Tribute

Tribute (danyna). A direct tax paid by subjects (piddani) to the state. In ancient times Slavic tribes paid a tribute to their conquerors. Later the tribute became a permanent ongoing duty to the state. In Kyivan Rus’ the units of taxation were the household (dym) and the farming family (ralo). In the 13th century a head tribute was introduced by the Tatars, who conducted a census. Persons obliged to pay the tribute were known as danski liudy (tribute people) or dannyky (tributors); they were registered in tribute books by the volost in which they lived. The tribute was paid with money or in kind (eg, bread, honey, furs, livestock). During the period of the Lithuanian-Ruthenian state the tribute was paid to the princes and the grand dukes, who collected it by traveling around their realms (poliuddia). Beginning in the 15th century the tribute was exacted by landowners, and labor was added to the possible forms of tribute; peasants provided the labor, for example, for road building and maintenance (see Tributary peasants). Under the Hetman state the peasants and burghers paid tribute, which was spent on the administration of the Hetmanate and local governments and was also sent to the tsar in Moscow. (See also Land tenure system and Quitrent.)

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]