Некоторые особенности положения татарских писарей в канцелярии Великого Княжества Литовского (XV-XVI веков)

ENIn contemporary studies there are attempts to include clerks and writers into the context of bureaucracy system creation in the states of Eastern Europe. The application of the term of bureaucracy, though, concerning the Eastern European states of the late Middle Ages and early New Age is a rather controversial issue. The purpose of the article is analyzing, on the basis of the extant sources the status of the Tatar interpreters and clerks in the actions of the state organs of the administration of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to which the Chancery also belonged. Material and methods. The presented work is written on the basis of the only type of sources that have survived to our day – materials of record keeping, that is, documents of the Metric of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as well as studies of native, Russian, and Polish authors, with the application of special historical methods.Results and its discussion. According to their origin, most of the clerks and interpreters of the Tatar department were Tatars, whose ancestors in the second or third generation had emigrated to the possessions of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. Their duties were providing the foreign policy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, while the rest of the clerks primarily dealt with the document circulation of state administration bodies. Therefore, the career of the Tatars in the Chancellery was limited to the position of the Tatar clerk. Positions in the Tatar department of the Chancellery were concentrated in the hands of one clan – the Princes of Yushinsky, which in general was not typical for the bureaucracy of that time. But the maintenance of the bilingual written culture and the preservation of religious Islamic traditions in this family could facilitate the appearance of translations of the Koran texts into the Old Belorussian language. Сonclusions. The position of the Tatar clerks of the Chancery of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania differed significantly from the position and functional duties of the Latin and Russian clerks. Key words: the Chancery of the Great Duchy of Lithuania, Tatar writers, Tatar interpreters. [From the publication]