The Social Identity of the Courtiers and Nobility under Peter the Great

This article examines one of the aspects social identity Russian nobility in first quarter eighteenth century. The author regards as a set retrospective practices self-naming, person’s self-identification, and identification by state, rank groups, society. Referring to new material from archival sources published correspondence, studies semantics little-known service categories tsaredvortsy (courtiers) clarifies history words denoting them. Peter I treated seventeenth-century “service” terminology pragmatically tried perpetuate word denote servicepeople all kinds. In early century, shlyakhetskiye (originating Polish Szlachta) was spreading translated documents letters, tsar introduced neologism use among people. Сlerks already knew word. Simultaneously, vocabulary refer courtiers “city noblemen” developing official documentation. such examples office lyudi polkovoy sluzhby, nalitso, nachalnye lyudi, otstavnye, kryzhovniki, pod krestom, v stolovykh netyakh. Hundreds representatives military people referred themselves byteishchiki or being chetvertyakh statyakh. classifying with reference authentic statistics biography I. N. V. Tatishchev officers Azov Dragoon Regiment. concludes that beginning 1720s, most had lost their relevance but they remained memory while became recruited again.