Peasant life: housing and outbuildings. How did peasants live in the Middle Ages? Tools of labor and life of medieval peasants Traditions of peasant life

Chapter IX THE LUBOCK BOOK AND THE PEASANT READER In the post-reform period, with the strengthening of otkhodnichestvo, the introduction of universal military service, and the development of the zemstvo school, the number of literate rural population and the volume of peasant reading began to grow quite quickly

BBK T5 (2)

TRADITIONS OF PEASANT LIFE OF THE LATE XIX - BEGINNING XX CENTURIES (FOOD, HOUSING, CLOTHING) V.B. Bezgin

Department of History and Philosophy TSTU

Presented by Professor A.A. Slezin and member of the editorial board Professor S.V. Mishchenko

Keywords and phrases: hunger; homespun cloth; hut; bast shoes; nutrition; food consumption; bake; dishes; shirt; condition of the home.

Abstract: The state of the main components of everyday culture of the Russian village at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries is considered. The content of the peasants' daily food, the everyday living conditions of village residents, the features of village clothing and the influence of urban fashion on it are analyzed.

Understanding the historical reality of life in a Russian village at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries is impossible without reconstructing peasant life. In peasant everyday life, both the traditional rural way of life and the changes that were brought to life by economic and cultural development countries. The content of the everyday culture of the Russian village can be studied through the analysis of its material components: food, housing and clothing. Given the consumer nature of the peasant economy, the living conditions of a rural family adequately reflected the level of its well-being. The destruction of the usual isolation of the rural world as a result of the modernization process led to the emergence of innovations in such a conservative sphere as rural life. The purpose of this article is to use the example of the peasantry of the European part of Russia to establish the daily diet of a peasant, to find out the ordinary living conditions of a rural family and to determine the type of traditional village clothing. The objective of this study is to clarify the essence of the changes that occurred in peasant life during the period under study.

In the conditions of the natural, consumer nature of the peasant economy, food was the result production activities farmer. Traditionally, the peasant was fed from his labors. A popular proverb says: “What goes around comes around.” The composition of peasant food was determined by the field and garden crops grown. Store-bought food was rare in the village. The food was simple, it was also called coarse, since it required a minimum of time for preparation. The huge amount of housework did not leave the cook time to prepare pickles, and everyday food was

monotonous. Only in holidays When the hostess had enough time, other dishes appeared on the table. In general, rural women were conservative in the ingredients and methods of cooking. The lack of culinary experiments was also one of the features of everyday tradition. The villagers were not picky about food, and therefore all recipes for its variety were perceived as excess. In this regard, the testimony of V. Khlebnikova, who worked in the mid-20s, is characteristic. XX century rural teacher in the village. Sourava, Tambov district. She recalled: “We ate cabbage soup and potato soup. Pies and pancakes were baked once or twice a year on major holidays... At the same time, peasant women were proud of their everyday illiteracy. They rejected the proposal to add something to the cabbage soup for “skusu” with contempt: “Necha! Mine eat it anyway, but they praise it. Oh, you’ll be completely spoiled this way.”

Based on the studied ethnographic sources, it is possible with a high degree of probability to reconstruct the daily diet of the Russian peasant. Rural food consisted of a traditional list of dishes. The well-known saying “Soup soup and porridge is our food” correctly reflected the everyday content of the villagers’ food. In the Oryol province, the daily food of both rich and poor peasants was “brew” (cabbage soup) or soup. On fasting days, these dishes were seasoned with lard or “zatoloka” (interior pork fat), and on fasting days, with hemp oil. During Peter's Fast, Oryol peasants ate "mura" or tyuryu from bread, water and butter. Festive food was distinguished by the fact that it was better seasoned, the same “brew” was prepared with meat, porridge with milk, and on the most solemn days potatoes were fried with meat. On major temple holidays, peasants cooked jelly, jellied meat from legs and offal.

Meat was not a constant component of the peasant diet. According to the observations of N. Brzhevsky, the food of the peasants, in quantitative and qualitative terms, did not satisfy the basic needs of the body. “Milk, cow’s butter, cottage cheese, meat,” he wrote, “in short, all products rich in protein substances appear on the peasant table in exceptional cases - at weddings, during breaking the fast, on patronal holidays. Chronic malnutrition is a common occurrence in a peasant family." The poor man ate meat to his heart's content exclusively only for “zagvins”, i.e. on the day of the conspiracy. According to the testimony of a correspondent of the Ethnographic Bureau from the Oryol province, by this day the peasant, no matter how poor he was, always prepared meat for himself and ate his fill, so that the next day he lay with an upset stomach. Rarely did peasants allow themselves wheat pancakes with lard or cow butter. Such episodic gluttony was typical of Russian peasants. Outside observers, not familiar with the life of the village, were surprised when, during the meat-eating period, after slaughtering a sheep, a peasant family, within one or two days, ate as much meat as, with moderate consumption, would have been enough for the whole week.

Another rarity on the peasant table was wheat bread. In the “Statistical sketch of the economic situation of the peasants of the Oryol and Tula provinces” (1902), M. Kashkarov noted that “wheat flour is never found in the everyday life of the peasant, except in gifts brought from the city, in the form of buns, etc. For all questions About wheat culture we have heard the saying more than once in response: “White bread is for a white body.” Of the cereal crops consumed by peasants as food, rye was the undisputed leader. Rye bread actually formed the basis of the peasant diet. For example, at the beginning of the twentieth century. in the villages of the Tambov province, the composition of consumed bread was distributed as follows: rye flour - 81.2%, wheat flour - 2.3%, cereals - 16.3%.

Of the cereals eaten in the Tambov province, millet was the most common. They used it to make porridge “slivukha” or kulesh, when lard was added to the porridge. Lenten cabbage soup was seasoned with vegetable oil, and fast cabbage soup was whitened with milk or sour cream. The main vegetables eaten here were cabbage and potatoes. Before the revolution, little carrots, beets and other root crops were grown in the villages of the Tambov province. Cucumbers appeared in the gardens of Tambov peasants only in Soviet era. Even later, in the pre-war years, tomatoes began to be grown on personal plots. Traditionally, legumes were cultivated and eaten in villages: peas, beans, lentils.

From the ethnographic description of the Oboyansky district of the Kursk province, it followed that during winter fasts, local peasants ate sour cabbage with kvass, onions, and pickles with potatoes. Cabbage soup was made from sauerkraut and pickled beetroot. For breakfast there was usually kulesh or dumplings made from buckwheat dough. Fish was consumed on days permitted by church regulations. On fast days, cabbage soup with meat and cottage cheese with milk appeared on the table. On holidays, wealthy peasants could afford okroshka with meat and eggs, milk porridge or noodles, wheat pancakes and shortbreads made from butter dough. The abundance of the festive table was directly dependent on the property wealth of the owners.

The diet of Voronezh peasants was not much different from the diet of the rural population of neighboring black earth provinces. Mostly lean food was consumed daily. It consisted of rye bread, salt, cabbage soup, porridge, peas and also vegetables: radishes, cucumbers, potatoes. The fast food consisted of cabbage soup with lard, milk and eggs. On holidays in Voronezh villages they ate corned beef, ham, chickens, geese, oatmeal jelly, and sieve pie.

The peasants' daily drink was water; in the summer they prepared kvass. At the end of the 19th century. In the villages of the black earth region, tea drinking was not common; if tea was consumed, it was during illness, brewing it in a clay pot in the oven. But already at the beginning of the twentieth century. from the village they reported that “the peasants fell in love with tea, which they drink on holidays and after lunch. The wealthier began to purchase samovars and teaware. For intelligent guests, they put out forks for dinner, and eat the meat with their hands.” The level of everyday culture of the rural population was directly dependent on the degree of social development of the village.

Typically, the peasants' meal plan was as follows: in the morning, when everyone got up, they refreshed themselves with something: bread and water, baked potatoes, yesterday's leftovers. At nine or ten in the morning we sat down at the table and had breakfast with brew and potatoes. At about 12 o'clock, but no later than 2 pm, everyone had lunch, and at midday they ate bread and salt. We had dinner in the village at about nine in the evening, and in winter even earlier. Field work required significant physical effort, and peasants, to the extent possible, tried to eat more high-calorie foods. Priest V. Emelyanov, based on his observations of the life of peasants in the Bobrovsky district of the Voronezh province, reported to the Russian Geographical Society: “In the lean summer season they eat four times. For breakfast on fasting days, they eat kulesh with one rye bread; when onions grow, then with it. At lunch they sip kvass, adding cucumbers to it, then eat cabbage soup (shti), and finally hard millet porridge. If they work in the fields, they eat kulesh all day, washed down with kvass. On fasting days, lard or milk is added to the usual diet. On holiday - jelly, eggs, lamb in cabbage soup, chicken in noodles."

Family meals in the village were carried out according to the established order. This is how P. Fomin, a resident of the Bryansk district of the Oryol province, described the traditional order of eating in a peasant family: “When they sit down for lunch and dinner, everyone, at the owner’s initiative, begins to pray to God, and then they sit down at the table. No one can start any food ahead of the owner. Otherwise, he would hit his forehead with a spoon, even though it was an adult. If the family is large, the children are placed on shelves and fed there. After eating, everyone gets up again and prays to God.” Meals in a peasant family were common, with the exception of family members who were doing urgent work or were away.

In the second half of the 19th century, there was a fairly stable tradition of observing food restrictions among the peasantry. An obligatory element of mass consciousness was the idea of ​​clean and unclean food. A cow, according to the peasants of the Oryol province, was considered a clean animal, and a horse was considered unclean, unsuitable for food. Peasant beliefs in the Tambov province contained the idea of ​​unclean food: fish swimming with the flow were considered clean, and against the flow - unclean.

All these prohibitions were forgotten when the village was visited by famine. In the absence of any significant supply of food in peasant families, each crop failure entailed the most dire consequences. In times of famine, food consumption by rural families was reduced to a minimum. For the purpose of physical survival in the village, livestock was slaughtered, seed material was used for food, and equipment was sold. In times of famine, peasants ate bread made from buckwheat, barley or rye flour with chaff. Landowner K.K. Arsenyev, after a trip to the hungry villages of the Morshansky district of the Tambov province (1892), described his impressions in the “Bulletin of Europe”: “During the famine, the families of the peasants Senichkin and Morgunov fed on cabbage soup from unusable leaves of gray cabbage, strongly seasoned with salt . This caused terrible thirst, the children drank a lot of water, became plump and died.” A quarter of a century later, there are still the same terrible pictures in the village. In 1925 (a hungry year!?) a peasant from the village. Ekaterinino, Yaroslavl volost, Tambov province A.F. Bartsev wrote to the Peasant Newspaper: “People pick horse sorrel in the meadows, soar it and eat it.

Peasant families begin to fall ill from hunger. Especially children who are plump, green, lie motionless and ask for bread.” Periodic hunger developed techniques for physical survival in the Russian village. Here are sketches of this hungry everyday life. “In the village of Moskovskoye, Voronezh district, during the famine years (1919 - 1921), the existing food prohibitions (not eating pigeons, horses, hares) had little meaning. The local population ate a more or less suitable plant, plantain, did not hesitate to cook horse soup, and ate “magpie and varmint.” Neither cats nor dogs were eaten. Hot dishes were made without potatoes, covered with grated beets, toasted rye, and quinoa was added. In the years of famine they did not eat bread without impurities, for which they used grass, quinoa, chaff, potato and beet tops and other substitutes. Flour (millet, oatmeal, barley) was added to them, depending on income.”

Of course, everything described above is an extreme situation. But even in prosperous years, malnutrition and half-starvation were commonplace. For the period from 1883 to 1890. bread consumption in the country decreased by 4.4% or 51 million poods per year. Consumption food products per year (translated into grain) per capita in 1893 was: in the Oryol province - 10.6-12.7 poods, Kursk - 13-15 poods, Voronezh and Tambov - 16-19 poods. . At the beginning of the twentieth century. in European Russia, among the peasant population, there were 4,500 calories per eater per day, and 84.7% of them were

of plant origin, including 62.9% of grain and only 15.3% of calories received from food of animal origin. At the same time, the calorie content of daily food consumption by peasants in the Tambov province was 3277, and in the Voronezh province - 3247. Budget studies conducted in the pre-war years recorded a very low level of consumption by the Russian peasantry. For example, rural sugar consumption was less than a pound per month, and vegetable oil consumption was half a pound.

If we talk not about abstract figures, but about the state of intra-village food consumption, then it should be recognized that the quality of food directly depended on the economic wealth of the family. So, according to the correspondent of the Ethnographic Bureau, meat consumption at the end of the 19th century. for a poor family it was 20 pounds, for a wealthy family - 1.5 pounds. Wealthy families spent 5 times more money on the purchase of meat than poor families. As a result of a survey of the budgets of 67 farms in the Voronezh province (1893), it was found that expenses for the purchase of food in the group of wealthy farms amounted to 343 rubles per year, or 30.5% of all expenses. In middle-income families, respectively, 198 rubles. or 46.3%. These families, per year per person, consumed 50 pounds of meat, while the wealthy were twice as much - 101 pounds.

Additional data on the culture of life of the peasantry is provided by data on the consumption of basic food products by villagers in the 1920s. As an example, we take the indicators of Tambov demographic statistics. The basis of the diet of a rural family was still vegetables and products of plant origin. In the period 1921 - 1927. they made up 90 - 95% of the village menu. Meat consumption was negligible, ranging from 10 to 20 pounds per year. This is explained by the village’s traditional self-restraint in the consumption of livestock products and the observance of religious fasts. With the economic strengthening of peasant farms, the calorie content of food consumed has increased. If in 1922 in the daily ration of a Tambov peasant it was 2250 units, then by 1926 it almost doubled and amounted to 4250 calories. In the same year, the daily caloric intake of a Voronezh peasant was 4410 units. Qualitative differences in food consumption various categories there was no village visible.

From the above review of food consumption by peasants in the black earth provinces, we can conclude that the basis of the daily diet of a rural resident was made up of natural products; products of plant origin predominated in it. The supply of food was seasonal. The relatively well-fed period from Intercession to Christmastide gave way to a half-starved existence in the spring and summer. The composition of food consumed was directly dependent on church calendar. The nutrition of a peasant family reflected the economic viability of the courtyard. The difference in the food of wealthy and poor peasants was not in its quality, but in quantity. An analysis of the traditional set of food products and the level of caloric content of peasant food gives grounds to assert that a state of satiety has never been typical for rural families. The alienation of manufactured products was not the result of its excess, but was a consequence of economic necessity.

The hut was the traditional dwelling of the Russian peasant. Building a house for a peasant is an important stage in his life, an indispensable attribute of his acquiring the status of a householder. The estate was allocated for a new building by decision of the village meeting. The preparation of logs and the construction of a log house was usually carried out with the help of the world or neighbors. In the villages of the region, the main construction

The material used was wood. The huts were built from round unhewn logs. The exception was the steppe regions of the southern districts of the Kursk and Voronezh provinces. Here, smeared Little Russian huts predominated.

The condition of peasant dwellings fully reflected the material wealth of their owners. Senator S. Mordvinov, who visited the Voronezh province with an audit in the early 1880s, reported in his report: “The peasant huts have fallen into disrepair and are striking in their wretched appearance. The number of stone buildings among the peasants of the province was noted: among former landowners - 1.4%, among state-owned ones - 2.4%. At the end of the 19th century. wealthy peasants in villages began to build stone houses more often. Typically, rural houses were covered with thatch, less often with shingles. According to the observations of researchers, at the beginning of the twentieth century. in Voronezh villages, “huts” were built from brick and “tin” - instead of the previous “chopped” ones, covered with straw on “clay”. Researcher of the Voronezh region F. Zheleznov, who examined the living conditions of peasants in the early 1920s, compiled the following grouping of peasant huts (based on wall materials): brick buildings accounted for 57%, wooden ones accounted for 40% and mixed 3%. The condition of the buildings looked like this: dilapidated - 45%, new - 7%, mediocre - 52%.

The condition of the peasant hut and outbuildings was a true indicator of the economic condition of the peasant family. “A bad hut and a dilapidated yard are the first sign of poverty; the same is evidenced by the lack of livestock and furniture.” Based on the decoration of the home, it was possible to accurately determine the financial situation of the residents. Correspondents of the Ethnographic Bureau described the interior conditions of the houses of poor and wealthy families as follows: “The situation of a poor peasant’s family is a cramped, shabby shack instead of a house, and a stable, in which there is only a cow and three or four sheep. There is no bathhouse, barn or barn. A wealthy person always has a new spacious hut, several warm barns that can accommodate two or three horses, three or four cows, two or three calves, two dozen sheep, pigs and chickens. There is a bathhouse and a barn."

Russian peasants were very unpretentious in their household life. stranger First of all, I was struck by the asceticism of the interior decoration. Peasant hut of the late 19th century. not much different from the rural dwelling of the previous century. Most of the room was occupied by a stove, which served both for heating and cooking. In many families it replaced a bathhouse. Most peasant huts were heated “black”. In 1892 in the village. Kobelka, Epiphany volost, Tambov province, out of 533 households, 442 were heated “black” and 91 “white”. Each hut had a table and benches along the walls. There was practically no other furniture. Not all families had benches and stools. They usually slept on stoves in winter and on sheets in summer. To make it less harsh, they laid straw and covered it with sackcloth. How can one not recall the words of the Voronezh poet I. S. Nikitin:

The daughter-in-law went for fresh straws,

She laid it on the bunk to the side, and put a zipun against the wall at the head of it.

Straw served as a universal floor covering in a peasant hut. Family members used it for their natural needs, and it was periodically replaced as it became dirty. Russian peasants had a vague idea of ​​hygiene. According to A.I. Shingarev, at the beginning of the twentieth century, baths in the village. Mokhovatka had only two for 36 families, and in neighboring Novo-Zhivotinny there was one for

10 families. Most peasants washed themselves once or twice a month in a hut, in trays, or simply on straw. The tradition of washing in the oven was preserved in the village until the Great Patriotic War Oryol peasant woman, resident of the village of Ilinskoye M.P. Semkina (born 1919), recalled: “We used to bathe at home, from a bucket, there was no bathhouse. And the old people climbed into the stove. The mother will sweep out the stove, lay straw there, the old people will climb in and warm the bones.”

Constant work around the house and in the field left peasant women practically no time to keep their houses clean. At best, once a day the rubbish was swept out of the hut. The floors in houses were washed no more than 2-3 times a year, usually on the patronal holiday, Easter and Christmas. Easter in the village was traditionally a holiday for which villagers put their homes in order. “Almost every peasant, even the poor,” wrote a rural teacher, “before Easter will certainly go into a shop and buy 2-3 pieces of cheap wallpaper and a few paintings. Before this, the ceiling and walls of the house are thoroughly washed with soap.”

The dishes were exclusively wooden or clay. Spoons, salt shakers, buckets were made of wood, and jars and bowls were made of clay. There were very few metal things: cast iron in which food was cooked, a grip for pulling cast iron out of the oven, mounted on a wooden stick, knives. The peasant huts were illuminated by a torch. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, peasants, at first wealthy ones, began to purchase kerosene lamps with glass. Then clocks with weights appeared in peasant huts. The art of using them consisted in the ability to regularly, approximately once a day, pull up a chain with a weight, and, most importantly, align the arrows with the sun so that they gave at least an approximate orientation in time.

The rise in the material condition of the peasants during the NEP period had a beneficial effect on the condition of the peasant dweller. According to the authors of the collection “Russians” in the second half of the 20s. XX century in many villages, about 20-30% of existing houses were built and renovated. New houses made up about a third of all buildings in the Nikolskaya volost of the Kursk province. During the NEP period, the houses of wealthy peasants were covered with iron roofs, and a stone foundation was laid under them. Furniture and good dishes appeared in rich houses. Curtains on the windows became part of everyday life, the front room was decorated with fresh and artificial flowers, photographs, and wallpaper was glued to the walls. However, these changes did not affect the poor peasants' huts. Peasant V. Ya. Safronov, resident of the village. Krasnopolye, Kozlovsky district, in his letter for 1926, described their condition as follows: “The hut is wooden, rotten. The windows are half covered with straw or rags. The hut is dark and dirty...”

The clothing of the peasants in the provinces of the central Black Earth Region retained traditional, archaic features formed in ancient times, but it also reflected new phenomena characteristic of the period of development of capitalist relations. Men's clothing was more or less uniform throughout the entire territory studied in the region. Women's clothing was very diverse and bore the imprint of the influence of ethnic groups, in particular the Mordovians and Little Russians, who lived in this territory, on the South Russian costume.

Peasant clothing was divided into everyday and festive. Mostly peasant dress was homespun. Only the wealthy part of the village allowed themselves to buy factory fabrics. According to information from Oboyansky district of Kursk province in the 1860s. men in the village wore home-made linen, a knee-length shirt with a slanted collar, and ports. The shirt was belted with a woven or knotted belt. On holidays, linen shirts were worn. Wealthy peasants sported red calico shirts. Outerwear in summer consisted of zipuns or retinues. On holidays they wore homespun robes. And the richer peasants wear fine cloth caftans.

The basis of the everyday clothing of Tambov peasant women was the traditional southern Russian costume, which at the end of the 19th century was significantly influenced by urban fashion. As experts note, in the village of the studied region there was a process of reducing the area of ​​distribution of poneva, replacing it with sarafan. Girls and married women in the Morshansky district of the Tambov province wore sundresses. In a number of places, the village women still have a checkered or striped “paneva”, on their heads “kokoshniks” and hairpieces with elevations or even horns. The usual women's shoes "cats" (chobots) gave way to shoes or ankle boots "with a creak".

The festive clothes of peasant women differed from everyday clothes in various decorations: embroidery, ribbons, colored headscarves. Village women produced fabrics with patterns that were original to each locality on home looms. They dressed up in festive clothes not only on holidays, for village celebrations and gatherings, to church, when receiving guests, but also for some types of work, haymaking.

Ethnographer F. Polikarpov, who studied at the beginning of the twentieth century. the life of the peasants of the Nizhnedevitsky district of the Voronezh province, noted: “Dandies appear who put on “Gaspod” shirts - chintz shirts, light boots, and stop wearing “gamans” on their belts. Even within the same county, ethnographers discovered a variety of rural clothing. “In some places they wear “panevas” - black checkered skirts, in others “skirts” of red colors, with a wide trim at the hem made of ribbons and braid. Girls wear mostly sundresses. Outerwear in the southeast of Nizhnedevitsky district is worn as “zipuniks”, and in the northeast of the district - “shushpans”. Everywhere the shoes are bast shoes with “anuchas” and “par-tankas”. On holidays, heavy and wide boots with horseshoes are worn. Peasant shirts were cut sloppily - wide and long; the belt was tied with a “belly sweat”, with a “gaman” attached to it.

The material from which the dress was made was also an innovation in rural fashion. Factory-produced fabric (silk, satin) has practically replaced homespun cloth. Under the influence of urban fashion, the cut of the peasant dress changed. Peasant S. T. Semenov on changes in the clothing of peasants at the beginning of the twentieth century. wrote that “self-woven fabrics were replaced by chintz. Zipuns and caftans were replaced by sweaters and jackets." Men wore undershirts, jackets, and trousers, not “printed,” but cloth and paper. Young people wore jackets, belting their trousers with belts with buckles. Traditional women's headdresses are becoming a thing of the past. Rural girls walked with their heads uncovered, decorating them with artificial flowers and throwing a scarf over their shoulders. Village fashionistas wore fitted blouses, “poltas,” and fur coats. We got umbrellas and galoshes. The latter have become the rage of village fashion. They were worn more for decoration, because they were worn in thirty-degree heat when going to church.

Peasant life was not only an indicator of the socio-economic and cultural conditions of the development of the Russian village, but also a manifestation of the everyday psychology of its inhabitants. Traditionally, in the village, much attention was paid to the ostentatious side of family life. In the village they well remembered that “you meet people by their clothes.” For this purpose, wealthy owners wore high boots with countless gathers (“accordion-shaped”) on weekdays, and in warm weather they threw blue, thin factory cloth caftans over their shoulders. And what they couldn’t show, they said that “at home they have a samovar on the table and a clock on the wall, and they eat on plates with cupronickel spoons, drinking tea from glass glasses.” The peasant always strived to ensure that everything was no worse for him than for his neighbor. Even with small means free cash They invested in building a house, buying good clothes, sometimes furniture, and organizing a holiday on a grand scale, so that the village would create the impression that the economy was prosperous. Family wealth had to be demonstrated on a daily basis, as confirmation of economic well-being.

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4 Archive of the Russian Ethnographic Museum. F. 7. Op. 1.

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8 Zheleznov, F. Voronezh village. More - Vereiskaya volost / F. Zheleznov // Issue. II. - Voronezh, 1926.

9 Kornilov, A.A. Seven months among starving peasants / A.A. Kornilov. - M., 1893.

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15 Russian State Archive of Economics. F. 396. Op. 3. D. 619. L. 1 - 1 vol.

16 Russians. Sat. Art. M., 1997.

17 Collection of jurisprudence and social knowledge. Legal proceedings society Moscow. un-ta. T. 3. - St. Petersburg, 1894.

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21 Tambov Diocesan Gazette. 1898. No. 22.

22 Tambov Regional Museum of Local Lore. Funds department. Materials of the ethnographic expedition 1993. Report by V. Lipinskaya.

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Traditions of Peasants’ Lifestyle at the End of XIX - Beginning of XX Centuries (Food, Dwelling, Clothes)

Department of History and Philosophy, TSTU

Key words and phrases: famine; home-made cloth; peasant's log hut; bast shoes food; food consumption; stove; utensils; shirt; living condition.

Abstract: The state of main components of Russian village culture at the end of XIX - beginning of XX centuries is studied. The everyday peasants’ food, living conditions, specific features of their clothes and the influence of town trends in fashion are analyzed.

Traditionen der Bauerlebensweise des Endes des XIX. - des Anfangs des XX. Jahrhunderts (Nahrung, Behausung, Bekleidung)

Zusammenfassung: Es wird den Zustand der Hauptkomponenten der Lebensweisekultur des russischen Dorfes des Endes des XIX. - des Anfangs des XX. Jahrhunderts betrachtet. Es werden die tagliche Bauernahrung, die Alltagsbedingungen des Lebens der Dorfbewohner, die Besonderheiten der Dorfbekleidung und die Einwirkung auf sie der Stadtmode analysiert.

Traditions du mode de vie paysanne de la fin du XIX - debut du XX siecles (repas, logement, vetement)

Resume: Est examine l’etat de principaux composants de la culture du mode de la vie paysanne de la fin du XIX - debut du XX siecles. Est analyse le contenu des repas de chaque jours des paysans, les conditions de leurs logements, les paticularites du vetement des paysans et l’influence du mode de vie urbaine sur le mode de vie paysanne.

How did Russian peasants view family and marriage? This can be learned from notes about life in Spassky and Laishevsky districts of the Kazan province, collected 100 years ago and recently published by the Russian Ethnographic Museum and the Ministry of Culture of Tatarstan. AiF-Kazan selected the most interesting excerpts from this work.

Dexterity and integrity

This is how people's correspondents described the family traditions of peasants (they were zemstvo officials and teachers): “Although a guy does not remain chaste for long - usually until he is 15 years old and rarely remains chaste until marriage - until he is 18 and 19 years old, neighbors look at those who have lost their chastity with some contempt. . They say that he is such a sucker, but he became a libertine - a “unlucky person.”

People have developed a very serious attitude towards marriage. Marriage is a contract, a law and a promise before the holy cross and the Gospel, which a person was supposed to follow.

If a person got married, he usually changed, and most often in better side, the peasants thought. Marriage was necessary for every decent person. “It’s much better and more peaceful for a married person to live,” the correspondent cites popular arguments. - Legitimate children feed their parents in their old age; in case of illness, there is someone to look after the sick person. Married life has a specific purpose - to live for oneself, and more for children and family, and celibate life is aimless and restless. Marriage is considered possible for a man from 17.5 to 60 years old, and for a woman from 16.5 to 70 years old.”

According to the correspondent's observations, the bride was especially valued for her corpulence, dexterity and ability to work, purity, health, obedience, and also if her family was good in all respects. When choosing a groom, the first thing they paid attention to was wealth, sobriety, hard work, and health. They also tried to find out whether the family, especially the mother-in-law, was peaceful. There were sayings about this: “A good wife is the head of the whole house,” “Choose a cow by its horns, and a girl by its birth.”

Girls had to be strong and healthy in order to manage housekeeping. Photo:

If the bride agreed to get married, after the matchmaking she had to give the groom's matchmakers her best headscarf as a pledge. In addition, during the bachelorette party, the bride had to give the groom a new embroidered handkerchief, and the groom in return presented her with a piece of scented soap. The family divided the wedding expenses equally.

To my mother-in-law - along a new road

It was believed that after the wedding, the newlyweds should not return home along the same road that the bride and groom took to church. “On the old road, something magical might be placed unnoticeably, or they will cross this road with divination, so that the young people will not live in harmony,” the correspondent writes. He gives another explanation: new road they choose that those entering into marriage, going to church with doubtful thoughts about each other, with uncertainty about mutual love, throw these thoughts away once and for all.

The entire future life of the young people was determined by the first days of their life together. At this time, the newlywed’s husband and his parents were watching her, noticing all her techniques, dexterity, quickness, ingenuity, and conversations. This made it possible to understand how to behave with her. Smart husbands reprimanded their wives quietly, in private, so that the family would not know about it.

Divorces also happened among peasants, and then one of the spouses left home. In case of divorce, the wife's dowry went to her. If all the children were boys, then half of them remained with the husband, the other half with the wife. And if there were daughters and sons, then the husband had to take the girls, and the wife had to take the boys.

Watermelon in a bath for a woman in labor

“The birth of a child comes as a blessing from God,” writes the correspondent. - When a woman gives birth, no one is allowed into the house. Everyone in the family is strictly instructed not to tell anyone about this moment.” It was a good omen if during the wife’s birth the husband also had some pain, for example, his stomach. Immediately after giving birth, the woman in labor and her newborn were taken on a horse to a hot bathhouse, covering her with a sheepskin coat from head to toe so that she would not catch a cold and so that no one would jinx her. We drove very quietly. In the bathhouse, a young mother lay on the floor covered with straw for a week. There she and her newborn were washed, bathed and fed daily much better than at home.

“Neighbors and relatives bring various pies, rolls, honey, fried eggs, fish, beer, red wine, watermelons, pickles, - notes the correspondent. “And the woman in labor notices what kind of pie, what, how much and who brought it, so that she herself can repay them “in their homelands” with the same.” The child was baptized two or three days after birth. He was carried to church in clean white clothes. The godmother's task was to buy clothes for the baby, and the godfather had to buy a cross and pay for the christening.

About raising children

From an early age, children had punishments and prayers in their lives. According to the correspondent's observations, the boys were punished very often - “for intolerant pranks and liberties.” The instrument of punishment, the whip, hung in every house in the most visible place. Children learned to pray in the first year of life. “When the child began to understand objects and sounds, they already suggested and showed him where God is,” the notes say. “They start taking them to church from the age of three.”

From the age of two, children were taught to work. Photo: Russian Ethnographic Museum

From the age of two, children began to babysit their younger brothers and sisters and rock their cradles. From the same age, they learned to look after domestic animals and help with housework. From the age of seven, peasant children begin to herd horses. From the age of six they learn to reap, from the age of 10 to plow, from the age of 15 - to mow. In general, teenagers should be taught everything that a peasant can do from the age of 15 until the age of 18-20.