Bukovinian village Velykyi Kuchuriv and its residents in the Moldavian period
The paper is devoted to the history of the village Velykyi Kuchuriv in Bukovina in the Moldovan period. The past of this settlement, located above the Derelui River, is considered in the light of the Moldovan documents of the first half of the 15th - third quarter of the 18th centuries. Kuchuriv was first metioned in written sources in 1422, when the Prince of Moldavia Alexander the Good presented it to Boyar Bogush. In the early 16th century, Princess Ruxandra, the daughter to Prince Mihnia, bought the village out to donate to the Putna monastery. Like residents of other monastic estates, the villagers began to use a number of tax and judicial immunities, repeatedly confirmed by the princes of Moldavia until the second half of the 18th century. However, the monastic peasants were to perform certain feudal duties in favour of the monks of the Putna monastery, an outstanding religious, cultural and educational centre of the Moldavian principality. The monastery owned the village of Velykyi Kuchuriv for more than two and a half centuries, until 1783, when the monastery estate was taken over by the Bukovina Orthodox Religious Foundation. The population of the village in the Moldovan period was polyethnic, with Moldovans and Rusins living side by side.