SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION AND DYNAMICS OF DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL SETTLEMENTS OF THE REGION OF THE BELGOROD LINE (BY THE MATE RIALS OF THE CENSUS BOOKS OF THE VORONEZH DISTRICT 1646 and 1716)

The article is devoted to the history of the colonization of the historical territory of the Belgorod line on the example of the study of settlements and population. This issue has been increasingly raised in the historiography of recent years. The work is based on a comparative analysis of two fiscal sources: the 1646 census book and the 1716 landrat book. The purpose of the article is to trace the dynamics of the increase or decrease of big and small villages, to analyze the quantitative composition of the local population. The importance of mass sources in the study of economic and social processes is shown separately. It is shown as a percentage how reliable these sources are. The author comes to the conclusion that the development of the vast territories of the Central Chernozem region was largely associated with the construction of military defense structures of the Belgorod line. As a result of comparing two mass sources, namely the census book of 1646 and the landrat book of 1716 of the Voronezh district, one can understand the general specifics of the development of settlements. However, census materials that fulfilled their narrow fiscal goals and objectives are inherently incomplete sources. This is only an auxiliary source, which must be handled with extreme caution.