Russian Peasants in the tavern, aquerelle Carl Ivanovich, St. Petersburg, 1817.
Coll. Brown Univ.
"The Russian serfs were generally good, hospital, subject to their lords, and despite the abuse they were overwhelmed with impunity, they remain attached to their masters. If sometimes they rebel, is that their patience was put to severe tests, but before they come to this end, they bear many sufferings with resignation. [...] If we look at the downside, the serfs are careless, lazy, liars and prone to drunkenness. They were slaves to the particular defects, which can have no other desire than their master, who must always cringe to brutal force which makes industrial machinery, they dare not afford the slightest observation, and they are forced to do everything they are commanded.
Lords usually accuse their peasants to be thieves. Admittedly, they are thieves, but in all cases, are honest thieves, for they only take things of first necessity: fodder for their horses, grass for their cows or wood for heating. Finally they seek to capture what is missing the needs of their poor household, they would never steal money or effects.
Moreover, these diversions are almost always committed by peasants extremely unfortunate that push out all the horrors of the distress, for the serfs who enjoy some comfort, that is to say that harvest enough wheat to feed their families and enough fodder for their cattle, never make it guilty of petty theft. [...]
Flights from horses, the rest are rare in Russia, are the result of nomadic gypsies who roam inside. Also denies them do we still allowed to stay in villages, and when you see them settle in the surrounding fields, all peasants stand on their guard, for it must be said that, unable to steal horses, robbing these gypsies very adroitly backyard, but they rarely dare enter the huts and even less in the mansions.
Hospitality is a virtue that modern Russians have inherited from their ancestors. A serf never refuse a piece of bread to the poor who asks charity, he gives even a bed for the night. We know that the nobility, especially that of the province, still retains the old habits of hospitality. Formerly, each villager left the door open to his cottage in his absence, and before leaving his house, he put on the table bread and salt, so that the traveler who stood with him could eat and rest. But since the wars of 1812, soldiers who travel alone have become very looters, so the peasants they now close the door of their cottage when they went away. However they have not stopped doing charity to the poor and provide hospitality to travelers.
The character of the peasants is generally melancholy. Their joy is never noisy, and their songs are tinged with sadness. In the intoxication even brightens their foreheads do not. Regardless of their expansive nature, the serfs are focusing their anger, they do not whisper, they seem resigned to whatever happens to them. Nothing surprises them, do not surprise, they must obey: they obey!
The Russian peasant is very patient and he endured great suffering before the idea of revenge, but the day he took this resolution, nothing stops him! The knout , exile in Siberia does not frighten him. To achieve his goal, he would face death!
In a village belonging to one of our parents, farmers got rid of three stewards in space a year. The first was drowned in a pond, the second was attached to the wing of a mill where it was allowed to run until death ensued, and the third was hit eleven axes. [...] Nevertheless, we affirm that there is more to thoughtlessness than malice, more stupidity than cruelty in their actions. They are often influenced by their superstitious ideas. Here's an example:
The priests, preaching in their churches, in 1812, a crusade against the French, had come to persuade people that the military campaign Napoleon was composed as heretics.
- "Do not talk to a French! Them they said, they are all devils. They did not sign before the churches, and bear no holy images to their necks. You can kill them and are the enemies of Russia and the Orthodox religion. "
If this preaching in the villages earlier this fatal campaign, we should imagine what we have said on seeing desecrate the churches: for it is only too true that we do not adhere. It has made stores, ambulances and even stables, and it was a very big mistake to attack religious beliefs of a superstitious people, for the day when they desecrated the churches, it incurred the hatred of an entire nation.
Farmers have told us, qu'excitées by priests, their wives bought French prisoners at Cossacks responsible for these unfortunate result in the interior of the country. To this end, they clubbed them, one French haggled his good looks, and paid from March to April Petak (the Petak worth 15 cents). So the poor prisoner became the mouse in the claws of the cat. We played with him, then killed him. There were being thrown into wells, other it was roasting in the oven, sometimes they were buried up to their shoulders and his head served to children who were above the village with stones. Sometimes they are dying eyes, and enlivened the crowd flips that were unhappy when walking.
It happened that the Britons, Spaniards and Italians have been preserved these horrible punishments because they were wearing scapulars. The presence of a cross or a medal of St. did stop these barbaric amusements. Then the prisoner escaped death, we fed him and it made him the first Cossacks who passed through the village.
noted that men do not always participate in these cruelties, of course, if these people and the prisoners had been able to understand such atrocities would not have occurred.
Since that time the disastrous intelligence of farmers has developed a little by the force of things. Although outside of the wheel of new ideas, their eyes already spotted the light of civilization, and in some provinces emancipation is, at this moment, the only focus of the peasants.
Twenty years ago, and even the death of Emperor Nicolas, the serfs were no strong position on freedom. This magic word, commented by heavy heads of the place, is summed up in their minds: a free man is excused from all work and his Lord must feed.
As the word freedom was never mentioned by their master, who had an interest not to illuminate its meaning, these poor wandering encrusted conjecture to conjecture, and each of them hoped to be able to live according tastes, without even thinking of the necessities of material life. [...]
History shows us the Russian people devoted any time to drink. Whence comes this degrading habit? Is it to warm his frozen limbs by excessive cold? Is it to get drunk in the oblivion of its misery and its brutalizing slavery?
Looking further back, we see Ivan III, was forced to give very strict laws to curb the drunkenness of the inhabitants of Moscow and the countryside. Later, Boris Godunov suppressed a large number of cabarets in the city of Moscow is not only drank, but they were still places of corruption and debauchery. Women into prostitution for a few drinks water spirits, the children of the boyars, the musketeer, the Cossacks were mingled with the menu-people. They played with dice and games of chance, then when the heads were heated, it was rare that the insults and beatings were not completing these tumultuous gatherings. From this, one can imagine what was happening in the towns and villages, where the Lord protects those selling liquors they reported big profits.
long been the crown has appropriated this branch of industry and the Russian nobles have no right to manufacture and sell water-to-life in their villages. Thanks This measure greatly reduces drunkenness and, moreover, farmers who operate the business of water of life throughout the empire, adding such a large proportion of water in their liquor, he must absorb a large amount to get drunk. Farmers also drink so many glasses of water spirits before they head to their door.
added that the Russian cabarets have something repulsive. It's a dirty room, infects, which is not always boarded and in which there is neither table to put his glass, or bench to sit. Farmers eat standing on a small board placed at a counter, whereby the tenant spends his goods at the same time that the consumer gives him his money give and take. And the innkeeper lets practices insulting each other and fighting at their ease, that is where civilization is in the villages. [...]
It is customary for slaves to marry a property between them and the Lord rarely refuses such unions, but if a farmer from another area just ask a girl for marriage , it is almost always denied, because it is a loss to the Lord, because this girl has its intrinsic value and therefore it belongs to the owner of her husband who would count among his slaves. One often sees in the villages of marital unions between boys and sixteen girls from twelve to thirteen. The Orthodox Church tolerates these weddings so slightly Asian, and the government there is no obstacle, since the taxpayer is married to the crown in his capacity as head of house on the lord he wins over a laborer .
These associations then are usually arranged by parents of the newlyweds. Love has nothing to do, husband does not seek to enforce its rights in this age. From the standpoint of morality, we blame this use, and it will be our view, remembering that the whole family indiscriminately and without regard to sex, lie on the platform of the furnace where the severe cold forced the crowd during the winter. However, it almost always happens that the bride is the victim of brutal instincts of the parents of her husband, and she is the woman in the world before becoming his.
Say again, to complete the picture outrageous that soldiers in cantonment sleep with the family, and they are not scruple to appropriate the wife and daughters of peasants among whom they stay. Then there are officers who do not mind a pretty face, and then again the lord steward and may order that we dare not reject. Certainly, a girl must have the property under pegged in the heart to stay good in the midst of the depravity that surrounds him as a child! Yet he would encounter, we have known who preferred to suffer corporal punishment, rather than pandering to the steward of their village. However, there are some who sell their favors 20 cents, while others who call themselves when they did take a few glasses of water spirits. And then there are those who enjoy all the strength of their souls, but they never effusion, gaiety, or momentum. In happiness and in suffering, they are always melancholy and sad.
The boys are even more apathetic than girls. Their eyes do not animate, their mouth is silent with a woman, even if their bride. They are invariably quiet and phlegmatic. What is surprising is that after marriage they are no more resourceful than before, even when they marry at the age when a man understands the document he has made.
In Russia, the existence of the villagers is very varied. Sundays and holidays, the girls gather in the main street of the village form a circle by holding hands and sing those old melodies Little Russia, generally very monotonous. The boys do not mix readily with these insipid round that no gaiety comes to animate.
[...] ... we not fear to say that Russia is a country sad, both in appearance only by the monotonous character of its inhabitants: we are not talking about the nobility. The winter evenings in the villages, have no animation, never a laugh is heard not. Women have no enthusiasm in their conversation. They spin silently, while the girls paint their hemp jeui.es singing a plaintive tone.
And then the room which meet the women of the village is barely lit. The candle is a luxury item among all the peasants, they light up with small strips of fir. These small strips, very thin, light one end, while the opposite end is placed in an iron clamp attached to the end of a sort of tripod that is in the middle of the room. The lath that is consumed is replaced by another latte, and so on. This fixture is inexpensive, but requires the continuous presence of a person to maintain it.
Not only the farmer is routine, but he is superstitious, as could be convinced by the details we have given on his character and manners. Formerly, when he wanted to build a cottage, he placed a piece of bread in the place where he intended to build it. After a while, he would see if the dogs had eaten he found his piece of bread was a good omen: the location should be favorable to him. Otherwise he abandoned the place, convinced that it would be fatal. Yet this ancient superstition has had to yield to the will of the Emperor Alexander 1, which ordered that the houses were aligned in all the villages on major roads.
As we see, we need an iron hand to rule the Russian people, whenever the Tsars want to take a step forward towards progress and civilization, they are forced to use their omnipotence to overcome old prejudices of their people.
Yet this task would have been less difficult if the lords remained in daily contact with their serfs, had sought to enlighten them. But the nobility never thought that his personal interest, not seriously address the plight of its farmers. "
Achilles Lestrelin, The Russian peasants: their customs, manners, character, religion
superstitions and the rights of the nobles over their serfs , Paris, E. Dentu, 1861.
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