Safeguards for civil interests in the diplomatic correspondence of Crimean khans (on the base of yarlighs given to monarchs of Russia and Polish-Lithuanian states)

The article is an analysis of legal safeguards for civil interests in the foreign policy acts of the Crimean Khanate of 16th–18th cc. The source base for research includes yarlighs sent by khans from Giray dynasty to rulers of Moscow State and Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania. Author paid attention to regulations related to protection of trade between these states and legal safeguards for merchants and their property. Such safeguards includes as general rules of free trade with payment minimal taxes and duties as well as rights of traders to go to law in case of breach of their interests and encroachments on their money, property, etc. Khans pledged themselves to restore their rights by return of unlawful taxes and duties and to call offenders to account although there were high officials. Sometimes regulations in yarlighs concerned personal private interests of khans and sometimes there were decisions on the property of died persons. Some regulations in this field were inherited by Girays from khans of the Golden Horde, but we could suppose that substantial part of such rules could be adopted from reciprocal acts of Russian and Polish-Lithuanian monarchs. At the same time we should not consider that such safeguards were determined by protection of interests of Crimean merchants: in most cases there was care of khans’ treasury and more than one such safeguards were instruments to reach diplomatic and political goals in the relations with Moscow or Krakow.