CHUVASH IN THE SETTLEMENT AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAMARA TRANSVOLGA REGION FROM THE END OF THE XVII CENTURY UNTIL THE BEGINNING OF 1760-IES

The article is devoted to the participation of the Chuvash in the development of newly incorporated lands in the southeast of European Russia at the end of the 17th – 18th centuries. The share of the Chuvash settlers among all arrivals to these lands in separate periods of time is calculated. It was particularly noticeable and remained the largest among all ethnic groups at the very beginning of the Transvolga settlement. Areas of their exit are determined. The counties on the right bank of the Middle Volga region and in the Trans-Kama region which were the administrative parts of the Simbirsk, Samara, and Kazan districts became the most notable in terms of the number of settlers from them. The overwhelming majority of the Chuvash peasant migrants belonged to the category of state peasants. They were an important component of a stream of free colonization of the Russian outlying areas. Among the migrants from the state peasants, those who came to the new lands voluntarily prevailed. Among the serfs, resettled here by their owners, there were not Chuvashes. The participation of the Chuvash in the settlement of the Samara Region at the end of the XVII–XVIII centuries, as shown in the article, was of great importance for the fairly rapid and successful development of it at the initial stage. Their participation in many ways determined the ethnic and class composition of the inhabitants, the location and the infrastructure of settlements, created the prerequisites for the development of the resettlement movement in the subsequent time. Thanks to the agricultural settled settlement by the Chuvash people and the representatives of other peoples of Russia, during the development of the Forest-steppe and Steppe Transvolga region, in the 19th century it has become one of the leading agrarian regions of the country, actively included in the domestic and foreign markets.