Rogozin D.M. Challenges and prospects of rural aging // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №2. P. 86-101.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-2-86-101
Annotation
Of the three large-scale studies conducted by the Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the author selected eight most significant manifestations of rural aging and divided them into two groups. The first group presents limitations, while the second — opportunities for aging in the countryside. Elderly villagers, as a rule, do not work, do not study, do not travel, and are sick — these are the restrictions. But they manage the household, take care of themselves, move and keep intimate relationships — these are opportunities. Most limitations and opportunities make pairs. For instance, elderly villagers do not work but manage the household; do not travel, but move; get sick, but keep intimate relationships and take care of their bodies. Only the lack of educational opportunities does not have a positive pair in rural areas. The author believes that continuous education can become a main factor of active aging, that is why it should become an integral part of social policies.
Keywords
Aging studies, life-long learning, illness, variety of aging, education, rural aging, sexuality, sociology of aging, old age.
About the author
Rogozin Dmitry M., PhD (Sociology), Head of Laboratory for Social Research Methodology, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Address: 119034, Moscow, Prechistenskaya Nab.,1.
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Fadeeva O.P. Sketches for the farm project: An Altai palette // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №1. P. 141-173.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-141-173
Annotation
The article considers a wide range of challenges in the implementation of the “farm project” in Russia. The author refers to the initial assumptions of the Chayanov’s theory of family-labor economy to identify objective difficulties and results of the development of farming in Russia. Based on the state statistics and two All-Russian agricultural censuses, the article presents key trends in the development of peasant (farm) economy as compared to other economic actors. The author conducted interviews with farmers, business leaders and representatives of local authorities in a rural district of the Altai Region in 2013–2017. The results of these field studies are presented as a “Kulunda case”, which allowed to identify some typical success and failure stories. The farmers’ stories prove that the family-consumer orientation limits development opportunities and in many cases determines the cessation of farming; while the entrepreneurial and creative motivation prevails in the stories of successful farmers. Successful family-labor farms are gradually turning into family-entrepreneurial and hire employees. Such farms accumulate and provide their heirs with both tangible and intangible assets, primarily in the form of unique local knowledge, which is the main factor of sustainable family business and its further development.
Keywords
Farm project, agrarian reform in Russia, farmers’ stories, the Altai Region.
About the author
Fadeeva Olga P., PhD (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090, Novosibirsk, Prosp. Lavrentieva, 17.
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Nefedova T.G. Contemporary peasant economy in the rural-urban environment // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №1. P. 117-140.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-117-140
Annotation
The article considers features of contemporary Russian households under the concentration of large enterprises and polarization of the countryside. The author compares farms at the beginning and in the middle of the twentieth century to show that many factors determining the households’ life a century ago are still active. The article describes features of today’s small households and farmers and their main types; identifies their variety in the Non-Black Earth, southern and eastern regions, in the suburbs and on the periphery. Among the factors affecting activities of population in households, the author focuses on the degree of rural depopulation, rural ethnic composition, and interaction between households and large agricultural enterprises. Thus, inefficient enterprises were not replaced by small farms due to the gradual decrease of agricultural activities of rural population. There is a significant share of the unused land with an exception of some southern regions, which proves that land is not the key factor in enhancing agricultural activities of small farms. However, the agricultural land use of gardeners is very intensive except for the suburbs of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The greatest activity is typical for farms with high marketability, including “shadow farms”, and for subsistence households following peasant traditions and partially self-sufficient.
Keywords
Peasant farm, agricultural enterprises, farmers, household plots, gardeners, land use, livestock.
About the authors
Nefedova Tatyana G., DSc (Geography), Chief Researcher, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences; 119017, Moscow, Staromonetny Per., 29.
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Ideology and philosophy of the successful regional development in contemporary Russia: The Belgorod case
Apr 05 2018Nikulin A.M., Trotsuk I.V., Wegren S. Ideology and philosophy of the successful regional development in contemporary Russia: The Belgorod case // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №1. P. 99-116.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-99-116
Annotation
The article considers economic successes of the Belgorod region as significantly determined by the governor Yevgeny Savchenko’ agrarian policies, which compensate for the region’s small size and modest human capital. In 2017, the authors published an article describing economic policies and social programs of regional authorities; now the authors focus on the leadership by Yevgeny Savchenko, and his rather paradoxical personal and management views. First, according to Max Weber’s typology of authority, Savchenko is a charismatic leader with strong personality traits and careful political behavior, who benefits from the traditional Slavophile populism and institutional design of the gubernatorial powers that has allowed governors to become more powerful compared to other regional actors during 2002–2012. Second, the Belgorod governor’s project has quite traditional Russian roots in the spirit of A.V. Chayanov’s novel “My brother Alexey’s journey to the land of peasant utopia”, which allowed the Belgorod modernization project to successfully cope with unpredictable challenges from the Russian oligarchy and global economy, and to use competitive standards of consumer society as the grounds for conservative modernization and solidary society development. The Belgorod governor implements his own model of new economy consisting of the extensive development of solidarity and cooperation; ideals of healthy lifestyle; and freedom in choosing ways to work and to rest (regional authorities support corporate, family and individual strategies of life). Third, Savchenko has publicly articulated his personal political-economic theory reflecting a conglomerate of conservative, socialist and populist ideas, and combining anti-liberalism and statist philosophy as the basis for the revival of the Russian state, which the governor sees as an engine of social progress.
Keywords
Belgorod region, governor, leadership, regional authorities, regional development, ideological roots, philosophical foundations.
About the authors
Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Moscow, Russian Federation, 119571.
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Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Associate Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University. Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Moscow, Russian Federation, 119571.
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Wegren Stephen, Professor of Political Science, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA.
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Merl S. Agrarian transformations in the former GDR in 1989–2017: A success story? // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 130-147.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-130-147
Annotation
The transformations of agriculture in the direction of privatization and adaptation to the market started in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Looking back from today, this was a difficult process for the economic transition was strongly influenced by changing prices and demand for agricultural goods. Today in most countries, agricultural productivity is higher though problems and uncertainties are still evident especially considering the structural changes of agricultural enterprises and their consequences for rural life. The article focuses on the country in which agrarian transformations seem to be a success story: in the GDR, the agricultural productivity grew significantly, and the new structures of the agricultural enterprises allowed competing at the world market. The author does not directly compare the former GDR and Russia though the article contributes to understanding the reasons of the problematic outcomes of the transition in Russia. The article highlights general problems of agrarian transformations such as the uncertainty of their structural aims, and puts forward the following questions: can the GDR be considered a success story transferable to other countries as the political approach in Germany was more sophisticated or is there another explanation of its success? Was the success a result of the political course, or was it, on the contrary, an unexpected result of the lack of control? Another question is the criteria for considering the transition in the GDR a success in the economic sense (increase in productivity), social (keeping up the rural community), ecological or agricultural (increase in sustainability of production). To answer these questions the author relies on the statistical data for more than two decades, monitoring data on the still ongoing transition and partly privatization and registration of new enterprises, his own studies of agricultural enterprises in different new countries together with the Russian colleagues (1992, 1997, 2002 and 2016), which allowed to understand the estimates and reactions of people to different challenges of the transition.
Keywords
agrarian transformations, the former GDR (German New Countries), economic transition, agricultural production, rural communities
About the author
Merl Stephan, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University; 25 Universitätsstr., 33615, Bielefeld, Germany.
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Gusakov T.Yu. Rural informal economy of the Crimean village Novoalekseevka // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 107-129.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-107-129
Annotation
The article considers the situation in the Crimean village as a result of the dynamic development of informal economy in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author tries to adapt the existing classifications of informal economy to the specific features of rural Crimea, in which informal relations are primarily determined by the exogenous forces such as the return of deported peoples, the collapse of the collective farms system and peculiarities of the Ukrainian state building. The Crimean countryside became a hostage of the social-economic transformations of the post-Soviet period, and found the only way to adapt and survive under the “wild capitalism” in the refusal to follow the rules of ineffective formal institutions and in replacing them with informal ones.
“Self-reliance” became the main slogan of the Crimean village in the ‘dashing 1990s’. Ethnic, ideological and intercultural disagreements and a lack of trust determined a new model of coexistence of rural residents — a commonalty (an analogue of the pre-revolutionary rural community) constituted by a network of informal ties. Combinations of various mental features determine specific types of informal economy such as a traditional shift to trade and agriculture due to the available resource base. Transformations of the institutional environment and social-economic stabilization in the 2000s contributed to the reduction of informal sector in the rural economy of the Crimea.
Keywords
Crimea, countryside, informal economy, shadow economy, agriculture, peasantization, commonalty
About the author
Gusakov Timur Yu., Junior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Averkieva K.V. Symbiosis of agriculture and forestry on the early-developed periphery of the Non-Black Earth Region: The case of the Tarnogsky district of the Vologda Region // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 86-106.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-86-106
Annotation
The article considers the social-economic structure of the Tarnogsky district of the Vologda Region, which has a peripheral position in both European Russia and the region. Its specific features such as the low rate of population decline and the growth of the local economy that is not high compared to other Non-Black Earth regions do not correspond to the centre-periphery logic of the well-developed space adopted in social and economic sciences. There is a highly developed timber industry including manufacture of a wide range of complex products; eleven agricultural enterprises and creamery that increase production annually, which is a rarity in the peripheral Non-Black Earth region. Such success of the Tarnogsky district is determined by both reasonable regional policies in forestry and agriculture and by personal qualities of the residents, i.e. the social capital. The author argues that the long-term territorial isolation combined with a long history of economic development played an important role in the current situation. Perhaps, the development of stable and close social ties was influenced by the ‘cluster’ (or “nesting”) type of rural settlement, in which “bushes” of 10-15 villages are located in walking distance from each other and separated by forest areas.
Keywords
rural area, periphery, early-developed territory, agriculture, forestry, social capital
About the author
Averkieva Kseniya V., PhD (Geography), Senior Researcher, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 119017, Staromonetny Per., 29.
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Russia, Poland, and China: Models of post-socialist rural development. Round table // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 120-151.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-120-151
Annotation
This article is a transcript of the round table at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation on March 27, which focused on the comparative analysis of the strategic directions of post-socialist rural development in the People’s Republic of China, the Polish People’s Republic and the Russian Federation. Professor Roman Kisiel made a presentation on the problems of Polish rural economy; professor Yan Hairong highlighted the dialectics of contradictions between collective and private farming in China. To a certain extent the Russian scientists L.D. Boni, V.V. Babashkin, and A.V. Gordon became the co-presenters of the Polish and Chinese colleagues when discussing such problems of rural development as the interaction of large and small-scale agrarian production, capitalist, family and collective forms of agriculture, economy and ecology, the city and village, and especially the national agrarian policies regulating all the above. In many ways, China and Poland turned out to be the poles of political and social-cultural agrarian transformations, which determine possible variations of regional models of rural-urban development in Russia. The round table discussion can be useful not only for academic scientists, but also for practitioners involved in developing state and municipal agrarian policies that are to take into account international agrarian experience.
Keywords
peasantry, land ownership, agrarian reforms, rural development, comparative studies, China, Poland, Russia
About the authors
Babashkin Vladimir V., Professor, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prospect Vernadskogo, 82.
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Boni Ludmila D., DSc (Economics), Chief Researcher, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117997, Nakhimovsky Av., 32.
Gordon Alexander V., DSc (History), Head of the East and South-East Asia Branch, INION of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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Kisiel Roman, Professor of Economic Science, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. 10-719 Olsztyn, ul. Oczapowskiego 4.
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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; 82, Prosp. Vernadskogo, Moscow, 119571, Russia
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Pugacheva Marina G., Senior Researcher, Centre for Fundamental Sociology Higher School of Economics, Deputy Editor Russian Sociological Review, Staraya Basmannaya str., 21/4, Room A205, Moscow, Russian Federation 105066.
Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Associate Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Hairong Yan, Professor, Hong Kong, Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon,
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Kisiel R., Marks-Bielska R. Transformations of the Polish agriculture // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 108-119.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-108-119
Annotation
Agriculture has always been an extremely important branch of the Polish economy as a stabilizer of economic fluctuations, a source of basic consumer goods and raw materials for other branches of economy in the periods of instability, a guarantee of self-sufficiency and food security of the country, a protector of natural environment, a source of labor and an employer, and finally a significant factor of national identity and culture. Agricultural production occupies almost half of the Polish territory, and has always determined the main ways of using land and influencing natural environment and landscape. At the same time, for many years the Polish agriculture has been under political, economic, and environmental pressure that determined its numerous transformations. The article considers key changes of rural Poland under the economic transformations focusing on the ownership system at the start of political and economic reforms. The author assesses the role of Polish agriculture and its production potential within the national economy paying particular attention to the European Union budgetary support. Thus, the author aims to analyze all these changes on the basis of statistical data of the Main Statistical Office and Agrarian Property Agency focusing on the transformations of rural areas of former state farms.
Keywords
polish farm, economic transformation in Poland, agricultural policy in Poland, European Union
About the authors
Kisiel Roman, Professor of Economic Science at University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. Faculty of Economic Science, Department of Economic and Regional Policy. 10-719 Olsztyn, ul. Oczapowskiego 4.
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Marks-Bielska Renata, Professor of Economic Science at University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. Faculty of Economic Science, Department of Economic and Regional Policy. 10-719 Olsztyn, ul. Oczapowskiego 4.
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Zhidkevich N. Today’s migrant workers in the north and south of European Russia // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 97-107.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-97-107
Annotation
The article considers the phenomenon of temporary labor migration, i.e. the so-called ‘contemporary migrant/seasonal work’. The author focuses on its regional features determined by economic, social-cultural and demographic situation in the migrant workers’ hometowns and villages. There is a clear differentiation in such characteristics as the scale of migrant work, women’s seasonal positions, dominant motives of such work and its key specialties, migrant workers’ status in the local community, etc., especially in the northern and southern parts of European Russia. The share of migrant workers in local communities is much higher in the ‘south’ than in the ‘north’ for the density of population in the ‘south’ is higher. In the ‘south’, both men and women are engaged in migrant work while in the ‘north’ women among the migrant workers are rare. The ‘north’ with its forests is known for migrant carpenters that build houses, bathhouses and other buildings for wealthy city dwellers (there are almost no carpenters in the ‘south’). The ‘southern’ migrant workers can be divided into two groups —general workers and skilled workers engaged in oil and gas industries, so labor competition is fierce in the ‘south’; moreover there is a big demand for ‘northern’ carpenters’ unique skills. Thus, ‘southern’ migrant workers are motivated by push-factors, while the ‘northern’—by the attraction-factors. The scale of migrant work and its key specialties determine the differences in migrant workers’ positions in local communities: for instance, carpenters of the ‘north’ mainly have a high social status; ‘southern’ migrant general workers usually have a low status, while the skilled ones—a high status.
Keywords
migrant work, (temporary) labor migration, regional differences, the north and south of European Russia, Russian periphery, employment strategies
About the author
Zhidkevich Natalia, Analyst, Project-Training Laboratory of Municipal Government, National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya Str., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation.
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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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