Nobles and peasants
// Fedosyuk, Yuri Alexandrovich. What is incomprehensible among the classics, or Encyclopedia of Russian life of the XIX century. - 2nd ed. - M. : Flinta: Science, 1999
Nobles are the main characters of most works of Russian classical literature. Most of the Russian classical writers, from Fonvizin to Bunin, were also noblemen. What is the nobility?
That was the name of the most privileged class tsarist Russia. The nobles, as a rule, owned the land and, until 1861, the peasants who lived on this land. Since the era of Peter I, the title of hereditary nobleman could be obtained upon reaching a certain rank in the military or civil service, when awarded with some orders, as well as for special personal merits.
Initially, a nobleman was a person who served at the grand ducal or royal court - hence the root of the word. From the 14th century, Russian nobles began to receive land - estates - from the grand dukes, and then the tsars, in payment for their service. In 1714, Peter I assigned this land to them forever as hereditary. At the same time, the feudal boyars, who owned the land by inheritance from their ancestors, also joined the nobility. The estate, that is, the land that belonged to the family since ancient times, and the estate - the land granted by the king for service, have since merged into the concept of an estate. In both cases, land ownership was usually called an estate, and its owner was called a landowner.
The estate-estate should not be confused with the estate: the estate is not all land ownership, but only the landowner's house with adjoining buildings, a yard and a garden.
From the time of Peter the Great, the nobility, equal in rights before the law, was divided by origin into tribal (pillar) and service (new), achieved by length of service in the public service. Descendants of ancient noble families who owned estates, and in the 16th-17th centuries recorded in genealogical books - columns, that is, lists in the form of glued scrolls, called themselves columnar nobles. The pillar nobles, even impoverished, felt their moral advantage over the later, service nobles who pushed them aside. Pushkin, who was proud of his 600-year-old family, sarcastically wrote in the poem “My genealogy”: “We have a new birth of nobility, / And the newer, the more noble.” And one of the characters in his "Novel in Letters" writes to a friend: "The bureaucratic aristocracy will not replace the tribal aristocracy."
Peter I ordered that male nobles, in return for their privileges, would certainly serve in public service, and from the lowest rank. Nobles-boys were enlisted in the rank and file of the guards regiments. Under Peter's successors, the situation changed: in order to save children from the hardships of soldiering, parents immediately after their birth began to enroll their sons in the guards regiments as non-commissioned officers, moreover, not sending them to serve there, but keeping them with them until adulthood. The hero of the "Captain's Daughter" Pushkin, Pyotr Grinev, was recorded as a guard sergeant even before he was born. “I was considered on vacation until I graduated,” says Grinev. It's about about the primitive home education described in this story or familiar to us from Fonvizin's comedy "Undergrowth". When Grinev turned 16, his strict father sent him to serve not in the St. Petersburg Guards Regiment, where Peter was enrolled (which he would have full right), and in a remote province, in the army - "let him push him." Arriving at Belogorsk fortress, "Guard Sergeant" Grinev was soon promoted to officer.
For the upbringing of growing children, the nobility hired not only domestic, but also visiting teachers, with whom they often paid not for each lesson, but for several at once; The certificate for the lesson was called a ticket, and they were subsequently paid a reward. This method of settlement with visiting teachers is mentioned in “Woe from Wit”: “... We take vagabonds, both in the house and on tickets ...”
Undergrowths were called noble sons up to 15 - 16 years old, that is, not yet of age to carry public service. This word served as an official term, equivalent to the concept of a teenager, a minor. Therefore, we should not be surprised that in the documents submitted for admission to the Lyceum, 12-year-old Pushkin is called a minor. The word acquired a negative connotation with the growing popularity of Fonvizin's comedy - gradually it became the designation of a stupid and spoiled barchuk.
In 1762 the Emperor Peter III issued the Manifesto on the Liberty of the Nobility, which exempted the nobles from compulsory public service. Most of the nobles left the service and moved to their estates, being in idleness and living at the expense of their serfs.
Pushkin was rightly indignant at these laws and wrote about them: "...decrees, of which our ancestors were so proud and of which they rightly should have been ashamed."
Accused of tyranny, the ignorant landowner Prostakova protests in the comedy "Undergrowth": "... why are we given a decree on the freedom of the nobility?" - interpreting it as giving complete freedom to the landowners in dealing with serfs. To this, Starodum mockingly remarks: “A master of interpreting decrees!” After Prostakova is removed from managing the estate, Pravdin tells her son Mitrofanushka: “With you, my friend, I know what to do. Went to serve."
The second half of the XVTH century is the time of the highest development of the Russian noble class at the expense of the enslaved peasantry. The horrors of serfdom at the end of this century were described with amazing force by Radishchev in his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. About omnipotence local nobility during the period of serfdom, full of its arbitrariness on his estates, Obolt-Obolduev recalls in Nekrasov’s poem “Who should live well in Rus'”:
The landowner had the right to exile recalcitrant peasants to Siberia, but most often he handed over to the soldiers during the next recruitment.
However, the nobility is an ambiguous concept. Being the most privileged class, it was also the most educated. Many came from the nobility progressive people Russia - commanders and public figures, writers and scientists, artists and musicians. Many fighters against autocracy and serfdom were also nobles.
Titled nobles
The title was called an honorary generic or “granted” title by the sovereign. The most ancient noble title in Rus' was the prince. Many ancient feudal lords were called princes - large landowners, this title was inherited. From the beginning of the 18th century, the title of prince began to be assigned by the emperor for personal merit. The highest, but rather rare title was the Most Serene Prince. The first most illustrious prince was an associate of Peter I A.D. Menshikov. Among the heroes of Russian literature, the most serene princes are deduced only as real ones. historical figures. This is Potemkin in Gogol's "The Night Before Christmas" and Kutuzov in L. Tolstoy's "War and Peace". "Your Grace" - so it was supposed to address the most serene princes.
The wife of a prince was called a princess, the daughter - a princess, the son of a prince - also a prince, although in ancient times the young sons of a prince were called princes. TO XIX century many princely families became impoverished - let us recall the hero of Dostoevsky's novel "The Idiot" Prince Myshkin, who was forced to look for a place in St. Petersburg as a simple scribe.
The third title of nobility was count. Borrowed from the West, it was introduced to Russia by Peter I in 1706. The first Russian count was the commander B.P. Sheremetev. The wife and daughter of the count were called countesses, the son was also called the count. L. Tolstoy calls young Natasha Rostova “Countess” in “War and Peace”, but this is a purely unofficial word.
Princes and counts were titled "lordships".
The lowest noble title in Russia was a baron (for a woman - a baroness), also introduced by Peter I initially for the highest nobility in the Baltic states. Therefore, after the title of baron or baroness, we are used to hearing German surname; among literary heroes Baroness Shtral (Lermontov's Masquerade), Baron von Klotz - father-in-law of Griboedovsky Repetilov, Baron Muffel in Turgenev's Rudin, Baron Tuzenbach in Chekhov's Three Sisters are not accidental.
The barons did not have a title formula, they were simply addressed with the words “Mr. Baron”.
By the end of the 18th century, especially under Paul I, Russian barons began to appear in Russia - the Stroganovs, Skaryatins, Cherkasovs and others.
In L. Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection" the following conversation takes place:
“- Do you know why the baron is Vorobyov? - said the lawyer, answering the somewhat comic intonation with which Nekhlyudov pronounced this foreign title in conjunction with such a Russian surname. - It was Pavel who awarded his grandfather, - it seems, a lackey, - this title for some reason. Something really pleased him. Make him a baron, do not interfere with my temper. And so he went: Baron Vorobyov. And very proud of it. And a big rascal."
titles of nobility passed from husbands to wives. But if a woman, nee princess or countess, married a non-prince and non-count, she lost her tribal title. Or she acquired the title of her husband. In Chekhov's story "The Princess", the heroine says to the archimandrite: "You know, I got married ... from a countess I became a princess." It could also be the other way around. But if the husband did not have a title, then the wife became untitled. Anna Karenina, nee Princess Oblonskaya, having married the untitled Karenin, ceased to be a princess. She was allowed to add “nee Princess Oblonskaya” to the new surname in the documents, write the same on business card, but not more. "Her Excellency" Anna Karenina was no longer titled.
Not earth, but souls
Before the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the wealth of a landowner was determined not by the size of the land he owned, but by the number of peasant souls that belonged to him. The amount of land was considered not so significant without workers capable of processing it, it did not represent such a high value.
The landowners were divided into small landowners (who owned up to a hundred souls), medium landowners, whose number of souls numbered in the hundreds, and large landlords (about a thousand or more souls). So, the measure of wealth was not the size of the estate, but the number of serfs! One of Turgenev's stories directly states: "At that time, the prices of estates, as you know, were determined by heart."
Here it must be borne in mind that the account was kept according to the so-called revision souls, which were considered only men. The actual number of "souls" was much higher if women and children were included.
Recall how Famusov determined the value of the groom for Sophia:
Here the “bad boy” is unsightly, nondescript, the “ancestral” ones are hereditary serfs. And in the third act, Famusov fiercely argues with Khlestova, Chatsky has three or four hundred souls.
The number of serf souls among the landowners was very different, which can be seen from the literature. Gogolevsky Ivan Fedorovich Shponka owned 18 - 24 souls, but his estate flourished. The impoverished Andrei Dubrovsky has 70 souls, Gogol's Korobochka has 80, but the miser Plyushkin has 1000! Arbenin has 3,000 souls in Lermontov's Masquerade, and Konstantin Levin has the same number in Anna Karenina. Arina Petrovna ("Lord Golovlev" Saltykov-Shchedrin) has 4000! Yezersky's grandfather ("The genealogy of my hero" by Pushkin) "had twelve thousand souls." And he (Yezersky) "lived on a salary / And served as a registrar" - such is the sharp decline noble family in just two generations.
The non-landlord nobles had very few souls. Chichikov, who decided to buy 400 dead souls, owned only two living ones - the footman Petrushka and the coachman Selifan. Captain Mironov's " Captain's daughter""Just a shower one girl Palashka." Aunt Odintsova (“Fathers and Sons” by Turgenev) has the only serf, a gloomy footman “in a worn pea livery with a blue braid and a cocked hat.”
Landlord peasants
According to the method of working out serfdom, the landlord peasants were divided into corvée, quitrent and yard.
While serving his corvée, the peasant cultivated the landowner's land with his own tools, of course, free of charge; by law - three days a week, although other landlords extended the corvée to six days.
Being on quitrent, the peasant was engaged in various crafts, trade, crafts, carting, or was hired as a manufactory; part of the earnings - dues - he paid the landowner.
Corvee was more profitable for the landlords who owned fertile lands, quitrent was preferred in the marginal, that is, in the non-chernozem provinces. Turgenev’s story “Khor and Kalinich” says: “The Oryol peasant is small in stature, round-shouldered, gloomy, looks frowningly, lives in trashy aspen huts, goes to corvee, does not engage in trade, eats poorly, wears bast shoes; the Kaluga quitrent peasant lives in spacious pine huts, is tall, looks bold and cheerful ... ”etc. The difference is due to the fact that the Oryol province is black earth, Kaluga is non-black earth.
In general, quitrent, which allowed him to freely dispose of his time, was easier for the peasant than exhausting corvée.
When Eugene Onegin came into possession of his uncle's estate, then
The quitrent peasants were released from the estate only on special document- a passport issued by the landowner.
The volume of work in the corvee or the amount of money for quitrent was determined by taxes; a peasant household (family) with a team was called a tax, as well as the rate of working out from such a unit.
Gerasim in Turgenev's Mumu, while still in the village, "was considered perhaps the most serviceable draft man."
In addition to the draft peasants, there were non-draughts - the elderly and the sick, used as needed in various feasible jobs. In Turgenev's comedy "The Freeloader" it is said about the taxless, who were gathered in the Eletsky estate to clean the paths.
Serfs were called serfs, cut off from the land and serving the manor's house and courtyard. They usually lived in human or courtyard huts located near master's house. The place for servants in the manor's house was called human.
Yard people were fed in the human room, at a common table, or they received a salary in the form of a month - a monthly food ration, which was sometimes called sheer ("sheer"), as it was released by weight, and a small amount of money - "for shoes".
Guests came to the owners, the servants were in sight; therefore, the courtyards dressed better than the corvées, wore uniforms, and often wore the master's dress. The men were forced to shave their beards.
"Man", "people" - that's how the bars called the courtyards, in general, any servant, and in this sense, these beautiful words acquired a derogatory connotation. “We have this and people will not eat,” says young Aduev in “ Ordinary history» Goncharov about a stale pear seen in St. Petersburg, and this phrase is very eloquent.
Although the courtyards were the same serfs, they were not called that. IN literature XIX centuries we constantly read: peasants and courtyards, courtyards and peasants. In Pushkin's "Dubrovsky" it is said about Troekurov: "He dealt with the peasants and courtyards strictly and capriciously."
ST. Aksakov wrote that the rural landowners "for the most part are very close to their servants and morals and education." Herzen caustically noted: "The difference between nobles and courtyards is as small as between their names." At the same time, Herzen emphasized that the courtyards were keenly aware of their personal bondage. In fact: they were constantly in the eyes of the masters, who pushed them around as they pleased.
Yard staff
The butler was at the head of the servants. It was usually solid old man, obliged to keep order in the house, for serving dishes at dinner. Sometimes he was called in French the majordomo, in translation - the eldest in the house. Gavrila, the chief butler of the lady, was introduced into Turgenev's Mumu.
Bypassing the commonly understood and now names of courtyards, such as a coachman, a barman, a maid, a nurse, etc., we will explain concepts that have long gone out of use.
The yard staff included valets - room servants, colloquially komardins, cameldins, etc. The valets close to the young gentlemen were decently dressed, distinguished by their independence of behavior, and sometimes by their swagger, by their desire to imitate the bars. It is no coincidence that Alexei Berestov, when meeting with Lisa (Pushkin's Young Lady-Peasant Woman), pretends to be, albeit unsuccessfully, his own valet.
The stirrups were servants on horseback who accompanied the bar during their rides, including hunting. Berestov Sr. in "The Young Lady-Peasant Woman" leaves to hunt for a hare with a stirrup. “The horse of the old count ... led the count's stirrups,” we read in L. Tolstoy's War and Peace. Savelich in "The Captain's Daughter" was granted uncles (that is, educators), before that he was stirrup. Oblomov's servant Zakhar was originally his uncle.
Cossacks were called servant boys in the estate, dressed in a Cossack suit. Cossack women usually reported to the hosts about the arrival of guests, ran around with various errands, delivered treats. In the poem by I.S. Turgenev "Landlord" we read:
Postilions (colloquially faletors) were called teenage coachmen, less often adults of thin build, sitting astride one of the front harness horses.
For poor or stingy landowners, positions were sometimes combined: for Tatyana Borisovna, in Turgenev’s Notes of a Hunter, “the position of valet, butler and barmaid is occupied by a seventy-year-old servant Polycarp.”
Livery lackeys, that is, servants dressed in special uniforms with sewing and galloons, served in the rich nobles and in the cities. At departures, the bar was accompanied by tall traveling lackeys - haiduks, who stood at the back of the carriage.
In "Peter the Great's Moor" and "The Queen of Spades" by Pushkin, we come across the strange term "master's lady". This was the name of the housekeeper, that is, the housekeeper who was in charge of the household in rich noble houses.
The cook who cooked for the bar was called the white cook, for the domestics - the black cook.
Hay girls served at the bars (not from the word “hay”, but from the word “canopy”) - maids, who were usually in the hallway waiting for instructions. In everyday life, they were roughly called girls.
Companions, non-enslaved women who were hired in manor houses for company, that is, entertainment (for example, playing cards) of ladies and escorting young ladies on walks, should not be counted among the servants of the yard.
Approximately the same roles, but in a more humiliated position, were played by accusers, often impoverished noblewomen. The men living on the master's bread were called freeloaders behind their backs. The tragic figure of such a person was portrayed in the comedy "Freeloader" by Turgenev.
Wealthy bars acquired "for fun" highly valued people of the black race - araps. Zagoretsky "got two Arapchenki at the fair," says Khlestova, who came to visit Famusov with a "Arap girl."
Estate management
Under serfdom, for this purpose, the landowner appointed a clerk or steward, or entrusted the household to the headman, who was chosen by the peasant community or appointed by the landowner. The assistant to the headman, who assigned the peasants to various jobs, was called an elected one, since he was elected. All these were serfs, bonded people.
Often, a manager (or manager, which is the same thing) was hired to run the landowner's economy. free people, more or less literate and experienced. This position was often taken by Germans who knew the Russian language and the Russian people poorly, but somehow understood agriculture. The figures of German managers in Russian literature are numerous, the most expressive image of Vogel in Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Rus'". Several estates of the same landowner were managed by managers, they were headed by the chief manager. Or individual estates were managed by clerks who were subordinate to the manager. The rulers' terms varied. There is no semantic difference between managers and clerks - Tolstoy and Turgenev call the same person either this or that.
Large estates were managed by retired military men hired by the landowners. Prince Vereisky (“Dubrovsky”), who had been in foreign lands for a long time, had a retired major manage the entire estate. And at Prince Yurlov (Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”) in the patrimony
In Turgenev's story "The Burmister" the Burmister Sofron is shown - a cunning and obsequious man, ruining the peasants and taking over the landowners' lands. “A dog, not a man,” the surrounding peasants say about him.
With the fall of serfdom, the word "burmister" quickly fell into disuse, but the managers and clerks who worked for hire continued to do their job. Let us recall the impudent and quirky Sorkin in Chekhov's play Ivanov.
In almost all works, managers are depicted clearly negatively, as ruthless oppressors of the peasants and thieves who rob the landowner himself. Among the landlords, who lived permanently in the city, abroad, or on their other estate, the managers felt themselves to be unlimited masters of the peasants and the land.
“And suddenly they tell me that I have lived everything, that we have nothing. It's horrible! - says the landowner Prezhneva in Ostrovsky's play “They didn’t get along!”. “Probably, these managers and stewards are to blame for everything there.”
Under the headman, who was often illiterate, the assistants usually consisted of a zemstvo in the role of a clerk. In Pushkin's "History of the village of Goryukhin" we read: "... the headman announced that a letter had been received from the master, and ordered the zemstvo to read it for the hearing of the world." The zemstvo clerk should not be confused with the zemstvo police officer or with the zemstvo chief, about which we told the chapter - “Lands and authorities”.
Large landlord farms had a special apparatus - an office. This kind of bureaucratic institution with a whole staff of clerks making ridiculous orders was ridiculed by Turgenev in the story "Office".
Hunting
The favorite pastime of the landowners was hunting. Wealthy landlords had entire hunting farms with an extensive staff of servants. The kennel took care of the hunting dogs: the senior kennel, who was in charge of the training of the greyhounds and disposed of the dogs during the hunt, was called the doezzhach. The hunter was in charge of all dog hunting. The vyzhlyatnik (from the vyzhlets - a hound male, the vyzhlitsa - a bitch hound) was in charge of hounds, the greyhound, or greyhound, was in charge of greyhounds.
Kind uniform the psary were red caftans with galloons.
How was the hunt? The hunters-beaters forced the hounds to track down the beast, they with loud barking drove him out of the forest; there, greyhounds, distinguished by their particularly fast run, were lowered onto the beast. The hunters rode after him on horseback until the greyhounds overtook the beast.
The hounds were set on a red (that is, large) beast with a special cry - squealing (“oh-hoo”) or hooting (“u-lu-lu”):
Hares were poisoned by shouts of “atu”, “atu him” - they attacked.
Hunting for hares was usually carried out on "fields away from home" - the expression is incomprehensible today. “My neighbor hurries / To the outgoing fields with his hunting” - famous Pushkin lines. This was the name of the fields remote from the estate, where they had to go specially for hunting.
The departure of the landowner for dog hunting is colorfully described in the first lines of Pushkin's poem "Count Nulin":
| It's time, it's time! horns trumpet; Psari in hunting gear Than the world is sitting on horseback, Greyhounds jump on packs. |
Now we are talking about a pack as a pack of dogs, in a hunting pack - a leash on which they lead a pair or several greyhounds. The condition of Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky, "an ardent hunter", was determined by the fact that he kept "only two hounds and one pack of greyhounds"; here a pack is not a whole pack, as a modern reader would think, but a pair or at most two pairs of dogs. Thus, Dubrovsky owned no more than six hunting dogs, while Troekurov had "more than five hundred".
The word "bow" had a similar meaning to the word "pack" - a rope that was used to tie a pair of hounds when going hunting. “I, sir, had twelve bows of hounds,” recalls the impoverished landowner Karataev in Turgenev’s Notes of a Hunter, that is, twenty-four hounds.
The picture of the lordly hunt is colorfully described by the landowner Obolt-Obolduev in Nekrasov’s poem “Who should live well in Rus'”. Scenes of the same kind are also presented in Nekrasov's poem "Hound Hunt", in Turgenev's story "Chertop-hanov and Nedopyuskin". The most complete and vivid description of dog hunting in Russian literature is given by L. Tolstoy in "War and Peace" (Vol. 2. Part 4. Ch. III - IV), where it is described in detail and fascinatingly about the hunt organized on the estate Rostov Otradnoy.
Odnodvortsy and free plowmen
Odnodvortsami under serfdom were called people from military service people of low rank, endowed as a reward for service not with an estate, but with a small plot of land, usually in one yard, without serfs. Personally, they were free, they even had the right to acquire peasants, but on a par with serfs they paid a tax - a poll tax. Most often they cultivated their land themselves. “Speaking in general, it is still difficult to distinguish between a single palace and a peasant,” Turgenev writes in the story “Ovsyanikov’s Single Palace”, “his farm is almost worse than that of a peasant, the calves do not come out of buckwheat, the horses are barely alive, the harness is rope.” Ovsyanikov, described in the story, “was an exception to general rule, although he was not reputed to be a rich man.
The father of the hero of another story by Turgenev, Nedopyuskin, “came out of the same palaces and achieved the nobility only after forty years of service.”
Free from serfdom, just like the one-dvortsy, there were also small landowners - free, or free, cultivators. By decree of 1803, a serf could redeem himself and acquire a small piece of land. Occasionally, in the form of a special favor, the landowner himself released him, endowing him with land.
In Pushkin's History of the Village of Goryukhin, the Sivka River separates the landlord Goryukhino from the possessions of the Karachevskys, free cultivators - "neighbors of restless, known for violent cruelty of morals." In Tolstoy's "War and Peace" by Andrei Bolkonsky, "one of his estates of three hundred souls of peasants was listed as free cultivators (this was one of the first examples in Russia)."
Free cultivators under serfdom did not get rid of recruitment duty. In Nekrasov's poem "The Forgotten Village", the serf girl Natasha fell in love with a free plowman, but the chief steward prevents marriage, they are waiting for the master. Meanwhile, “a free farmer ended up as a soldier. / And Natasha herself is no longer delirious about the wedding ... "Another tragedy of the era of serfdom ...
A serf, set free by a landowner, was called a freedman. In Turgenev's story "Lgov", the hunter Vladimir, a former lord's valet, released by the master to freedom, is bred. He lived "without a penny in cash, without constant employment, he ate just not manna from heaven."
Main character another story by Turgenev raspberry water"- Fog," the freed man of the count.
With the abolition of serfdom, the concepts of "odnodvorets" and "free plowman", as well as "freedman", are forever gone.
Guardianship and bail
In a number of cases, the government could transfer the noble estate into trusteeship.
The escheated estates, that is, those left after the death of the owner and due to the lack of heirs without the owner, as well as the ruined estates, brought to ruin by the owners, were transferred to guardianship. In The Undergrowth by Fonvizin, “for the inhuman treatment of the peasants,” Prostakova’s estate goes under guardianship - an extremely rare and uncharacteristic case.
Repetilov in "Woe from Wit" repents to Chatsky that he was "taken into guardianship by decree" - this means that his ruined estate was taken under state supervision.
Guardianship was appointed in the case when the owners of the estate were minors, incapacitated, etc. Local nobles were appointed guardians, who in this case received 5% of the income from property as a fee.
When Gogol's old-world landowners died, their heir brought the estate to the point where it was taken into custody. "A wise guardianship (from one former assessor and some staff captain in a faded uniform) transferred all the chickens and all the eggs in a short time."
The task of guardianship under serfdom was the all-round support of noble land ownership; ruined estates often passed into the treasury, were sold at auction, but never became the property of the serfs who lived in them.
Widespread among landlords in early XIX century received a pledge of estates - together with serfs. What it was, it is very useful to understand.
The owners could receive a cash loan from various kinds of credit institutions on the security of their estates or part of them. The case seemed tempting: at first, without losing anything, the landowner received a sum of money that he could use for his own needs and even for commercial operations. However, for the loan each year, before the expiration of its term, the credit institution had to pay a considerable percentage.
If the interest was not paid and the loan was not repaid after the expiration of the term, the estate was appropriated by a credit institution and sold to them at an auction (that is, a public auction). The amount contributed by the buyer replenished the budget of the credit institution, while the landowner, who lost his estate, remained ruined. Such a fate, as you know, befell Ranevskaya in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
The right to give interest-bearing loans secured by real estate was also granted to the boards of trustees. There were two of them - at the St. Petersburg and Moscow educational houses. Although these houses were called imperial, that is, under the protection of the state, the treasury did not release money to them. The orphanages, containing hundreds of orphans, existed at the expense of private charity, deductions from lotteries and theatrical performances, sales playing cards and so on. But the main source of income for orphanages was loan operations.
The squandered landowner Muromsky in Pushkin's The Young Lady-Peasant Woman "was considered a not stupid person, for the first of the landowners of his province guessed to mortgage the estate to the Board of Trustees: a turn that seemed at that time extremely complex and bold."
Gradually, this kind of pledge became common among landowners. Pierre Bezukhov ("War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy) paid about 80 thousand interest on mortgages to the Council (guardianship) on all estates. We read about the pledge of landlord estates to pawnshops and trustee councils in many works of Russian classics: in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Gogol's Carriage, L. Tolstoy's Youth, in a number of Ostrovsky's comedies.
Things are bad for the Kirsanovs (“Fathers and Sons” by Turgenev), and here “the board of trustees threatens and demands immediate and non-arrears payment of interest.”
To remortgage the estate meant to mortgage it anew, before the expiration of the term of the first pledge, when the estate had to be redeemed, that is, the amount received on pledge should be deposited with all interest - this was quite a hefty amount of money. With the second pledge, credit institutions significantly, usually doubled, increased the annual percentage of the installment, that is, they put the mortgager in extremely unfavorable conditions. But the landowner had no choice: he no longer had the funds to buy the estate or other mortgaged property. It goes without saying that the weight of the second pledge fell with all its might on the serfs, who were exploited beyond measure.
On the right to mortgage their own peasants, that is, to receive a loan secured by serf souls, the whole Chichikov scam with the purchase of dead souls is built.
If valuables (movable property) were pawned in a pawnshop until redemption in kind, then, of course, lands and peasants were pawned according to officially issued documents confirmed by local authorities, indicating that the pledged really exists.
From time to time, the state undertook revisions - censuses of the country's serf population, primarily in order to establish the number of males suitable for recruits. Therefore, not all serfs were called "revision soul", but only male peasants.
From 1719 to 1850, ten revisions were made. Information about serfs was recorded in special sheets - revision tales. Until the new revision, the revision souls were legally considered to exist; it was unthinkable to organize a daily record of the serf population. Thus, the dead or fugitive peasants were officially considered available, for them the landowners were obliged to pay a tax - a poll tax.
Chichikov took advantage of these circumstances, buying from landlords dead souls as if alive, in order to pledge them to the Board of Trustees and get a tidy sum of money. The deal was also beneficial for the landlord: having received from Chichikov at least a small amount for a non-existent peasant, he at the same time got rid of the need to pay a soul tax for him to the treasury. Of course, Chichikov sought to buy a dead soul cheaper, and the landowner to sell it at a higher price - hence the stubborn bargaining for souls.
With the legal purchase and mortgage of living souls, the pawnbroker received the amount based on the real price of living peasants, and was obliged to pay annually the prescribed percentage for each pledged soul until the redemption date.
Chichikov was not going to do it. Having pawned the dead souls as if they were alive, he wanted to get a loan for them and hide with a capital made up of the difference between the value of the revision soul and the amount paid for it to the landowner. He did not even think about any interest, and even more so a ransom.
There was only one difficulty: Chichikov did not have land, and a nobleman could buy peasants without land only “for withdrawal”, that is, with relocation to new places. To get around the ban, Chichikov came up with the idea that he was allegedly acquiring land in the uninhabited, steppe provinces - Kherson and Taurida (Crimea). This sounded convincing: it was known that the government, interested in settling the desert lands in southern Russia, was selling them to any nobleman who wanted them for next to nothing. No one was embarrassed that Chichikov was supposedly going to transfer only men to new places, without their families. Such a deal could take place only until 1833, when a law appeared prohibiting the sale of peasants "with separation from the family."
The immorality of Chichikov's scam also consisted in the fact that he intended to pledge fictitious peasants not just anywhere, but to the Board of Trustees, which was in charge of guardianship of widows and orphans. It was for their maintenance that the money received from mortgage operations went. Thus, Chichikov counted on cashing in on the grief and tears of the destitute, already half-starved and poorly dressed.
Noble self-government
The nobles of counties and provinces united in noble societies who enjoyed self-government. Every three years, the nobles of the county and the entire province gathered for county and provincial elections, at which they elected leaders of the nobility, judges, police officers and other elected officials. Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin in The Inspector General introduces himself to Khlestakov: “From eight hundred and sixteen he was elected for a three-year term by the will of the nobility ...”
The most authoritative and wealthy landowners were elected leaders of the nobility. This position was quite troublesome, but prestigious. The leader was obliged, without bringing the case to court, to settle conflicts between local nobles, to appease the restless. The provincial leader was the closest adviser and support of the governor, although sometimes there were quarrels between them, as in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.
The position of leader required certain expenses for travel and receptions. Count Ilya Rostov left the leaders of the county nobility, since this post was associated with "too much expenses." In Turgenev's story "Two Landowners", General Khvalynsky plays "a rather significant role in the elections, but, out of avarice, he refuses the honorary title."
At the same time, other landowners yearned to become leaders. Such is the hero of Gogol's "Carriage" Chertokutsky: "In the last elections, he gave the nobility a wonderful dinner, at which he announced that if only he was elected leader, he would put the nobles on the best foot."
In Turgenev's play Breakfast at the Leader's, Balagalaev, the marshal of the nobility, is depicted as a gentle and indecisive man. He unsuccessfully tries to reconcile the nobles - brother and sister, who quarreled over the division of the inherited estate: "... I agreed to be an intermediary between them," he says, "because, you understand, this is my duty ..."
The beginning of L. Tolstoy's story "After the Ball" takes place "at a ball at the provincial leader, a good-natured old man, a rich hospitable man and a chamberlain."
The nobleman Alupkin in one of Turgenev's stories slavishly says to the marshal of the nobility: "You are, so to speak, our second father."
The leader of the nobility was obliged to worry about the imaginary dignity of the nobility. In this capacity, the leader is mentioned in Chekhov's story "My Life": he turns to the governor for help in order to force the nobleman Poloznev, who has embarked on a simple path labor activity, "change your behavior."
Nobility elections became an event in the dull life of district and provincial landlords, the subject of their unrest and discussion. In the poem "Winter. What should we do in the village? I meet ... " Pushkin calls "talk about close elections" as one of the topics of conversations in the living room.
The election of the provincial marshal of the nobility is described in L. Tolstoy's story "Two Hussars" and especially in detail and colorfully in the sixth part of "Anna Karenina".
The satirical figure of the district marshal of the nobility is given by Lermontov in the poem "The Tambov Treasurer":
In Anna Karenina, Sviyazhsky "was an exemplary leader of the nobility and always wore a cap with a cockade and a red band on the road." Irony is also noticeable here: Tolstoy notes the weakness of the noblemen's chosen ones to external attributes your power.
Peasant reform
In Russian classical literature almost exclusively landlord peasants, which were discussed above, were withdrawn. But there were other categories of peasants, sometimes mentioned in passing by the classics. To complete the picture, you should get to know them.
State, or state, peasants. They were considered personally free, lived on state lands, and carried duties in favor of the state. They were led by special managers appointed by the government.
Separate peasants. Belonged to the royal family, paid dues, carried state duties.
Until 1764, economic peasants belonged to monasteries and churches, then these lands were allocated to special economies, which passed to the state, before which the peasants bore duties, remaining relatively free. Subsequently, they merged with the state peasants.
Posessional peasants were owned by private industrial enterprises and used as factory workers.
The abolition of serfdom in 1861 to one degree or another affected all categories of peasants, but we will only talk about how it affected the landlord peasants, who constituted the most numerous category (23 million) described in detail in Russian classical literature.
In general, the abolition of serfdom on February 19, 1861, took into account, first of all, the interests of large landowners. Although the peasant became personally free and could no longer be bought or sold, he was obliged to redeem his land allotment from the landowner. At the same time, he received not the allotment that he cultivated, but greatly reduced in favor of the landowner and at a price that significantly exceeded its actual value. When allotments were allocated, the landowner left the poorest, most infertile land to the peasants.
To draw up statutory charters, that is, documents regulating relations between landowners and peasants after the reform of 1861, mediators were appointed from among the local nobles. Much in the fate of the peasants depended on the personal qualities of these mediators, their objectivity and benevolence. Among the world mediators, there were also liberal people inclined to a fair decision. Such were Konstantin Levin in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Versilov in Dostoyevsky's A Teenager, and the good-natured Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons apparently possessed these qualities as well.
In the interests of the landowners, the peasants had to pay them a lump sum of 20-25% of the cost of the field plot. The rest was initially paid by the treasury, so that the peasant repaid this loan within 49 years, in installments, at 6% annually.
A peasant who did not contribute 20 - 25% to the landowner was considered temporarily liable and continued to work former owner sharecropping, as corvée, or dues, has now come to be called. Temporarily liable are seven men - the heroes of Nekrasov's poem "Who should live well in Rus'." In 1883, the category of temporarily liable was canceled: by this time, the peasants had to pay the ransom to the landowner in full or lose their allotment.
On average, reform per one peasant family 3.3 acres of land were allocated, that is, three and a half hectares, which was barely enough to feed themselves. In some places, the peasant was given 0.9 acres - a completely beggarly allotment.
In Russian literature, the peasant reform of 1861 and its consequences for the landowners and peasants were widely reflected. Such a dialogue in Ostrovsky's play "The Savage Woman" between the landowners Ashmetyev and Anna Stepanovna regarding the reform is indicative. Ashmetiev says: “Well, it seems that we can’t complain very much, we haven’t lost much.” Anna Stepanovna declares: “So this is an exception, this is a special happiness ... Kirill Maksimych was then a conciliator and drew up charters for us with the peasants. He cut them so that they have nowhere to kick out the chicken. Thanks to him, I got a good job: the peasants work for me just as much and as much as the serfs - no difference.
In the novel “Mother” by Gorky, the peasant Yefim, to the question: “Do you yourself have a plot?” replies: “We? We have! We are three brothers, and she put on four tithes. Sand - it’s good for them to clean copper, but the land is incapable of bread! .. ”And he continues:“ I freed myself from the earth, what is it? He does not feed, but knits his hands. For the fourth year I have been going to the laborers.
Millions of peasants went bankrupt, went to the laborers to the same landlords or kulaks, left for the cities, replenishing the ranks of the proletariat, which was rapidly growing in the post-reform years.
The fate of the yard peasants was especially difficult: they did not have a land allotment, and therefore the landowner was not obliged to provide them with land. Few continued to serve the impoverished landowners until their deaths, like Firs in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. The majority was released without land and money for all four sides. If the landowner left his estate, they remained, starving, in the estate, he was no longer obliged to pay them a month or a salary. Nekrasov wrote about such unfortunates in the poem “Who in Rus' should live well”:
Saltykov-Shchedrin colorfully described the bitter fate of a courtyard man after the reform in the story “The Tailor Grishka”.
Shortly before the reform, having heard about it, many landowners, despite the ban, transferred almost all of their peasants to the household in order to deprive them of the right to allotment.
Nekrasov wrote:
Yes, the master, especially the poor one, got it too: the money received for the ransom was quickly spent, and there was nothing to live on. For a pittance, redemption certificates were sold or pledged - issued to landowners financial documents confirming their right to receive ransom money. It remained to sell the hereditary land, which was quickly seized by resourceful merchants and kulaks. But even this money did not last long.
Earlier than others, small-scale landowners went bankrupt and disappeared, followed by medium-sized landowners. Pictures of the ruin of the "noble nests", the impoverishment of the nobles are vividly drawn in the works of Bunin and A.N. Tolstoy.
Influenced by the events of the first Russian revolution in 1905, the government abolished the collection of ransom payments from peasants in 1906, that is, four years ahead of schedule.
In L. Tolstoy's comedy Fruits of Enlightenment, peasants driven to the extreme come to the landowner in the city to buy land from him. “Without land, our habitation must weaken and fall into decay,” explains one man. And another adds: "... the land is small, not like cattle, - let's say, a hen, and there is nowhere to let it out." However, the swaggering landowner demands payment in full, without the promised installment plan, and the peasants have no money. Only the cunning of the maid Tanya, who uses the superstition of the masters, helps the peasant walkers achieve their goal.
In Gorky's novel "The Life of Klim Samgin" one of the characters characterizes the situation of the peasants in this way. late XIX century: “The men live as conquered, as in captivity, by golly. The younger ones are leaving, who goes where.
Such were the consequences of the reform of 1861.
Yu.A. Fedosyuk
WHAT IS INCOMPLETE AMONG THE CLASSICS, or ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN LIFE OF THE XIX CENTURY
A few words about this book
The history of this book is not quite ordinary. It began back in 1959 with a letter that 39-year-old philologist and journalist Yuri Fedosyuk wrote to the editors of the Voprosy Literature magazine. “Hundreds of expressions found in the works of Russian classics and reflecting social relations and everyday features pre-revolutionary Russia, become for an ever wider range contemporary readers"stumbling block" - either incomprehensible at all, or misunderstood "..." - was said in this letter. - It is not clear to me, who is only familiar with the metric system, whether the landowner who owns two hundred acres of land is rich or poor, whether the merchant who drank “half a damask” of vodka is very drunk, whether the official who gives tip “blue”, “red” or “seven” is generous . Which of the heroes is higher in position when one is called "your honor", the second - "your excellency", and the third - "your excellency"? Separate events of this or that novel take place on Dormition Day or on St. Thomas Week, but if there is no description of nature, I do not understand either the time of year or the chronology of events. Concluding the letter, Y. Fedosyuk urged scientists - philologists and historians to start work on a special reference book on the history of Russian life, which would help a wide range readers, and above all teachers of literature, students and schoolchildren, "to comprehend the works of the classics more deeply, reviving many lines that have faded due to the fact that the concepts contained in them have been archived by our era."The letter was sympathetically received by specialists: Voprosy Literature magazine published it in No. 6, 1959, under the heading “Such a manual is necessary,” but the call to scientists contained in it did not seem to be heeded by them. Years passed, and the extremely necessary, according to Yu. Fedosyuk, to all readers of Russian classical literature, the manual still did not appear. And then, more than a quarter of a century after his publication in Questions of Literature, Yuri Aleksandrovich Fedosyuk, by that time already well known among philologists and historians for his books on the etymology of Russian surnames (What does your surname mean? - M., 1969; Russian last name: popular etymological dictionary. - M., 1972; republished in 1981 and 1996) and on the history of Moscow (Boulevard Ring. - M., 1972; Rays from the Kremlin. - M., 1978; Moscow in the Sadov Ring. - M., 1982; republished in 1991, etc. .), decides to implement his old idea himself.
In 1989, work on a new book was completed, but, unfortunately, her fate unexpectedly turned out to be very difficult. The manuscript was handed over to one authoritative state publishing house, which, first due to financial difficulties, and then, alas, due to the dishonesty and incompetence of the employee responsible for publishing the book, could not publish it. Meanwhile, the contract concluded with the publishing house, as well as numerous assurances that the book was about to be released, for a long time did not give the opportunity, first to the author himself (he died in 1993, without waiting for the book to be released), and then to his heirs try to publish it elsewhere.
In the years since the book was written, interest in national history and culture in Russia has grown markedly, and the ideological barriers that once prevented authors and publishers from satisfying this interest of readers have disappeared. Books such as “Conversations about Russian Culture” by Yu. M. Lotman (St. Petersburg, 1994), “Costume in Russian Artistic Culture of the 18th – First Half of the 20th Centuries” were published. R. M. Kirsanova (M., 1995), “Dictionary of rare and forgotten words” by V. P. Somov (M., 1996), dictionary reference book “Rare words in the works of authors of the 19th century” edited by R. P. Rogozhnikova ( M., 1997), etc. However, the book that you are now holding in your hands does not coincide in form and content with any of them. Before you at the same time is a fascinating story about how our ancestors lived in the old days, which the author provided with numerous examples from well famous works Russian classical literature, and the much-needed historical commentary to these works, thanks to which the reader will be able to understand their content much deeper.
Concluding this short introduction, I would like to express my gratitude to Marina Ivanovna Labzina and Tatyana Mikhailovna Tumurova for their work in editing the book during the first, unfortunately, unsuccessful attempt to publish it. I am deeply grateful to the Flinta publishing house, which, having received the manuscript from me, kindly agreed to promptly publish my father's book, which had been waiting for its reader for so long. In addition, I consider it my pleasant duty to sincerely thank Sergei Ivanovich Kormilov, Erik Iosifovich Khan Pira, Igor Georgievich Dobrodomov, Lev Iosifovich Sobolev and Gennady Yuryevich Skvortsov: having carefully read the first editions of this book, they expressed their comments, which made it possible to include a whole a number of clarifications and corrections.
^ M.Yu. Fedosyuk
Instead of a preface
Plunging into the rich and diverse world of Russian classical literature, a young man, often imperceptibly, encounters difficulties. Its pages, like on a time machine, take us back to ancient times, when the social structure, life, and the people themselves were noticeably different from the present. Therefore, the works of the classics are perceived by us not as easily and simply as by the author's contemporaries - those readers for whom they were written. It is difficult to understand both the features of the described era, its laws and signs, as well as individual words and concepts that have disappeared from everyday life or have changed their meaning.Russian literature and national history are sisters. In our minds, they go hand in hand. The reader will not be able to fully understand "Dead Souls" by N.V. Gogol or "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy, having no idea about the time of their action, knowing nothing about serfdom or the post-reform era. Therefore, without knowledge of Russian history, it is difficult to understand Russian literature, while knowledge of literature makes it easier to understand history, enlivening it with images, dialogues and colors.
Comprehension of a work is impossible without the words turning in our minds into a visual image or an abstract concept. Here Yevgeny Onegin hurries to the dying uncle, "flying in the dust on the mail." And what does the line mean: "... Rushed through the mail ..."? (Is it possible these days to “jump by mail”?) What kind of steward told the hero that “uncle is dying in bed”? What is the uncle's estate, damask wallpaper in his living room? Finally - and this is especially important - what do the words "... He replaced the old corvée with a yoke with a light quitrent ..."? In short: no matter what the stanza is, there are riddles, large and small, but at the same time very essential for understanding the meaning of the narrative, the time of action, the psychology of the characters.
From these particulars, that unique picture is formed that allows us to enjoy artwork to clearly see and understand the action.
Yes, people have always been people, they were friends and enemies, worked and had fun, conceded or fought, defending their life ideals- without these common features with us, there would be no need to read and re-read works about the distant past. But here historical conditions, the whole situation of their life was very different from modern ones.
It is now clear to the reader what this book is written for. In order to facilitate the perception of Russian classical literature, removing the haze of time that has slightly obscured it, making it difficult to understand. Who is this book written for? For those who enter into life young man, whose growing interest in native literature, as well as to national history, is natural and logical, especially in our time.
The book is divided into thematic chapters, which will allow you to get information about certain facts of the past not in fragments, but in their historical totality, interconnected. Thus, it can serve not only study guide on literature, but also the simplest reference book on history public relations and life of Russia from late XVIII century to the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, she almost completely relies on the material of Russian classical literature.
The book does not have to be read in a row, from the first to the last line. It is enough to familiarize yourself with the chapters or paragraphs from these chapters that interest you. At the end placed alphabetical index words interpreted in the book. Having met an incomprehensible word in the text of a work, the reader can easily find a page where it is explained, and it is also explained using the example of a literary text.
This book is one of the first examples of a reference manual of its kind. Therefore, it is hardly immune from incompleteness or some ambiguities. But I want to believe that it will be interesting for the reader to enter into fascinating world life of past centuries.
Instead of a preface
Chapter One THE PEOPLE'S CALENDAR
church calendar
old and new style
Holidays and fasts
Chapter Two
Kinship terms and properties
Confusion of terms
"Spiritual relationship"
Conditionals
dying words
Communication between family and friends
Official and semi-official addresses
"Word er s"
Other forms of treatment
CHAPTER THREE MEASURES AND WEIGHTS
Measures of length
Measures of area
Measures of weight
Measures of capacity for bulk goods
Liquid Volume Measures
temperature scale
Chapter Four MONEY AND SECURITIES
From Polushka to Katerinka
Two courses
All the colors of the rainbow
Securities
Chapter Five LAND AND POWER
Capitals, provinces, regions
Ministries and other government offices
provincial authorities
County authorities
city police
Volost and village
Post-reform institutions
Post-reform court
Gendarmerie
Some Forgotten Posts
Chapter Six Ranks and Ranks
Civil servants
Collegiate Registrar
Provincial Secretary
Collegiate Secretary
Titular Advisor
Collegiate Assessor
Court Advisor
Collegiate Counselor
State Councillor
Acting State Councilor
Privy Councilor
Acting Privy Councilor and Chancellor
Officials of the XV class
Chekhov's "Table of Ranks"
Court ranks and titles
Wrong title
Degrees and titles in science
CHAPTER SEVEN ARMY AND GUARDS
Recruitment duty
Military ranks
Officer ranks
Troop types
Forms and insignia
Reform of 1874
Cadets, Junkers and Cantonists
Some forgotten words
Chapter Eight Orders and Medals
Orders and their signs
Hierarchy of orders
Chapter Nine NOBLE AND PEASANTS
nobility
Titled nobles
Not earth, but souls
Landlord peasants
Yard staff
Estate management
Odnodvortsy and free plowmen
Guardianship and bail
Noble self-government
Peasant reform
Chapter Ten OTHER ESTATES PEOPLE
Philistinism and merchant class
Clergy
Chapter Eleven HOW WE DRESS
Suit and time
Men's suits
Women's urban clothing
Men's peasant clothing
Women's peasant clothes
Some details of the toilet and hairstyle
Beards and mustaches
Chapter Twelve
Means of transport
Crew types
Horse suits
Railways
Other means of transportation
Chapter Thirteen LIFE AND LEISURE
Inside the house
Lighting
Making fire
Small things
Food and drink
Diseases and their treatment
Taverns and other establishments
It can be said without exaggeration that the presented book by Yu.A. Fedosyuk (1920-1993) is a unique phenomenon. For decades ascetic research work the author has collected colossal material, reflecting the material and spiritual culture of the Russian people in words forgotten or incomprehensible to the modern reader. Examples taken from the well-known works of Russian classical writers cover literature XVIII-XX centuries
The book is addressed to schoolchildren, students, teachers, everyone who loves Russian literature and seeks to educate themselves more deeply.
A few words about this bookThe history of this book is not quite ordinary. It began back in 1959 with a letter that 39-year-old philologist and journalist Yuri Fedosyuk wrote to the editors of the Voprosy Literatury magazine. “Hundreds of expressions found in the works of Russian classics and reflecting social relations and everyday features of pre-revolutionary Russia are becoming a “stumbling block” for an ever wider circle of modern readers - either incomprehensible at all, or misunderstood “...” - said in this letter. - It is not clear to me, who is only familiar with the metric system, whether the landowner who owns two hundred acres of land is rich or poor, whether the merchant who drank “half a damask” of vodka is very drunk, whether the official who gives tip “blue”, “red” or “seven” is generous . Which of the heroes is higher in position when one is called "your honor", the second - "your excellency", and the third - "your excellency"? Separate events of this or that novel take place on Dormition Day or on St. Thomas Week, but if there is no description of nature, I do not understand either the time of year or the chronology of events. Concluding the letter, Y. Fedosyuk urged scientists - philologists and historians to begin work on a special reference book on the history of Russian life, which would help a wide range of readers, and above all teachers of literature, students and schoolchildren, “to better understand the works of the classics, reviving many lines that have faded due to the fact that the concepts contained in them have been archived by our era.
The letter was sympathetically received by specialists: Voprosy Literature magazine published it in No. 6, 1959, under the heading “Such a manual is necessary,” but the call to scientists contained in it did not seem to be heeded by them. Years passed, and the extremely necessary, according to Yu. Fedosyuk, to all readers of Russian classical literature, the manual still did not appear. And then, more than a quarter of a century after his publication in Questions of Literature, Yuri Aleksandrovich Fedosyuk, by that time already well known among philologists and historians for his books on the etymology of Russian surnames (What does your surname mean? - M., 1969; Russian surnames: Popular etymological dictionary. - M., 1972; reprinted in 1981 and 1996) and on the history of Moscow (Boulevard Ring. - M., 1972; Rays from the Kremlin. - M., 1978; Moscow in the Sadovykh ring. - M., 1982; republished in 1991, etc.), decides to realize his old idea himself.
In 1989, work on a new book was completed, but, unfortunately, her fate unexpectedly turned out to be very difficult. The manuscript was handed over to one authoritative state publishing house, which, first due to financial difficulties, and then, alas, due to the dishonesty and incompetence of the employee responsible for publishing the book, could not publish it. Meanwhile, the contract concluded with the publishing house, as well as numerous assurances that the book was about to be released, for a long time did not allow the author himself (he died in 1993, without waiting for the book to be published), and then his heirs to try to publish it elsewhere.
Over the years that have passed since the book was written, interest in Russian history and culture has noticeably grown in Russia, and the ideological barriers that once prevented authors and publishers from satisfying this interest of readers have disappeared. Books such as “Conversations about Russian Culture” by Yu. M. Lotman (St. Petersburg, 1994), “Costume in Russian Artistic Culture of the 18th – First Half of the 20th Centuries” were published. R. M. Kirsanova (M., 1995), “Dictionary of rare and forgotten words” by V. P. Somov (M., 1996), dictionary-reference book “Rare words in the works of authors of the 19th century” edited by R. P. Rogozhnikova (M., 1997), etc. However, the book that you now hold in your hands does not match in form and content with any of them. Before you is both a fascinating story about how our ancestors lived in the old days, which the author provided with numerous examples from well-known works of Russian classical literature, and a much-needed historical commentary on these works, thanks to which the reader will be able to understand their content much deeper.
Concluding this short introduction, I would like to express my gratitude to Marina Ivanovna Labzina and Tatyana Mikhailovna Tumurova for their work in editing the book during the first, unfortunately, unsuccessful attempt to publish it. I am deeply grateful to the Flinta publishing house, which, having received the manuscript from me, kindly agreed to promptly publish my father's book, which had been waiting for its reader for so long. In addition, I consider it my pleasant duty to sincerely thank Sergei Ivanovich Kormilov, Erik Iosifovich Khan-Pira, Igor Georgievich Dobrodomov, Lev Iosifovich Sobolev and Gennady Yuryevich Skvortsov: having carefully read the first editions of this book, they expressed their comments, which made it possible to include in the text a number of clarifications and fixes.
M.Yu. Fedosyuk
Instead of a preface
Plunging into the rich and diverse world of Russian classical literature, a young man, often imperceptibly, encounters difficulties. Its pages, like on a time machine, take us back to ancient times, when the social structure, life, and the people themselves were noticeably different from the present. Therefore, the works of the classics are perceived by us not as easily and simply as by the author's contemporaries - those readers for whom they were written. It is difficult to understand both the features of the described era, its laws and signs, as well as individual words and concepts that have disappeared from everyday life or have changed their meaning.
Russian literature and national history are sisters. In our minds, they go hand in hand. The reader will not be able to fully understand "Dead Souls" by N.V. Gogol or "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy, having no idea about the time of their action, knowing nothing about serfdom or the post-reform era. Therefore, without knowledge of Russian history, it is difficult to understand Russian literature, while knowledge of literature makes it easier to understand history, enlivening it with images, dialogues and colors.
Comprehension of a work is impossible without the words turning in our minds into a visual image or an abstract concept. Here Yevgeny Onegin hurries to the dying uncle, "flying in the dust on the mail." And what does the line mean: "... Rushed through the mail ..."? (Is it possible these days to “jump by mail”?) What kind of steward told the hero that “uncle is dying in bed”? What is the uncle's estate, damask wallpaper in his living room? Finally - and this is especially important - what do the words "... He replaced the old corvée with a yoke with a light quitrent ..."? In short: no matter what the stanza is, there are riddles, large and small, but at the same time very essential for understanding the meaning of the narrative, the time of action, the psychology of the characters.
From these particulars, that unique picture is formed, which allows us to enjoy a work of art, to clearly see and understand the action.
Yes, people have always been people, they were friends and enemies, worked and had fun, gave in or fought, defending their life ideals - without these common features with us, there would be no need to read and re-read works about the distant past. But here the historical conditions, the whole situation of their life in very many ways differed from modern ones.
It is now clear to the reader what this book is written for. In order to facilitate the perception of Russian classical literature, removing the haze of time that has slightly obscured it, making it difficult to understand. Who is this book written for? For a young man entering into life, whose growing interest in his native literature, as well as in national history, is natural and logical, especially in our time.
The book is divided into thematic chapters, which will allow you to get information about certain facts of the past not in fragments, but in their historical totality, interconnected. Thus, it can serve not only as a textbook on literature, but also as a simple reference book on the history of social relations and life in Russia from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, she almost completely relies on the material of Russian classical literature.
The book does not have to be read in a row, from the first to the last line. It is enough to familiarize yourself with the chapters or paragraphs from these chapters that interest you. At the end there is an alphabetical index of words interpreted in the book. Having met an incomprehensible word in the text of a work, the reader can easily find a page where it is explained, and it is also explained using the example of a literary text.
This book is one of the first examples of a reference manual of its kind. Therefore, it is hardly immune from incompleteness or some ambiguities. But I want to believe that it will be interesting for the reader to enter the fascinating world of life of past centuries.
Instead of a preface
Chapter One THE PEOPLE'S CALENDAR
church calendar
old and new style
Holidays and fasts
Chapter Two
Kinship terms and properties
Confusion of terms
"Spiritual relationship"
Conditionals
dying words
Communication between family and friends
Official and semi-official addresses
"Word-er-s"
Other forms of treatment
CHAPTER THREE MEASURES AND WEIGHTS
Measures of length
Measures of area
Measures of weight
Measures of capacity for bulk goods
Liquid Volume Measures
temperature scale
Chapter Four MONEY AND SECURITIES
From Polushka to Katerinka
Two courses
All the colors of the rainbow
Securities
Chapter Five LAND AND POWER
Capitals, provinces, regions
Ministries and other government offices
provincial authorities
County authorities
city police
Volost and village
Post-reform institutions
Post-reform court
Gendarmerie
Some Forgotten Posts
Chapter Six Ranks and Ranks
Civil servants
Collegiate Registrar
Provincial Secretary
Collegiate Secretary
Titular Advisor
Collegiate Assessor
Court Advisor
Collegiate Counselor
State Councillor
Acting State Councilor
Privy Councilor
Acting Privy Councilor and Chancellor
Officials of the XV class
Chekhov's "Table of Ranks"
Court ranks and titles
Wrong title
Degrees and titles in science
CHAPTER SEVEN ARMY AND GUARDS
Recruitment duty
Military ranks
Officer ranks
Troop types
Forms and insignia
Reform of 1874
Cadets, Junkers and Cantonists
Some forgotten words
Chapter Eight Orders and Medals
Orders and their signs
Hierarchy of orders
Chapter Nine NOBLE AND PEASANTS
nobility
Titled nobles
Not earth, but souls
Landlord peasants
Yard staff
Estate management
Odnodvortsy and free plowmen
Guardianship and bail
Noble self-government
Peasant reform
Chapter Ten OTHER ESTATES PEOPLE
Philistinism and merchant class
Clergy
Chapter Eleven HOW WE DRESS
Suit and time
Men's suits
Women's urban clothing
Men's peasant clothing
Women's peasant clothes
Some details of the toilet and hairstyle
Beards and mustaches
Chapter Twelve
Means of transport
Crew types
Horse suits
Railways
Other means of transportation
Chapter Thirteen LIFE AND LEISURE
Inside the house
Lighting
Making fire
Small things
Food and drink
Diseases and their treatment
Taverns and other establishments
Peasant reform -Peasant reform
In Russian classical literature, almost exclusively LANDED PEASANTS, which were discussed above, are bred. But there were other categories of peasants, sometimes mentioned in passing by the classics. To complete the picture, you should get to know them.
STATE, or STATE, peasants. They were considered personally free, lived on state lands, and carried duties in favor of the state. They were led by special managers appointed by the government.
INDIVIDUAL PEASANTS. Belonged to the royal family, paid dues, carried state duties.
ECONOMIC PEASANTS until 1764 belonged to monasteries and churches, then these lands were allocated to special economies, transferred to the state, to which the peasants bore duties, remaining relatively free. Subsequently, they merged with the state peasants.
POSESSIONAL PEASANTS belonged to private industrial enterprises and were used as factory workers.
The abolition of serfdom in 1861 to one degree or another affected all categories of peasants, but we will only talk about how it affected the landlord peasants, who constituted the most numerous category (23 million) described in detail in Russian classical literature.
In general, the abolition of serfdom on February 19, 1861 took into account, first of all, the interests of large landlords - landowners. Although the peasant became personally free and could no longer be bought or sold, he was obliged to redeem his land allotment from the landowner. At the same time, he received not the allotment that he cultivated, but greatly reduced in favor of the landowner and at a price that significantly exceeded its actual value. When allotments were allocated, the landowner left the poorest, most infertile land to the peasants.
For the preparation of charters, that is, documents regulating relations between landowners and peasants after the reform of 1861, WORLD MEDIATORS were appointed from among the local nobles. Much in the fate of the peasants depended on the personal qualities of these mediators, their objectivity and benevolence. Among the world mediators, there were also liberal people inclined to a fair decision. Such were Konstantin Levin in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Versilov in Dostoyevsky's A Teenager, and the good-natured Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov apparently possessed these qualities in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.
In the interests of the landlords, the peasants had to pay them a lump sum of 20-25% of the value of the field plot. The rest was initially paid by the treasury, so that the peasant repaid this loan within 49 years, in installments, at 6% annually.
A peasant who did not contribute 20-25% to the landowner was considered TEMPORARY and continued to work out the former owner of the share-cropping, as the corvée, or dues, has now become known. Temporarily liable are seven men - the heroes of Nekrasov's poem "Who should live well in Rus'." In 1883, the category of temporarily liable was canceled: by this time, the peasants had to pay the ransom to the landowner in full or lose their allotment.
On average, according to the reform, 3.3 acres of land, that is, three and a half hectares, were allocated per peasant family, which was barely enough to feed themselves. In some places, the peasant was given 0.9 acres - a completely beggarly allotment.
In Russian literature, the peasant reform of 1861 and its consequences for the landowners and peasants were widely reflected. Such a dialogue in Ostrovsky's play "The Savage Woman" between the landowners Ashmetyev and Anna Stepanovna regarding the reform is indicative. Ashmetyev says: “Well, it seems that we can’t really complain, we haven’t lost much.” Anna Stepanovna declares: “So this is an exception, this is a special happiness ... Kirill Maksimych was then a conciliator and drew up charters for us with the peasants. He cut them so that they have nowhere to kick out the chicken. Thanks to him, I got a good job: the peasants work for me just as much and as much as the serfs - no difference.
In the novel “Mother” by Gorky, the peasant Yefim answered the question: “Do you yourself have a plot? "- replies:" We? We have! We are three brothers, and she put on four tithes. Sand - it’s good for them to clean copper, but the land is incapable of bread! .. "And he continues:" I freed myself from the earth - what is it? He does not feed, but knits his hands. I have been going to the farm laborers for the fourth year.
Millions of peasants went bankrupt, went to the laborers to the same landlords or kulaks, left for the cities, replenishing the ranks of the proletariat, which was rapidly growing in the post-reform years.
The fate of the yard peasants was especially difficult: they did not have a land allotment, and therefore the landowner was not obliged to provide them with land. Few continued to serve the impoverished landlords into old age, like Firs in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. The majority was released without land and money for all four sides. If the landowner left his estate, they remained, starving, in the estate, he was no longer obliged to pay them a month or a salary. Nekrasov wrote about such unfortunates in the poem “Who in Rus' should live well”:
... In the estate of that loitered
Hungry courtyards,
Abandoned by the master
By chance.
All old, all sick
And, as in a gypsy camp,
Dressed up.
Saltykov-Shchedrin colorfully described the bitter fate of a courtyard man after the reform in the story "The Tailor Grishka".
Shortly before the reform, having heard about it, many landowners, despite the ban, transferred almost all of their peasants to the household in order to deprive them of the right to allotment.
Nekrasov wrote:
"The great chain is broken,
Torn - jumped:
One end on the master,
Others for a man!
Yes, the master, especially the poor one, got it too: the money received for the ransom was quickly spent, and there was nothing to live on. Ransom certificates were sold or pledged for next to nothing - financial documents issued to landlords confirming their right to receive redemption money. It remained to sell the hereditary land, which was quickly seized by resourceful merchants and kulaks. But even this money did not last long.
Earlier than others, small-scale landowners went bankrupt and disappeared, followed by medium-sized landowners. Pictures of the ruin of the "noble nests", the impoverishment of the nobles are vividly drawn in the works of Bunin and A.N. Tolstoy.
Influenced by the events of the first Russian revolution in 1905, the government abolished the collection of ransom payments from peasants in 1906, that is, four years ahead of schedule.
In L. Tolstoy's comedy Fruits of Enlightenment, peasants driven to the extreme come to the landowner in the city to buy land from him. “Without land, our habitation must weaken and fall into decay,” explains one man. And another adds: "... the land is small, not like cattle, - let's say, a hen, and there is nowhere to release it." However, the swaggering landowner demands payment in full, without the promised installment plan, and the peasants have no money. Only the cunning of the maid Tanya, who uses the superstition of the masters, helps the peasant walkers achieve their goal.
In Gorky's novel The Life of Klim Samgin, one of the characters characterizes the situation of the peasants at the end of the 19th century in this way: “The peasants live as conquered, as in captivity, by God. The younger ones are leaving, who goes where.
Such were the consequences of the reform of 1861.
What is incomprehensible among the classics, or Encyclopedia of Russian life of the XIX century. Yu. A. Fedosyuk. 1989
