Volhynian land leases 4

We began this short series with a simple question: Why did some Mennonite tenants pay taxes after renting for seven years, while other Mennonite tenants (including Benjamin Buller) were still exempt from taxes after sixteen years (see here and especially the 1833 list here)? The simple answer, one might think, was that, there being no standard lease terms, the second group must have negotiated a better lease than the first group. Unfortunately, that answer seems unlikely for several reasons.

First, the Rovno census (here) that lists both groups of families states that the second group settled on the property of the same landlord under the same terms as the first group. The difference apparently does not reflect different lease terms. Second, both groups had first lived in Volhynia in the village of Zofyovka, renting land from the same person (Waclav Borejko) who leased land to the Mennonites in the 1811 lease examined earlier.

It becomes more confusing. The first group of Mennonite tenants in the 1833 list apparently settled on the land of Waclav Borejko in 1811. Borejko’s known 1811 lease promised his tenants freedom from taxation forever. Why, then, did some of his tenants (the first nine families listed on the 1833 list) begin paying taxes seven years into their lease?

Perhaps the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of the taxes they had been paying. Perhaps the 1833 list is not talking about real-estate taxes at all but rather some other kind of tax. The translation of the list certainly allows for that possibility, since it states the following about the first group:

These above-mentioned nine families have enjoyed their free years and, since 1818, have paid the royal contributions.

The crucial terms, obviously, are free years and royal contributions. Although free years sounds like it could fit within the terms of the leases we have examined, royal contributions seems to relate to a completely different context. Given what we have learned about real-estate taxes and leases and rent, it seems reasonable to conclude that the 1833 list is talking about something entirely different.

Of course, this does not solve the problem of why some Mennonites paid royal contributions seven years after entering Russia while others still enjoyed “free years” sixteen years after emigrating. It merely shifts the question to a different context: what taxes the Russian government required of its Mennonite settlers and how those taxes may have changed over time, so that one group of emigrants was liable for taxes earlier than a group who emigrated even six years later.

We are obviously no closer to giving an answer to our initial questions; however, we have learned a great deal about Volhynian leases and now have a better sense of where the answer is most likely to be found. Now, if only we knew how to explore nineteenth-century Russian tax law on immigrant groups such as the Mennonites.… I guess there is additional research to conduct.