“Pomest’e,” “Votchina,” “Estate,” “Dacha,” “Land Plot” in the Conceptual Apparatus of 16th–18th Century Legislative Acts: A Historical-Legal Analysis

The article is devoted to researching and analyzing the principal units of the conceptual and terminological apparatus used in the legal regulation of land (land-management) relations, as well as legal relations in the sphere of land surveying. The units under study are the key categories and concepts employed by the legislator to designate the basic elements of land relations—pomest’e (service allotment), votchina (patrimonial estate), estate, dacha (land grant), land plot. The Author examines and analyzes how the legislator used these units. Based on the analysis conducted, an assessment is given of the terms under study in terms of how adequately they reflect their legal essence in land (landmanagement) relations and in the surveying process. The time frame of the study covers the period from the 16th to the 18th century. The purpose of the research is to identify the range of core legislative acts governing land-management relations and to reveal, on their basis, the features of the conceptual and terminological apparatus used by the legislator to denote the key concepts of land law and the surveying process. The objectives are to analyze legislative acts in the field of land-management regulation and surveying, to determine the principal units of the conceptual-terminological apparatus in this sphere, and to identify the specifics of how the terminology used was normatively consolidated. As a result of examining a large array of legislative acts and historiographical material (works by pre-revolutionary legal historians), the Author concludes that the conceptual apparatus was insufficiently developed, evolutionary in nature, and closely interconnected with the development of land-management relations—in particular, with the evolution of the pomest’e system of landholding. The methodological foundation consists of such methods of scholarly inquiry as the historical-legal and formal-legal methods of legal science. The conclusion is drawn that the pre-revolutionary legislator did not use the terms “land plot” (zemel’nyi uchastok) and “plot” (uchastok) in the conceptual apparatus of land relations; instead, as an independent object of land relations, the term dacha was used.

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