Russian painting of the 19th century. Life in Russia in the 19th century in living paintings by the forgotten artist Alexei Korzukhin, who is adored at Western auctions
A. Smirnov.
"Gerasim Kurin - leader of the peasant partisan detachment in 1812."
1813.
Peasant:
1. A villager whose main occupation is cultivating the land.
Besseldeevka consisted of only twenty-two peasant souls. ( Turgenev. Tchertophanov and Nedopyuskin.)
2. Representative of the lower tax-paying class in pre-revolutionary Russia.
Dictionary of the Russian language. Moscow. " Russian word" 1982
Adrian van Ostade.
"Peasant family"
1647.
Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov.
"Peasant girl with a sickle in the rye."
The peasant of the 16th century was a free tiller who lived on someone else’s land under an agreement with the landowner; his freedom was expressed in peasant exit or refusal, i.e., the right to leave one plot and move to another, from one landowner to another. Initially this right was not constrained by law; but the very nature of land relations imposed a mutual limitation both on this right of the peasant and on the arbitrariness of the landowner in relation to the peasant: the landowner, for example, could not drive the peasant off the land before the harvest, just as the peasant could not leave his plot without paying the owner at the end of the harvest. From these natural relationships Agriculture This resulted in the need for a uniform, legally established period for the peasants to leave, when both sides could pay each other. The code of law of Ivan III established one for this mandatory period- a week before Saint George's Day (November 26) and the week following this day. However, in the Pskov land in the 16th century there was another legal deadline for peasants to leave, namely Filippovo (November 14).
V. Klyuchevsky. "Russian History". Moscow. "Exmo". year 2000..
Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov.
"A peasant's yard in Finland."
1902.
Their own and foreign observers, marveling at the greatness of the deeds of the reformer [Peter I], were amazed at the vast expanses of uncultivated fertile land, the multitude of wastelands, cultivated somehow, on site, and not introduced into normal national economic circulation. People who thought about the reasons for this neglect explained it, firstly, by the loss of people from long war, and then by the oppression of officials and nobles, who discouraged the common people from any desire to put their hands to anything: the oppression of the spirit resulting from slavery, according to the same Weber, has darkened the meaning of the peasant to such an extent that he has ceased to understand his own benefit and only thinks about his daily meager food.
V. Klyuchevsky. "Russian history" I. Moscow. "Exmo". year 2000.
Vasily Grigorievich Perov.
"Return of peasants from funerals in winter."
Early 1880s.
Immediately after Peter’s death, the impatient Prosecutor General Yaguzhinsky, before anyone else, spoke about the plight of the peasants; then in the Supreme Privy Council there was lively talk about the need to alleviate this situation. “The poor peasantry” became a common government expression.
Actually, it was not the peasants themselves who were concerned, but their escapes, which deprived the government of recruits and tax payers. They fled not only in individual households, but also in entire villages; From some estates everyone fled without a trace; from 1719 to 1727 there were almost 200 thousand fugitives - an official figure that usually lagged behind reality.
The very area of flight expanded widely: previously the serfs ran from one landowner to another, but now they flocked to the Don, to the Urals and to distant Siberian cities, to the Bashkirs, to the schism, even abroad, to Poland and Moldova. In the Supreme Privy Council under Catherine I, they reasoned that if things went like this, then it would come to the point that there would be no taxes or recruits to take from anyone, and in the note of Menshikov and other dignitaries the indisputable truth was expressed that if without an army it is impossible for the state to stand , then it is necessary to take care of the peasants, because the soldier is connected with the peasant, like the soul with the body, and if there is no peasant, then there will be no soldier.
To prevent escapes, the capitation tax was reduced and arrears were added up; the fugitives were returned to their old places, first simply, and then with corporal punishment. But here’s the problem: the returned fugitives fled again with new comrades, who were persuaded by stories about a free life on the run, in the steppe or in Poland.
The escapes were accompanied by small peasant riots caused by the arbitrariness of the owners and their managers. Elizabeth's reign was full of local, silent disturbances among the peasants, especially those in the monasteries. Pacifying teams were sent and beat the rebels or were beaten by them, depending on who took them. These were small test outbreaks, which 20-30 years later merged into the Pugachev fire.
V. Klyuchevsky. "Russian History". Moscow. "Exmo". year 2000.
Vasily Maksimovich Maksimov.
"Peasant Girl"
1865.
PEASANTRY IN RUSSIA. Peasants are small rural producers who run individual households with family resources and are united in communities. At 18 – beginning. 20th centuries The peasantry was the main population of Russia.
The term "peasant" first appeared in the 14th century. and came from the word “Christian” (in contrast to non-Christians from the Golden Horde, enslavers of the Russian land).
By the time of the Great Reforms of the 60-70s. 19th century landowners (serfs) made up 37% of the Russian population - 23 million people. In Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine there were from 50 to 70% of the rest of the population. In the northern and southern (steppe) provinces, the number of serfs ranged from 2 to 12% of the population. There were practically no serfs in the Arkhangelsk province and Siberia.
Serfs did not have civil and property rights.
Landowner peasants were divided into corvee peasants (who worked in the lord's field) and quitrent peasants (who paid the landowner a monetary quitrent). On the eve of the Great Reforms, 71% of the landowner peasants were on corvée, and 29% on quitrent. In the central industrial provinces, the landowner form prevailed. It was more profitable for the landowners to let the peasants go on quitrents than to keep them in corvée labor. In these areas, up to 67% of the peasants were on quitrent, and in some provinces with developed latrine industries, for example in Kostroma and Yaroslavl, up to 80-90% of the peasants. The quitrent system and the development of crafts gave some peasants the opportunity to acquire significant capital. The serfs who became rich sought first of all to redeem themselves and their family for freedom, since they were often several times richer than their owner. From the serf peasants came such merchant dynasties, like the Morozovs and Konovalovs. On the contrary, in the agricultural regions of the Central Black Earth, Middle Volga and Ukraine, where farming conditions were more favorable, corvée prevailed (up to 80-90% of peasants). Corvee also prevailed in Lithuania and Belarus, where the economy of the landowners was oriented towards the European market.
A type of corvee in the 18th-1st floor. 19th centuries it was a month ago. Serf peasants, deprived of land plots, worked 6 days a week as corvee labor, for which they received a monthly food ration and clothing in kind. A peasant transferred to a monthly wage sometimes retained his farm - a yard, agricultural implements and livestock, for the maintenance of which he also received a monthly wage. But most often he lived in the master's yard and cultivated the landowner's field with the master's equipment. The month could not be spread widely, since it required additional costs from the landowner to maintain the peasant, whose almost slave labor was characterized by low productivity.
The monastery peasants were also in serfdom. In 1764, approx. 2 million peasants and transferred them to the jurisdiction of the College of Economy. These peasants (they were called economic) received part of the monastery lands as allotments; corvée was replaced by monetary rent in favor of the treasury. But the monasteries retained large land holdings until 1917.
Close in their position to the landowners were the peasants who belonged to the grand ducal and later royal family, or “palace.” They were called “palace warriors”. In 1797, the Department of Appanages was approved to manage the palace peasants, royal estates and palaces, and the peasants began to be called appanages. By this time there were 463 thousand male souls and the number was constantly increasing. They were bought from landowners, some of the state-owned peasants were transferred to the inheritance. To the beginning 1860s there were already approx. appanage peasants. 2 million
However, not all the peasantry were enslaved. All R. 19th century OK. 19 million people, i.e., slightly less than the number of landowner peasants, were state or state peasants who belonged to the state (treasury). This was a legally free, but state-dependent category of peasants. They received a plot of land for use, for which they bore duties in the form of a monetary rent. Although state peasants were personally free, they were limited in their right to move to other classes. They were forbidden to move to other parts of the country, engage in farming, contracting, wholesale trade, or open industrial establishments. Until 1861, they did not have the right to acquire land ownership, acquire real estate in their own name, establish factories and factories, did not have the right to go to work without the permission of the specific authorities, and could not defend their interests in court.
The legal status of state peasants took shape in the beginning. 18th century in connection with the military and financial reforms of Peter I. The name “state peasants” first appeared in Peter’s decrees of 1724. Previously, they were called “black-plow peasants” (the term arose in the 14th century from the words “black plow”, i.e. taxable, heavy plow). From the beginning 18th century the number of state peasants increased. Various groups were included in this category rural population both the original Russian territories and the peasants of the lands recently included in Russian state: Baltic states, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Transcaucasia. The state peasants also included economic peasants, since the College of Economy was abolished in 1786, as well as peasants taken from the Polish gentry after the uprising of 1830-1831; residents of “out-of-state” cities that lost their city status due to their abolition as administrative centers. The state peasants also included “ladles” - peasants from the northern regions who did not have land and rented it for half the harvest; the peoples of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, subject to natural tribute (yasak) and, in addition to it, monetary and some in-kind duties. The state peasants were the tsaranes in Moldova (from the Moldavian word “tsara” - land, i.e. farmers). They lived on the lands of landowners and monasteries, paid them a tenth of the income from the allotment and worked corvée for 12 days a year for each household. To manage state peasants, the Ministry of State Property was established in 1837. Its head, P. D. Kiselev, a supporter of the abolition of serfdom, carried out the campaign in 1837-1841. reform of the state village.
The abolition of serfdom in 1861 and the implementation of agrarian reforms in the appanage villages in 1863 and in the state villages in 1866 equalized the legal status of various categories of the peasantry. Former landowners and appanage peasants received the same rights as state ones, and unified administration was established in the villages. Zemstvo and judicial reforms introduced peasants into the local government and courts. However, even in post-reform period differences between the peasants continued to exist: the quality of allotment land, the size of payments, the terms of redemption of plots, the nature of land ownership, etc. were different. But all these differences that developed in the feudal era were replaced by the process of social division of the peasantry into the poorest majority, characteristic of capitalism and a wealthy minority.
School encyclopedia. Moscow, "OLMA-PRESS Education". 2003
Vasily Maksimovich Maksimov.
"The Arrival of a Sorcerer at a Peasant Wedding."
1875.
But why in ancient Russian literature Is there an expression “resurrect fire”? To ignite is understandable, but to resurrect? CROSS - A CROSS that knocks fire out of stone! Then the CROSS was the kindling of life, and by the way, the farmers were called CROSSES, that is, the kindling of life on earth!
And then PEASANT certainly does not come from the word “Christian”.
Sergey Alekseev. "Treasures of the Valkyrie. 6-Truth and fiction.”
Wenceslas Hollar.
« Peasant wedding».
1650.
– Russia is very cold country with bad soils, so these are the people who live here and not others. In Europe, the agricultural period is ten months, and in Russia it is five,” Milov said sadly. – The difference is twofold. In Europe they don’t work in the fields only in December and January. In November, for example, you can sow winter wheat; English agronomists knew about this back in the 18th century. Carry out other work in February. So, if you calculate, it turns out that the Russian peasant has 100 days for arable work, in addition to threshing grain. And 30 days are spent on haymaking. What happens? And the fact that it tears the veins and can barely be controlled. The head of a family of four (a single-draft peasant) manages to physically plow two and a half acres. And in Europe – 2 times more.
The fact that the no-till period in Russia lasts 7 months was written in government documents back in the 18th century. They understood the problem... The average harvest with those tools was only three. That is, from one grain three grew. Out of 12 poods - 36. Minus one grain out of three for seeds, it turns out 24 poods - a net harvest from the tithe. From two and a half dessiatines - 60 poods. This is for a family of 4 people. A family of 4, taking into account that women and children eat less, is equal to 2.8 adults. Despite the fact that the annual consumption rate is 24 pounds per person. That is, you need almost 70 pounds. But there are only 60. And from them you still need to subtract a part for feeding livestock - oats for the horse, supplements for the cow. And instead of 24 according to the biological norm, the Russian consumed 12-15-16 pounds. 1500 kcal per day instead of 3000 required by the body.
Here is average Russia - a country where there was always a shortage of bread. Where life was always at the limit of possibility. Eternal struggle, eternal fear of hunger. And at the same time, terrible work, exhausting work involving women, children, old people... Is it possible to expand the arable land? It’s possible, if you work somehow, at random. That's how they worked. If in England they plow 4-6 times, bringing the land to a “fluffy” state, then in Russia the cultivation of the land is still poor. Although the technology has changed - in Europe there are tractors and in Russia there are tractors - but the ratio of arable time has remained the same and the result is the same: in Europe you won’t find such a small lump on the arable land, but in Russia there are such cobblestones lying around in the field. Yes, compared to the 18th century, labor productivity in rural areas has increased 40–50 times. But nature has remained unchanged! Therefore, the cost of Russian agricultural products will always be more expensive than Western ones for the same climatic reasons.
Have you seen the movie "The Chairman"? Do you remember the heartbreaking scene there when the women lift the cow on ropes so that it, exhausted, does not fall? This is a typical picture for Russia. By spring, the cows and horses could barely stand. It would seem - huge spaces, fields, copses, meadows. And the peasant has a shortage of hay. Why? Because when the grass is full of vitamins, it only needs to be harvested and harvested - the peasant does not have time for this. Haymaking according to the old style began on June 29 - with Peter and Paul - and lasted until the end of July. And from August (and sometimes from July 20!) it was already necessary to hurry to reap the ripe rye.
Therefore, despite the fact that during the haymaking period the entire village, young and old, went out to mow and the peasants simply lived in the fields in a camp, with the mowing technique of that time, the peasant still did not make enough hay in 30 days. And the stall period in Russia is from 180 to 212 days - 7 months. A peasant single-draft household (4 souls) had two cows, one or two horses for plowing, two sheep, one pig and 5–8 chickens. Goats were rarely seen. The quantity could vary from district to district, for example, in the Rzhevsky district of the Tver province a peasant had 3 sheep, and in neighboring Krasnokholmsky 3-4 pigs. But, in general, in conventional calculation this is equivalent to six heads of cattle. For them it was necessary to prepare approximately 620 poods of hay according to the standards of the 18th century. And a peasant and his family, at best, could mow 300. And this has always been the case.
What is the way out? The cattle were given straw, which is low in calories and completely devoid of vitamins. But there wasn’t enough straw either! Pigs and cows were fed horse manure, sprinkled with bran. The chronic lack of food for peasant livestock was an eternal headache for collective farm chairmen and Russian landowners. By spring, the cattle literally fell and were hung up. And there was little manure from such cattle, not to mention milk; in some provinces, cows were kept not for milk, which they practically did not produce, but solely for manure. Which was also in short supply for obvious reasons. The manure has been accumulating for years!
Russian cattle were of extremely poor quality. And all the attempts of landowners and enlightened people from the government to import into Russia good breeds from Europe ended the same way - Western breeds quickly degenerated and became practically indistinguishable from thin Russian cattle.
According to all laws, with a three-field crop rotation, the land must be fertilized every three years. But in actual practice, peasants fertilized the land approximately once every 9 years. There was even a saying: “the good earth remembers manure for 9 years.” And there were places in Russia - even at the beginning of the 20th century - where they fertilized the land every 12, 15, 18 years. And in the Vyatka province, for example, once every 20 years! What kind of productivity can we talk about?...
But if you suddenly thought: “But our peasants rested for 7 months a year! They were lying on the stove in winter,” then they were deeply mistaken. In winter there was also a lot of work. Here's an example. Due to permanent poverty, the Russian peasant, unlike the European peasant, did not wear boots. In order to put boots on the whole family - 4 people - the peasant had to sell three-quarters of his grain. This is unrealistic. Boots were simply not available. Russia walked in bast shoes. A peasant bore from 50 to 60 pairs of bast shoes per year. Let's multiply by the whole family. Naturally, we made bast shoes in the winter; there was no time in the summer. Further... The peasant could not buy fabric at the market. More precisely, he could, but as some kind of rare luxurious gift - and then only for his wife or daughter, he never bought it. And you need to get dressed. Therefore, women spun and weaved in winter. Plus the preparation of belts, harnesses, saddles... Harvesting timber for firewood... By the way, until the end of the 18th century there were not even saws in Russia, and forests were felled with axes. Moreover, since the stoves were imperfect, and there were no ceilings in the huts at all (ceilings as additional heat insulators began to appear only in the second half of the 18th century), a lot of firewood was required - about 20 cubic meters.
– In the summer, the Russian peasant got up at three or four o’clock in the morning and went to barnyard- set feed, remove manure, - and then worked in the field until lunch. After lunch there was an hour to an hour and a half nap. The men went to bed at eleven o'clock. The women were a little later, as they were sitting at needlework. In winter, the routine was almost the same, with the only exception that we went to bed an hour earlier - at ten.
...Well, tell me, is it possible to live like this?...
The life of a Russian peasant was not very different from the life of a primitive Neolithic savage. Perhaps for the worse... What was a Russian hut, for example? A low, one-room, thatched structure. The lack of a ceiling has already been mentioned. The floor was often earthen. Entrance door– rarely higher than a meter, and sometimes there were doors even half a meter long! Until the 19th century, a typical Russian hut was heated in black. There were no windows in this strange building. The smoke came out through the so-called porthole windows, the size of half a log. Peasants talk about bed linen and even mattresses and feather beds for a long time They had no idea at all, they slept on sackcloth and straw. In one “room” 8-10 people slept side by side on benches and beds. There were also livestock here - chickens, pigs, calves... The imagination of foreign travelers was amazed by the heads, legs, and arms hanging from the shelves. “Every minute it seemed to me that they would fall to the floor,” wrote Cox, a researcher of Russian life.
The peasants lit the stove in the morning. By three or four o'clock in the afternoon it became very hot, and it was wildly hot all evening. Sometimes in the middle of the night, escaping from the unbearable stuffiness, men jumped out into the cold with their chests wide open, sweaty and steamed, to cool off. Hence, by the way, numerous diseases, colds and fatal. But in the morning the hut got so cold that the sleeping people’s beards froze to their blankets. And since the hut was heated in black, there was a long black fringe of soot hanging everywhere.
And the smell! In an unventilated room (they took care of the heat), such miasma blossomed that unprepared people became dizzy. Do you remember when Kharms Pushkin pinches his nose when Russian men pass by? “It’s okay, master...”
In fact, the country was divided into two human “subspecies” - a cultural, European-educated aristocracy, eating from porcelain and discussing the poems of Ovid, and an absolutely gray, downtrodden, half-animal, superstitious mass, bestially living at the limit of possibilities and far, far beyond poverty. It is clear that these “subspecies” not only did not understand, but also could not understand each other: there was an abyss between them. Sometimes they even spoke different languages - some in Russian, others in French. Two countries in one... Eloi and Morlocks.
When Peter I began his reforms, Russia had 6% of the non-peasant population. Only six! Because the peasantry, living from hand to mouth, simply could not feed more dependents in the local climate. And from these six percent, monasticism, the nobility, the army, bureaucracy, science were formed... An amazingly ineffective country!
The standard of living of the elite was not just strikingly, but catastrophically different from the standard of living of 94% of the population. While the black peasants ate cake and quinoa, in the spring they collected snot - the first grass that hatched with such small flowers... at the same time, the Russian nobility ate watermelons, plums, lemons, oranges and even pineapples all year round. For growing tropical fruits in glass greenhouses, they were invented complex systems underground heating of the soil. At the same time, glass for greenhouses was expensive, but the amount of glass needed for greenhouses was enormous.
From the point of view of an ordinary Russian, the bureaucracy and city authorities are not only small in number and inaccessible. It is incomprehensible, as if it lives on another planet. The bosses are, as it were, not people, they are celestial beings. You can scold them - just as you can sometimes blaspheme, but if a celestial being suddenly condescends to you personally... Father!
I can’t get out of my memory one episode, filmed with a hidden camera back in the Yeltsin era. Impressive man with cell phone in his hand he approaches a simple, ingenuous Russian on the street. And he says that he is a representative of the president, and asks: how do you, a simple Russian, feel about our popularly elected? Rusich, naturally, begins to sputter, wave his arms, and swear a lot. His life is bad! It seems that if he sees the president now, he will tear him up. After carefully listening to the passerby, the person dials a number on his cell phone and hands him the handset:
– Now you will speak with Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin. Convey your aspirations to him.
“Hello, Russian,” the receiver echoes in the inimitable presidential voice into the ear of a simple, simple-minded citizen.
And a miracle happens. When asked by the president how he lives, the Russian suddenly answers:
- Yes, it’s okay, Boris Nikolaevich!
Stupid daily work, which does not, however, bring any significant fruit and does not promise prospects; black hopeless life; life on the verge of constant hunger; absolute dependence on weather conditions could not but affect the formation of the Russian psychotype.
No matter how much you work, everything is still in God’s hands; if he wants, he will, if he doesn’t, he will die. Work, don’t work – almost nothing depends on you. Hence in Russians this eternal dependence on “decisions from above.” Hence the superstitiousness reaching the point of obscurantism and the eternal calculation of chance. And to this day, the main gods after Christ for Russians remain the Great Lord Avos and his brother, I suppose.
All life time Russian people, in addition to sleep, from childhood spent their time on simple physical survival. Pregnant women hump in the field until the last minute and give birth there. It is not for nothing that in the Russian language the words “strada” and “suffering” have the same root... A person living in an eternal extreme, whose children die up to half, ceases to value both the lives of others and his own. Which, anyway, not he, but God, disposes of.
Hence the attitude towards children is completely consumerist. Children are a thing to help with housework. Hence the appeal to our beloved children: “Killing you is not enough!”
My friend Lesha Torgashev, who had lived in America for three years and was a little out of habit, arrived from Chicago and was shocked when he heard at our airport a Russian mother shouting to her three-year-old daughter, who had soiled her dress: “I’ll kill you!” He was struck not only by the situation itself, but also by the details of the deprivation of a child’s life, worked out in the mother’s imagination – “I’ll stab you to death.”
We have children not for the sake of the children themselves, but “so that there is someone to give a glass of water in old age.” “Children are our wealth” is the most terrible, most consumerist slogan invented Soviet power, as if pulled out of a peasant Russia XVIII century. Back then, children were truly considered wealth, because from the age of 7 they could be put to work. Until the age of 15, the boy carried half a load, and from the age of 16 he carried a full load, that is, he worked like a man. Teenagers are wealth. Small children are a burden extra mouths. They died like flies, and no one really pitied them - the women were still giving birth! From the eternal lack of food there is a saying: “God bless the cattle with their offspring, and the children with the Primorye people.”
Europe was afraid of a Russian bayonet strike. Because the Russian peasant soldier did not value his life. His life was hell incarnate, compared to which death is not a worse option. “Even death is red in the world,” is another Russian proverb.
“Mir” in Rus' was the name given to the peasant community.
There is an opinion that the only reason Stalin’s collective farms took root was that they were absolutely in the spirit of the people. And in line with the previous life. Yes, yes, I’m talking about this fucking community. The entire Russian peasant psychology is the psychology of collectivism. On the one hand, this is good: everyone should help each other. But the other side of communalism is intolerance towards “upstarts” - people who stand out in some way (intelligence, wealth, appearance)...
Without this collectivist psychology, which slows down the development of capitalist relations (the essence of which is greater atomization and individualization of society), the Russian peasantry simply could not survive. Well, a single farmer could not exist in conditions of arable time pressure, when “the day feeds the year.” If you were sick for ten or twenty days without plowing, your family is doomed to starvation. The house burned down, the horse died... Who will help? Community. And when the land finally became impoverished and stopped bearing fruit, the peasants all over the world made “clearings” - they reduced the forest to arable land, and then divided the plots according to the number of workers. So without community “help” the peasantry as a class in Russia simply could not exist.
Community – terrible, traumatic national mentality education. Which in people's heads overcame the agrarian era and fell into the industrial era. Maybe someone remembers, under the Bolsheviks there were even such children’s poems: “My dad brought a real saw from work!...” Why from work, and not from the store? Why “brought” and not “stole”? Yes, all for the same reason. Everything around is folk, everything around is mine! No respect for private property. Community socialist concentration camp...
Instructions from the mid-18th century on the management of landowners noted: “Laziness, deception, lies and theft seem to be hereditary in them (peasants - A.N.). They deceive their master with feigned illnesses, old age, poverty, false sighing, and laziness in work. They steal what was prepared by common efforts, put it away for saving, clean it, smear it, wash it, dry it, repair it - they don’t want to... Those appointed to the authorities, in the expenditure of money and bread, do not know the measures. They don’t really like those who are left in the future and, as if on purpose, they try to bring them into ruin. And those who are assigned to what, so that they correct themselves correctly and in due time, are not looked after. In trickery - for friendship and honors - they are silent and covered up. And on the simple-hearted and good people attack, oppress and drive. They do not remember the mercy shown to them in rewarding them with bread, money, clothing, livestock, freedom, and instead of gratitude and merit they turn into rudeness, malice and cunning.”
Unpretentiousness and long-suffering, minimizing the level of needs (“if only there was no war”), disregard for others and at the same time extreme dependence on them, willingness to help and black envy, emotional openness and cordiality, which can instantly be replaced by hatred - this is just an incomplete list qualities of the Russian person inherited from our unfortunate ancestors. And Russia, with a fairly significant part of its fellow citizens, is entering the post-industrial 21st century, into the information civilization, not even with an industrial, but sometimes with a purely peasant, patriarchal consciousness.
Alexander Nikonov. "The History of Frostbite in the Context of Global Warming."
Vincent Van Gogh.
"Morning. Peasants going to work."
1890.
Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
Vladimir Egorovich Makovsky.
Peasant children.
1890.
Of course, Alexander II did a good deed by freeing the peasants (at that time it was simply impossible not to do this). But then...
In European Russia, 76 million dessiatines of land belonged to 30,000 landowners, and 73 million dessiatines belonged to 10,000,000 peasant households. This is the proportion. The fact is that the peasants were liberated with almost no land, and for the fact that they got everything, they were forced to make so-called “convex payments,” which were canceled only in 1907, after well-known events. There is an interesting government document, the so-called “Proceedings of the Tax Commission.” It follows from it that the peasant contributed more than ninety-two percent of his income per year in the form of taxes and taxes! And in the Novgorod province - everything is one hundred percent. Moreover, this applied only to former “state” peasants. According to the same document, former landowner peasants in some provinces were forced to pay more than two hundred percent of their income in taxes! In other words, apart from the lucky few, the peasants were constantly in debt, like silk. Here are excerpts from the orders of peasants to their deputies in the State Duma of 1906-1907.
The village of Stopino, Vladimir province: “The bitter experience of life convinced us that the government, which had oppressed the people for centuries, the government that saw and wanted to see us as obedient paying animals, could do nothing for us. A government consisting of nobles and officials, not knowing the needs of the people, cannot lead the tormented homeland onto the path of order and legality.”
Moscow province: “The entire land was paid for by us with sweat and blood for several centuries. She was processed during the era of serfdom and received beatings and exile for her work, thereby enriching the landowners. If you now sue them for 5 kopecks. per day per person for the entire period of serfdom, then they will not have enough to pay the people of all the lands and forests and all their property. In addition, for forty years we have been paying a fabulous rent for land from 20 to 60 rubles. for a tithe per summer, thanks to the false law of 61, according to which we received freedom with a small plot of land, a half-starved people, and the parasite landowners acquired colossal wealth.”
Arzamas district: “The landowners have completely turned us around: wherever you turn, there are all of them everywhere - land and forest, but we have nowhere to drive out our cattle; if a cow came onto the landowner's land - a fine, if you accidentally drove along his road - a fine, if you go to him to rent the land - you try to take it as expensive as possible, but if you don't take it, you sit completely without bread; If you cut a rod out of his forest, you’ll go to court, and they’ll tear you off three times more expensive, and you’ll also serve time.”
Luga district of St. Petersburg province: “Upon our release, we were allocated three tithes per capita. The population has grown to the point where there are no longer even half a tithe. The population is positively poor, and poor only because there is no land; there is none not only for arable land, but even for buildings necessary for the farm.”
Nizhny Novgorod province: “We recognize that the unbearable burden of dues and taxes lies heavily on us, and there is no strength or opportunity to fulfill them in full and in a timely manner. The proximity of any due date for payments and obligations weighs heavily on our hearts, and fear of the authorities for inaccurate payments forces us to sell the latter, or go into bondage.”
The Bolsheviks have absolutely nothing to do with this - just like any other “politicians”. This is the genuine, undistorted voice of the peasantry. What kind of Bolsheviks are needed here?!
Alexander Bushkov. "Red Monarch".
“The Tsar speaks with the nobility about the work ahead of them to liberate the peasants from serfdom.”
Lithography.
"Meeting State Council during the preparation of the Peasant Reform."
(Reign of Emperor Alexander II.)
Lithography.
I. Laminitis.
"Russian peasants".
Engraving based on a drawing by E. Korneev.
1812.
Ilya Efimovich Repin.
"Peasant's Yard"
1879.
Ilya Efimovich Repin.
"Peasant Girl"
1880.
Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky.
"Peasant lunch in the field."
Kristina Evgenievna Gashko.
“A. Pushkin’s visit to the village of Zakharovo. Meeting with Zakharovsky peasants."
2011.
Mikhail Shibanov.
"Peasant Lunch"
1774.
"1812 militiaman in a peasant hut."
Lubok painting.
“The liberated peasants offer bread and salt to Alexander II.”
1861.
From the book: “School Encyclopedia. History of Russia 18-19 centuries." Moscow, "OLMA-PRESS Education". 2003
"Peasant Dance"
1567-1568.
"Peasant wedding"
Around 1568.
Museum of Art, Ghent.
"Peasant wedding"
1568.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
"Heads of Peasants"
"The Peasants' Revolt of the 1860s"
1951.
"Peasant family"
1843.
"A peasant family before dinner."
1824.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
"Peasant Girl"
1840s.
"Peasant Girl"
1840s.
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
"Peasants and skating runners on ice."
There is no work more honorable and important than cultivating the land. Unfortunately, this simple truth doesn't always work in this world. However, the poetics of peasant labor, harmony with the surrounding world, and the feeling of satisfaction from a job well done have always interested artists. One of the first to turn to the theme of rural life was the Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, nicknamed Muzhitsky for his passion. In the cycle of paintings “The Seasons,” three of the five surviving works show rural everyday life: “Return of the Herds,” “Haymaking” and “Harvest.” Two latest paintings differ in their peaceful and joyful atmosphere from most of Bruegel’s works.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the pastoral genre - an idealistic depiction of rural life - became especially popular in European, and especially French, painting. The most famous paintings describing rural life are by Francois Boucher: “Farm”, “Morning in the Village”, “Rest of Peasants”. However, everything depicted in pastorals is far from real life, and only by the beginning of the Enlightenment, realism began to prevail in pastoral painting, for example, the works of the English artist Thomas Gainsborough “The Return of the Peasants from the Market”, “Return from the Harvest”.
The pastoral painting of Alexey Venetsianov is filled with Russian flavor. His paintings, idealizing the life of the Russian peasant, have always been quite popular: “On the arable land. Spring", "Reapers", "Sleeping Shepherd". Despite the romanticization of rural life, Venetsianov strove for maximum realism in his work; for example, to work on the painting “The Barn”, the wall of this agricultural building on the artist’s estate was dismantled. Once again, interest in peasant labor in Russian painting arose with the advent of the Association of Traveling Exhibitions. For example, Grigory Myasoedov’s painting “Mowers” (Time of Passion) celebrates the joy of work and its unity with the hot landscape. Ivan Kramskoy often turned to the peasant theme. Known series peasant portraits“Miller”, “Woodman”, “Contemplator”, “Beekeeper” and others, in which representatives of some rural professions are typified.
Vincent van Gogh addressed this topic many times, for example, one of the few paintings sold during the artist’s lifetime was “Red Vineyards in Arles” depicting the grape harvest. Another famous "rural" painting by Van Gogh is The Potato Eaters. Several times he turned to the theme raised in the painting “The Sower”, because he believed that the sower personifies the rebirth and infinity of life. Although Dutch artist classified as a post-impressionist, in his understanding of the complexity, monotony and exhaustion of peasant labor, he becomes a true realist. Perhaps Van Gogh adopted this attitude towards rural life from Jean Millet, whose work greatly influenced young artist. Millet himself, the founder of the Barbizon school, said to himself that he was just a peasant. However, a certain poetry sometimes creeps into his works. rural life“Harvesters”, “Angelus”, “Winner”, “Sower”, “Threshing” and many others.
The artist Arkady Plastov was called the singer of the Soviet peasantry. His numerous paintings glorify the hard work of the collective farmer. All his heroes have very expressive hands - strong, knobby, not afraid of any work. Today it is customary to accuse his paintings (“Harvest”, “Haymaking”, “Summer”, “Tractor Driver’s Dinner”, “Potato Harvesting”) of “ socialist realism" - embellishment of reality, but they are unique in their pronounced national character and the nationality of images. This is how the artists saw it different countries and eras, complex and thankless peasant labor, not without its own special charm and beauty.
How is the work of a Russian artist most often defined? sonorous surname Venetsianov? Paintings depicting genre scenes from peasant life are called the beginning of the domestic everyday genre in painting, a phenomenon that would ultimately flourish in the era of the Wanderers.
But the magnitude artistic talent Venetsianov, the scale of his human personality had a huge impact on the development of Russian visual arts not only within one genre direction. This becomes especially noticeable when you look closely at his paintings.
"Portrait of a Mother" (1802)
Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov was born in 1780 into a Moscow merchant family whose ancestors came from Greece. They received the nickname Veneziano in Russia, which was later converted into a surname in the Russian way. When Alexey became interested in drawing, his activities did not seem something serious to his parents. Maybe that's why he didn't get regular art education. It is believed that he received his first knowledge about painting techniques from an “uncle” - a teacher, and main source The artistic education that Venetsianov received included paintings by old masters in museums and creations of modern painters in salons and galleries.
The main genre in Russian painting of that time was the portrait, which is why Venetsianov’s first painting experience known to us belongs to this genre. mother - Anna Lukinichna, nee Kalashnikova.
It is noticeable how the twenty-two-year-old young man still lacks painting skills, how difficult it is for him to convey volume, air and light. But something else is also visible - his ability to convey different textures of fabric, sufficient confidence in the drawing. And most importantly, he managed to convey the feelings of his model: some embarrassment and tension of the mother from an unusual role for her and his tender attitude towards her.
"Self-Portrait" (1811)
After 1802, Venetsianov moved to St. Petersburg, where he tried to make a name for himself and start making a living through painting. Soon he is forced to enter the service as a minor official in the post office. A happy accident allowed him to meet the famous portrait painter V.L. Borovikovsky (1757-1825), who highly appreciated Venetsianov’s paintings and became his mentor both in his profession and in life. Perhaps thanks to his influence, Venetsianov submitted a petition to the Academy of Arts to receive the official title of painter. According to the Academy's charter, the applicant had to present his work. For this purpose, Venetsianov paints a self-portrait.
The artist’s high level of technical skill is already visible in this painting. This is an accurate and truthful work of a true realist, devoid of any romantic touch or embellishment. The psychological depth of the image created by the artist was also highly appreciated. There is both attentive concentration on work and a clearly felt sense of self-worth.
Venetsianov was designated by the Council of the Academy of Arts as “designated” - one of the formal qualification levels of the artist, which made it possible to receive the title of academician after completing a task assigned by the Council. Venetsianov becomes an academician after painting the assigned portrait of K. I. Golovachevsky.
"The Barn" (1821)
Soon after receiving the title of academician of painting, Venetsianov unexpectedly left the capital and service and settled on his Safonkovo estate in the Tver province. Here he creates his most significant works, dedicated to the poeticization of peasant life.
Before starting work on the painting “The Threshing Barn,” the artist ordered his serfs to dismantle the front wall in the large barn where the grain was stored. He set himself the task of conveying depth, similar to those that struck him in his paintings French painter Francois Granet. In addition to the image of the room receding into the distance, amazing for that time, the carefully calibrated composition of frozen different poses figures of peasants and animals. They are full of ancient significance and amazing poetry.
The painting was highly appreciated by Emperor Alexander I, who bought it from the artist and also gave the author a diamond ring. This made his financial situation a little easier.
“On the arable land. Spring" (1820s)
Many paintings by Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov are full of secrets and mysteries that are still beyond the control of professionals and art lovers. This is a small canvas (65 x 51 cm) with an almost Botticelli title and a poetic sound commensurate with the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance. It is believed that this painting is part of a cycle dedicated to the seasons.
The scene of peasant labor appears as an action full of sacred, cosmic meaning. The figure of a young woman who went out to hard work, wearing her best clothes, a child on the edge of a field, making the plot look like an icon of the Virgin Mary, the mirror figure of another peasant woman disappearing into the depths - everything is full of mysteries. The landscape against which these ordinary and at the same time majestic events take place is filled with significance and great simplicity. Alexey Venetsianov, whose paintings are difficult to attribute to a specific genre, is considered one of the founders of the Russian poetic landscape.
"The Reapers" (1820s)
But the main genre for Venetsianov remains the portrait, and the main task he solves is the expression of genuine interest and respect for those whom he portrays. High pictorial skill, combined with laconicism and sophistication of the composition, enhances the impression that Venetsianov has on the viewer. the contents of which can be contained in a few phrases, amaze with their depth and versatility, even if their heroes are simple peasants.
Two butterflies landed on the hand of the reaper, who stopped for a moment to rest. A boy looks at them from over his shoulder, captivated by their beauty. The artist painted almost a trompe l'oeil - it seems that now light wings will flutter and disappear in the summer heat. The main characters are just as real - their faces, hands, clothes. The feelings expressed by the young woman and child seem real, and most importantly, you can tangibly feel how Venetsianov admires them.
"Morning of the Landowner" (1823)
Venetsianov's role as the founder of genre diversity in Russian painting is undeniable. He was one of the first to try to draw attention to the special beauty of Russian nature, paving the way for future brilliant landscape painters - Levitan, Shishkin, Kuindzhi, Savrasov. In the portrait he showed completely unusual main characters - people from the people. But the poeticization of the everyday genre was a particularly innovative phenomenon.
It is believed that the master made his wife, Marfa Afanasyevna, and her serf girls the heroines of his painting. This explains the warm feeling that permeates this canvas. There is no confrontation between the mistress and her forced maids - it is more like a family scene in which the girls have their own dignity and calm beauty. An equally important role is played by the environment in the picture: the lovingly painted interior content and - what especially catches the eye - the soft, but filling light.
"Zakharka" (1825)
Peasant children are frequent subjects in portraits and genre paintings, which Venetsianov wrote. The paintings “The Sleeping Shepherd Boy”, “Here Are Father’s Dinner”, “The Shepherd Boy with a Horn” depict children not as ethereal cherubs from icons and classical paintings - they are full-fledged heroes with their own character, experiencing powerful emotions, which are part of the harmony of our world. Such is Zakharka - the main character. With the names and descriptions of such works of the artist, his calling as a teacher becomes clear, which left its mark on Russian painting.
He thought about the fate of talented children born as serfs when he saw a yard boy trying to draw something with chalk on a blackboard. Soon the “Venetsianov school” was born from this. In addition to teaching skills, he gave peasant children shelter, fed and watered them, and tried to redeem many to freedom. Among Venetsianov's students are the brilliant Grigory Soroka and about 70 artists, many of whom graduated from the capital's Academy of Arts. The school's activities proceeded in the face of opposition from official academicians, who did not honor Venetsianov with the title of teacher of painting.
“At the harvest. Summer" (182?)
His life cannot be called carefree; it was always filled with work and troubles. Its end was also tragic and unexpected - Alexey Gavrilovich died in 1847, when the horses harnessed to his cart suddenly got scared and bolted, and he, trying to stop them, fell onto the road.
Man on earth, the harmony of his relationships with nature, with the entire world around him - main topic artist Venetsianov, the main point and the value of his heritage, that is why his name is revered by connoisseurs and lovers of Russian painting. The painting depicting a reaper against the background of a recognizable Russian landscape, at the same time possessing cosmic significance, is one of the peaks of the work of the great Russian painter.
Nikolay Nevrev. "Bargaining. A scene from serf life." 1866
One landowner sells a serf girl to another. Imposingly shows the buyer five fingers - five hundred rubles. 500 rubles - the average price of a Russian serf in the first half of the 19th century. The girl's seller is a European-educated nobleman. Pictures on the walls, books. The girl humbly awaits her fate, other slaves crowd at the door and watch how the bargaining will end. Yearning.
Vasily Perov. "Rural religious procession at Easter." 1861
Russian village of the 19th century. Orthodox Easter. Everyone is drunk as hell, including the priest. The guy in the center is carrying the icon upside down and is about to fall. Some have already fallen. Funny! The essence of the picture is that the Russian people’s commitment to Orthodoxy is exaggerated. Addiction to alcohol is clearly stronger. Perov was a recognized master of genre painting and portraiture. But this picture of him Tsarist Russia was prohibited from display or reproduction. Censorship!
Grigory Myasoedov. "The zemstvo is having lunch." 1872
Times of Alexander II. Serfdom cancelled. Local self-government - zemstvos - was introduced. Peasants were also chosen there. But between them and the higher classes there is an abyss. Therefore - dining apartheid. Gentlemen are in the house, with waiters, peasants are at the door.
Fedor Vasiliev. "Village". 1869
1869 The landscape is beautiful, but the village, if you look closely, is poor. Poor houses, leaky roofs, the road is buried in mud.
Jan Hendrik Verheyen. "Dutch village with figures of people." 1st half 19th century.
Well, that's it, for comparison :)
Alexey Korzukhin. "Return from the city." 1870
The situation in the house is poor, a child is crawling on the shabby floor, and for an older daughter, her father brought a modest gift from the city - a bunch of bagels. True, there are many children in the family - only in the picture there are three of them, plus perhaps another one in a homemade cradle.
Sergey Korovin. "On the World". 1893
This is already a village of the late 19th century. There are no more serfs, but a division has appeared - fists. At a village gathering there is some kind of dispute between a poor man and a kulak. For the poor man, the topic is apparently vitally important; he almost sobs. The rich fist laughs at him. The other fists in the background are also giggling at the loser beggar. But the comrade to the poor man’s right was imbued with his words. There are already two ready-made members of the committee; all that remains is to wait until 1917.
Vasily Maksimov. "Auction for arrears". 1881-82.
The tax office is furious. Tsarist officials auction samovars, cast iron pots and other peasant belongings. The heaviest taxes on peasants were redemption payments. Alexander II “the Liberator” actually freed the peasants for money - they were then obliged to pay their native state for many years for the plots of land that were given to them along with their will. In fact, the peasants had this land before; they used it for many generations while they were serfs. But when they became free, they were forced to pay for this land. Payment had to be made in installments, right up to 1932. In 1907, against the backdrop of the revolution, the authorities abolished these taxes.
Vladimir Makovsky. "On the boulevard." 1886-1887
At the end of the 19th century. Industrialization came to Russia. Young people go to the city. She's going crazy there. Their old life is no longer interesting to them. And this young hard worker is not even interested in his peasant wife, who came to him from the village. She's not advanced. The girl is terrified. The proletarian with an accordion doesn’t care.
Vladimir Makovsky. "Date". 1883
There is poverty in the village. The boy was given away to the public. Those. sent to the city to work for an owner who exploits child labor. The mother came to visit her son. Tom obviously has a hard life, his mother sees everything. The boy greedily eats the bread he brought.
Vladimir Makovsky. "Bank collapse." 1881
A crowd of defrauded depositors in a bank office. Everyone is in shock. The rogue banker (on the right) is quietly getting away with the dough. The policeman looks in the other direction, as if he doesn’t see him.
Pavel Fedotov. "Fresh Cavalier" 1846
The young official received his first order. They washed it all night. The next morning, putting the cross directly on his robe, he shows it to the cook. A crazy look full of arrogance. The cook, personifying the people, looks at him with irony. Fedotov would be a master of such psychological paintings. The meaning of this: flashing lights are not on cars, but in heads.
Pavel Fedotov. "Aristocrat's Breakfast". 1849-1850.
Morning, the impoverished nobleman was taken by surprise by unexpected guests. He hastily covers his breakfast (a piece of black bread) French novel. Nobles (3% of the population) were a privileged class in old Russia. Owned a huge amount land, but they rarely made a good farmer. Not a lord's business. The result is poverty, debt, everything is mortgaged and re-mortgaged in banks. In Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, the estate of the landowner Ranevskaya is sold for debts. Buyers (rich merchants) are destroying the estate, and one of them really needs a lordly The Cherry Orchard(to resell as dachas). The reason for the problems of the Ranevsky family is idleness over several generations. No one was taking care of the estate, and the owner herself had been living abroad for the last 5 years and wasting money.
Boris Kustodiev. "Merchant". 1918
Provincial merchants are Kustodiev’s favorite topic. While the nobles in Paris squandered their estates, these people rose from the bottom, making money in a huge country, where there was plenty of room to invest their hands and capital. It is noteworthy that the picture was painted in 1918, when the Kustodiev merchants and merchant women throughout the country were already being pushed to the wall by fighters against the bourgeoisie.
Ilya Repin. "Religious procession in the Kursk province." 1880-1883
Different layers of society come to the religious procession, and Repin depicted them all. They carry a lantern with candles in front, an icon behind it, then they walk the best people- officials in uniforms, priests in gold, merchants, nobles. On the sides there are guards (on horseback), then there are ordinary people. People on the side of the road periodically rake in order not to cut off the bosses and get into his lane. Tretyakov did not like the police officer in the picture (on the right, in white, beating someone from the crowd with all his might). He asked the artist to remove this cop chaos from the plot. But Repin refused. But Tretyakov bought the painting anyway. For 10,000 rubles, which was simply a colossal amount at that time.
Ilya Repin. "Gathering". 1883
But these young guys in another painting by Repin no longer go with the crowd to all sorts of religious processions. They have their own way - terror. This is "People's Will", an underground organization of revolutionaries who killed Tsar Alexander II.
Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. "Oral calculation. At the public school of S.A. Rachinsky." 1895
Rural school. Peasant children in bast shoes. But there is a desire to learn. The teacher is in a European suit with a bow tie. This is a real person - Sergei Rachinsky. Mathematician, professor at Moscow University. On a voluntary basis he taught at a rural school in the village. Tatevo (now Tver region), where he had an estate. Great deal. According to the 1897 census, the literacy rate in Russia was only 21%.
Jan Matejko. "Chained Poland". 1863
According to the 1897 census, literate people in the country were 21%, and Great Russians - 44%. Empire! Interethnic relations in the country have never been smooth. The painting by Polish artist Jan Matejko was written in memory of the anti-Russian uprising of 1863. Russian officers with angry faces shackle a girl (Poland), defeated, but not broken. Behind her sits another girl (blonde), who symbolizes Lithuania. She is groped dirty by another Russian. The Pole on the right, sitting facing the viewer, is the spitting image of Dzerzhinsky.
Nikolay Pimomenko. "Victim of fanaticism." 1899
The painting shows real case, which was in the city of Kremenets (Western Ukraine). A Jewish girl fell in love with a Ukrainian blacksmith. The newlyweds decided to get married with the bride converting to Christianity. This worried the local Jewish community. They behaved extremely intolerantly. The parents (on the right in the picture) disowned their daughter, and the girl was obstructed. The victim has a cross on his neck, in front of her is a rabbi with fists, behind him is a concerned public with clubs.
Franz Roubo. "Assault on the village of Gimry." 1891
Caucasian War of the 19th century. Hellish mix of Dags and Chechens tsarist army. The village of Gimry (Shamil’s ancestral village) fell on October 17, 1832. By the way, since 2007, a counter-terrorist operation regime has been in effect in the village of Gimry again. The last (at the time of writing this post) clearing by riot police was on April 11, 2013. The first is in the picture below:
Vasily Vereshchagin. "Opium eaters." 1868
The painting was painted by Vereshchagin in Tashkent during one of the Turkestan campaigns of the Russian army. Central Asia was then annexed to Russia. How the participants in the campaigns saw the ancestors of today's guest workers - Vereshchagin left paintings and memoirs about this. Dirt, poverty, drugs...
Peter Belousov. "We will go the other way!".1951
And finally, the main event in the history of Russia in the 19th century. On April 22, 1870, Volodya Ulyanov was born in Simbirsk. His elder brother, a Narodnaya Volya member, tried himself, perhaps, in the sphere of individual terror - he was preparing an attempt on the life of the Tsar. But the attempt failed and the brother was hanged. That’s when young Volodya, according to legend, told his mother: “We will go a different way!” And let's go.
Peasant life in the works of Russian artists.
The theme of the peasantry and peasant life attracted and worried many Russian artists. They addressed folk life and work activity ordinary people and saw this as particularly important because They believed that the peasantry is the support of the Russian state, and the peasants are the main guardians of the Russian traditions and culture of the country, because it was the peasantry that for many centuries managed to preserve the original Russian way of life and self-organization.
The life of a peasant was highly dependent on the changing seasons. From spring to autumn, they worked in the fields, collected mushrooms and berries for the winter, grazed livestock and prepared hay and firewood for the cold.
N.E. Makovsky “Feeding Turkeys” oil on canvas. V.E. Makovsky “Girl with Geese” oil on canvas. 1875
V.E. Makovsky “Fisherwomen” oil on canvas. 1886
I.F. Khrutsky “Portrait of a boy” oil on canvas. 1834. A.I. Strelkovsky “At the Well” paper, watercolor. 1878.
Most of the time in summer time peasants, young and old, spent time in the fields. Therefore, a lot of rituals and holidays were associated specifically with agriculture and the change of seasons. The peasants even had their own special calendar, which recorded the most important stages of agricultural work and the holidays associated with their completion.
A.G. Venetsianov “On arable land, spring” oil on canvas. 1820
G. Myasoedov. “Time of grief” oil on canvas. 1887
The peasants spent the whole day on the field. They worked since spring, all summer and early autumn growing crops. They went to the field with the whole family, where they had lunch and rested. Even infants were taken into the field, and older children had to look after them.
A.G. Venetsianov “Reapers” oil on canvas. 1820s
Makovsky K.E. “Peasant lunch in the field” oil on canvas. 1871
Z.E. Serebryakov “Peasants” oil on canvas. 1914
Makovsky K.E. “The Reaper” oil on canvas. 1871
Harvest The final stage of agriculture was harvesting or “harvest”. The peasants took this time very seriously because they were collecting the long-awaited harvest, the result of everyday labor. They said: “Whatever you collect in August, you will spend the winter with.” “The first sheaf is the first autumn holiday“On the Assumption (August 28 - according to the new style), the holiday of the end of the harvest (dozhinka) was celebrated. On these days, an ancient ritual associated with the veneration of Mother Earth was previously performed.
Z.E.Serebryakova. “Harvest” oil on canvas. 1915
A.G. Venetsianov “Summer, At the Harvest” oil on canvas. 1820
K.S. Malevich “Haystacks” oil on canvas. 1912
In winter, peasants mainly occupied themselves with household chores. Women sat at needlework. They spun, weaved, knitted, and sewed new clothes. Men went hunting, collected firewood, fished, and made tools for summer jobs. In some villages people practiced folk crafts, such as basket weaving or pottery.
V.G. Malyshev “Kitchen” oil on canvas.
Z.E. Serebryakova “Peasant woman with pots” paper, watercolor, whitewash 1900s A.G. Venetsianov “Peasant woman doing embroidery” oil on canvas 1843
I.A. Pelevin “Children in a sleigh” oil on canvas. 1870
Most peasant families had many children. From an early age, children were instilled with love for their family, respect for elders, fellow villagers, and respect for parents. They grew up in conditions of mutual assistance, the older children always helped and looked after the younger ones, and the younger ones obeyed the elders. Peasant children worked together with adults, over time doing more and more difficult and responsible work, often doing the same work as their parents.
V.E. Makovsky “Peasant children” oil on canvas.
A.M. Kolesov “Peasant Woman Serving a Soldier a Drink” oil on canvas 1859 K. V. Lemokh “Varka” oil on canvas. 1893
V.E. Makovsky “Shepherds” oil on canvas. 1903
A.G. Venetsianov “Sleeping Shepherd” wood, oil. 1824
V. Vasnetsov “Beyond the Water” oil on canvas. N. Pimonenko “Boy with a Basket” oil on canvas on cardboard. late XIX– beginning of XX
A.G. Venetsianov “Peasant children in the field” oil on canvas. 1820s Makovsky K.E. “Children running from a thunderstorm” oil on canvas. 1872
In the Russian village of the past important aspect public and family life was a holiday. Holidays interrupted the monotony of everyday life and set a certain rhythm for life. The holiday was a real ritual, where everything had its time and place. Sunday after the work week is not just a free day, but a holiday for which people prepare.
We were seriously preparing for the big holidays. Housewives washed the floors and heated the baths, dressed in smart clothes, went to church in them for the festive service, baked pies, and cooked meat soup. They set the table, laid out a clean tablecloth, and set out the treats. The father of the family played the accordion, sang songs, and danced. Major holidays were celebrated by the entire village. The peasants even said: “We whole year we work for the holiday.”
K.A. Trutovsky “Round dance on Trinity in the Kursk province” oil on canvas. 1860
One of the brightest moments in life for peasants was their youth before marriage. This is the time for joint games of girls and boys, gatherings, round dances, caroling at Christmas time.
Round dance occupied a special place in the life of peasant youth. The round dance often began like this: two or three young women and the same number of brides stood in the middle of the street and began to “play songs.” Many young women and girls joined them, then young men and boys approached, often with harmonicas, rattles, and tambourines. Then one of the participants began to sing loudly, and a guy with a scarf in his hands came out into the middle of the circle. The round dance song began... Round dance
B.M. Kustodiev “round dance” oil on canvas
A.P. Ryabushkin “A guy got into a round dance” oil on canvas. 1902
Wedding A wedding was the main ritual in the life of a peasant. Marriage meant gaining the status of a full and full member of the community. The entire settlement took part in the ritual, and each participant had a role, sanctified by tradition. People got married with the consent of their parents and with their blessing.
E.V. Chestnyakov “Matchmaker, dear, come out!” wood, tempera
E.V. Chestnyakov “Peasant Wedding” wood, oil
Long winter evenings, especially on Christmas Eve, peasant girls wondered, trying to penetrate the secrets of their fate and unravel who their betrothed would be. Divination
N. K. Pimonenko " Yule fortune telling" canvas, oil. 1988 A. G. Venetsianov “Fortune telling on cards” oil on canvas. 1842
The presentation was prepared by a teacher additional education GBOU school No. 245 of the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg Natalya Nikolaevna Oreshkina. 2014