Mikheev E. K., Nikulin A. M., Fadeeva O. P. “Our strategy was based on the principle of doing what was profitable” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №2. P. 212-234.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-2-212-234

Annotation

The interview with E. K. Mikheev (DSc (Economics and Management), Head of the agroholding Niva-Mikheev and Co, Honored Worker of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, Honorary Citizen of the Nizhny Novgorod Region and Buturlinsky district), which was conducted by sociologists A. M. Nikulin and O. P. Fadeeva in August 2023, reconstructs his life path from the peasant collective-farm family to the world of contemporary agricultural science, politics and business. The interviewers focused on the economic philosophy of Mikheev as agricultural manager, his decision-making logic at the collective farm in the USSR and in the post-Soviet period of the developing market economy in the 1990s, his estimates of the situation at his agroholding, agrarian economy and rural development in the Nizhny Novgorod Region and Russia. The interview emphasizes the rational choice of economic decisions made and implemented in the transforming national and local institutional environment. 

Keywords

Agroholding, collective farm, perestroika, Russia, USA, agricultural strategy, Nizhny Novgorod reforms, profit.

About the authors

Mikheev Evgeny K., DSc (Economics and Management), Head of the Niva-Mikheev and Co agroholding. Ogorodnaya St., village Valgusy, Buturlinsky district, Nizhny Novgorod Region, 607451, Russia.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; ViceRector for Research, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
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Fadeeva Olga P., PhD (Sociology), Head of the Department, Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Academician Lavrentiev Prosp., 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
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Breslavsky A. S. Suburbs of Ulan-Ude: Practices of citizenship and the “right to the city” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №1. P. 75-95.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-1-75-95

Annotation

The author shows how local residents of the closest suburbs of Ulan-Ude (which grew rapidly in the 2000s — 2010s due to detached houses construction, including dacha non-commercial partnerships (DNP) without basic engineering, housing and social infrastructure) defended their “right to the city” (comfortable environment in suburban residential areas, equal access to urban public goods, etc.). The struggle for this right implied social-political mobilization, awareness and acceptance of personal responsibility for the development of territories, including in the form of territorial public self-government (TPS) that widely developed in Buryatia in the 2010s. However, this struggle was not widespread, all-encompassing, constant and sustainable as local suburban communities remained disunited and united only to solve common problems. The case of Ulan-Ude and its suburbs shows the situational nature of urban citizenship and the continuing fragmentation of urban and suburban communities in their seemingly common strive for the adequate quality of the urban/suburban environment, equal access to public goods and urban resources. The article shows a variety of argumentations for the “right to the city’, which may directly contradict each other, since the ideals embodied in this right often are not perceived by ‘ordinary’ residents. The study is based on the author’s participant observations (from 2011), in-depth interviews with leaders and activists of TPS and DNP in the suburban settlements of Ulan–Ude (2021– 2024), a focus group (January 2024) and media publications.

Keywords

Rural migration, right to the city, Russia, Ulan-Ude, suburbs, citizenship, territorial public self-government.

About the author

Breslavsky Anatoly S., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Center of Urban Studies, Tyumen State University. Lenina St., 23, Tyumen, 625003.
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Posadsky 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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Gorskaya 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

Natalia I. Gorskaya, DSc (History), Professor, Department of Russian History, Faculty of History and Law, Smolensk State University. Przhevalskogo St., 4, Smolensk, 214000.
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Merl S. “I consistently contribute to the assessment of the Soviet economic model” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №1. P. 131-163.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-131-163

Annotation

As a part of our traditional “Interviews” we present the selected fragments from the biographical memoirs of Stephan Merl, Professor of the Bielefeld University, a famous researcher of the agrarian economy and policy of the Soviet state. The memoirs were written as answers to the questions formulated by Stephan Merl together with his colleague and friend Alexander Nikulin. The questions set the direction for the biographical reflections as connected with the study of the Russian history and culture, in particular the fate of the Russian village, tragedy of collectivization, and turns of the Soviet agrarian policy. The memoirs reflect the dramatic episodes of the European history in the second half of the 20th century, some of which the author experienced, while others studied in the scientific perspective. Professor Merl’s diligence, deep knowledge of historical sources and research objectivity allowed him to suggest a new interpretation of the events that have become history quite recently or are becoming history now. We present an excerpt from his memoirs which will be published in full in the book series of the Russian Peasant Studies. 

Keywords

Russia, Germany, USSR, agriculture, collectivization, agrarian policy, perestroika.

About the author

Merl Stephan, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
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Lerman Z., Nikulin A. M. “What surprises me the most is the conviction of so many scientists and politicians in the special importance of large farms” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №2. P. 158-173.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-2-158-173

Annotation

In the interview, the famous agricultural economist Zvi Lerman tells about his family roots and trajectories of his biographical path connected with the Far and Middle East. Despite the relatively late start of agrarian research, Zvi Lerman quickly conducted a great number of both empirical and theoretical rural studies of the development and transformation of production cooperatives — from Israeli kibbutzim to Soviet collective farms. For several decades since the 1990s, Zvi Lerman has participated as an expert-economist in the international research projects on post-socialist and post-Soviet agrarian reforms. He considered the features of the study and implementation of agrarian reforms in most post-Soviet republics — Russia, Ukraine and Moldova, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan. Zvi Lerman also considered the peculiarities of agrarian reforms in such countries of Eastern Europe as Hungary, Slovenia and Albania. He believes that the conviction of many scientists and politicians in the exceptional importance and progressiveness of large agricultural enterprises leads to an imbalance in the rural development policy and damages the sustainable rural development by underestimating the potential of small family farms. Zvi Lerman also mentions the paradoxes of limitations in the development of small family units.

Keywords

Russia, China, Israel, post-socialist countries, agrarian reforms, cooperatives, family households, agroholdings.

About the authors

Lerman Zvi, DSc (Economics), Professor Emeretus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 76100, Israel, Rehovot, 12.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy ans Public Administration; Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Khlystun V. N., Nikulin A. M. “I have always considered it extremely important to use science in agricultural practice” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №1. P. 171-219.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-1-171-219

Annotation

The interview presents the history of the rural development and agrarian reforms in Russia in the 20th — 21st centuries as based on the facts from the biography of the Academician V.N. Khlystun. The article focuses on the features of educational and scientific institutions associated with the countryside in the USSR and in post-Soviet Russia, in particular on the history and present state of the Academician’s alma mater — the State University of Land Use Planning. One of the main issues in the interview is the reforms of the Russian agrarian system, which are considered primarily on the basis of Khlystun’s rich management experience in the 1990s — as the Chairman of the RSFSR State Committee on Land Reform, Russian Minister of Agriculture, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government, and as a key manager of large financial organizations and analytical structures in the agrarian-industrial complex. In his memoirs, Khlystun describes and analyzes successes and failures of various legislative, economic and political measures of agrarian reforms at the federal and regional levels, and makes some personal assessments of the behavior and competencies of some representatives of the state, political and scientific elites of Russia. He repeatedly emphasizes that rural life is a special social sphere that requires complex and balanced measures for its transformations, i.e., considering various agrarian characteristics of such a vast country as Russia. Khlystun argues that the key to successful rural reforms is a combination of leaders’ broad professional horizons with the ability to give priority to the common national good instead of private interests.

Keywords

Russia, Kazakhstan, State University of Land Use Planning, perestroika, Ministry of Agriculture, land and agrarian reforms, Russian Government.

About the authors

Khlystun Viktor N., DSc (Economics), Professor, State University of Land Use Planning; Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 125064, Moscow, Kazakova St., 15.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Breslavsky A.S. Territorial public self-government in contemporary Buryatia: Factors of sustainable development // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №2. P. 79-98.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-2-79-98

Annotation

The author presents the main quantitative and qualitative results of the territorial public self-government (TPSG) development in the Republic of Buryatia. In 2020, Buryatia took the second place in the number of TPSG in Russia due to the efforts of regional and municipal authorities and to the grassroot initiatives. In the 2010s, the extensive measures of material, organizational and methodological support for TPSG were implemented. In 2018, the regional law on TPSG support was adopted, the TPSG Support Resource Center has been operating since 2019, the Best TPSG competition has been held annually since 2012, and the number of its participants was more than 1000 in 2020. The total number of TPSGs in Buryatia increased from 18 to 2265 in the 2010s. They implement projects in landscaping, construction and repair of social-cultural and engineering facilities, organize sport, cultural and other events. According to the results of the research conducted in February-March 2021 (interviews, collection and analysis of 420 forms on TPSG practices in municipal and urban districts), Buryatia needs a number of organizational measures for the sustainable development of TPSG system in the near future, a strategy for the mid-term development of TPSGs, measures to ensure the social potential of TPSGs in local settlements, scientific and managerial monitoring of the TPSG system, a data archive, development of TPSGs as NGOs, LLCs and other forms, creation and support of a network of TPSG associations in municipal and urban districts, reduction of disparities in the development of urban and rural TPSGs networks, development of TPSGs and business partnerships, and so on.

Keywords

Territorial public self-government, Russia, Republic of Buryatia, local selfgovernment, civil initiatives.

About the author

Breslavsky Anatoly S., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 670047, Ulan-Ude, Sakhyanovoy St., 6.
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Round table “In memory of Teodor Shanin” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №4. P. 39-77.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-4-39-77

Annotation

On the final day of the Chayanov International Conference (October 22–23, 2020), the round table was held in memory of Teodor Shanin, a remarkable agrarian scientist and researcher of A.V. Chayanov’s legacy. The round table was dedicated to both the memory of Professor Shanin who passed away on February 4, 2020, and to his 90th birthday on October 29, 2020. More than 60 scientists and students from different regions of Russia and the world watched presentations of friends, colleagues, and students of Shanin at the round table held online due to the pandemic. The round table was opened by Professor Shulamit Ramon, the widow of Teodor Shanin, who spoke about the worldview dominants of his life and work, his intellectual connection with Russia. The British colleagues of Teodor Shanin—Professors Henry Bernstein, Mark Harrison and Judith Pallot—spoke about directions of the main academic research and discussions which started in the 1970s on social differentiation of the peasantry and referred to the ideological legacy of Lenin and Chayanov; Teodor Shanin made a huge contribution to these debates.
The French scholar Aleksey Berelovich focused on the features of Shanin as a political scientist and a brilliant analyst of the political processes of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Russian colleagues of Teodor Shanin—geographer A.I. Alekseev, historian V.V. Kondrashin, sociologists V.G. Vinogradsky, O.P. Fadeeva, I.E. Shteinberg, A.M. Nikulin, D.M. Rogozin, and A.A. Artamonov—shared their personal memories of Shanin and provided a comprehensive description of his interdisciplinary methodology of agricultural research. Agrarian scientists from South Africa—Boaventura Monjane and Ruth Hall, and India—Sima Purushotaman—emphasized the importance of Shanin’s legacy for the study of the peasant development in the regions of Africa and Asia. Most presentations stressed and analyzed the intellectual connection of Professor Shanin with the Russian agrarian research of Marxists, populists, and the Chayanov school. [/tab]

Keywords

Shanin, peasantry, agrarian sociology, social differentiation, Russia, Marxism, populism, Chayanov [/tab]

About the authors

Alekseev Alexander I., DSc (Geography), Professor, Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University. 119991, Moscow, Lenin Hills, 1.
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Artamonov Alexander A., Leading Specialist, Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 82, Prosp. Vernadskogo, Moscow, Russian Federation, 119571.
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Berelowitch Alexis, University Paris—Sorbonne (Paris IV). France, Paris-5, Rue VictorCousin, 1.
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Bernstein Henry, Emeritus Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). London WC1H 0XG, United Kingdom.
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Fadeeva Olga P., PhD (Sociology), Leading Researcher, Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prosp. Lavrentieva, 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   
Hall Ruth, Professor University of the Western Cape, X17, Bellville, 7535.
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Harrison Mark, Emeritus Professor, Department of Economics, University of Warwick. Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.
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Kondrashin Viktor V., DSc (History), Professor, Head of Center for Economic History, Institute of Russian History Russian Academy of Science. 117292, Moscow, D. Ul’yanova St., 19.
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Monjane Boaventura, Post-Doc, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
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Nikulin Alexander M., Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Pallot Judith, Emeritus Professor, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
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Purushothaman Seema, Professor, Azim Premji University Survey. 66, Burugunte village, Bikkanahalli main road, Sarjapura, 562125 Bengaluru.
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Ramon Shulamit, Professor, School of Health and Social Work, University of Hertfordshire. Hatfield AL10 9AB, United Kingdom.
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Rogozin Dmitry M., Senior Researcher, Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasting, Russian Presidential Academy for National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), 119034, Moscow, Prechistenskaya Nab., 11 bld.1.
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Shteinberg Ilya E., PhD (Philosophy), Associate Professor, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education. Sretenka St., 29, Moscow, 127051, Russia.
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Vinogradsky Valery G., DSc (Philosophy), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Berelowitch A., Nikulin A.M. “My constant desire is to establish relations between the cultures of France and Russia ...” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №4. P. 96-114.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-4-96-114

Annotation

In his interview, the French researcher Alexis Berelowitch considers his Russian family roots and the desire to combine French and Russian cultures in his life through different types of cooperation in the Russian and French historical-sociological projects. He first visited Russia as a teenager in a Moscow pioneer camp in the late 1950s, then he worked as a young volunteer teacher of French at the Minsk State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages in the late 1960s, and after that he chose the key topic of his research—the development of the nationalist trend among village-writers in the Soviet Union. Since perestroika Berelowitch has participated in Russian-French scientific projects of sociologists who studied the transformations of public opinion under the collapse of the USSR, and in Russian-French scientific projects of historians who studied the early Soviet period of the agrarian history of the 1920s—1930s. Alexis Berelowitch made a great contribution to the development of cultural and scientific relations between France and Russia as a cultural attaché of the French Embassy in the mid-1990s and as a director of the French Scientific Center in Moscow (2002-2006). The interview pays special attention to his personal memories of such remarkable researchers of the Russian peasantry as Basile Kerblay, Moshe Levin, Viktor Danilov and Teodor Shanin.

Keywords

Peasant Studies, perestroika, Russia, USSR, France, university science, Kerblay, Levin, Danilov, Shanin

About the authors

Berelowitch Alexis, University Paris — Sorbonne (Paris IV). France, Paris-5, Rue VictorCousin, 1.
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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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