MONETARY HOARD OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 60S OF THE 17TH CENTURY FROM THE VICINITY OF THE POGOST-ZAGORODSKY VILLAGE (FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL HISTORIC MUSEUM OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS, WAS FOUND IN 1966)

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the problems of cash deposits containing the copper solids of the Jan Casimir Vaza’s reform on the example of the monetary deposit from the collection of the National Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus. In the numismatic literature, these coins are also known as «boratinki» and they are named after the initiator of the monetary reform, the Italian scientist and architect Titus Livius Boratini. Despite the fact that the term «solid» is more common in Russian numismatics, in relation to the coins of Grand Dutchy of Lithuania and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Prussia and Swedish Inflyants, Suceavan fakes and imitations the author of the report prefers to use the historically more correct name «shelyag» used by our ancestors since the days of Kievan Rus. In the Russian language, this term was displaced by solid probably in the period of the formation of numismatics as a science in the 18-19th centuries. Previously unpublished sources are introduced into scientific circulation, which allow us to open a new page in the history of money circulation in the second half of the XVII century. Despite the fact that the 17th century clades with copper solids are one of the most massive cash deposits on the territory of Belarus, they are poorly studied by Belarusian numismatists. The treasures of boratins are partially touched upon in the P.V. Kharlampovich and R. R. Fasmer’s, N. Shakatikhin’s, VN. Ryabtsevich and I.I. Sinchuk’s works. The treasure was discovered in 1966, in the vicinity of the village of Pogost-Zagorodsky, Pinsk District, Brest Region. BSSR. The settlement is located in the region, known as Polesie. For the first time, Pogost-Zagorodsky was mentioned in the privilege of 1528, as the estate of Siemyon Orda. During the first half of the seventeenth century, Pogost grew from a manor house to a large place. This was facilitated by active economic activity in the form of trade. In 1613, Pogost is recorded as the Yuri Radzivil’s property. After his death, as a result of a small litigation, in 1614, Pogost passed into the Ekaterina Goraiskaya’s possession, and later to her son Peter Petrovich Goraisky. After his death, Pogost passed to Anna Frantskevich-Radziminskaya, then to Bogdan Vilgelmovich Statkevich, and then to Ekaterina Goraiskaya and her husband Mikhail-Vladimir Statkevich. During the Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s national liberation uprising, for some time Pogost became Zaporizhian Sich’s property. After the suppression of the uprising and a series of lawsuits in 1668, the place passed into Nikolai Drutsky-Lyubetsky’s possession. Pogost-Zagorodsky had been owned by the princes Drutskys-Lyubetsky for two centuries, until the nineteenth century. There is a thing part in this deposit in the form of male and female wedding (?) rings, which makes it an extremely rare monetary and thing deposits of the 17th century. In addition to the rings, there are coins in the treasure. These are 19 Jan II Casimir Vaza’s Polish and Lithuanian copper solids (boratins) and one Kristina Augusta Vaza’s Riga solid. As a result of examining the coins, it turned out that they were unprofessionally cleaned. Due to nonprofessional cleaning of coins, most of the legends and images were destroyed forever. But this did not prevent the study of coins in detail. The youngest coin in the treasure is dated 1665, which makes it possible to say about the period of concealment of the complex – 1665-1669. The presence of the wedding rings may indicate that this treasure is a small cash deposit of a poor rural family. It is likely that the owner or owners of the treasure were residents of the village of Pogost-Zagorodsky or nearby villages. Unfortunately, there is no information about the container and the depth of the deposit. This deposit is not advisable to associate with the military actions of the period 1648-1668, because the period of its concealment falls at the time when the hostilities in the region were no longer carried out. Single findings of similar monetary deposits are known both on the territory of Belarus and on the territory of Ukraine.