258 {perepisnye knigi) the increase in population which was believed to have occurred since 1678. Friedrich Christian von Weber, the Hannoverian resident at St. Petersburg from1714 to 1719, wrote that: solche Anladen fordert man nun von einem jeglichen Dorffe nach der Zahl derer Höfe, wie sie in dem Visitations-Inventario determinirt ist. Biss an das 1710te Jahr bediente man sich dazu derer Register welche im Jahr 1679 unter Regierung des Czaren Fedor Alexewitz waren verfertiget worden. Nachdem man aber considerirte, dass sich die Einwohner seitselbiger Zeit mercklich gemehret haben musten, wurde in obbemeldtem Jahre eine Commission geordnet, welche das gantze Land nochmals visitiren, und die Zahl derer Bauer-Höfe eines jeglichen Dorffs mit beygefiigten Nahmen nicht allein des Hauswirths, sondern auch seiner gantzen Familie notiren musten. The homestead census of 1710 failed, however, to reveal the increase in population which, according to von Weber, had been expected. On the contrary, a comparison of the figures for 1678 and 1710 revealed that the number of homesteads had diminished by nearly twenty percent. This decline did not, however, reflect a decrease in population.^"- Instead, the low totals of the 1710 census may be explained partly by the fact that the peasants, under an increased burden of taxation and other obligations to the state, had in large numbers abandoned their homesteads, and partly by the fact that tens of thousands of peasants had been commandeered as soldiers and as laborers for the shipyards and for the building of St. Petersburg.^^^ In addition, fewer farms were registered in 1710 because of the constant attempts on the part of estate owners to avoid the stipulated collection of taxes. This tendency was entirely understandable in view of the fact that, as the size and number of state imposts grew, less and less was left over for the landlord to extract from the peasants for his own use. In this situation, the homestead, in its capacity as a cameral unit, offered great opportunities for tax evasion. For example, it was possible to transform three or four farms into one tax unit simply by moving them together within the confines of one enclosure. It even Friedrich Christian von Weber, Das veranderte Russland (Frankfurt, 1721), 43. Miliukov, 201—202. I. A. Bulygin, Monastyrskie krest'iane Rossii v pervoi chetverti XVIII veka (Moscow, 1977), 56—57, states that the male peasant population subject to the monasteries increased steadily during this period. According to Bulygin, this group increased by 11 “/o during the first two decades of the eighteenth century and accounted for somewhat more than O^/o of the entire male population. It is possible that this tendency is valid for the other categories of peasants, as well, and that the period may thus be characterized as one of population growth, rather than of population decline as posited by Pavel Miliukov. M. Klochkov, Naselenie Rossii pri Petre Velikom po perepisiam logo vremeni (St. Petersburg, 1911), 254; A. L. Shapiro, ‘Krest’ane,” Ocherki (1954), 168; P. I. Liashchenko, Istoriia narodnogo khoziaistva SSSR (3 v., Moscow, 1956), I, 360. 170 170
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