PEASANT EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE XIX CENTURY

Novikova Elena Viktorovna

Publication date: April 27, 2023 DOI: 10.52270/27132447_2023_14_23

PEASANT EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE XIX

CENTURY

Novikova, Elena Viktorovna1

Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Sevastopol Institute of Economics and Humanities (Branch), FGAOU VO "Crimean Federal University named after V.I. Vernadskogo", 1, Shelkunova Street, Sevastopol, Russia, E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

The article examines the daily life of peasants in the XIX century. It is shown that the peasantry made up about 9/10 of the productive population of Russia. There were noticeable changes in the social and legal status of the peasants during this period. The nature of their relations with the nobles and the state changed, the relations within the peasantry itself underwent changes. The economic differentiation of various categories of peasants intensified. Special attention in the article is paid to the peasant economy. Peasant farming increasingly lost its natural character and strengthened ties with the market. Important indicators of the penetration of bourgeois relations into agriculture were the purchase and lease of land, the use of wage labor. Wage labor was widely used in the southern steppe provinces, in the Volga region and the Baltic States.

Keywords: life, peasants, population, Russia, order.

I. INTRODUCTION

A characteristic phenomenon in the first half of the XIX-th century in Russia was the reduction of peasant allotments and an increase in the volume of peasant duties. The process of landlessness of the peasants and the intensification of serf exploitation, on the one hand, led to the ruin of part of the peasant farms, and on the other hand, contributed to the strengthening of the peasant enterprise, the search for new forms of management by the peasants - mainly in those areas where there was no monopoly of the nobility.

The condition of peasant farms was extremely heterogeneous in different parts of the country. The all-Russian picture was most determined by the central regions. Therefore, in assessing the state of the peasant economy, it is more reasonable to take as an example the economy of privately owned peasants in one of the central regions. Here, relying on the proposed sources, one should consider the main assessment criteria, including the availability of land, livestock, the impact on the state of the economy of such factors as the nature of the development of agriculture, the dynamics of productivity, population growth, forms of economic dependence of peasants. One of the manifestations of the bourgeois development of the peasant economy was the strengthening of the social differentiation of the countryside, the beginning of the process of social stratification of the peasantry.

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When analyzing social stratification, it is important not only to determine its difference from property inequality, but also to identify the factors that stimulated and restrained it in the first half of the XIX-th century.

II. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS

The main methods that made it possible to conduct this study were the comparative-historical and historical-genetic, as well as the method of content analysis, to which the bulk of the documents were subjected (peasant petitions of the second half of the XIX-th century). The study was also built on the basis of several fundamental approaches: structural, hermeneutic, comparative, anthropological.

In this study, the socio-cultural characteristics of the Russian peasantry include all phenomena that determine Russian peasant values, knowledge and ideas, as well as the attitude of Russian peasants to the elements of reality and the perception of these elements of reality. It should be noted that the sociocultural characteristics of the peasantry are, in turn, elements of the peasant mentality.

Back in the middle of the 19th century, a group of officers of the Russian army, on the instructions of the General Staff, began to compile collections of "Materials for the Geography and Statistics of Russia" for all provinces. The western regions were no exception. Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff P.O. Bobrovsky conducted a detailed study and in 1863 left a solid description of the life of the peasant population of the provinces, excerpts from which are given below.

First of all, let's touch on the arrangement of a peasant's hut. Most peasant houses were built without a chimney, therefore, all the soot and soot penetrated into the premises. "... Peasants live in low, dilapidated and smoky huts, in which, along with soot and sewage, ... a host of ailments are hidden - fevers, fevers, aches, ulcers, etc. Yes, and in dwellings with chimneys it is also dirty and untidy and stuffy, as in smoky ones. In winter, together with the family of a peasant, calves, lambs, piglets and chickens are placed in the hut, and all this further increases the impurity and maintains a heavy and disgusting air, "wrote P.O. Bobrovsky.

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In such terrible, from the position of a modern person, unsanitary conditions, peasant families lived in almost complete poverty. Here is how Lieutenant Colonel Bobrovsky described their diet: "The food of the peasants consists of bread, garden vegetables, milk, meat and mushrooms; she is rude and unpretentious. Bread made from rye and badly sifted flour, generally tasty and healthy; the poor make bread with an admixture of barley and potatoes; chaff is a necessary companion of peasant bread. Shchi is an essential food, made from sour gray cabbage and seasoned with oatmeal or barley groats; borscht from beetroot, gruel - a stew of cereals, seasoned with onions. Potatoes in various forms, peas, lentils, cucumbers, radishes and various pies. Fat is in great use, all dishes are seasoned with it; on holidays they eat sheep meat, and sometimes smoked beef. Fried -goose, piglet - on the peasant table comes across very rarely.

Radishes are eaten with kvass and onions, pickled cucumbers are eaten. With a lack of bread and vegetables, they eat potatoes, which are the most important surrogate in peasant food; the failure of the potato crop weighs heavily on the poorest, who, lacking bread, subsist on potatoes all year round. On fasting days they do not eat fish, but in spring they eat nettle, sorrel, and in winter - whatever.

The most difficult period for the peasants was in the spring, when the old stocks were already over, and there was no new harvest yet. This period was especially painful for the weakest, poorest part of the peasantry. As Bobrovsky wrote, "the poorest bake bread with a double admixture of chaff: dried leaves of fern, heather, hoof, birch bark and various roots put in bread make it tasteless and very difficult for digestion."

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Peasant land shortage forced landlords to transfer the remaining serf peasants to the rent and abandon the lordly plow - by the middle of the XIX century, the lordly plow was only 15% of the arable land. The liberated lands were divided among the peasants, and - together with the development of new lands - this to some extent allowed them to fight with little land. In the middle of the century, the net collection on the plots of landowner peasants amounted to about 2 quarters (15.4 poods) of bread per capita - that is, it was just at the level of the consumer minimum. But, in addition, the peasant had to pay taxes and dues; The Center was dominated by the peasants, the rent was very different and depended on the development of crafts in a particular village, on the proximity of the capitals, where the masses of offshooters went, and some other factors. After a sharp increase in the 20s, taxes have generally stabilized. In the middle of the XIX century, the average rent in the Moscow province was about 4 rubles. 68 kopecks in silver or 8.7 pounds of bread per capita - and it often turned out that the peasants sold all their crops, paid taxes and taxes, and then went to work, and, as they could, lived by crafts and crafts.

The assessment of the level of income and expenses of the peasants, made by I. D. Kovalchenko and L. V. Milov for the Moscow and Tver provinces, shows that, despite the scale of the peasants' fishing activities, their earnings were insufficient, and they did not have enough money for food and for the payment of dues. Data on individual large estates indicate a constant increase in arrears, which landlords were forced to withdraw - but they were growing again. By 1858, the average arrears in the Kaluga province amounted to about 4/5 of the annual rent.

The situation of the state peasants was better than that of the serfs, but the lack of land was also felt in the state-owned village. According to the calculations of the commissions working in the 1850s, in Kostroma province the share of surplus labor was 37%, in Vladimir province - 41%.

According to the demographic-structural theory, the shortage of land forced peasants to engage in handicrafts. 27% of men from the villages of the central provinces did not plow the land at all: they went to crafts every year; 700 thousand worked as boatmen and longshoremen on ships, 600 thousand as farmhands on southern latifundia, 400 thousand as construction workers, 400 thousand as cabmen, 250 thousand as servants, 200 thousand became artisans in cities, 100 thousand - factory workers. Overpopulation lowered the prices of workers, and in many patrimonial manufactories, instead of serfs belonging to the owner, they began to use outsiders. In the cloth industry in 1825 there were 324 manufactories, in which mainly serfs worked (82%), in 1850 there were only 4% of serfs belonging to the owners at 492 manufactories[57].

The incipient industrial revolution caused the decline of many old crafts and the emergence of new ones. Boatmen on the Volga in the 1810s earned about 300 rubles per season, but in the 30s there were ships with horse-drawn cars, and then steamboats and earnings fell to 60-90 rubles. This meant ruin and poverty for many formerly wealthy villages. The appearance of steamboats led to the decline of linen and canvas thinking, but on the other hand, the industrial revolution caused the rapid development of cotton production. At first, weavers worked on English yarn, but in 1842 the import of spinning machines from England was allowed. In 1843, there were already 40 paper-spinning manufactories in Russia with 350 thousand spindles, in 1869 the number of spindles reached 1.6 million. Cheap cotton fabrics quickly replaced linen. In one Vladimir province, which had 1,100 thousand inhabitants in 1850, there were 150,000 homeworkers. The village of Ivanovo grew into an industrial city, there were 135 factories with 10 thousand workers, and cotton for factories was delivered from America! Industrial towns and craft villages lived on imported bread; 4 million poods of bread were imported into the province annually, i.e. about 4 poods per inhabitant - thus, imported bread provided 20-25% of consumption[59]. According to the theory, overpopulation and lack of land encourage peasants not only to engage in crafts, but also to move to cities - closer to large markets. In Russia, serfdom hindered this process, and crafts developed mostly in villages. However, the trend towards migration to cities still made its way: the growth rate of the urban population of European Russia accelerated noticeably, in 1811-1831 it was 0.47% per year, and in 1832-1859 - 0.91%; at the same time, migrants gave a three-quarters increase. In contrast to the XVIII century, the urban population grew much faster than the population as a whole (in 1833-1857, the population growth rate within the boundaries of the first revision was 0.65%). In the population of cities, as before, a large proportion (about one third) were peasants who settled in the townships, but were listed as villagers.

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The hut of a starving peasant

Some educated people - zemstvo teachers, doctors, lower administration, clergy, who lived among the peasants, had the opportunity to judge them on the basis of personal impressions. They did not always coincide with both the official myth of the Orthodox peasant, who loves the tsar and the fatherland with natural love, and the intellectual one - about a downtrodden dark peasant, vegetating in terrible poverty, mercilessly exploited sufferer, who needs to be enlightened and saved from oppression and ignorance.

So the author of an article in the magazine "Needs of the Village", reprinted by the Perm Zemstvo Week, is a zemstvo statistician, describes the life of a rich village in 1910, drawing a picture that does not quite correspond to the established pattern. There are many large iron-roofed houses in the village, among which there are brick ones, a 200-seat school, a church, a volost board - a beautiful city-type building. But the center of public life is not a church or a school, but a tavern where members of the volost and village boards gather, the headman spends the day and nights. The intellectual author is not pleased with the "well-fed and contented appearance" of these peasants, their bold and independent speech. He notes with regret that "none of the outsiders plays any role in public life" and "does not inspire confidence", they all want to decide with their own minds and even subordinate officials to their influence. A local school teacher complained about regular "audits" of men who tried to interfere in the educational process, accusing him of teaching unnecessary things like poetry, instead of explaining how to treat livestock and read the psalter in the choir, and not responding to comments that "it's none of your business." The priest accused the peasants of irreverence: "In another parish, the people are respectful, they honor the dignity, they please the priest, but here, when they are in vestments, then they kiss and bow their hands, and they took off the robe, so they are friends with you." In general, the image of the peasantry in the representation of educated people in post-reform Russia is quite sad: a poor, illiterate and drinking village. Representatives of the intelligentsia and circles close to it, as a rule, emphasized all the ulcers and shortcomings of the situation of the peasantry and blamed them on the government, the existing system, etc. - depending on the degree of their "leftism" and radicalism. Their ideological opponents blamed the troubles of the peasantry on the intellectuals "corrupting" them, as well as the lack of religious enlightenment. Both of them, however, retained faith in the healthy forces of the people, believed that there were huge resources hidden in it that could be revealed with the right policy of the authorities. It should be noted that the socio-cultural space of Russia in the XIX century was far from heterogeneous.

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The wider use of freelance labor by peasants in a number of regions of the country, the creation of favorable economic conditions, the policy of local authorities aimed at the development of education in the peasant environment - all this contributed to the formation of new everyday realities. So, for example, in the Crimean counties of the Tauride province in the early 80s of the XIX century, boys and girls of various confessional affiliation studied in educational institutions. [Diakonov A. N. A general outline of the state of the public schools of the Tauride province for 1883, Berdyansk, Type. E. Kilius and K, 1884]. In the 90s of the XIX century, 48 different educational institutions were opened in the Crimean counties in villages, which contributed to the development of education of the rural population. [Educational institutions of the Odessa Educational District, which are under the jurisdiction of the directorate of public schools. Issue 3, Odessa, type. Fisenko, 1891]

According to the program in schools of this type, it was necessary to study the Law of God, church singing, reading the church and civil press and writing, initial arithmetic information, initial information from the history of the church and the fatherland.

In the 80-90s of the XIX century, schools were under the special patronage of the government. This type of school was taught by priests, deacons and deacons, teachers and female teachers who graduated mainly from church teaching schools and diocesan colleges. The cost of education in schools was about 50 kopecks per month. Even this amount, not all parents were able to pay. But this was not an obstacle to further education of children. There have traditionally been many people willing to study in this type of school. Often the "influx of pupils and pupils" in the Crimean counties was so significant "that the premises were insufficient" [Report of the Simferopol parish Petro-Pavlovsky Guardianship 1872-1873. - [Simferopol] : Tauride Diocesan Department, 1874. - 26 p., p. 6]. Priests "through moral influence on parishioners disposed the latter to the arrangement and maintenance" of educational institutions [State Archive of the Republic of Crimea. - F. 419: Tauride Diocesan College Council. - Op. 1. - D. 13. About parochial schools. 1911-1916 - 69 l., l. 21].

The Directorate of schools was interested in the activities of schools of this type and often in its reports in the 80s of the XIX century, information about schools was indicated: "they are well provided financially, they are delivered satisfactorily and in the educational plan" [GARK. - F. 100: Directorate of Public Schools of the Tauride province. - Op. 1. - D. 1899. With annual reports on the work of the Directorate's schools. 1883. 399 l., l. 56].

The report of the Provincial Zemstvo Council on the accessibility of primary education in the Tauride province indicates the percentage of girls to the number of students. The number of girls in the primary education system in none of the counties has reached half of all students. Nevertheless, the percentage of female students in the Crimean counties was higher than in the northern counties of the Tauride province. The same source also indicates the reason for this phenomenon: "the population puts up with temporary economic damage for the sake of the conscious benefit of education" [Report of the Provincial Zemstvo Council on the accessibility of primary education in the Tauride province. - [Simferopol]: Type. Taurida provincial Zemstvo, [1903]. - 32 p., p.3].

According to the inspector of public schools of the Crimean counties, in educational and disciplinary relations, schools of all categories, with very few exceptions, "are set up satisfactorily, thanks to a good composition of teachers, most of whom have received special training or acquired sufficient experience through long practice and generally treat their duties in good faith." "The religious and moral state is quite satisfactory; teachers use their cares and efforts to ensure that schools are fully worthy of their appointment; school discipline is doing well." [Diakonov A. N. General outline of the state of the public schools of the Tauride province for 1892, Berdyansk. Printing house of E. Kilius and K. 1893, pp. 34-35]. But this situation was the exception rather than the rule.

The gap between the peasants and the people of the "educated society" was not overcome during the revolution either. In speeches at provincial peasant congresses held in Perm under the leadership of the Socialist-revolutionary Party, which considered itself the representative of the interests of the peasants, there were statements about the immaturity and disorganization of the peasants, which still needs to be overcome. All the candidates for the Constituent Assembly, elected at the second provincial Peasants' Congress on August 6, 1917, had a very indirect relation to the peasantry. At best, they came from a peasant family and were engaged in farming in their early youth.

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III. CONCLUSION

As a result, the situation of the peasantry by the middle of the XIX century, although it underwent minor changes, they were endowed with certain rights and even some privileges, but in general retained the main features of serfdom in its worst manifestation. Peasants could not actually receive basic education (except for parochial schools with 3 years of education), could not administer justice and count on a fair trial in a dispute with the landowner. Also, this category was limited by taxes and fees in favor of the landowner in their economic activities, only a few representatives could afford to pay for themselves and their own family and get personal freedom along with a land allotment. Thus, before the adoption of the manifesto on the abolition of serfdom, the position of the peasant class over the past 50 years until the middle of the XIX century has not changed dramatically.

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КРЕСТЬЯНСКАЯ ПОВСЕДНЕВНОСТЬ В РОССИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ В XIX

ВЕКЕ

л

Новикова Елена Викторовна1

1 Кандидат исторических наук, доцент, Севастопольский экономико-гуманитарный институт (филиал), ФГАОУ ВО "Крымский федеральный университет имени В.И. Вернадского", улица Шелкунова 1, Севастополь, Россия, E-mail: [email protected]

Аннотация

В статье рассматривается повседневная жизнь крестьян в XIX веке. Показано, что крестьянство составляло около 9/10 производительного населения России. В этот период произошли заметные изменения в социальном и правовом статусе крестьян. Изменился характер их отношений с дворянами и государством, претерпели изменения отношения внутри самого крестьянства. Усилилась экономическая дифференциация различных категорий крестьян. Особое внимание в статье уделяется крестьянскому хозяйству. Крестьянское хозяйство все больше утрачивало свой естественный характер и укрепляло связи с рынком. Важными показателями проникновения буржуазных отношений в сельское хозяйство были покупка и аренда земли, использование наемного труда. Наемный труд широко использовался в южных степных губерниях, в Поволжье и Прибалтике.

Ключевые слова: быт, крестьяне, население, Россия, порядок.

СПИСОК ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ

Ershov B.A., Nebolsin V.A., Solovieva S.R. (2020) Higher education in technical universities of Russia. 7th International conference on education and social sciences. Abstracts Proceedings. Pp. 55-58. (in Engl).

Ershov B.A., Perepelitsyn A., Glazkov E., Volkov I., Volkov S. (2019) Church and state in Russia: management issues. 5th International conference on advences in education and social sciences. Abstracts Proceedings, e-publication. Pp. 26-29. (in Engl).

Ershov B.A., Zhdanova T.A., Kashirsky S.N., Monko T. (2020) Education in the university as an important factor in the socialization of students in Russia. 6th International Conference on Advances in Education. Abstracts Proceedings. Pp. 517-520. (in Engl).

Fursov V.N. (1991) Land ownership and land use of peasants of Central Chernozem provinces in the second half of the XIX century. Questions of the agrarian history of the Central Chernozem region. Lipetsk. P. 23. (In Russ).

Gindin I.F. (1968) Pre-capitalist banks of Russia and their influence on landowner land ownership. The emergence of capitalism in industry and agriculture in Europe, Asia and America. M. P. 338. (In Russ).

Karamzin N.M. (1991) A note on ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations. M. Pp. 61-64. (In

Russ).

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