57:
242:
used a light wooden plough pulled by one horse or two oxen; they also used a small hand-sickle compared to the scythe or reaping hook which had been in use in
Western Europe for over 50 years; sowing, winnowing and threshing was still done by hand compared to mechanised production in the rest of Europe; the use of chemical fertilisers were greatly below European standards; and advanced field rotations (alternative between cereals and root crops) were still largely unknown, while having been introduced in Western Europe in the mid-eighteenth century during the agricultural revolution. To feed themselves more land was cultivated as few peasants had the money to modernise their farms, and this was accomplished by reducing the amount of communal pasture lands in the
25:
250:
number was 22 percent, mainly due to the peasant communes' buying up land, increasing the percentage of peasant landownership to 68 per cent from 58 in the same time-span. The need for more land to cultivate caused by the boom in peasant population also led to one-third of the gentry's land being rented out, often at extortionate prices, with peasants agreeing to high prices out of necessity; this made the rental values increase to seven times the size, and this gave income for the gentry of the late 1800s to live on.
33:
17:
311:, sugar-beet, etc. were, according to Figes, 'caught in the worst of all possible worlds: between the old pre-capitalist system of agriculture in the centre, and the emergent system of commercial farming at the periphery'. Though at extortionate prices, the leasing of land from the gentry managed most peasants to just about survive during the
249:
The seed of further conflict in the central agricultural zone was found in the 'most tempting solution' of the peasantry's land hunger, which they could see every day from their villages: the estates of the squires, with nobles owning one third of all arable land in Russia in the 1870s. By 1905 this
203:
authorities in the 1880s found that two out of three peasant households could not feed themselves without also simultaneously going into debt; this was made worse by the fact that peasant farmers had to sell off grain in autumn, when prices were low due to high supply, and buy grain in the spring at
372:
which were vastly superior to those used by communal tenures in
Central Russia. Saratov Province on the other hand, albeit rich in land, was under the communal system, and its peasants were among the poorest and most rebellious in the entire Empire. Saratov was also the site of the most destruction
222:
cites the basic problem of the central agricultural zone being that 'the peasantry's egalitarian customs gave them little incentive to produce anything other than babies'; the birth rate in Russia at the second half of the 1800s were almost twice that of the
European average, at about 50 to a 1000,
171:
were located, where backward and old farming techniques and methods dominated, and which became increasingly overpopulated. Here the amount of land per capita was rapidly decreasing, while the population boom surpassed the increase in agricultural production. It was also one of the centres of 'hemp
421:
was overstretched: it was an army consisting of peasants and serfs, and the relatively small population of
European Russia compared to the rest of Europe (which was its size) was compounded by the fact that most of the serfs were located in the central agricultural zone, far from any border where
241:
in 1900), but with only half the grain yield; this sharp difference from the rest of Europe was caused by the heavily outdated methods used by the
Russian peasants in Central Russia: instead of the heavy iron plough low pulled by four to six horses in Western Europe, central Russian farmers often
179:
were mortgaged. The difference between the price of populated and unpopulated land was also less in this region than in non-agricultural regions, such as the Lake region, and land was more expensive in the central agricultural region because landowners realised more rent here than in these other
163:) noted in the Russian peasantry in the turn of the century and early twentieth century; there was however a growing divergence in the peasants' economic situation evolving between these relatively wealthy western, southern and eastern areas, and the central agricultural zone, where most of the
223:
with the highest rates in the lands with communal tenure, where the size of the family determined the size of land. This population boom were due to land shortage: the population density of
Central Russia matched Western Europe, with the average peasant allotment similar in size to those in
434:
the commercial farms and big estates were hit badly by the war as mobilisation left them without much of the needed hired labour, and who could not buy needed equipment due to the altered production during the war. This resulted in large portions of gentry land being rented out to the more
246:, which had the effect of reducing the livestock size and therefore also the main source of fertiliser, and exhausting the soil. By the end of the century one in three households did not own a horse, and had to either rent one or attach it to themselves and pull the plow themselves.
435:
economically sound peasants, as they were less hit by labour shortage as the government only drafted the excess peasant population, and who made their own simple tools. Therefore, the productive area of the peasantry in the central agricultural zone increased from 47 to 64 million
213:
The differences in wealth and living standards of the peasantry between the central agricultural region and the surrounding agricultural areas were rooted in two factors, that is 'local differences in the quality of the soil', and 'historic legacies stretching back to the days of
180:
regions. This also led to serfs being cheaper in these areas, as the main income of the gentry came from renting out land, and less came from serf labour; therefore to landowners in the central agricultural zone, land was considered more valuable than the serfs they owned.
107:
The
Central Agricultural Zone was marked by lower living standards for peasants, and an extremely dense and poor rural population. It was surrounded by areas where commercial farming was prevalent: in the Baltic were capitalist farms able to hire wage-labour due to the
389:
and his struggle against the commune elder
Maliutin. Most peasants of Central Russia and the Central Agricultural Region, the communal area to which Stolypin's reforms had been addressed, were not affected, and the reform failed to alter the communal way of life.
404:
emerged as principal peasant obligation. In these areas nearly 85 per cent of the serf population lived during the latter third of the seventeenth century. At the time of the
Emancipation, the Central Agricultural Region was one of the areas, alongside the
409:
governorates' where the nobility wanted to free the serfs with as little land as possible (or none), and were willing to free their serfs without indemnification (or even a small one) if they were able to keep all of or most of the land for themselves.
302:
in the southwest. This 'transitional region' of overpopulation and large landownership by the gentry, with high land rents and low wages, but with fertile soil and decently long growing seasons favourable to the development of commercial
253:
An arc of provinces at the southern edge of the
Central Agricultural Zone was where the agrarian violence – the peasants' war against the squires – of the revolution was concentrated, presenting a distinctive distribution: from
385:, and commune elders, which tended to be reactionary and dominant, resisting modernisation, and conflict arose between those wanting to separate and become private landowners and the communes; this can be seen in the life of
56:
451:, when the strongholds of the revolution fell within the central agricultural zone, while the more wealthy agricultural regions on the periphery remained firm areas for the counter-revolution. During the
335:, millions of peasants had been driven off the land due to poverty, or a misfortune like the death of a family member, which was very difficult to handle economically for a severely indebted household.
84:, it was home to most of the Russian serf population, and later it was also the centre of the communal system, which contributed to the areas relative poverty compared to the rest of Russia.
398:
The Central Agricultural Zone was the main area of colonisation in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The centre of agricultural production moved to the region at the same time, and
323:
where their share doubled). This resulted in rented out land being withdrawn, or rented out at even higher prices, and the lease system being altered from a money rent to labour rent (
195:', selling winter produce and handicraft to pay taxes and buy some new goods for the household, with the general production being geared towards their own food production. In
381:
whose cornerstone was the abolishing of the communal system and the establishing of a peasant landowning class. His reforms were resisted by the nobility, unionised as the
319:, greatly increasing the share of landownership by the gentry between 1900 and 1914 (an increase of one third, but even higher in the 'transitional regions', like in
368:
province where the communal system had never been in place, where peasants owned farms privately, and with farming techniques like those in use in the neighbouring
175:
The Central Agricultural Zone in 1856, at the time the 'chief granary' of the Empire, was also the area where the gentry were most indebted: 71,3 percent of their
76:. Historically it was the centre of agriculture and colonisation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was one the most densely populated area of the
218:'. Villages composed of former serfs were also less rich in land than those consisting of 'state peasants', i.e. peasants settled on land owned by the state.
439:(513 to 699 million hectares), while the estates productive area fell from 21 to 7 million (229 to 76,5 million hectares) in the same time-span, 1913–1916.
139:", where there were fertile virgin lands with little population) there existed a 'wealthy stratum of mixed farmers' coming out of the peasantry and the
331:. With a modernisation of their farms, the need for peasant labour also decreased, reducing wages in the process. Within the final decades of the
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gained 16 million votes (38 per cent of the total), where most of the votes came from peasants in the Central Agricultural Zone and Siberia.
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210:, usurers who could have whole villages indebted, often leaving peasants in need to sell parts of their lands off to pay off their debts.
400:
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377:, and it was from these events and this province Stolypin got his conviction confirmed, and which brought him to St. Petersburg with
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The differences between the central agricultural zone and the wealthier periphery areas could be clearly seen during the
315:. As the price of cereals rose and the price of transportation fell, however, many landowners turned their estates into
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for thirteen years from 1889, was struck by the differences in peasant living standards and wealth between the
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During the revolutionary years it was the centre of most agrarian violence, and later the centre of the
24:
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where he was Governor from 1903. Stolypin whose wife O. B. Neidgardt owned an estate in
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Russia as a Developing Society: Roots of Otherness - Russia's Turn of Century. Volume 1
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for the larger market. These regions accounted for the general increase of peasant
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had enabled smallholders to make a fortune producing dairy products and
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Lord and Peasant in Russia: From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century
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Population density map of the European part of the Russian Empire
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was one of the areas of where the communal system was dominant.
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796:. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p.
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economic agricultural price depression between 1876 and 1896
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747:. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
199:, in the central agricultural zone, a survey conducted by
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Young peasant women offer berries to visitors to their
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A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924
20:
Map of the European part of the Russian Empire, 1890
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191:remained weak. Most peasants were involved in a '
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744:Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700-1930
327:), perceived by the peasants as a new form of
453:Russian Constituent Assembly election of 1917
64:, 1909. Photograph by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
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172:culture', i.e. the cultivation of hemp.
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741:Burbank, Jane; Von Hagen, Mark (2007).
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204:double the prices – often to the same
80:. It was also the poorest. Before the
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719:. London: The MacMillan Press Ltd.
469:Central Black Earth economic region
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819:Russian Central Agricultural Zone.
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350:Marshal of the Kovno Nobility
183:These areas had few signs of
193:natural system of production
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773:. London: The Bodley Head.
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72:is a traditional region of
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664:. London: Penguin Books.
70:Central Agricultural Zone
44:River, near the town of
769:Figes, Orlando (2014).
713:Shanin, Teodor (1985).
658:Figes, Orlando (2010).
149:Trans-Siberian Railroad
422:they might be needed.
123:farms, in the fertile
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50:Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
48:, 1909. Photograph by
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788:Blum, Jerome (1961).
119:had established vast
82:emancipation of serfs
62:Yaroslavl Governorate
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27:
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110:Emancipation in 1817
413:At the time of the
379:his agrarian reform
307:and cultivation of
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305:mechanised farming
244:three-field system
97:Russian Revolution
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54:
30:
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837:Regions of Russia
726:978-0-333-38251-6
621:Figes, p. 232–235
612:Figes, p. 222–223
600:Figes, p. 106–107
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366:Polish-Lithuanian
294:, all the way to
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317:commercial farms
161:living standards
157:purchasing power
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387:Sergey Semyonov
383:United Nobility
348:, who had been
197:Tambov Province
145:Western Siberia
125:south of Russia
114:Western Ukraine
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362:Kovno Province
343:Prime Minister
333:Russian Empire
237:, roughly 1,1
231:(at about 2,6
189:market economy
177:revision souls
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101:
78:Russian Empire
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6:
4:
3:
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758:. Retrieved
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707:Bibliography
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675:. Retrieved
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648:Blum, p. 583
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578:
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40:home on the
430:During the
415:Crimean War
407:black earth
356:region and
95:during the
807:0691007640
475:References
443:Revolution
262:, through
187:, and the
147:where the
137:New Russia
121:sugar-beet
437:desyatina
401:barschina
325:otrabotka
280:Chernigov
234:desyatina
143:, and in
831:Category
463:See also
346:Stolypin
268:Voronezh
141:Cossacks
103:Overview
93:Red Army
46:Kirillov
813:23 July
760:23 July
732:23 July
677:23 July
394:History
339:Saratov
329:serfdom
300:Podolia
292:Poltava
288:Kherson
276:Kharkov
260:Saratov
239:hectare
225:Germany
216:serfdom
201:zemstvo
167:of the
165:estates
153:cereals
42:Sheksna
804:
777:
751:
723:
668:
661:Crimea
455:, the
417:, the
264:Tambov
256:Samara
229:France
207:kulaks
169:gentry
127:, the
117:nobles
74:Russia
354:Kovno
309:wheat
272:Kursk
159:(and
129:Kuban
815:2016
802:ISBN
775:ISBN
762:2016
749:ISBN
734:2016
721:ISBN
679:2016
666:ISBN
364:, a
298:and
296:Kiev
290:and
258:and
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