The study of frontiers as border territories where a special zone of settlement and development existed for a long time, and specific relations, which differed from the old developed territories, were formed, has become an important area of Russian historical science in recent years. Many border territories are characterized by the presence of clashes and interaction with neighboring peoples and states. The study of these territories as frontiers allows us to identify peculiarities of the development of the state, the formation of its territory and borders.
Frontier studies began in America at the turn of the 20th century with the development of the frontier analysis method by the famous American historian T. Turner. His assertion about the struggle between civilization and savagery, which formed the basis of his theory of the formation of the American nation, is not used by Russian scientists. T. Turner's provisions as a theory of a moving boundary, the formation of a special settlement zone for some time, the formation of specific economic, political and social relationships in these territories that differ from the main territory, formed the basis of research. In the second half of the 20th century, this approach began to be used by many researchers, including Russian, especially when studying the history of Siberia. Recently, it has become possible to get acquainted with the works of American historians, such as A. Eskind, M. Khodarkovsky and others, on the history of the Russian frontier. They examined this history from the viewpoint of Russian colonialism, the destruction of small peoples, the imposition of an alien culture and traditions on them. All this makes Russian researchers return to this problem once again and give an objective analysis of Russian history.
At the Department of History and Philosophy, the study of the frontier history of the South and Southeast of Russia in the 16th - first half of the 19th centuries has been carried out since the early 2000s. The work is carried out jointly with scientists from a number of universities of the Russian Federation, including Samara National Research University named after Academician S.P. Korolev, Voronezh State University, Yelets State University named after I.A. Bunin, Belgorod State National Research University, Ufa Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Several national conferences have been held in Kaliningrad, Yelets, Belgorod and Tambov. Based on the research materials, a number of monographs have been published, one of the latest books completing the stage of studying the topic, was the collective monograph "THE SOUTHERN AND SOUTHEASTERN FRONTIER OF RUSSIA IN THE 16TH - 18TH CENTURIES: HISTORY ESSAYS" (Altair Publishing House, Rostov-on-Don. 2024). This is the first fundamental history of the study of the frontier in the European part of Russia that has ever been done in the country.
The monograph examines political, military, social, economic and other aspects related to the advancement of the southern and south-eastern borders of the Russian state and the development of new territories by forming the territory of the state. Researchers also used the idea of the formation of career growth and welfare opportunities for settlers in this area, compared to the original territory of the country, which contributed to the mass migration of the population here. The possibilities of recording fugitives from among serf peasants as service people are traced: riflemen, gunners, Cossacks and even boyar children, who received a land allotment not for the community, but for personal property, like nobles. Some of them became commanders of ten men, commanders of fifty men and commanders of one hundred men, that is, they occupied lower command positions.
Another line of research was devoted to the fate of the service class in the 18th – 19th centuries. They turned into a special category of state peasants, that is, personally free. This process was going on slowly throughout the 18th century – early 19th century.
Mathematical methods of additional indicators of the model were used: the ratio between arable farming and cattle farming in different uyezds (districts); the degree of conformity between bread prices in the towns of the frontier zone and prices in the metropolis. This made it possible to clarify that by the mid-19th century, all uyezds (districts) of the south of Central Russia became part of the metropolitan country. The study of the process of overcoming social specificity of the population of the Tambov section of the southern Russian frontier showed a complete formal alignment of the once specific groups of the frontier population with the population of the "old Moscow lands" in the period between 1851and 1858. For the first time, a study of frontier processes was conducted at the level of a settlement. In particular, for 1,600 settlements of the Tambov province, newly formed in the 17th - mid-19th centuries, the periods of their foundation, the places of eviction of their residents, the social composition of the first settlers of the villages and its changes in the following decades were determined. It was established that by the mid-19th century more than 90% of settlements had a complete socio-economic identity with the old settlements of the metropolitan area. Only some settlements retained a certain specificity of ethnic and religious characteristics, that is, this region ceased to be a border zone and became part of the old developed lands. Thus, the process of gradual development of Russian lands in the south and southeast of the state has been traced, where the same political, legal, economic and religious relations were established as in the old developed territories of the Russian state.
Yuri Mizis
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor
Department of History and Philosophy
Valeri Kanishchev
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor
Department of History and Philosophy
