THE ECONOMIC COMMENTARIES ON THE LAND DIVISION IN THE CRIMEA IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH AND THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURIES

Following the Crimea's joining Russia and the distribution of lands in the peninsula, the general land division started. There are economic commentaries (ekonomicheskie primechaniia) by Crimean uezds (counties) which survived to reflect two stages of the land division and surveys. The cameral economic commentaries for the Perekop uezd from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century provide information on the general land division of the former Crimean khanate's territory during the initial stage of the country's development by the migrants and Russian land-owners. The economic commentaries on the Feodosiia uezd in the 1830s documented the already developed structure of land-use and land-ownership, the environmental conditions, and the demographic resources fifty years after the Crimea's unification with Russia. In contrast to the early descriptions of the Crimea, the economic commentaries to the general land division plans supply detailed accounts of specific areas. These sources allow the one to determine both the size and quality of the surveyed lands, their types and potential opportunities for the development of various kinds of farms. However, the economic commentaries related to the Crimea's uezds reveal both the problems of the land division processes and the issues of land surveying connected to the specificities of the given area.