Gordeeva I.A. “Small deeds” in the Russian communitarian movement // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №2. P. 88-105.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-2-88-105

Annotation

The article considers the ideas and work of Alexander Engelgardt (1832-1893) and Nikolai Nepluev (1851-1908) as the first stage of the communitarian version of the “small deeds” branch in the Russian populist movement of the 1870-1890s. The common features of Engelgardt and Nepluev projects were their communitarian spirit and practical orientation. Moreover, they were landowners who questioned the role of their estates in Russia after the Great Reforms. The social ideals of Engelgardt and Nepluev opposed both the concept of violent revolution and the idea of liberal reforms. They insisted that the methods of social development had to be (1) peaceful and based on the everyday local transformations in the spirit of “small deeds”, thus, following the communal traditions of the Russian peasantry; (2) radical enough to ensure both deep transformations of the Russian society and the very type of its social relations. Engelgardt aimed at making the Russian village cultural by turning educated people into “intelligent peasants”. In the late 1870s—early 1880s, in his estate Batischevo in the Smolensk Province, he tried to “produce” intelligent peasants. On the contrary, Nepluev tried to “produce” intelligent peasants from peasant children by agricultural education and Christian upbringing. He succeeded in establishing the Orthodox Exaltation-of-the-Holy-Cross Labor Brotherhood that combined the ideas of Christian community and labor artel (1890s—late 1920s).

Keywords

“small deeds” theory, Russian communitarian movement, Alexander Engelgardt, Nikolai Nepluev, Exaltation-of-the-Holy-Cross Labor Brotherhood, Russian populism

About the author

Gordeeva Irina A., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of Church-History Disciplines, Faculty of History, St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute. Pokrovka St., 29, Moscow, 105062.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Gordeeva I.A. Book review: Agarin E. By the labor of one’s hands: Tolstoyans’ agricultural colonies in pre-revolutionary Russia // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №3. P. 186-194.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-3-186-194

Annotation

Book review: Agarin E. By the labor of one’s hands: Tolstoyans’ agricultural colonies in pre-revolutionary Russia. М.: Common Place, 2019. — 382 p. ISBN 978-999999-0-84-4

About the author

Gordeeva Irina A., PhD (History), Associate Professor, St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute. Pokrovka St., 29, Moscow, 105062.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Gordeeva I.A. Refusals to serve in the military and development of the Russian pacifist movement in the late 19th — early 20th century // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №4. P. 78-104.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-4-78-104

Annotation

The Russian pacifist movement originated at the turn of the 20th century mainly due to the Tolstoyans. To explain its social-political and ethical views the movement referred to the ideas of Leo Tolstoy, philosophy of non-violence and civil resistance, and Russian and foreign religious movements. The pacifist movement began with the attempts of the Tolstoyans to protect the like-minded people and other believers who refused to serve in the army on religious and ideological grounds. The leaders of the pacifist movement considered conscientious objection the most important religious and ethical protest of the Russian people. Despite the fact that many its leaders represented privileged social groups, the movement consisted of sectarian and peasant groups. They became a kind of peasant scholars and conducted a large-scale study of the people’s protest traditions to develop the mass social basis of the pacifist movement. The article also considers the Tolstoyans’ efforts to turn “weapons of the weak” — traditional methods of people’s protest (various forms of flight and refusals to cooperate with the state, autonomous communities, etc.) — into effective forms of civil disobedience. 

Keywords

Russian pacifist movement, conscientious objection, Russian sectarianism, national religious movements, Tolstoyan movement, nonviolence, civil disobedience.

About the author

Gordeeva Irina A., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Saint Philaret Christian Orthodox Institute. 105062, Moscow, Pokrovka St., 29.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.