serf slave new time

In 16^th and 17^th centuries Russia the main group of “subaltern people” consisted of indentured servants - kholops, who had to be registered with their IOU (Kabala) in the Kholopej Prikaz [40, p. 113]. Most were servants for a certain, limited time, but there were also kholops by birth. The government, instigated by the Church, promoted the limitation of kholopstvo; § 76 of the Sudebnik of 1555 required from all clerics and advised all lay people not to take interest from other Christians “in order to save the villages from falling empty” [11, 1985, vol. 2, p. 35]. But all legally free people of Russia, high and low nobility, serving people (sluzhilye ljudi) of all ranks, merchants and artisans (posadskie ljudi) as well as peasants and even kholops themselves could own the labour of a kholop, if for certain years or unlimited. The measurement of limited kholopstvo was in years.

Richard Hellie in his fundamental research called kholops `slaves' [28, pp. 82-83]. He used two registers dated 1597 and 1603 comprising 5,575 kholops of whom about two-thirds had sold themselves, 15% were born into kholopstvo and only 148 became kholopy by captivity. In Hellie's words, `most of Muscovy's slaves were natives'. In the cases handled in the Prikaz during the seventeenth century and selected for publication by Iakovlev, only Orthodox people appear, although some names or definitions (like murza, batrak or tatarka polona) hint at non-Orthodox family backgrounds [33, pp. 323-327, 401-414, 496-512; 98]. In the lists on kholops of the first half of the seventeenth century analysed by Panejakh we find `he was a prisoner' given as the reason for giving oneself into kholopstvo, but obviously these were Russians who had been captive in Poland or the South [62, pp. 80-86, 124-125; 63, pp. 513-562].

Since there were special “polonnye knigi” in the Prikaz for POWs of all kinds [87, vol. 4, p. 384 f.] the percentage of prisoners in the servants of Muscovy may only be estimated when these have been researched.

The legal position of kholops was defined by the Ulozhenie in chapter 20 [11, 1985, vol. 3, pp. 75443; 35, pp. 103-117, 309-353]. Their daily labour was without limits, except those the Church had established with Sundays and feasts, daily prayers etc. They were entitled to being fed and married, but the Lord could decide, whom to marry. Kholops were subjects in jurisdiction, admitted to the oath, heard in the Kholopej Prikaz and able to fight successfully against being forced into kholopstvo [33, p. 513-562]. To kill a kholop was judged as murder, but a difference was made: in case he killed his master, he was to be sentenced to death “without mercy” - meaning he or she was to be tortured. A kholop had “honour” and was entitled to 1 Rouble compensation, in case that was hurt; a woman to 2 Roubles. Children of mixed marriages went to the lower status, also children might be sold into time limited kholopstvo by free parents.

To take part in labour was normal for children in Early Modern Times all over Europe [36, 2009, vol. 9, pp. 553-557] and many learned their trades by working with their parents [47, vol. 1, p. 233]. Giving or selling children into service also was common in Europe, but only in regions with bonded labour as in most to the east of the river Elbe and south of the Baltic Sea [77] was it possible to be born into bondage.

Iakovlev found that prices for kholops in Novgorod between 1593 and 1609, from children to adults, varied between one and five roubles [33, pp. 60-65]. Hellie found that the prices varied between four roubles for someone who had learned a white-collar job and two for a beggar. Comparing these prices with the sums they were entitled to receive in case their honour was hurt or the sum of two roubles a year prescribed for the labour of a youngster, it does seem, that the low price for kholops was reflecting the limitations there were for their uses.

In my judgement the term “slaves” for kholops, proposed by Hellie, is misleading. My proposal is to translate kholops in research as “indentured servants”, although that term does not fit for those 15% born into kholopstvo - a small part. If we make differences in the use of terms between research and presentation we might accept though the use of “slavery” in a global presentation of “slaveries” [97, vol. 2, pp. 928931] - in case the differences for instance to plantation-slavery are kept in mind.

In daily life [5; 26] all kholops were protected by the Church. Since all Orthodox Christians were obliged to attend mass on Sundays, keep lent and confess regularly (legally enforced since 1716), nobody was able to evade Church-control easily. Orthodox parishes before Peter I. were small, comprising a couple of hundred men and women. This size made it easier for the priests to notice behaviour. Lords or masters were held responsible for it, that the servants kept Church- rules. The Ulozhenie ruled, that if a female kholop had sex with her master and they had a child, both man and woman were to be sent to the bishop for judgement. As all Christian churches Russian Orthodoxy prohibited sexual intercourse outside of marriage and sanctioned it.

The Domostroi [49] the Russian “Housebook” advised the head of the household to have the servants dressed and fed well, but also ensure obedience - by praising good work and only if necessary by punishing (which might include beating). The head of the household also was advised to lead his wife, children and servants to common prayer every evening, and to go to mass with them on Sundays. Probably a NonOrthodox servant (Tatar or Swede) would have a difficult position in an Orthodox family, and many, like the father of Peter 1^st vice-chancellor Shafirov, a captured Jew from Smolensk, converted to Orthodoxy [32, p. 429 ff.; 91, vol. 1, p. 64].

In Petrine times the status kholop was dissolved [28, pp. 695-701]. In 1704 the Kholopej prikaz was closed [4, S. 3, 117; 87, vol. 4, 2001, p. 184 ff.]. 1713 peasants and kholops - were ordered to pay the same head-tax and to deliver the same number of recruits per persons [56,

S.107 f.]. 1723 the status of kholop was abolished, which meant, that all servants of the nobility within towns and on estates belonged to the status peasants (krest'jane) now. Between 1676 and 1762 the percentage of this status in the population of Russia increased from 80% to 91%, while the percentage of townspeople decreased [47, vol. 1, pp. 116, 129 f.]. 11% fits, if quite roughly, to the percentage Hellie gives for kholops in the pre-Petrine society. The increase of the status “peasants” in the Russian population in the 18^th century was a consequence of the politics of the government and did not indicate economic change to more people working in agriculture. Also the practice to sentence insolvent debtors to forced labour for the creditors till the debt was repaid “za zhiv” (in real life) remained till 1834. Socially close were “workmen”, mostly caught runaway peasants controlled by the police and sometimes rented away to private enterprises, who in 1799 were included in the lowest category of townspeople (meshchane) [73].

Non-Orthodox Servants: Jasyry and others

In Early Modern Times in Russia there lived non-Orthodox [38; 56], especially traditionalist (“heathen”), Muslim [7; 41; 95] but also Western [2; 3; 18] as well as Eastern Christian, and since the 17^th century Buddhist as well as Jewish people in considerable numbers, not only in the peripheries, but also in the centre of the country. Since the 14^th century Tatars had been settled in central Russia [54], and since the 15 ^th century “Germans” - Protestants from Northern Europe - lived in Muscovy. This practical (not theoretical) religious tolerance [36, vol. 9, pp. 687-697] was extensive - there were mosques and medresas, churches and places of sacrifice, Muslim troops and Lutheran officers in Russian ones. Religious and ethnical identities often correlated; Russians were Orthodox, Tatars Muslim, etc. All Non- Russians living in the Tsardom (Russkaja zemlja) were called “foreigners” (inozemcy) [58]. There were Non-Orthodox servants to Orthodox and to Non-Orthodox masters.

Non-Orthodox belonged to many social and legal groups, from princes and wealthy estate- owners to peasants, indentured servants and slaves. But a warrior could not fight at a frontier and care of his farm at the same time, and modern research has shown the amount of work to be done in households [39]. A wealthy or noble family in the Russian society was in need of labour of kinship or of serving people, therefore it bought Russian kholops, children or Non-Orthodox POWs (jasyry, polonjaniki) [52]. Russian as well as Tatar warriors of the Tsar brought prisoners home from campaigns for own uses or for sale. When Orthodox at capture or baptized, the POWs entered the status kholop. When a deal had been concluded between a buyer with a free person indenturing himself, with parents indenturing their children or with the owners of jasyry, the traded individuals were supposed to give a statement of indenture to their masters if they were free people (vol'nye ljudi), or sign a purchase contract (kupchaja) if they were prisoners of war. Everybody in Russia could thus present to the Kholopej Prikaz a deed giving rights to the labour of Orthodox and non-Orthodox persons.

Orthodox mission was supported by the state via exemption from taxes for a period, gifts and sometimes even via giving money. Enforced baptism was prohibited. The state supported mission for religious reasons, only in the 18^th century some understood mission as a step towards integration into Russian ethnicity. Mission against Muslims had little effects [24; 25; 57].

When Peter 1^st invited western experts to serve in Russia 1702 he claimed, that all Christians were tolerated in Russia. This was correct - even if the usage of the Pufendorf-definitions on tolerance - “that We shall not usurp force against the consciences of men and happily admit, that every Christian look for his salvation on his own responsibility... ” was Public Relation [59, Nr. 253,

S.94 f., citation p. 95; 91, vol. 1, pp. 265-267]. Peter by the way might have added Muslims - but since no Western state at that time tolerated Muslims, a reference to Russian practical tolerance against Muslims would not have had advertising effects in the West.

Liberating Christians from slavery was part of the agenda of the state. The Law Code of 1497 prescribed, that a kholop who escaped Tatar capture on own initiative was free [11, vol. 2, p. 61; 80, p. 82]. There was a special ransom-tax with an own chapter in the Ulozhenie for buying captured Orthodox people back [11, vol. 3, p. 97 f.; 29, p. 519]. Russia sent envoys for that job to Kaffa and Bukhara. The ransom-tax united Tsar and people in a common Christian obligation, and legitimized Russian military costs, not only the upkeep of the defence lines (cherty) south of the Oka [5, vol. 2, pp. 284-296] but also the campaigns of Muscovy against Muslim States. Sometimes Russian border-politics served other creeds also, for instance, in 1661 an Indian merchant, enslaved while travelling to Bukhara and sold to Tatars, escaped to a Russian border- post on the Jaik and was sent to the Indian community in Astrakhan [72, p. 134 ff.]. In wars against Muslims the difference between practical tolerance and religious propaganda led to difficulties though, for instance in the campaign against the “Enemy of the Holy Cross and all Christianity”, the Ottoman Empire 1677 ff., when Muslim owners of estates did not arrive in the field and lost their estates [20, 1859, vol. 7, p. 89 f.; 56, p. 60 f.].

Many servants were jasyry, working in households or in rural estates, since there were no plantations in Russia as in the Americas or workhouses like the `bagno' in the Maghreb [16]. In B.A. Grekov's edition of the papers of Bojar B.I. Morozov, politician and entrepreneur in potash, for 1660 we find a claim of an estate-owner, that two Cheremis “after baptism” fled from him and to live “with your peasant[s]” (two names), obviously labour-hands. Morozov answered, that if these were “not tied to my estate” (ne krepki) he might fetch them back [27, 1940, vol. 2, p. 218]. And in A.A. Zimin's edition of the records of the monastery in Volokolamsk we read the last will of the member of the lower nobility (boyar's son)

D. G. Pleshcheev 1558/9, in which he set free “my Kazan and German prisoners, men and women and boys and girls” [99, 1956, vol. 2, pp. 278-281, citation p. 281]. “German” prisoners from the Livonian war also might have been Estonians or Latvians.

Regarding peasants there was a long tradition, that Non-Orthodox noblemen serving the Tsar received an estate (pomest'e) with Orthodox peasants. Tatar noble families with Orthodox peasants lived in Muscovy since the 14^th century [54; 69]. For instance in 1572 in the territory of former Novgorod Velikij Tatars serving Moscow received estates with 13 Russian people, of whom 6 “bobyli” did not have land and obviously were working on the land of the Tatar nobleman (murza) [75, 1909, vol. 2, p. 200]. As late as 1697 the Scottish general Patrick Gordon, a stout Catholic (as the government knew) was allowed to buy a Russian man with a woman and three sons for an estate he had received [66, p. 96].

Pososhkov noted 1712/18, that “not only Tatars, but also quite a lot of Russian people lived in the villages and estates of Tatars doing peasant work” and advised, to take the Russians away and set the Tatars workers free, when baptized. The Muslim nobility then also would accept Christianity, and in the end the “free Tatars” would follow [65, p. 327]. In 1740 Empress Elizabet started a program of wholesale mission in the Volga-region. It failed, most Muslims kept their faith and the government was not able to safeguard civil security in the region, when the old local systems of social control were uprooted. A new separation was ordered: the newly baptized were settled in own villages [57]. Since in the 18^th century the differences between servants and peasants were reduced though and the rule that Orthodox peasants should not work for NonOrthodox estate owners, was better enforced, Muslim lords in Russia in fact lost control over their Orthodox peasants [37]. But they kept control of Muslim serfs and slaves in the Muslim sense of the word.

Regarding kholops very early there were religious conceptions, that Non-Orthodox people should not have Orthodox servants. Already Herberstein noted, that a servant who had run away from him, was not returned with the argument, that someone wanting to convert to Orthodoxy should not have a Catholic master [31, sheet H]. The Muscovy Company was not permitted to have Russian servants in their factories [71, S. 29]. Tsar Fjodr ordered in 1556, that Muslims in the Kasan- region should not have Christian servants [76,

S.396-401]. The Oprichnik Heinrich von Staden reported though, that a foreigner could have Russian servants, as long as he looked to it, that they received lenten food [23, p. 108 f.].

Following the services it had rendered Russia at the peace of Stolbovo 1617, the Muscovy Company asked for allowing to employ Lapps (and not Russians) for their whaling business and received permission [64, pp. 123-128]. In 1628 the Patriarch enforced though old separation-rules [45, p. 140; 46]. In 1643 Orthodox priests complained, that NonOrthodox people bought courtyards in Moscow near Churches and kept Orthodox servants. In 1649 it was fixed legally that `non-baptized foreigners' - >Foreigners< (inozemcy) in the seventeenth century included Muslims, Catholics and Protestants - had to turn to `foreigners of different creeds' to be employed for work in their houses. No Russian was allowed to be in kholopstvo to Non-Orthodox people [11, 1985, vol. 3, p. 220 f.]. The Swedish Commissar Jan de Rodes informed his government 1652 and reported, that the Foreigners found it hard to live “without these people” [12, pp. 58-60, citation p. 58 backside]. Certainly in Russia many common people [51] and parts of the intelligentsia harboured some xenophobia [96, pp. 476-502], but the most obvious reason for these rules was religious.

Of the 150 suburbs (slobody) of Moscow 8 were designated for >foreigners< [1, vol. 4, pp. 182-183; 56, pp. 57-67; 68, pp. 67-74; 78, pp. 225-226]. Tatar noblemen and Westerners in Muscovy, living separately in their suburbs, employed and/or bought Non-Orthodox people [60]. Protestants bought many Tatars and Kalmyks and had them baptized. Already in Cvetaev's collection (of 1888) it was noted, that Turkish boys were bought by Pastor Georg Ochs [14, p. 185]. Jan Strauss reported, that one seaman of the “Adler” - a western built ship for travelling the Volga and the Caspi - in 1669 married a Calvinist Tatar girl in the Dutch Church in Moscow [84,

S.78 f.]. The Protestant Pastor Scharschmid in 1701 proposed to the Franckesche Stiftungen in Halle to “buy Tatar women and children for an orphanage and have them educated...” [90,

S.494] and wrote 1708, that he bought a Kalmyk child from an Italian captain on the Volga-river [22]. Busching reported that the Protestant Communities in Kronstadt 1729/31 judged on cases of adultery and alms [10].

In the province also separation was enforced. When the Russian government commissioned lists of the Tatars in the Astrakhan- region in 1677, it also ordered to control, whether any “unfree Russian baptized people” were among the prisoners and set those free [20, 1859, vol. 7, pp. 267-270, citation p. 270]. But the government had problems defending the Tatars on the Russian side, not only against the Kalmyks, but also against the Cossacks - and when the Astrakhan Voevod demanded, that the Cossacks set the captured Tatars free, they simply answered, that “these were Tatar prisoners” [20, 1867, vol. 10, pp. 148155, citation 149].

According to the religious bias in the rules prince Kaspulat Cherkasskij asked for permission to bring 20 Jasyry from Astrakhan south to Terek, stressing that these were “born as Nagajs and of Muslim creed” [20, 1859, vol. 7, p. 275]. In a statistic of 1678 from the Terekregion both Cossacks and “Cherkas” are given on equal terms - in the settlement of Olshanek for instance there lived 75 Cossacks plus 89 people belonging to them, plus “30 Cherkas, plus children and brothers and all theirs 18” and mentioning a third group: “Russians who live with the Cherkas 13, plus children and brothers and all theirs 12.” As usual, the statistic does only count the men. We may assume that there were more women, which would have to be counted as “theirs” [20, 1875, vol. 9, pp. 219-314, citation 279].

During the constant wars between Lithuania / Poland and Moscow not only Orthodox people (from Belorussia and the Ukraine) but also Catholics, Polish Tatars and Jews were made prisoners. If such people asked to be baptized, they had to be set free, and their masters received 15 roubles as compensation for the price they presumably had paid [11, 1985, vol. 3, p. 221; 86,S.194].

In the continuous fights along the southern frontiers many prisoners were made. The frontiers were moved southward together with the “lines” of defences against the Crimean Tatars. These - similar to so many Portuguese, Dutch, English etc. traders in Africa - were professional Slave- hunters and -traders, who caught Non-Muslim persons to sell them into the Muslim Empires, mostly the Ottoman one [92; 93]. This slave trade went on in the 18 ^th century; F.C. Weber reported, that following 1711 annual slave raids were made, and 1713 in 12,000 Russians were captured [88,

S.124 ff.]. But the trade in jasyry from the South within Muscovy also was considerable, and many captured Muslims were sold to Muslim households in Russia [52]. When Weber also reported, that in the “Tartarsche Slabodde” in St. Peterburg there were more affluent households than in Rome and Paris, without a doubt he reported on the effect of labour from servants [88, p. 462].

The situation in the East of the Empire, in Siberia, was different though. The Moscow administration - 1599 an own “table” for Siberia was installed within the Kazan-Prikaz, and in 1637 the Sibirskij Prikaz was founded [15; 42, pp. 1-19] - prohibited forcing baptism on indigenous people and selling them across the Ourals to Russia proper. It was not legal to own jasyry within Siberia, but also it was not allowed to send baptized persons back to their Non-Orthodox communities. Were these rules implemented in far-off Siberia? 1622 the Patriarch complained, that many Siberian Russians lived with “heathen” women, and even loaned these women to others, when they were off. Others forced kholopstvo on girls and sold them to “Poles, Germans and Tatars” [81, vol. 3, pp. 245-253; citation p. 245]. Many of the indigenous servants, especially women, had been sold by their parents or owners to begin with, and to make such sales unretractable formal baptisms were frequent. The concept of the government was (1644) - to send clergy to serve the Russians and to prohibit, that officials “take foreigners (inozemcov), women and children on their courtyards for themselves, to buy them using force, baptize them and take them to Moscow... in order to save the Siberian land on the Lena from being depopulated” [20, 1946, vol. 2, pp. 264-274].

The attempt of the government to strengthen the cooperation with the Jasak paying communities did not serve the interests of Russian traders and hunters though. The Ulozhenie 1649 ruled against the government and allowed to buy, own and baptize Tatar children in Siberia and send these to Russia, excluding though officials from this trade, while enforcing kholopstvo on Tatars remained forbidden [11, 1985, vol. 3, p. 229 f.]. Anyway, in 1679 Jasak-paying Jakuts complained, that the Voevod of Jakutsk “took daughters and even women of living men for himself in kholopstvo and baptized them” [20, 1859, vol. 7, pp. 273 f., 265]. At the end of the 17^th century, it was quite common for civilian Russians in Siberia to own jasyry, and there also was a trade with them, but state-officials still were not allowed to take part [42, pp. 102-104].

The description of the province Tobol'sk 1784-1785 [85] offers information on geography and climate, post offices and settlements, lakes and rivers, products of agriculture, fishing and hunting, institutions of the Orthodox Church and Muslim creed, numbers, ways of living of the different ethnic groups, history, taxes and tariffs. In the breakdown of the population of the Okrug Tobol'sk of a population of 51,195 persons there are noted 1.013 “people, who live in courtyards” of others (dvorovye ljudi). Quite often they were called “dvorovye”[34]. We might look for Nonorthodox servants in this group, which though is not diversified.

The Bashkir region on both sides of the Oural offers another example for Russian expansion and forced indigenous labour. Pjotr Rytschkow in his description of the Orenburg-territory published 1762, regularly reports on subpeasant groups (Bobyly) and gives the number of working-people in the Wolga-region “who travel the river continuously up and down or catch fish” as one million [74, S. 100]. He writes about ethnic and religious groups and regularly notes former

Orthodox slaves liberated during the Russian advance. But only by chance he offers information on servants, for instance in the report on the end of the Bashkir-uprising 1735-41, that captured women and children were brought to work in Russia [74, S. 60]. But there also were deeds on indentured services between NonOrthodox - a Bashkir nob lemen (Tarkhan) received one from a Cheremis 1706 [17, 1956, vol. 4, p. 21], a Tatar woman gave one 1707 “for housework” [17, 1956, vol. 4, p. 32] and 1711 a Bashkir woman gave her daughter to a Bashkir man to “do all kinds of housework” in his family [17, vol. 4, p. 71].

Or to pass on: 1776 a Russian merchant asked the Empress, whether he may take a Bashkir boy as a servant, whose father had sold him into indenture, because (the rest of) his family did not have anything to live on [17, 1960, vol. 5, p. 542]. 1778/9 two Tatar men and one woman protested against service for the governor for one year to free themselves from an indenture [17, 1960, vol. 5, p. 548]. 1779 the governor prohibited to sell Bashkir children into indentured labour [17, 1960, vol. 5, p. 549]. This decree was in line with the tradition of the politics of the government to protect the ethnical groups in Siberia; but the governor did not address the needs of poor Bashkir people.

To sum this point up: many poor parents or other people from traditionalist, Muslim or Buddhist communities sold themselves or their children; not only to Russians, but also to NonOrthodox.

In the beginning of the 18^th century the fates of Swedish POWs were broadly reported - alone following the battle of Poltava 1709 [70, p. 86] there were 19.000. The anonymous “The new state of Kazan, Astrakhan, Georgia etc. ... published in 1723 in Nurnberg even published a whole collection of letters of Swedish POWs [19]. In the 16^th century POWs in the European system were considered personal booty of the victor, to be kept for ransom, used for labour, sold or killed. During 17^th and 18^th centuries killing was criticized, but killing “in the heat of the battle” still was considered legal [36, 2004, vol. 6, pp. 137-202, especially pp. 184-186]. Status made a difference: Officers were free to live on their own costs on parole, and when their means ran out, they were allowed to learn and use trades to support themselves. For the support of soldiers Sweden twice paid, but when no more money was coming the soldiers had to support themselves by labour, either as labourers or as servants and serfs in Russian estates. A considerable number was sold to serve for the time of the War and to be set free afterwards, as the Dutchman Cornelius le Brun noted for the year 1702 [8] and Friedrich Christian Weber, an envoy from Hannover, described more extensively for 1716 [89, 1723, vol. 1, pp. 163168]. Many reports informed about Swedish Prisoners brought to Siberia. In Tobol'sk the Franckesche Stiftung supported a Swedish school. Some Orthodox youth learned there, but when one young Ukrainian noblemen “wird erwecket” (was influenced by Halle-pietism), he is taken from the school [94, S. 548-600]. As Le Brun wrote, “most to be pitied” were those Swedes sold to “Tatars” and “carried into Slavery” plus those employed at the Works in Peterburg. These received some nourishment “and for the rest have liberty to beg” (See above: H.W. Ludolf: GrammaticaRussica, Oxonii 1696-97, pp. 139 f.). Swedish prisoners who had been captured by Tatars, Kalmyks or Cossacks and were sold as slaves further into Asia, and the Khan of Bukhara bought some Swedish girls to import this >military race< into his domain [89, 1723, vol. 1, p. 223].

The main nourishment-problem of NonOrthodox people in Russia was that the eating taboos differed. Muslims for instance were not allowed to use pork, which was offered cheaply in the winter, when frost made it possible to transport meat from the countryside. On the other side, veal, which a Muslim might eat, was considered “heathen” by many Russians [5, 1937, vol. 1, p. 223; 21]. As noted above, Orthodox communities were small and - in case the priest kept his duties - detection of abuses was probable, as also the constant complaints of the Russian clergy against Latin households who did not provide for Lenten food indicates.

What sources for further research?

The history of servants of different status, but Orthodox religion in Early Modern Russia is researched broadly. Legal and administrative records as well as reports have been researched. Outside of Russia Elena Smolarz, Gleb Kazakov, Andrej Gornostaev and Lisa Hellman have presented new approaches to the Bonn workshop on Asymmetrical Dependencies September 2019 [13].

The history of Non-Orthodox slaves and/or servants, at least looking at it from outside Russia, offers a thread in the rope of Russia's development to an Empire [6; 9; 30; 38; 53]. Members of some Non-orthodox creeds were coopted into the Orthodox elites - Muslim noblemen and traditionalist “best men” from the 14^th to the 17^th century, Protestant merchants and doctors, entrepreneurs and officers 15 ^th to 18^th century, Catholic officers in the 17^th, Baltic German nobility in the 18^th century - to name a few. In case they received a pomest'e they were in need of people working their fields, and in case they kept households in Russian towns they were in need of manual serving labour to lead a life of the upper classes and keep their status. As a rule they were not allowed to have Orthodox servants, therefore they looked for Non-Orthodox. We do not have many data though as to what percentage of the leading groups of the Tsardom and later the Empire were not Orthodox, and yet less on the numbers of their servants.

For further research the “polonnye knigi” of the Kholopej Prikaz and Arab and Tatar sources are desiderata. Research of religious institutions as Muslim khadi's and Christian Churches respectively missions of all kinds, as the Franckesche Stiftungen does seem promising [56]. But also the Archives of the Russian-Orthodox Church should be researched [61]. Are there more [50, S. 125 f.] sources which allow to “let the subaltern speak”, to borrow Gayatri Chakravorty Spivaks famous phrase [82]? In Ordnance-surveys like those from Rychkov rarely we find information's on the lowest group in the society, but deeds and Last Wills are promising, and many were edited in Russian and Soviet times. In Soviet times with the official aim to further the friendship between the ethnic groups of the USSR a number of editions appeared, in which more than governmental rulings were published. Internal family-histories of the nobility of Early Modern Times [59, S. 146-148] have been researched for patronage-systems and should be for servants. Also letters written by noble people in the 18^th century [44] might be used for this aim. Some of the best researched sources for Russia in Early-Modern Times are travel reports, as known.

Conclusions

Hunting and trading slaves from Christian Peasant-countries in Early Modern Times was part of the economy of the peasant-nomad frontier. The number of Christian (Polish, Ukrainian, Russian) people enslaved by Muslim (Tatar, Ottoman) hunters for the markets of the Black Sea between 1500 and 1800 is estimated at 2.4 million [97, vol. 2, p. 788]. The numbers of the forced migrations in the other direction are not yet established. In case nobody paid ransom POW's were kept and traded as slaves, and NonOrthodox children were sold by their parents. Sidestepping here many questions of conversion we put up the thesis, that since a child sold by his parents or a POW in a Russian household could improve his life by accepting baptism, many captured foreigners integrated into the Orthodox and Russian society [65, pp. 320-340].

The government defended the jasak-paying communities in Siberia against wishes to get servants via baptisms with limited success. It supported the Church in the separation between Orthodox servants and Non-Orthodox masters, who then bought or hired Non-Orthodox servants. That way some Tatars and Kalmyk's were integrated into Protestantism, but we may assume, that the number of Muslims integrated into the Muslim societies between Kasimov, Kasan and Astrakhan was more considerable. Although the numbers are unknown, we may put up as thesis, that the politics of religious separation strengthened Non-Orthodox ethnical groups.

Co-opting Non-Orthodox elites [38; 56] had a long tradition in Russia before Peter 1^st. Was that a condition for becoming an Empire [6; 9; 30]? Would Russia's rise to power in early modern times have happened without Tatar, Dutch or German specialists on step-warfare, oceanshipbuilding or science in the period of Academies? Or, as Peter put it 1702, without inviting “.. .skilled people not only for the military, but also for other fine sciences useful for the development of a state.” [59, S. 95]? Many came to Russia and stayed there.

At least these foreigners and their servants stabilised Russian religious tolerance and diversity, which put it into the global row of Empires with a dominant state-religion but practical tolerance of not all, but some other creeds. In this regard

Chinese, Moghul and Ottoman Empires had similarities. The “Holy Roman Empire” though only learned practical tolerance in a century of religious wars till 1648. But it started theorizing а la Pufendorf [55].



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