Hierarchies of the Frontier: Power Practices in the Colonized Urals and Trans-Urals (16th - 18th Century)

• In Event: Lensing Rus', Muscovite, and Early Imperial Russian Hierarchies through Memory Studies

Abstract

The presentation will attempt to identify the main ways of organizing power hierarchies in the vast region of the Urals and the Trans-Urals from the late 16th century (the emergence of the Stroganov latifundia in the Kama region) to the early 18th century. This region was characterized by a complex ethnic and confessional composition, with local elites that predated the arrival of the Moscow state and maintained intricate relations with Muscovite authorities. Drawing on chronicles and administrative documents of the period, as well as the works of contemporary scholars in ethnic and estate history, I aim to highlight specific practices of the central government that combined efforts to unify forms of rule with attempts to transform elements of the regional diversity — Slavic, Finno-Ugric, and Turkic groups — into ‘quasi-estates’, each assigned a distinct ‘service’ within the framework of the emerging empire.

Author

• Aleksey Kamenskikh, Johannes Gutenberg-U of Mainz (Germany)