Crovetto M. M. Peasants and agricultural wageworkers in Argentina in the 20th — 21st centuries: Some paradoxes of the dichotomy ‘rural–urban’ // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №4. P. 72-82.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-4-72-82
Annotation
The article proposes an unusual starting point to consider the peasantry in Argentina — the concept of rurality. This paper is based on the already highly debated conceptualizations of the rural–urban question in dichotomous terms; the author develops an analytical approach that implies a complex perspective of spatiality in non-binary forms. Such a task involves the integration of other variables in the study of societies connected with the agrarian worlds, already stripped of obsolete univocal characteristics. To solve this task, the author revises some of the discussions of peasant decomposition and wage earning in Argentina. These debates have renewed the understanding of the present peasant and agricultural wage-earning in Argentina, given that historically there were only peasants in the ‘non-pampean’ area (outside the Pampas region). It was not until the 1960 that the peasant self-perceptions and organizations emerged under the slowing demand for labor in the industrial sector. After the analysis of documentary sources in various regions of the country, the author argues that there are rural workers of non-peasant origin, which can be empirically proved. They depend on subsistence activities with the classic peasant features. Agricultural workers and inhabitants of rural worlds are not necessarily the same subjects mobilized daily and being the result of the agro-industrial activities since the 1980s. Since then, they have acquired typical characteristics of the globalized capitalist mode of production. Thus, paradoxically, in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century, in some regions of Argentina globalization creates the peasantry.
Keywords
Peasants, agricultural wageworkers, rural societies, urban societies, Argentina, 21st century.
About the author
Crovetto María Marcela, DSc (Social Sciences), Adjunct Researcher, National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Gino Germani Research Institute; Professor, Sociology Department, Social Sciences Faculty, University of Buenos Aires. J. E. Uriburu St., 950, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1414.
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Diaz-Geada A. Class differentiation in contemporary rural Galiza: A first approach // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №4. P. 54-71.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-4-54-71
Annotation
The article aims at making a first approach to the study of class differentiation in rural communities of contemporary Galiza. First, the author reconstructs the debates on the ‘agrarian question’ in the history of the Spanish state — from the reformist thought of the late 19th century to the present, focusing on how this question was discussed in the Galizan context, in the field of Galizan agrarian historiography. This field of research developed mainly from the study of the peasants’ access to land ownership in relation to various disentailments introduced by the liberal capitalist state. The author pays particular attention to the consequences of the land tenure regime that prevailed in Galiza — foro, a long-term lease: the increasing number of peasants were becoming owners, which agrarian historiography considered a key element of social-economic changes from the late 19th century to the first third of the 20th century. Another interrelated processes were the antiforal agrarian mobilization, growing commercialization of agrarian production, remittances of Galizan migrants from Americas, and technical development of production. The author emphasizes how social inequalities have changed in rural communities, focusing on the consequences of the liberal capitalist state in social structure and referring to different studies that prove the intensification of social inequalities. Finally, the author describes social changes at the last stage of the Franco dictatorship. Thus, this article is a first step in the study of how class inequalities have transformed contemporary peasant communities.
Keywords
Class differentiation, rural history, Galiza, agrarian question, peasant communities, 19th — 20th centuries.
About the author
Diaz Geada Alba, PhD (History), Professor, History Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of Santiago de Compostela. Campus Terra Complexo docente do campus de Lugo, s/n, Lugo, 27002, Spain.
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Mikhalenko N.V. Dacha on Nikolina Gora: The case of A.V. Chayanov // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №3. P. 78-86.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-3-78-86
Annotation
The article considers the features of the dacha-consumer cooperative “Workers of Science and Art” (RANIS) on Nikolina Gora. It was created as a village-commune and united the creative intelligentsia of the 1920s and 1930s, often connected by friendly or official relations. RANIS was based on the principles of collectivism: public vegetable gardens and transport, allocation of premises for breeding small livestock, cooperative canteen and collective children’s educational and leisure activities. Performances by artists, musicians, writers and scientists were to unite residents of the village and to develop common cultural ideas. Such events continued the traditions of literature and art of Zvenigorod places visited by A. S. Pushkin, A. I. Herzen, A. P. Chekhov, A. M. Gorky, I. I. Levitan, K. S. Stanislavsky, etc. The article focuses on the activities of A. V. Chayanov as one of three creators and inspirers of the dacha-consumer cooperative, who invited O.Yu. Schmidt, A. I. Kravchenko, B. A. Kril and others to Nikolina Gora. In 1928–1929, Chayanov’s excavations at the Uspensky settlement had both scientific (a new method of excavations) and educational meaning (in addition to practical skills, local adolescents learned the history of the land their dachas were built on). The dacha-consumer cooperative on Nikolina Gora presents a transformation of the estate tradition in the 20th century realities, that is, a collective life in nature harmoniously combined with intellectual and creative activity.
Keywords
Dacha topos, Nikolina Gora, RANIS dacha-consumer cooperative, A. V. Chayanov, A. S. Yakovlev (Trifonov), E. B. Kril, excavations of the Uspensky settlement, village-commune.
About the author
Mikhalenko Natalia V., PhD (Philology), Senior Researcher, А. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Povarskaya St., 25a, Moscow, 121069, Russia.
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Bezgin V.B. Peasant children and adolescents in the agrarian protests of 1905–1907 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №3. P. 63-77.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-3-63-77
Annotation
The article considers the participation of village children and adolescents in the agrarian movement of 1905– 1907 as a part of the study of the role of the “generation of revolutionary change” in the peasant revolution of 1902–1922. The study aims at the historical justification of Danilov-Shanin’s concept through generational history combined with peasant studies and interdisciplinary approach. The author focuses on the underage peasants’ participation in the agrarian turmoil of 1905–1907, based on the archival documents and media materials. Police and governor’s reports and court records show that children and adolescents participated in such forms of peasant protest as destruction and arson of landlords’ fields and estates, which is evidenced by deaths and injuries of rural children during punitive actions and by illegal actions of rural adolescents mentioned in investigative cases, court proceedings and newspaper articles. Thus, rural children were observers of protests, while rural adolescents played an active role, sometimes including the role of rioters. Such a participation of children and adolescents in the peasant movement was determined by the nature of collective actions in the peasant community and by the peasant traditional attitude to ‘alien’ property. The experience of peasant protest was used by the younger rural generation during the ‘black redistribution’ of 1917.
Keywords
“Generation of revolutionary change”, rural community, peasantry, children, adolescents, protest.
About the author
Bezgin Vladimir B., DSc (History), Leading Researcher, Tambov State Technical University. Sovetskaya St., 106/5, Tambov, 392000.
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Shapovalov S.N. Peasant resettlement to the North-Eastern coast of the Black Sea in the 1830s–1850s: Settlement and land use // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №3. P. 46-62.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-3-46-62
Annotation
The article considers the peasant resettlement to the southern outskirts of the Russian Empire in the first half of the 19th century. The author focuses on the features of the peasant rural settlement in Trans-Kuban in the 1830s–1850s and on the peasants’ adaptation to local conditions. The article describes a special settlement type created by the authorities in this region — non-Cossack villages with peasants from southern and central provinces, which suffered from the permanent lack of places for accommodation, limited land fund, highlanders’ attacks, and forced construction of new villages. The government provided the peasantry with agricultural implements, weapons, cash benefits, food and possibilities for non-agricultural earnings. After the final settlement of the non-Cossack villages, gardens, arable land and hayfields were transferred to their disposal. However, land use and farming were strictly regulated by the village authorities due to the constant military danger.
Keywords
Trans-Kuban settlement, Anapa, non-Cossack villages, settlers, Natukhai, Black Sea Cossack army.
About the author
Shapovalov Sergey N., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of Russian History, Kuban State University. Stavropolskaya St., 149, Krasnodar, 350040.
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Ippolitov V.A. Factors affecting the health of the peasants from the “revolutionary turning point” generation in the 1920s (on the example of the Tambov Province) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №2. P. 46-63.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-2-46-63
Annotation
The author identifies factors that affected peasants’ health in the 1920s based on the unpublished documents of the Health Department of the Executive Committee of the Tambov Regional Council of Workers’, Peasants’ and Red Army Deputies from the State Archives of the Tambov Region. The article focuses on the generational history of rural society, on the “revolutionary turning point” generation, whose representatives were born at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, mainly in the 1890s. The author shows the influence of malnutrition and famine of 1924–1925 on the health of rural residents and the negative consequences of eating various food substitutes and concludes that the famine affected the most the poorest peasants from the “revolutionary turning point” generation. The article presents a comparison of positive and negative factors affecting peasants’ health, focusing on the issues of medical care, morbidity, nutrition, water supply and other factors of the population health status. The author argues that the chronic underfunding of the healthcare system did not allow to provide the rural population with quality medical care, and malaria and syphilis were the most common diseases. The author makes a conclusion about the unsatisfactory health of the peasants from the “revolutionary turning point” generation in the 1920s, referring to the death and birth rates in the countryside and to the relationship between the demographic behavior and depeasantization.
Keywords
Peasants, famine, epidemic, mortality, healthcare, party, NEP, generations.
About the author
Ippolitov Vladimir A., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Tambov State Technical University. Sovetskaya St., 106/5, Tambov, 392000.
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Deserters from the Red Army during the Civil War: to the History of the Guslitsky Region in 1920
Aug 18 2023Posadsky A.V. Deserters from the Red Army during the Civil War: to the History of the Guslitsky Region in 1920 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №2. P. 36-45.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-2-36-45
Annotation
Based on the local historical data, the article aims at proving the importance of a wide range of factors in the analysis of the events of the Civil War in Russia. The author shows both the potential of local research for significant generalizations and the dangers of such extrapolation. In the studies of the Russian Civil War, cultural and historical features of certain regions are often ignored, although they were crucial for the new revolutionary life. The proposed issues are connected with a common phenomenon of that period — the peasants’ mass desertion and evasion from service in the Red Army. The article is based on the official correspondence of the Internal Service Troops of Soviet Russia. The events of the era of war communism strongly affected the cultural-historical micro-region with a rich history — the Guslitsy Old Believers. The author identifies at least three information layers in the presented description and concludes that during the Civil War, horizontal and vertical social relationships developed under the influence of both factors of internal confrontation and cultural-historical characteristics of the region. Thus, the research should focus on such features to reconstruct with a high degree of reliability both the situation of the Civil War and the social history of war communism.
Keywords
Local history, Russia, Civil War, Moscow Province, old believers, Guslitsy Region, Soviet power, desertion.
About the author
Posadsky Anton V., DSc (History), Professor, Povolzhsky Institute of Management — a branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Moskovskaya St., 164. Saratov, 410012.
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Рub as a public space of the peasant world under the excise trade in Russia (1860s — 1890s)
Aug 18 2023Gorskaya N.I. Рub as a public space of the peasant world under the excise trade in Russia (1860s – 1890s) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №2. P. 21-35.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-2-21-35
Annotation
The article considers Russian rural pubs in the second half of the 19th century as a specific place of peasant meetings with the club features. The author describes rural life based on the narrative and legislative sources of the 1860s –1890s for the north-western and central agrarian provinces. By the end of the 19th century, the number of voluntary associations in Russia had significantly increased, and clubs were very popular. Until recently, clubs were considered as an exclusively social-cultural phenomenon of urban social and everyday life. In the late 19th century, the social functions of clubs widened beyond some leisure places for urban residents. In the second half of the 19th century, there was a tendency to consider pubs in rural areas not only as clubs but also as the sprouts of civil society. The article shows that pubs as a public space of peasant life had signs of urban clubs, but their functions were limited to leisure with some elements of business and communication. The traditional dichotomy of peasant life — family and community — gained additional meanings due to the expansion of peasant interaction and to the additional functionality of rural pubs. Moreover, as a phenomenon of rural life pubs represented a social anomaly (drunkenness) and absorbed some changes in the traditional way of peasant life, which reflected both the developing ties between the village and the city and the greater openness of the peasant world.
Keywords
Russia, the second half of the 19th century, peasantry, public space, excise duty, pub, club, leisure, everyday life.
About the author
Gorskaya Natalia I., DSc (History), Professor, Department of Russian History, Faculty of History and Law, Smolensk State University. Przhevalskogo St., 4, Smolensk, 214000.
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Sharapov S.V. Regional authorities and collective-farm peasantry during the Great Patriotic War: Mobilization, care, corruption (based on the data from the Novosibirsk Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №1. P. 67-84.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-67-84
Annotation
On the example of the Novosibirsk Region, the author considers the features of the interaction of local authorities and collective farms during the war. The contradiction, which regional and district authorities faced, was that the total mobilization of resources by the central authorities threatened the local social-economic situation. Therefore, the decisions and actions of the local authorities became contradictory as they had to compensate for the damage caused by their efforts to seize agricultural products from collective farms. Moreover, there were corrupt motives as very common for the relations between the authorities and collective farms. In most cases, collective-farm peasants responded to the obviously excessive state demands by inaction, which forced the local authorities to show additional efforts in order to make agricultural producers fulfill the state requirements. The complexity of the agrarian agenda diverted the attention of the party and governing bodies. However, the state activities were still insufficient to keep the collective farm production under constant control.
Keywords
Agrarian policy of the Soviet state, Great Patriotic War, collective farms, mobilization, trusteeship, corruption.
About the author
Sharapov Sergey V., PhD (History), Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090.
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The conflict of generations in the spiritual sphere of rural society in the second half of the 1920s
May 30 2023Slezin A.A. The conflict of generations in the spiritual sphere of rural society in the second half of the 1920s // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №1. P. 45-66.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-45-66
Annotation
The author identifies the anti-religious aspects of the Soviet “turning to the village” policy, focusing on the main directions in the evolution of anti-religious activities of the communist youth in the mid-1920s and on the changes in the value orientations of peasant generations in the critical period of the Russian history. The study aims at assessing the peasantry’s reaction to the “revolutionary turn” generation (born at the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries) activities and the reasons for the generational conflict, based on the analysis of the spiritual sphere of the Russian village. The author argues that this conflict turned into an intergenerational gap in the Russian village, which is an understudied aspect of the village split into antagonistic camps, used by the Party leadership to accelerate socialist modernization. The anti-religious activities of communist organizations after the “turning to the village” policy seemed to significantly soften forms and methods of the work with the peasantry, but a more thorough analysis shows that such activities remained a powerful factor of the conflict. For instance, value orientations of peasant generations were becoming more different. The spiritual legacy, which the “revolutionary turn” generation was to pass on to its successors, was rejected by the younger generation. The “new faith” completely denied the old traditions and irreconcilable theomachism. Peasants of the “revolutionary turn” generation expressed their attitude to anti-religious activities in the form of hooliganism, and radical measures were a response. The study of the national youth movement (including the negative one) and of the features of the intergenerational conflict in the Russian village are of particular relevance in the search for an educational model that meets the contemporary demands of the state and society.
Keywords
Peasants, religion, generations, revolutionary turn, youth, Komsomol, intergenerational gap, “turning to the village” policy, atheist alliance, NEP.
About the author
Slezin Anatoly A., DSc (History), Chief Researcher, Tambov State Technical University, Sovetskaya St., 106/5, Tambov, 392000.
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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, Jun, September, December)
- Open Access: All volumes and articles can be downloaded for free in the PDF format.
- 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
- 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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