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Западные современники о государстве и праве пост-ордынских ханств XVI–XVIII вв.: отражение реалий или продвижение воззрений?
Objective: Analysis of information of the European authors of the 16th–18th centuries of the statehood and law of successors states of the Golden Horde, especially of the Crimean khanate and Noghay Horde. Research materials: notes of the Western authors who either personally visited Turkic-Mongol states during the examined period, or reflected their statehood and legal traditions in own scientific works. In particular, the author uses notes of Sigismund Herbershtein, Mikhalon Litvin, Guillaume de Beauplan, Emidio Dortelli d’Ascoli, Nicolaas Witsen, dr. Ferrand, John Castle, Charles-Claude de Peyssonnel, Francis de Tott. The author analyses circumstances and goals of writing of researched works, characterizes the authors themselves, their status, education, political views, etc. Basing on this information he attempts to evaluate the credibility value of their notes on the Turkic-Mongol states and tries to answer the question whether they, in fact, intended to inform their readers about the specific features of the statehood and law of the Turkic-Mongol khanates or they covertly stated their own political and legal views and presented not so unbiased information to solve another tasks. As a result we cannot recognize some data of these authors as trustworthy evidences, as such travelers sometimes idealized a situation in Tatar states in connection with own views. In other cases they believed in rumors and stereotypes or, at last, included in their text the information of earlies authors without its verification or critical comprehension. The author believes that the method of work with such texts, suggested in this paper, could be useful also in cases of using such travelers’ notes as sources not only on the statehood and law of Turkic-Mongol states but also on other aspects of their history (especially political one).