RECONCEPTION OF THE TRADITIONAL MODEL OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF UKRAINE-RUSSIAN SOCIETY IN COMPARISON WITH THE CLASSIC SCHEME OF THE FEUDAL SOCIETY OF WESTERN EUROPE

Abstract

The article raises the problem of the social organization of Ukraine-Rus in comparison with the classical scheme of the feudal society of Western Europe, taking into account the fact that during the four hundred years of its existence, Rus was one of the largest states in Europe in which the foundations were laid for the tradition of state-building on the territory of modern Ukraine. An in-depth analysis of the nature of the social organization of Ukraine-Rus as an urban empire of the European Middle Ages is carried out. It is proved that the nature of the social organization of Russian society is rooted not in the system of feudal relations, but in the system of relations connected with the development of the monetary economy in Ukraine-Russia. Accordingly, social organization is a reflection of the connections and relations characteristic of the bourgeois mode of production at the initial stages of its birth. The social organization of Ukraine-Rus depended on the division of labor existing at that time with the prevailing tendency towards the development of a monetary economy with the corresponding development of trade, crafts, and cities. It was based on the principle of social-role division into hierarchically structured groups (higher and lower strata). Accordingly, the social status of people was correlated with the prevailing system of production and management relations. The peasantry constituted a significant share of the population, but was personally free. The princely (mastered) lands and lands of boyar estates were cultivated by free peasants-tenants. In communities, free peasants cultivated their own allotments within the collective form of ownership of land holdings that belonged to communities by customary (natural law).