Forming the urban planning traditions in the east of Europe: small towns of Volga Bulgaria

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of originating towns in the east of medieval Europe. The authors particularly focus on the attributes of the medieval feudal town in the Volga-Kama region. The unclear criteria for the socio-historical interpretation of Bulgar hillforts present significant problems not only to distinguish towns from the total number of fortified settlements, but also to draw a line between large, medium-sized and small towns. To identify small towns, it is necessary to rely not only on such well-known criteria as the area of a fortified settlement, the features of topography, the layout of defensive fortifications, but also to consider the specific features of the origin, the structure of the population and the functions of towns. The main problem lies at the methodological level as due to the informative lack of the available written sources, such a historical and cultural phenomenon as the Bulgar town is mainly studied by using archaeological methods. As a rule, most small towns appeared much earlier than the settlements of the surrounding rural population. Almost all of them were located along rivers and land trade routes, so their main functions were to control those vital economic and military routes. Moreover, the small towns in the Kama region had served as land centers since the Pre-Mongol period. In contrast to the medium-sized towns, most small towns have preserved their historical names. The data given in the article have taken account of the number of Pre-Mongol towns in Volga Bulgaria.