Sloboda
Former type of settlement in East Slavic Eastern Europe
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(June 2023)
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A sloboda ( Russian : слобода́ , IPA: [sləbɐˈda] ; Ukrainian : слобода́ ) was a type of settlement in the history of Belarus , Russia and Ukraine . The name is derived from the early Slavic word for " freedom " and may be loosely translated as "free settlement". [1]
History
In the history of Russia, a sloboda was a settlement or a town district of people free of the power of boyars . Often these were settlements of tradesmen and artisans, and were named according to their trade: ямская слобода ( yamshchiks ' sloboda: Yamskaya sloboda [ ru ] ), smiths ' sloboda, etc. [1]
Often a sloboda was a colonization-type settlement in sparsely populated lands, particularly by Cossacks in Cossack Hetmanate , see " Sloboda Ukraine ". Initially, the settlers of such sloboda were freed from various taxes and levies for various reasons, hence the name. Freedom from taxes was an incentive for colonization . [2]
By the first half of the 18th century, this privilege was abolished, and slobodas became ordinary villages , shtetls , townlets , suburbs.
Some slobodas were suburban settlements, right behind the city wall. [1] Many of them were subsequently incorporated into cities, and the corresponding toponyms indicate their origin.
The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary relates that by the end of the 19th century a sloboda was a large village with more than one church, a marketplace, and volost administration, or a village-type settlement of industrial character, where the peasants have little involvement in agriculture . [1]
The term is preserved in names of various settlements and city quarters. Some settlements were named just thus: "Sloboda", "Slobodka" (diminutive form), "Slabodka", "Slobidka" ( Ukrainian ).
Similar settlements existed in Wallachia and Moldavia , called slobozie or slobozia . The latter term is also the name of the capital city of Ialomița County , Slobozia , in modern Romania .
See also
- Wola (settlement) , a similar concept in Polish history
- Lhota , a similar concept in Czech history
- Royal free city
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Sloboda" , Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890–1906)
- ↑ "Selitba" (Settlementing) , Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890–1906)