Specificity of the economic development of the Dubingiai microregion in the 1st - the middle of the 16th century.

Šiame straipsnyje pristatomo tyrimo objektas yra mikroregiono ekonomikos raida bendrosios ekonominės raidos kontekste. Tyrimo tikslas yra išryškinti Dubingių mikroregiono ekonominės raidos specifiką ir suformuluoti hipotezes tolesniems empiriniams mikroregiono tyrimams. Tyrimo teoriniais pagrindais buvo pasirinkta Iljos Prigožino sistemų teorija12, pagal kurią visuomenė yra traktuojama kaip sistema, patirianti tolygios evoliucijosirsukrėtimų („mutacijų“) laikotarpius, bei neomarksizmo filosofijai būdingas požiūris, pabrėžiantis išskirtinę ekonominių sąlygų svarbą visuomenės raidai13. Remdamiesi tokiu požiūriu galime teigti, kad visuomenės raidos mikroregione pagrindas buvo ūkininkavimo forma ir sukuriama ekonominė pridedamoji vertė, o kaitos varikliai – kokybiniai ekonominės veiklos pokyčiai bei vietinės sociogamtinės sistemos sukrėtimai („mutacijos“). Todėl straipsnyje, remiantis ūkininkavimo formų kaita, pagrindžiama mikroregiono raidos periodizacijos schema, kuri vėliau gali būti taikoma modeliuojant platesnės apimties socialinius procesus. Tyrimo metodologiniai pagrindai yra mikroregiono ir tarpdisciplininė (archeologija, istorija, gamtos mokslai) paradigmos, leidžiančios kitais požiūriais analizuoti turimus empirinius duomenis, kelti hipotezes. Tyrime taikyti šaltinių kritinės lyginamosios analizės ir modeliavimo metodai. Dalis straipsnio teiginių išvesti tik dedukciniu metodu ir gali būti traktuojami kaip mokslinės tolesniems tyrimams aktualios problemos apibrėžimas ar hipotezės. Tyrimo metu parengtas straipsnis buvo didesnės nei mokslinei studijai būdinga apimties, todėl jį rengiant publikuoti kaip mokslinį straipsnį teko atsisakyti dalies argumentacijos, trumpinti apžvalginio pobūdžio dalis, išimti citatas.Lifestyle, trades, customs of peasants in the prehistoric period and in the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have been within eyeshot of chroniclers, economists, historians, archaeologists for already hundreds of years, but in the context of the research presented in this article we can define several scientific problems that are still left unsolved. Economic development in the 1st–16th centuries has not been systematically analysed until now. In the investigation of economic development in the prehistoric and the early statehood periods, mostly due to the lack of sources, the view is upheld that the economic life of the people who lived in all the present territory of Lithuania in the times of prehistory and early statehood was more or less the same, i.e. as described in the early written sources of the 9th–13th centuries about the littoral (western) Baltic tribes or Jatvingians. In the cases when regionalism is singled out in historical investigations, territorial boundaries of archaeological cultures rather than economic logic are followed. These boundaries are more cultural– political and quite often based on the research of one type of archaeological monuments. In such a way, the “net” economic regionalism that existed in the present territory of Lithuania and that depended on the soil fertility, possibilities of business connections, population density and similar factors is ignored to some extent. The research object presented in this article is the economic development of the microregion in the context of general economic development. The research objective is to highlight the economic development specificity of the Dubingiai microregion and to formulate hypotheses for the further empirical studies of the microregion. Ilya Prigogine’s systems theory and the attitude towards the exceptional importance of economic conditions for social development, which was characteristic of the Neo-Marxist philosophy, were chosen as the theoretical bases of the research. When discussing the economic development of the microregion, we should single out at least three kinds of economic activities: arable farming, animal husbandry, and other trades (hunting, fishing, crafts, robbery, etc.). The relative influence (the surplus value and significance in the community life) of each of them was different in different periods. Due to the agrarian nature of farming, the agricultural systems in the 1st–16th centuries in Lithuania were considered to be the deciding factor determining the need and possibilities for other economic activities. The most important factors determining the historical development of economics could be resources and markets. By applying this scheme to the communities of the past based on agrarian economics, the main resources – land and people cultivating it and the main consumers, i.e. the same people (taking into account the proportion of centres and peripheries where consumption should have been greater around the towns) – could be singled out. The main ‘motive power’ of economic development was the growth of population. On the one hand, people using land were creating surplus economic values. Unsettled land (forest) was considered to be worthless for a long time. On the other hand, the growth of population (consumers, market) also induced economic intensification. During the periods of even evolution, the population growth induced changes in farming, because the growing community required greater amounts of food. It can be supposed that in the beginning the amount of food was increased from the internal resources of the community: the hunting area as well as the areas of meadows and arable lands were expanded. However, such quantitative (extensive) changes in small communities were very limited and requiring great additional labour expenses and time costs. Therefore, the limit of the development of extensive farming should have been reached very quickly. Food demand of the growing population could be satisfied only by introducing innovations that, according to the model, are possible via the so-called parallel discoveries carried out in society as well as via the communication of two societies (of diffusive nature). The innovations being introduced and the growing population had to increase the significance of agriculture in the general structure of farming, and thus to slacken the processes of land impoverishment and to reduce the mobility of communities. The above described structure of economy, determined by the agricultural system, allows to single out at least three chronological periods of development of the Dubingiai microregion in the 1st–16th centuries, which are discussed hereunder. On the grounds of these presumptions we can assert that the basis of social development in the microregion was the form of farming and the created economic surplus value, whereas the motive power of change was qualitative changes in economic activities and convulsions of the local socioenvironmental system (“mutations”)