About the Place of the Tatar Aristo­cracy in the Structure of Government of the Mountain Side (Sviyazhsk Uyezd) from the second half of the sixteenth to the early seventeenth century

Abstract

Research objectives: To study the role of the Tatar nobility in the management of a historical region, Gornaya storona, on the right bank of the Volga in the Kazan Khanate and later in the Sviyazhsky district. Research materials: The study is based on new published sources, first and foremost being the text of the charter granted to the princes Temey and Ishey. This is the only known charter of the Sviyazhsky district. Results and novelty of the research: The author compared Temey’s charter with the charters granted to the Tatar princes of Meshchera (the so-called Mordovian princes) and reached the conclusion that the Sviyazh princes retained their former administrative functions of the beks of the Horde. At the same time, the princes and the district administration were given separate powers to manage certain groups of the population. The Russian administration ruled the so-called Chuvash volosts, while the Tatar aristocracy ruled the so-called Tatar hundreds. The full text of the charter contains certain information about Temey’s father, Prince Kochak. The author was able to identify the names of the last rulers of the Bekbulatov hundred and the features of the internal administrative division of the Sviyazhsky district. The hundreds of Prince Ishey and Prince Temey were once a single administrative region, that is, the Baryshev volost. The author found information about the participation of the inhabitants of the so-called Tatar hundreds in the Yenaleevsky uprising of 1615–1616 and identified the names of the uprising’s local leaders who came from the ruling princely families. Also, the author carried out a genetic analysis of the Y-chro­mosome of the descendants of princes Ishey and Temey in the male line, known from official documents. The results of the study confirmed (with a high degree of probability) the reliability of the evidence in the charter that Ishey and Temey were cousins.