«Immigrants from Abroad» in the Palace Volosts of the Belsky Uezd of the Second half of the 17th Century

The article is devoted to the migrations between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which accompanied conflicts between the states in the 17^th century. The article presents the results of the study of censuses of 1674 and 1678 of «immigrants from the abroad» in the palace volosts of Belsky uezd. The immigrants were recorded in the six volosts of the uezd on the left bank of the Western Dvina in the basins of its tributaries Mezha, Velesa and Bereza, in the upper reaches of the Dnieper and on the Tudovka river (Volga basin). In total, at least 840 males were identified. The largest number of the «Lithuanian immigrants» lived in Dubrovskaya, Moninskaya and Dneprovskaya volost’s. The place of their exodus is the Belorussian Dvina region (Padzvinne) and Dnieper basin. The most came from near Vitebsk and Polotsk, a smaller proportion came from the neighbourhood of Orsha, Ozernya, Usvyat. The censuses recorded the time of exit «from abroad», which can be divided into pre-war, military and post-war periods. The largest share of exits occurred during the Russian-Polish War of 1654–1667. The peak of crossings dates from 1657–1658. After the war, the number of crossings decreased sharply, but still they continued. Some of the peasants did not immediately move to the Belaya palace lands. Some of them, after leaving the Lithuanian lands, lived "crossing" in other places: Rzhevsky, Toropetsky, Vyazemsky uezds and the Moscow region. The transitions from abroad to the Molodotudskaya palace volost of the uezd of Rzheva Volodimerova was repeatedly recorded. There is a compactness of the settlement in a new place of immigrants from one microregion, including relatives. The census campaigns probably reflect the government's intentions to form the palace volosts in Belsky uezd, inhabited by «Lithuanian immigrants», by analogy with the «Karelian» palace volosts in the Novgorod land and Bezhetsky Verkh.