Contenu du sommaire

Basile Kerblay, Hunters and fur traders in Russia at the beginning of the XXth century. The first part of this article examines economic contacts and cultural exchanges at the beginning of the present century between Russian populations and the aborigines (Toungouses) who subsisted by hunting fur-bearing animals. Ecological conditions, social structures, everyday habits and hunting rites of the latter are examined from the anthropological point of view, as also their economic relations (profits and losses) with fur collectors. The second part describes the circuit followed by furs from the local to the international fairs. The study, as a whole, is based on the analysis of reports on the activity of Nizhni-Novgorod and Irbit fairs. This material provides an illustration of the exchange conditions between trappers and merchants, and of the penetration of foreign firms into the Russian market, in particular after the completion of the Trans-Siberian railroad. On the other hand, Foreign Commerce statistics show that on the eve of the First World War, Russia was definitely an importer of furs: the most precious raw skins were sent to Leipzig or London, where they underwent appropriate treatment. They were then returned to the privileged customers of the two capitals.

Thomas S. Noonan, Suzdalia's eastern trade in the century before the Mongol conquest. This article focuses upon Suzdalia's trade ties with the East during the period ca. 1150-ca. 1235 and the role of the Volga Bulgars in this trade. The author argues that the active ninth-tenth century eastern trade of Rus' via the Volga did not cease in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. However, this earlier eastern trade of Rus' by way of the Volga had been greatly altered by the mid-twelfth century. The author suggests that a joint Volga Bulgar-Suzdalian monopoly or co-dominium over the Volga trade between Rus' and the East existed during the century before the Mongol conquest. This co-dominium was based on the longstanding and close trade relations between Suzdalia and the Volga Bulgars.

Elisabeth Bennigsen, Contribution to the study of Russian fur trade. The Volga route before the Mongol invasion and the Bulgar kingdom. Numerous Arab and Iranian sources of the Xth and the XI th centuries mention commercial relations between Muslim merchants and fur hunters in the north of Russia. These sources describe the itineraries, the products exchanged and the trade organization. Furthermore the oriental gold or silver coins discovered along the principal commercial highways go to prove the importance of such relations at the time. After the sacking of Bulgar in 1237 and the Mongol invasion that followed, the fur trade of the Great North, along the Volga, passed through a substantial decline, as confirmed by a greater scarcity of treasures constituted by oriental coins.

Janet Martin, The land of darkness and the Golden Horde. The fur trade under the Mongols. XIII-XIVth centuries. At the time the Mongols conquered the Volga Bulgars and the Russian land, the fur trade system they found was already a reduced form of the extensive system that in previous centuries had supplied northern luxury fur to "all ends of the world". In contrast, the XIIIth-century system dealt mainly with local fur, which was sold at Sudak to Seljuk Turk merchants. After the initial devastation caused by their conquest, however, the Mongols at Sarai stimulated a renewal of traffic in luxury fur. Rostov and later Moscow, by tapping Novgorod's fur supplies as they were transported from the northeast through Ustiug, and Bulgar, by developing a new access route along the Kama river to the fur-hunting tribes of the northeast, were able to obtain northern sable, ermine, and other furs, which they sent down the Volga to Sarai. That city became not only a consuming center of northern fur, but also a commercial transit center, from which luxury fur was shipped westward to the Italian merchants stationed in the Crimea and eastward through Central Asia as far as India and China.

Daniel Beauvois, The Enlightenment at the crossroad of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The Uniats of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the XlXth century. Greek Catholics, or Uniats, must adapt themselves to the general trend of the evolution of Christian churches in Europe in the XVIIIth century: rationalization, laicization, antimonachism, public service. The choice is between the adhesion of some 3 to 4 million people to Russian culture or their maintenance within the sphere of Polish culture to which they belonged since the Union in 1596. The violently antipapist spirit which dominates in the main Seminary of Vilna prepares — unnoticed by the Polish responsible parties — the return of parochi (secular priests) to the Orthodoxy, whereas the Basilicans (Regulars) conditioned by their fortune, their possessions, their aristocratic and Polish origin, choose the service of the Enlightenment and of its symbol in the recently annexed territories. They accept all the scholar directions of the Vilna University and constitute by far the most numerous and active teaching congregation. With the nationalistic and orthodox reaction of Šiškov, this alibi of the service of the Enlightenment loses its meaning and the State religion claims the Basilican riches, allowing after three centuries of Polish influence, the establishment of the Russian cultural domination in Bielorussia, in Lithuania and in parts of Ukraine.