Medieval Russia. Socio-economic system and peasantry

The socio-economic problems of the history of Russia attract great attention to historians. This also applies to the period when, after the devastating Mongol conquest, the country gradually revived by the efforts of the masses and gained strength to liberate from foreign yoke and turn into a powerful power. During the study, a number of problems acquired a discussion character. A lot of acute disagreements among scientists arose on the question of the nature and scale of the stratification of peasants in the 16th century. And on the question of whether the phenomenon is found in the economic life of this time, which can be characterized as the genesis of capitalism.
Other problems, on the contrary, caused little controversy. They were studied, but need additional discussion and critical examination. This includes the question of the role of subseral agriculture in ancient Russia and the time of its replacement by the steam grain system, the connection of the subseral agriculture with the remnants of the primitive communal system, the methods of determining the dominant agricultural systems and, in particular, the conclusions that were obtained as a result of quantitative and qualitative analysis Weeds found in archaeological finds of grain.
Finally, there are problems that were almost not studied, although they are of great importance: the characteristics of the shifts that occurred in agriculture and livestock in the 16th century, the characteristics of commodity production and wage labor in the period preceding the emergence of capitalist relations, etc.
The economic and social development of the country in the XIV - XVI centuries. The closest and most direct way is, on the one hand, with its development in the pre -Mongol period and, on the other hand, in the XVII century. Therefore, we did not have the opportunity to strictly adhere to the chronological boundaries that ourselves set. We must also make a reservation that not all important problems we could illuminate in this book. The allotments, the profitability of the peasant court and the duties that he had to fulfill were considered in two volumes of the "Agrarian History of the North-West of Russia". In the third volume of this publication, the question of the socio-economic reasons for the approval of serfdom in Russia will be considered paramount importance