Savinova T. A. 1918 in the life of A. V. Chayanov: Cooperation, writing and anarchism // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №2. P. 38-46.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-2-38-46
Annotation
The article considers the life and work of the great Russian and Soviet economist A. V. Chayanov in the watershed year of 1918. The article introduces into the scientific circulation a number of documents from the funds of the Russian State Archive of Economics and of the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library. The author describes the work of Chayanov in the bodies of cooperation — cooperative publishing house, Council of the Central Association of Flax Growers, and Committee for the Protection of Art Treasures which was established at his suggestion by the decision of the cooperative congress. The author emphasizes the role of cooperation in the survival of the scientific and creative intelligentsia under the hunger, devastation and chaos after the outbreak of the Civil War. Among the few surviving documents of the Council of All-Russian Cooperative Congresses, the most interesting are the meetings of the publishing commission, which prove that in 1918, Chayanov was one of the most published authors. The Council of the Central Association of Flax Growers helped Chayanov to survive, although its position as a key member of the All-Russian Cooperative Congresses was greatly shaken. The article describes the work of Chayanov in the Committee for the Protection of Art Treasures. The author considers the creation, criticism and role in Chayanov’s biography of his two fiction works — History of Miusskaya Square (to the history of the University named after A. L. Shanyavsky) and History of a Barber’s Doll, or the Last Love of the Moscow Architect M. — and the ideology of Chayanov at the end of 1918, which helps to understand his psychological condition and the evolution of his worldview when searching for his place in the life of new Russia.
Keywords
A. V. Chayanov, cooperation, publishing committee, writing, anarchism.
About the author
Savinova Tatyana A., PhD (Economics), Head of the Department of the Russian State Archive of Economics, Researcher, Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119435, Moscow, Bolshaya Pirogovskaya St., 17.
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Evidence of war and occupation in the memoirs of Russian peasants: Two Cossack women near Stalingrad
May 15 2022Nakhimovsky A. D. Evidence of war and occupation in the memoirs of Russian peasants: Two Cossack women near Stalingrad // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №1. P. 69-102.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-1-69-102
Annotation
The article examines the life of Russian peasants in the steppe regions adjacent to Stalingrad and occupied by the German army at the time of the Stalingrad battle. The battle began in these regions in July–August 1942. In September, when the fighting moved into the city set on a narrow strip along the Volga River, the surrounding steppe was taken over by a more or less organized occupation regime. The occupation came to an end after the Soviet counterattack on November 19-23. While abundant literature has been devoted to the battle in the city, there is practically nothing on the life of peasants under occupation in the surrounding area. Relatively little has been written about the life of peasants during the Great Patriotic War. Studies of the occupation have focused on the western regions of the Soviet Union, where the occupation lasted for years. In the Volga Region, it lasted only for months. There was no occupation administration — only soldiers mostly preoccupied with daily fighting. The local population consisted primarily of the Don Cossacks who preserved Cossack traditions and retained sharp memories of collectivization. The article considers: (1) how the occupiers and the occupied negotiated such unusual conditions; (2) how traditional peasant values and behavioral norms were expressed; (3) how on occasion the occupiers defied their usual stereotypes. The study is based on the records of linguists, specifically dialectologists. Dialectology and oral history frequently use similar materials for different tasks. It is worth noting that the oral history began to develop in Russia only in the 1990s, while dialectology continues a tradition established in the 19th century. Especially in the study of the Russian peasantry, records made by dialectologists can be a valuable source for historians.
Keywords
Oral history, World War II, Stalingrad, Nazi occupation, peasantry, Don Cossacks, Nazi collaboration, partisans, collectivization, de-kulakization.
About the author
Nakhimovsky Alexander D., PhD, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Linguistics (Emeritus), Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, New York, 13346 USA.
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Sharapov S. V. Agriculture of the Novosibirsk Region under the state agrarian policy on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №1. P. 52-68.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-1-52-68
Annotation
The article considers the impact of the Soviet state agrarian policy on the agricultural production in the Novosibirsk Region. In 1930s, the government was not far-sighted: for short-term gains (growth of production volumes) the long-term prospects were sacrificed. The ever-growing state plans for sowing and harvesting prevented the development of the rational agricultural system in Siberia. By the early 1940s, in most collective farms of the Novosibirsk Region, elementary agrotechnical rules were broken: fallow lands were reduced, deadlines for agricultural work were not kept, rules for crop rotation and seed production were ignored. Therefore, the long-term clogging and depletion of soils, among other factors, determined extremely low grain yields during the Great Patriotic War. In the prewar period, the state agrarian policy led to the rapid depletion of the agricultural production in the Novosibirsk Region. By 1941, the region was in a critical situation of an acute shortage of seeds, food, and livestock feed. In 1942, the Soviet government continued its blind sowing policy and obviously underestimated the negative impact of such a policy on production under the reduction in labor and inputs. Planning errors led to a sharp reduction in gross grain harvests from 1942. Until the end of the war, the Soviet agriculture was negatively affected by the short-sighted state policies that significantly reduced possibilities for the productive use of the local agricultural potential.
Keywords
Agriculture, state agrarian policy, agricultural technology, Great Patriotic War, peasantry.
About the author
Sharapov Sergey V., PhD (History), Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090, Novosibirsk, Nikolaeva St., 8.
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Logunova I. V., Urodovskikh V. N. Dynamics of the peasant (private) farms development during the agrarian reform (1991–2001) in the Central Black-Earth Region // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №4. P. 65-86.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-4-65-86
Annotation
The article presents the results of the structural-dynamic analysis of the development of peasant (private) farms under the agricultural reform of 1991-2001 in the Central Black-Earth Region. The research is based on both published and unpublished sources—materials from the archives of the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation, data of the territorial statistical bodies, from statistical collections and regulatory legal acts. Statistical data is presented in tables and graphs. The study of the dynamics of the farms’ development in the period under study allowed the authors to identify general features of this process in the Central Black-Earth Region and its peculiarities in different areas of this region. The authors analyzed the number of farms, their average size, and the size of their land, and conclude that during the agrarian reform of 1991-2001, farmers of the Central Black-Earth Region were forced to fight for survival. Therefore, farms of extremely small size, in a poor financial situation and created by come-and-go people were eliminated; they made up a third of all farms. By 2001, the number of farmers had stabilized, there was a 1.5–2-fold increase in the area of farmers’ land and in the size of the average farm. Farmers who managed to pass the ‘test of strength’ found new opportunities for development.
Keywords
Agrarian reform, farmers, peasant (farmer) economy, Central Black-Earth Region, number of farms, average size of farm, land area of farms.
About the authors
Logunova Inna V., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of Management and General Humanities, Lipetsk Branch of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation; Internatsionalnaya St. 12B, 398000 Lipetsk.
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Urodovskikh Viktor N., PhD (Engineering), Associate Professor, Department of Accounting and Information Technologies in Business, Lipetsk Branch of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation; Internatsionalnaya St., 12B, 398000 Lipetsk.
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The issue of sources in the study of peasant uprisings (the case of the Rudnya settlement, 1918)
Jan 13 2022Posadskiy A. V. The issue of sources in the study of peasant uprisings (the case of the Rudnya settlement, 1918) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №4. P. 50-64.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-4-50-64
Annotation
The article considers a specific case of the peasant uprising in the large commercial settlement in the Kamyshinsky district of the Saratov Province at the initial stage of the Civil War in Russia. The author focuses on the investigative case against activists of the mass demonstration, and this source allowed to better identify the personal characteristics of the participants and activists of the uprising, describe their behavior during and after the outrage and defense strategies during the investigation. The personal features of the activists of the uprising, its course and development are considered based on the sources on the armed actions of the peasantry during the Civil War. The author argues that the most active participants of the armed struggle left their native places during uprisings. As a rule, there are no sources of biographical nature even in judicial and investigative materials, because personal data was poorly recorded by the representatives of political supervision. Therefore, the voice of activists is the most elusive, and the most active participants of peasant uprisings are poorly represented in the sources. Our ideas about the causes and dynamics of the peasant armed struggle are based mainly on the indirect and secondary evidence, which inevitably distorts the general picture and requires both archival and methodological searches.
Keywords
Peasantry, historical source, Civil War, Saratov Province, armed protest, uprising.
About the author
Posadsky Anton V., DSc (History), Associate Professor, Department of History of State, Law and International Relations, Volga Institute of Management —a branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Moskovskaya St., 164, v/g 2, 140012 Saratov.
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Kondrashin V.V., Nikulin A.M. “If you are engaged in scientific research, you must have courage!” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №3. P. 135-171.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-3-135-171
Annotation
The interview with the DSc (History), Professor V. V. Kondrashin presents the milestones of his biography in the historical context of the Russian science and politics in the 20th—21st century. This biographical reflection includes the events of childhood that awakened his interest in history, the difficulties in the academic career of a young man of the people, the historian’s survival under the social crisis of the 1990s. An important part of the interview is formed by Kondrashin’s memories of his teachers in school and university—V. V. Danilov and V. V. Kabanov, M. Levin and T. Shanin. Another significant part of the interview focuses on the most important issues of Kondrashin and his colleagues’ historical research, mainly the history of the Russian and Soviet countryside under revolutions and reforms of the 20th century (peasant wars, NEP, collectivization, World War II and the late Soviet period of agrarian history). The interview was not limited to the Russian historical context—Kondrashin mentions international scientific projects such as the study of the 1932-1933 famine in the USSR, and of the survival and development of the Soviet Union in the interaction with its close and distant neighboring countries. Kondrashin describes the cooperation of Russian scientists with their colleagues from Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Eastern Europe, France, England, USA, Japan and Australia. A special part of the interview presents his reflections on the ‘historian and power’ issue. Due to his active social position, Kondrashin was engaged in various social-political activities, including his work as a Senator of the Federation Council. The interview ends with a discussion of his scientific plans for the year of his sixtieth anniversary.
Keywords
History, peasantry, revolution, reforms, NEP, collectivization, USSR.
About the authors
Kondrashin Viktor V., DSc (History), Chief Researcher, Head of the Center for Economic History, Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences. 117292 Moscow, Dmitry Ulyanov St., 19. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Gonina N.V., Pavlyukevich R.V. Collective-farm markets of Krasnoyarsk in 1955 — 1966 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №3. P. 79-89.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-3-79-89
Annotation
The article considers the development of the collective-farm trade in Krasnoyarsk under the Khrushchev’s reforms. Collective-farm markets played an important role in the Soviet society by improving the living standards of both urban and rural population of the Krasnoyarsk Region. On the one hand, such markets provided the urban population with agricultural food products; on the other hand, they provided the rural population with industrial products. Collective-farm markets were a way of rural urbanization; therefore, local authorities supported and developed collectivefarm trade in Krasnoyarsk, while Khrushchev’s reforms in agriculture had an opposite result. Failures of the virgin campaign, mistakes in the fodder provision and new taxes led to a sharp decline in agricultural production. The main blow to the collective-farm trade was the decree of March 6, 1956 “On the Statute of Agricultural Artel and Further Development of Collective Farmers’ Initiative in the Organization of Collective-Farm Production and Management of Artels’ which was the start of the struggle against homestead farms. Thus, despite the efforts of local authorities, the collective-farm trade was decreasing: in 1955, its share in the commodity turnover was 14,9%, in 1957—9,8%, and in 1966, it decreased by half compared to 1955.
Keywords
Collective-farm markets, market trade, urban consumption, standard of living, urban and rural population, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk Region.
About the authors
Gonina Natalia V., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Sector of Agrarian and Demographic History, Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090 Novosibirsk, Nikolaeva St., 8.
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Pavlyukevich Ruslan V., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of History and Political Science, Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University. 660049, Krasnoyarsk, Lenina St., 117.
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Kuznetsov I.A. Stolypin agrarian reform and agricultural productivity of European Russia in the late 19th — early 20th century // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №3. P. 42-78.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-3-42-78
Annotation
The author considers the links between measures of the Stolypin agrarian reform and indicators of the Russian agricultural development based on various statistical data: statistics of yields (Central Statistical Committee), statistics of grain prices and land management (Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture), data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on peasant exits from the community, data from the survey of farms and allotments conducted by the GUZiZ in 1913. The author also uses data on the income from non-grain crops and animal husbandry, and on the cost of commercial outputs per unit of agricultural land on the eve of the First World War. Based on the analysis of statistics, the author refutes the idea that agriculture had passed the peak of progressive shifts before the reform and that the growth of agricultural production slowed down under the reform. The author reveals mistakes in the 1913 survey of yields, which makes its data invalid for studying the ratio of yields by farm type; uses the moving average method to smooth out annual fluctuations in the CSC statistics of yields; compares the indicators of the best five years before the reform with the indicators of the best five years of the reform to minimize the influence of weather fluctuations on the measurement of the grain production dynamics; calculates the shifts in yields of major crops; with the correlation analysis, identifies the relationship between shifts in yields and productivity for the selected periods under the Stolypin reform in 47 provinces of European Russia; studies the links of the reform with other indicators of the agrarian development; proves the significant positive links (mainly of medium strength and weak) between the peasant activity in the individualization of land tenure (exits from the community) and land use (farms on the allotments) under the reform, and the negative links between economic indicators and the development of group land management within the communal land tenure. Thus, the author insists that the previous historiographic statements about the absence of links between the reform and yields, and about the negative links between the registration of peasant land ownership and the increase in yields on allotments were not confirmed.
Keywords
Stolypin agrarian reform, agrarian history of Russia, agricultural statistics, productivity, land management, peasant community.
About the author
Kuznetsov Igor A., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571 Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Bululina E.V., Golovina E.L., Lysenko I.A. The sanitary-epidemic conditions of the Stalingrad Region and the work of the health authorities in 1941–1945 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №2. P. 62-78.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-2-62-78
Annotation
The article considers the difficult epidemic situation in the Stalingrad Region during the Great Patriotic War and the work of the health authorities to combat dangerous infections. The war determined the restructuring of the entire sanitary-epidemiological service of the country. The appointment of one person in the administration of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Health and the State Defense Committee as responsible for the anti-epidemic work allowed to create a single control center for the main anti-epidemic measures and had positive results. The well-coordinated and controlled work of all medical services together with an emphasis on preventive measures to combat acute infectious diseases (mass immunization by vaccination, revaccination and phaging, strict measures to localize epidemic foci) allowed to successfully defeat epidemics in the army, local and evacuated population in the most difficult period for our country.
Keywords
World War II, history of medicine, health care, epidemics, sanitaryepidemiological service, vaccination.
About the authors
Bululina Elena V., DSc (History), Deputy Head of the Research and Development Department, Center for Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Volgograd Region; Senior Researcher, Center for the Study of the Battle of Stalingrad. 400005, Volgograd, Chuikova St., 45.
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Golovina Evgenia L., Chief Specialist, Center for Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Volgograd Region; Researcher, Center for the Study of the Battle of Stalingrad. 400005, Volgograd, Chuikova St., 45.
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Lysenko Irina A., PhD (Economics), Head of the Research and Development Department, Center for Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Volgograd Region; Deputy Head of the Center for the Study of the Battle of Stalingrad. 400005, Volgograd, Chuikova St., 45.
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Kabytov P.S. Issues of agrarian history in the scientific works of Grigory Alekseevich Gerasimenko // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №2. P. 45-61.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-2-45-61
Annotation
The article considers the scientific legacy of the outstanding Soviet and Russian historian, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, DSc (History), Head of the Department of History of the Presidential Academy of Public Administration, Grigory Alekseevich Gerasimenko who made a great contribution to the agrarian history of Russia during the Great Russian Revolution. The author provides a list of references which represent the milestones of Gerasimenko’s biography, and focuses on his research conducted and published in the Saratov (1954-1980) and Moscow (1980-2005) periods. Initially, in 1917, Gerasimenko studied the internal party struggle in the Soviets of the Saratov Region, and later his research expanded to the Lower Volga Region and the Volga Region. The author identifies factors that determined the changes in Gerasimenko’s research: when studying the history of the Soviets, he became interested in the activities of grassroot peasant organizations and in the peasant fight against farmers and fathers. In the Moscow period, Gerasimenko’s interests expanded again but were still related to his works published in the Saratov period. His monographs combine the macro- and micro-approaches and include the All-Russian, regional, provincial, district and rural levels in order to show the relationship between power and society. Gerasimenko developed new concepts and ideas about the place and role of public executive committees, the scale of the agrarian revolution of 1917 and the relations of people and power at turning points of the Russian history.
Keywords
Grigory Alekseevich Gerasimenko, Saratov State University, Great Russian Revolution, Stolypin agrarian reform, grassroot peasant organizations, public executive committees, Soviets, internal party struggle, rural land community, agrarian revolution.
About the author
Kabytov Petr S., DSc (History), Honored Worker of Science of the Russian Federation, Head of the Department of Russian History, Samara National Research University. 443086, Samara, Moskovskoe shosse, 34.
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Russian Peasant Studies. Scientific journal
Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
- Publisher: Delo Publishing, RANEPA
- Editor-in-Chief: Nikulin Alexander
- ISSN 2500-1809 (Print), ISSN 2949-2564 (Online)
- Founded in 2016
- Frequency: four issues per year (March, June, September, December)
- Open Access: All volumes and articles can be downloaded for free in the PDF format by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)..
- Author fees: free of chagre
- Indexation: Russian Science Citation Index, Russian Science Citation Index Core, List of Journals approved by Russian Hihger Attestation committee (Ministry for Sciende and Education), Scopus, UlrichWeb Global Serials Directory, European reference index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIHPLUS), CNKI scholar, Sherpa Romeo , AGRIS
- Russian registration number: PI FS77-65824 27-May-2016
Hard copies of the journal can be purchased at the Delo e-store or by subscription in the "Press of Russia" Agency (subscription index - Т81017).
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