Images of Relations between Nobility and Peasantry in Russian Liberal Literature in Late 19^th — Early 20^th Centuries

Abstract

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the representation of relations between the nobility and the peasantry in Russian liberal thought at the cusp of XIX—XX centuries. A review of the existing historiography on the problem is carried out, the main attention is paid to the emerging from the middle 1980s the traditions of studying the liberal intelligentsia in Russia and the peculiarities of the relationship between the “educated minority and the peasant world”, an analysis of the latest scientific literature is presented. Special attention is paid to the main research approaches to the study of the topic, microhistorical, positional and other approaches, the concept of “new local history” is highlighted and the need for their complex use is declared. The results of a comparative analysis of various groups of sources are presented: reminiscence and memoirs, periodicals, statistical materials, correspondence. The question is raised about the differences in the self-identification of the Russian nobility, as well as in the mutual representations of the two most important estates of post-reform Russia. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that, on the basis of new methodological approaches, several images of relations between the nobility and the peasantry have been identified at the cusp of XIX—XX centuries: the image of the “new entrepreneurial type”, “guardianship” and “preservation of traditions”, conventionally “lordly”, as well as the image of “free action”; their distinctive characteristics are given. The proposed classification is due to the main ideas of the Russian nobility about the peasants in the context of the institutionalization of liberal ideology.

Keywords

• nobility
• peasantry
• post-reform russia
• images of relationships
• liberal literature, liberal intelligentsia
• zemstvo