To which class did Dostoevsky belong? Workshop or tradesman

The first thing a 19th century person thought about when he heard about someone was: “What class is he from?”, that is, from what class? The concept of "estate" should not be confused with the concept of "class", although these are similar structures, especially in feudal society. There is still a difference between them. The population of the Russian Empire was officially divided into 4 estates: nobility, clergy, petty bourgeoisie and peasantry. In addition, the merchants, whose social position was somewhat uncertain. The richest merchants, in terms of their position in society, practically merged with the nobility, and small merchants, in terms of rights and responsibilities, joined the burghers and even peasants.

Visually, the class division of Russia can be represented as follows.

The strict pyramid of monarchical society is headed by the imperial family. This is a narrow (several dozen people) circle of people related by family, family relationships with the king. After Paul I, the order of succession to the throne in the male line was established in the Russian Empire, therefore all male members of the royal family - the Grand Dukes - were perceived primarily as possible heirs to the throne. The official heir was called Tsarevich.

The full official title of the Russian emperor took up a good page of printed text and included about 60 names of the lands under his control. In practice, it is important for us to know that in everyday situations the king and queen were supposed to be addressed as “Your Imperial Majesty.” To the rest of the imperial family, that is, to the grand dukes and princesses - “Your Imperial Highness.” In close relationships, in everyday life, the word “imperial” could be omitted - “Your Highness.”

During the era of Nicholas I royal family numbered 28 people, in 1894 - 46 people, in 1914 - more than 60 people.

The members of the imperial family were different people. There were stupid soldiers, dressed up dolls, and heavy drinkers. But there were also those like Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, who wrote very good poems and plays, published under the pseudonym “K.R.” There was Emperor Alexander III, who during a train crash held the roof of the carriage until all the servants were saved, and thereby undermined his health. It was not uncommon for members of the imperial family to marry people not from influential houses, that is, not with princes and princesses. These so-called morganatic marriages were quite common from an ecclesiastical and civil point of view, but they limited the rights of children to title and especially to inherit the throne. In personal relationships, these families were almost no different from the usual aristocratic noble family of that time.

The clergy, that is, people who were “professionally” involved in religion, formed the ideological basis of the empire. The country was Christian, and although other beliefs - Islam, Catholicism and so on - were respected, the Orthodox religion dominated everything. The clergy was a specific, closed class in which following the chosen path - serving God - as a rule, was inherited. Children of male priests themselves became priests, daughters married “their own” and became priests. The network of churches covered almost all corners of the vast empire where people constantly lived. Geographically, residents living near a temple constituted the parish of that temple. Therefore, when we read: “at the Intercession”, “at St. Nicholas’s” - it means that a person lives near the Church of St. Nicholas, that is, in this parish. Here he comes to confession spiritual father(“I was in the spirit”, “speak as in the spirit” in everyday conversation), they bring a newborn child here to baptize, in their church a person is buried (A.S. Pushkin was buried in the church of the Konyushenny Dvor, located near his apartment on Moika, 12).

Russian Orthodox Church, with external independence, was in a subordinate position to the state. Its affairs were in charge of a higher institution called the Synod, the head of which, the chief prosecutor, was appointed by the emperor. Therefore, an active independent policy, such as, for example, Catholic Church, the Russian church elite did not lead, supporting the now living sovereign in everything essential.

The clergy is divided into black and white. Black is monks who move away from the “world” and earthly temptations, living in monasteries, completely devoting their lives to serving God. When tonsured as a monk, after a period of obedience, a kind of probationary period, a person assumed certain responsibilities, including a vow of chastity. The black clergy was divided into five degrees, or orders. The highest ones are the metropolitan and the archbishop, they should be addressed as “your eminence”; then the bishop - "your eminence." All three highest ranks also had a common title - "lord". The lower degrees of the black clergy are the archimandrite and the abbot (who headed the monastery), they were addressed by “your reverence.” The abbess, that is, the abbess of a convent, could be a woman, but women were not allowed into the white clergy.

The white clergy, that is, priests living “in the world,” among people with families and children, were also divided into five orders. These are protopresbyter, archpriest (the title is “your reverence”), priest, protodeacon and deacon (“your reverence”). In everyday life, in private conversation, especially among peasants and middle-class people, the priest was often called by name - “Father Fedor” - or “father”, “father”.

As already mentioned, priests who did not live in monasteries could have a family. The priest's wife, priest (daughter - priest), was often called "mother" in everyday life. But a person could only marry before being ordained to the first rank of deacon. After ordination, the clergyman becomes, as it were, engaged to the Church, and earthly marriage becomes impossible. Therefore, for a person of the clergy, the choice of a life partner is extremely limited in time; as a rule, these are years of study, after which he already becomes a deacon. Either he manages to find his future mother, or he remains lonely all his life. Naturally, the closest thing was to the society of young girls from the clergy class, which is why marriages between representatives of this layer of society were so frequent. And of course, even if among the laity divorce was very rare and was accompanied by long and painful procedures, then for a priest divorce was simply impossible. That’s why the sexton from A.P.’s story suffers so much. Chekhov's "The Witch" - she can never leave her husband, no matter how hateful he may be.

Clergy received their education in special educational institutions: theological schools, theological seminaries and theological academies. There were also lower educational institutions for women.

The ordained priests in the church were assisted during services by choristers, sextons, servers, and so on. These assistants were not officially classified as clergy and could be from other classes.

Attitudes towards members of the clergy were most likely different in Russia. Now, in the 21st century, this is often debated. Some are guided by the search for God of the heroes of L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky; religion seems to them to be a binding spiritual force that unites all Russians, and they see the loss of religiosity as the source of many current troubles. Others take as a starting point the greedy Pop from Pushkin’s fairy tale, Chekhov’s deacon from “The Witch,” and religion for the Russian person XIX century seems to them something official, deceitful, formal. Real life is more complicated than any scheme, and in Russia there were both deeply religious Christians with a capital C, and completely atheist-minded people. Let's say, Levin in L. Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" does not go to church for many years, and only the upcoming sacrament of wedding forces him to perform the required rituals; and at the same time, questions of faith and its essence deeply concern him. And Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy himself, a deeply religious thinker, was anathematized by the official church, that is, excommunicated. And at the same time, demonstrative atheism was considered indecent, violating norms of behavior. The mayor in The Inspector General reproaches the judge: “But you don’t believe in God; you never go to church...”.

The clergy, as the ideological basis of the empire, had certain benefits from the state. Clergy were exempt from taxes and military service. Censorship monitored the compliance of works of art with both political and religious norms of permissibility. By the way, the appearance of a priest as a character in the play was practically excluded. After all, theater, from the point of view of the church, is a “sinful” thing. During Lent, performances were prohibited; artists were presented as people of very dubious morality. In Chekhov's story "Dirge", the shopkeeper's daughter, who became an actress, is called a "harlot" by her father himself. Judas in Saltykov-Shchedrin's "The Golovlev Lords" and Foma Fomich in Dostoevsky's "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants," for all their aggressive religiosity, cannot have an official relation to the clergy - censorship would never allow such a work to be published.

Children of priests also had civil benefits. If they did not become priests, they had certain advantages when entering secular educational institutions and public service; some of them could receive the title of "honorary citizen" - a kind of "semi-nobility". A few even managed to gain rank in the real nobility, in the civil service departments to become major figures in Russian history, such as M.M. Speransky. The priest's son was N.G. Chernyshevsky. But the semi-contemptuous nickname “Popovich,” “he’s one of the priest’s children,” haunted these people all their lives. So, M.Yu. Lermontov’s plans for planned but unrealized works read: “The plot of a tragedy (not even a drama! - A.Z.). A young man in Russia who noble origin, rejected by society, by love, humiliated by superiors (he was from the priesthood or from the bourgeoisie, he studied at the university and traveled at public expense). He shoots himself."

The most visible, honorable, and defining class of the Russian Empire is the nobility. This is the basis of the state, the main support of the monarch, the most cultural, educated layer of society. The nobility is divided into two groups - hereditary and personal. More honorable, respected - hereditary. It is assumed that the best qualities of ancestors are inherited, “blood affects”, therefore the more ancient the family, the better, automatically, its current representatives. There are approximately twice as many hereditary nobles; the coats of arms of ancient families are studied by a special institution; knowledge of ancestors, the ability to understand genealogy, that is, the origin of one’s surname, is an obligatory part of the education of children in such families.

There were not so many hereditary, ancient, or, as they also said, “pillar” noble families (the old woman in “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish” wants to be not a simple, but a pillar noblewoman!). Everyone knew everyone at least by hearsay, and as a result of cross-marriages, almost everyone was related to each other by relationship or property, at least in previous generations, or through nepotism. The names of relatives and in-laws were the same in aristocratic circles and in peasant families. “Up”, that is, to the ancestors, they come from the person himself: father-mother, grandfather-grandmother, great-grandfather-great-grandmother. Distant ancestor - ancestor. “Down” to the descendants go: son-daughter, grandson-granddaughter, great-grandson-great-granddaughter. Children of a brother and sister are nephews, children of nephews (grandchildren of a brother and sister) are great-nephews. The parent's brother and sister are uncles and aunts, their children are first cousins, their children's children are first cousins ​​(cousins ​​in the nobility were often called cousins ​​in the French manner). A parent's cousin is a great uncle, his children are second cousins ​​(sometimes called grand-siblings), his grandson is a second cousin.

Relatives are people related not by “blood”, but through marriage, relatives of the wife or husband. The wife's parents are father-in-law and mother-in-law, the husband's parents are father-in-law and mother-in-law; the wife's brother and his wife are brother-in-law and sister-in-law, the wife's sister and her husband are sister-in-law and brother-in-law. For a wife, the husband's brother is the brother-in-law, his wife and the husband's sister are sisters-in-law. My sister's husband is my brother-in-law.

A son's wife is a daughter-in-law or daughter-in-law, a daughter's husband is a son-in-law. The parents of a son's wife and a daughter's husband are a matchmaker and a matchmaker. A brother's wife is a sister-in-law or daughter-in-law. (In “Woe from Wit,” the old woman Khlestova is Famusov’s sister-in-law, that is, his brother’s wife or his wife’s sister. But Famusov calls her “my daughter-in-law,” which means she is his brother’s wife. She calls Sophia her niece, since she is her aunt.)

The concept of nepotism is related to religion. At the sacrament of baptism, the godson acquires godfather and mother. They should not be related to either the godson or each other. God-parents They call each other godfather and godfather. It was considered very prestigious to invite high-ranking officials, sometimes even the royal family, to be godparents. Thus, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich baptized the future writer Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky, the son of a famous doctor.

The title of hereditary nobleman was highly valued and protected by state laws. The priority of these nobles over others was enshrined in law. A hereditary nobleman can be demoted, exiled, deprived of property, but taking away his name and ancestors is almost impossible. Therefore, the demoted Dolokhov in War and Peace is in a special position among the soldiers (remember the episode with the overcoat). A hereditary nobleman of an ancient family may be poor, have no peasants, or occupy an insignificant position, but he is a representative of the upper class of the state, and no one can address the beggar Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” without his consent.

But for the functioning of the state machine, especially in the post-Petrine era, hereditary nobles alone were still not enough, and by the 19th century a system for obtaining personal nobility by representatives of other classes had developed. A person who rose to the rank of officer in the army, was awarded an order or received a certain rank in the civil service (at the beginning of the century - the 14th class, and from 1856 - the 9th class), became a personal nobleman, acquiring many rights. Khlestakov in “The Inspector General” shouts to the Governor: “You don’t dare flog me!” - and he’s right. A nobleman is protected from corporal punishment, and Khlestakov is a collegiate registrar, an official of the XIV class, that is, a personal nobleman, even if he comes from a different class. But the children of personal nobles are not nobles and must themselves climb the ladder of life, starting from the lowest rungs. If a personal nobleman has risen to a certain rank (in the army this is VI class, colonel, in the civil service - VIII, collegiate assessor, and since 1845 - V class, state councilor), then he goes into the category of hereditary nobles, and his children are already receive the privileges of this title. In 1828, in this way, having risen to the rank of collegiate assessor, having “Anna” of the 3rd degree, Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky, the father of the great Russian writer, received hereditary nobility. But such nobility, “serving”, “nobility by rank”, was still considered second-class, “unreal” among the ancient hereditary families.

In addition to the general title - "nobleman" - and the address "your honor", a nobleman could be awarded a special noble title, passing on to his descendants. The title of baron was least valued in Russia; as a rule, these were people from western areas - Baltic, German barons, or financiers, who essentially “bought” the baronial title. They were addressed by title - "Mr. Baron", "Madame Baroness". Chekhov's Tuzenbach, a descendant of the Russified German family, Soleny calls Baron quite according to the rules, but with a certain amount of disdain, which corresponds to both their personal relationship and the general ironic attitude towards this title in Russia.

The title of count was much more respected. In the 19th century, the Count and Countess were addressed as “Your Excellency.”

Princes are the oldest and largest part of the titled nobility in Russia. There were also shades of title here. Hereditary “simply princes” were supposed to be called “your excellency.” But the prince could, by imperial decree, be given the title “most serene” (“grace with lordship”), and then he was called “your lordship” (the courtiers called G.A. Potemkin that way among themselves - “the most serene”, understanding who they were talking about).

The highest level of princes are the Grand Dukes and Princesses, who belong to the royal family. They were called, as already mentioned, “your highness.”

A nobleman could be granted by the emperor, as a sign of special favor or for great merit, several titles at the same time. So, great commander A.V. Suvorov bore the title of Count Suvorov-Rymnik Prince of Italy. Another form of royal favor is visible here - the honorary surname, Rymniksky - for the victory at Rymnik.

In addition to hereditary and service people with titles and “ordinary” nobles, of course, the nobles differed among themselves in wealth. Before the abolition of serfdom in 1861, wealth was assessed not so much in money as in the number of peasants owned by a nobleman. This number was calculated by “souls,” that is, by the number of male peasants. Peasant women were not included in the lists; they were not taken into account in population censuses (when submitting “revision reports”). The nobles were conventionally divided into small estates - up to 80-100 souls, medium estates - hundreds of souls, and large estates - more than a thousand souls. Individual representatives of the upper strata of Russia owned dozens of estates and tens, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of souls. As a sign of mercy, emperors and empresses gave entire estates, along with peasants, to their subjects; thus, His Serene Highness Prince Potemkin-Tauride, according to some sources, received 37 thousand souls as a gift in just two years! The parents of Lermontov's Pechorin have "Three thousand souls in the Saratov, Voronezh and Kaluga provinces." But Chatsky is an average landowner, he has 300-400 souls. For Famusov this is not enough, his desire is

Be bad, but if you get enough
Two thousand ancestral souls, -
He's the groom.

According to Yu.M. Lotman, landowners mediocre and Larina in "Eugene Onegin".

In private conversation, in everyday life, nobles with a title could address each other either by first name or patronymic, or by title: “Hello, Baron,” “Please, Countess.” Those who were absent could be called by title and name: “Ah! My God! What will // Princess Marya Aleksevna say!”

This is an interesting detail. In service, official situations, military personnel addressed each other by rank - “Mr. Lieutenant”, “Your Excellency”. But in everyday, private communication they preferred to be addressed by a noble title: “Tell me, prince...” - although the prince was, say, a captain.

The main privileges of the nobility, enshrined in the laws of the Russian Empire, were: the right to own serfs, freedom from poll tax, freedom from conscription, and physical integrity. The nobleman had the right not to serve at all (although only a few exercised this right). Nobles had significant benefits when entering educational institutions and the service; their length of service for receiving a rank and order was significantly reduced, and they climbed the career ladder faster. The monarchy tried in every possible way to strengthen the nobility as its support.

The nobles had the right to create their own class organizations in provincial (today regional) and county towns. (With a very large degree of approximateness, these organizations could be called today a “noble trade union.”) The nobles of the province or district gathered, gathered in the building of the noble assembly and, by secret ballot, elected their ruling bodies and their head, the leader of the nobility, for three years. N Chichikov goes to introduce himself to such a leader upon his arrival in the city in “Dead Souls,” the district leader with the rank of VI class was “before the era of historical materialism” Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov, the hero of the novel “12 Chairs.” Although the noble meetings were completely controlled, it was still a sprout of democracy in the rigid structure of the autocratic state.

AND noble titles, both property and privileges were passed down the male line. Wives and daughters were titled by husband or father: princess - the prince's wife, princess - his daughter. If a nobleman married, for example, a merchant’s daughter, the title of nobility extended to her. But if a noblewoman married a merchant, albeit a rich one, she, along with her family name, lost the nobility for her children. This is how very famous, ancient noble families were suppressed.

There was another group of the population in Russia - honorary citizens. These are not yet nobles, but they are no longer merchants, townspeople, or clergy. This title, and hereditary one, could be received by the children of priests who graduated from an educational institution, but served in the civil service, as well as merchants of the 1st or 2nd guild who received an order, rank or for special merits. Children of priests who did not have a special education and did not follow the spiritual line could have personal, without transmission to descendants, honorary citizenship; townspeople who graduated from college or university; officials who are not entitled to nobility.

Honorary citizens had some noble rights: they did not pay a poll tax and were exempt from corporal punishment. But the cherished dream of most honorary citizens still remained “real” nobility.

Honorary citizenship was often awarded to the activities of representatives of the “liberal professions” - artists, musicians. This title was awarded to artists in the 19th century. Imperial theaters. As a graduate of the educational institution, Platon Zybkin received the title of honorary citizen in Ostrovsky’s play “Truth is good, but happiness is better.”

The merchant class is the most uncertain in status, although a noticeable segment of the population. Officially, in population censuses, merchants, that is, people engaged in trade and industrial production on a private, non-state basis, were not identified as a separate class. Most of the merchants came from the burghers, that is, urban non-noble residents, but there were merchants and peasants.

The merchant class was divided into the guild, which was richer, and the petty bourgeois class. Depending on the capital, a merchant could be enrolled in a guild (group, category, union): from 500 to 1000 rubles - III guild, from 1 to 10 thousand - II guild, over 10,000 rubles - I guild. The merchants of the first two guilds were close in their status and rights to the nobility; among them there were more honorary citizens, and for special merits they could be awarded a medal or even an order, in in rare cases receive rank and nobility. The merchants of the III guild and the “philistine”, non-guild, were practically equated with the tax-paying classes - the petty bourgeois, small artisans.

The merchant of the first guild - "first-class" - and an honorary citizen - Akhov in Ostrovsky's play "It's not all Maslenitsa for the cat." Lazar Podkhalyuzin in the finale of the play "Our People - Let's Be Numbered" is called a merchant of the 2nd guild, which means Samson Silych Bolshov could not be of a lower level, apparently this is the 2nd, and maybe the 1st guild.

The merchants were distinguished by their manner of dressing and their special, sometimes deliberately “common” style of conversation. Male merchants wore beards. The nobles willingly used the services of merchants, but their attitude towards them was, as a rule, condescending. The nobleman called the merchant “you”, addressed him as “dear”, “respectable”, and the merchant was obliged to call the most seedy nobleman “you”. People of lower status often addressed merchants, especially significant ones, as “your lordship.”

After the reform of 1861, the abolition of serfdom, many economic, trade, and social restrictions disappeared, and the merchants moved to a new stage of development. Many merchant children received an education, “went into science,” and contacts with foreign countries intensified. A new type of merchant appeared, which in many ways competed with the nobility even in culture, education, and behavior. This difference is clearly visible in the work of A.N. Ostrovsky. The merchants from his early plays - Bolshov, Korshunov, Akhov - are still pre-reform, poorly educated, rude, tyrants. In his later plays a completely different merchant appears. He is educated, energetic, travels abroad, and feels free in a secular drawing room. These are Paratov, Pribytkov, Velikatov; This is Chekhov's Lopakhin, Gorky's Bulychov. It was precisely such merchants who made up a significant part of the class of Russian capitalists, who in a short time promoted the Russian state to be among the most dynamically developing countries in the world. In 1896, throughout Siberia - and there was very little population there at that time - there were 245 trading houses of merchants of the 1st guild and 5403 of the 2nd guild.

The word “philistinism” is now perceived as a characteristic of a person’s lifestyle, views, and tastes. But in Russia XIX centuries, town dwellers were called bourgeois ("bourgeois" - living in a "place", that is, in a city). These come from peasants, artisans, and small traders. Many representatives of the so-called “liberal professions” - artists, musicians, actors, writers - were considered bourgeois. Kiev tradesman according to his passport - Konstantin Treplev ("The Seagull" by A.P. Chekhov) and his father, an actor. This class was considered a taxable class; the townspeople paid taxes and were drafted into the army. It was possible to get out of the bourgeois class in different ways: having received an education, go into public service, become an official, or rise to honorary citizenship or nobility. It was possible, through successful trade, to try to become one of the merchants of the II or I guild. But most of the townspeople remained artisans and representatives of professions serving the upper classes: janitors, stove makers, cooks, seamstresses, matchmakers, tailors, watchmakers, maids, shoemakers, and so on.

And the last in terms of nobility, but the most numerous, the layer that fed the whole of Russia and formed its economic basis is the peasantry. (At the end of the century, the working class was also rapidly forming, but its representatives are still rarely found in works of fiction and drama; writers did not have time to comprehend this type of psychology, a special social group of people. Representatives of workers appear, perhaps, only in the works of M. Gorky, but this is more of a cultural phenomenon Soviet period, rather than the Russian classics of the “golden” age.) Until the end XIX century It was the peasants who bore the main burdens of the Russian economy, it was with their hands that all the wealth of the country was created, everything that the upper strata of society were proud of as their property. And throughout the 19th century, like the previous ones, they were called “you”; they were deprived of almost all rights, including - until 1861 - the right to choose a place of residence, type of activity, and sometimes even to choose a life partner. They were counted by “souls,” that is, by male persons. Peasant women were not even taken into account in the censuses; the number of “souls” was simply doubled - and the approximate number of the population was obtained. When buying peasants “in bulk”, as a rule, only men were also taken into account. That’s why Chichikov is dissatisfied with Sobakevich, who added the “soulless” woman Elizaveta Vorobei to the list of souls being sold - you can’t get a penny for a woman.

After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, changes occurred in the situation of peasants, and quite significant ones. But even then it was very difficult to change the centuries-old way of life of the country, especially in the field of human relations. Peasants who broke away from the land either went to the city, losing family and spiritual ties with the past, or were hired out to their former masters or to rich peasants (at the beginning of the 20th century the term “kulak” appeared for such people). And all these paths were psychologically difficult, very unusual. Old relationships were destroyed, new ones were just being formed. As always with change, the worst human traits surfaced - anger, envy, cynicism, depravity. It is not surprising that not only landowners, but even many peasants yearned for the “good old days.” So, in “The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov's Firs, the butler, a former servant, calls "will" misfortune.

In the spiritual field, the working peasant often appears in the works of Russian writers as a standard of spiritual integrity, decency, morality, religiosity, common sense. Such are Tolstoy's Akim in "The Power of Darkness" and the men in "War and Peace", the heroes of Chekhov's story "The Steppe", the characters of "Notes of a Hunter" by I.S. Turgenev. But next to the men working on the land, there was another type of peasant - the courtyard people. They did not work in the arable land, their task was to serve the landowner’s yard, carry out his orders, whims, and serve his family. In this environment, low-lying people often flourished human qualities- lackeyness, sycophancy, meanness. Such are Yasha in The Cherry Orchard, Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov, Vidoplyasov in The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants. The courtyard people were not respected either by the real peasants, or by their own masters. (Of course, there were other courtyard people; it is enough to recall two people close to A.S. Pushkin - the valet Nikita, who saw off the poet on his last journey, and the poet’s nanny Arina Rodionovna.)

As characters central characters works, peasants did not often appear in XIX literature century. The difference between other representatives of the peasantry here is more psychological and human than social. Peasants, even literate and educated ones, in official documents, especially at the beginning of the century, were called in a humiliated form - “Vaska”, “Ivashka”. Later, a more respectful form arose - “Peter Ivanov son of Stepanov”, sometimes abbreviated as “Peter Ivanov Stepanov”. After the reform of 1861, the peasants, especially those who managed to get rich, developed an emphatic respect for addressing each other with “-vich,” that is, “Fedorovich,” “Sergeich.” Previously, such an address was used only by nobles in informal address.

So, good or bad, smart or stupid, rich, poor, man, woman, child - a person in Russia in the 19th century belonged to some class. The ambiguity in this matter, the absence, for example, of documents, gave rise to painful uncertainty, including mental uncertainty - Neznamov in Ostrovsky’s “Guilty Without Guilt” suffers from orphanhood, the absence of parents, but also from social uncertainty; just remember his monologue about a passport ( "vide") Shmagi. The overwhelming majority of Russian citizens knew exactly what class they belonged to, knew their rights and obligations, and knew their “sixth” in the state building.

Despite their small numbers, the nobility played the main role in the life of the state. Therefore, both in literature and in dramaturgy XIX century most characters- nobles. Both the merchant class and the petty bourgeoisie also occupy a prominent place in Russian culture; most of Ostrovsky’s heroes come from this layer. But the system of social relations, the social ladder, was most clearly, even legislatively, designated precisely in the noble class. The huge class of Russian bureaucracy and officials can be equated to it (in terms of relationships). Officials, especially lower levels, could come from different classes. But when they receive a position and rank, they enter into relationships that are created and protected by the main support of the system - the nobility. These relationships will be discussed in the following chapters.

In Russia, before 1917, as is known, the division of society into classes was accepted. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were 7 main classes. Let us immediately emphasize that the estates of the Russian Empire and the so-called “classes” that the communists introduced after the seizure of power are completely different things.

Here's how class is defined on Wikipedia:

Estate- a social stratum, a group whose members differ in their legal status from the rest of the population

I will add that, as a rule, the difference between representatives of the same class consisted not only in their legal status, but also in their lifestyle and way of life, occupation, and partly in their level of well-being. A transition from one class to another was possible, but it happened infrequently. As a rule, marriages took place within the same class, so class affiliation was preserved for centuries and passed from generation to generation.

Over the years Soviet power everything got in the way. Nowadays it is difficult to find a person whose ancestors all belonged to the same class. The overwhelming majority have representatives of two, and often even more, classes in different branches.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to compare how the class structure has changed Russian society over the past century. The descendants of representatives of which classes survived in greater numbers.

Here are the 1897 census data.

peasantry - 77.5%, burghers - 10.7%, Cossacks - 2.3%, nobles (hereditary and personal) - 1.5%, clergy - 0.5%, honorary citizens(hereditary and personal) - 0.3%, merchants - 0.2%, others - 0.4%.

I suggest gaydarkers choose which class their ancestors belonged to. The task, based on all of the above, is not easy. After all, the overwhelming majority will have to choose based on some criteria: which branch of their family they prefer. Which class of their ancestors will consider more significant, expressed in order to reflect it in the survey.

Someone will choose the class to which most of his ancestors belonged. Some will consider the class represented by the male line more important, while others, on the contrary, by the female line. Someone will be guided by the class of some of their famous ancestors. In any case, everyone decides for themselves.

If the class of the ancestors is unknown, incomprehensible (which is quite acceptable, almost 100 years have passed), then it is better to indicate: I don’t know.

In the list of classes, he did not indicate the option: “honorary citizens” - this is intermediate between the burghers, commoners and nobles. In the Russian Empire 100 years ago they were identified as a separate class, but there were few of them (about 0.3%) and it did not last long.

So, dear guideparkers, we choose the most suitable option and justify it in the comments. It would also be interesting to know some stories from the life of your ancestors - this is, first of all, the memory of them.

Gorky Basinsky Pavel Valerievich

Workshop or tradesman?

Workshop or tradesman?

To what class did Alyosha Peshkov belong?

Almost all of his ancestors and relatives in the male line are guild. Or philistines? So, workshops or tradespeople? And why, although Gorky himself, not without pride, preferred to classify himself as a “guild member,” in the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, as Ivan Bunin correctly, although not without malice, discovered, Gorky is named tradesman?

Alexei's future mother, Varvara Kashirina, married " Perm province tradesman Maxim Savvatievich Peshkov,” although he was a qualified artisan, a cabinetmaker. After him sudden death in Astrakhan she was listed as a “Perm bourgeois widow,” although she never lived in Perm. And returning to Nizhny Novgorod to her parents, filed a petition with the Nizhny Novgorod Crafts Council to include her and her son “in the Nizhny Novgorod guild society.” She died as the “wife of a Personal Nobleman” Maksimov.

Thus, her son from her first marriage, Alexey, was included in the “Nizhny Novgorod guild society.”

The death of grandmother Alyosha in the Nizhny Novgorod “Book of Times” is recorded as follows: “On February 16, 1887, the Nizhny Novgorod bourgeois widow Akulina Ivanovna Kashirina, 70 years old, died from old age and was buried in the city cemetery.” What’s interesting is not even the mistake (“widow,” although her husband was still alive and, as brother Sasha wrote to Alyosha in Kazan, wept at her grave), but the fact that Akulina Ivanovna, the wife of a once influential elder of the guild class and a deputy from this class in City Duma, died an ordinary bourgeois. What's the matter? How were the burghers different from the guild workers?

According to the Manifesto of March 17, 1775, “philistines” began to be called urban inhabitants who did not own a capital of 500 rubles and therefore could not be registered as a merchant. Unlike merchants and guild workers, the burghers were a class in in the narrow sense words, since belonging to the bourgeoisie was hereditary, was not conditioned by the presence of a certain capital or compliance with any rules. The petty-bourgeois fortune was acquired by birth, adoption, marriage, or registration with any petty-bourgeois society. In Moscow Rus', meshchans were sometimes called “black city people, i.e., townspeople who occupied the lowest place among city residents (petty traders, artisans, day laborers) and better known as posadskys” ( encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Efron. T. XX. 1897).

The concept of “guilds” and, accordingly, the class of “guilds” came to Russia from Europe and underwent significant changes in our country. IN medieval Europe The “workshop” was a closed community, like, for example, universities. The “workshop” lived an independent internal life. He had his own judicial and police power, he imposed taxes on his members, and formed an independent entity in the city militia. That is, it was a “state within a state.” The “guilds” were led by foremen of up to 12 people, who were responsible for the executive and judicial powers, and in addition, strictly monitored the purity of the morals of the “guild.” They denounced and persecuted lazy people, gamblers, swindlers, etc. In small Europe (especially in the German “lands”) such a professional and administrative unit as a workshop was convenient. But not in Russia.

The “guilds” transferred to Russian soil from Germany and partly legislated under Peter I did not become independent formations. In Europe, belonging to them was a “fortress” for an employee. This limited his freedom, but also guaranteed intra-shop rights that workers outside the workshops did not have. Once in the “workshop”, the artisan from the former peasants fell into a new dependence, but was significantly elevated in socially. In Russia, artisans enjoyed freedom of occupation, the right free choice"guild community".

When in 1761, in St. Petersburg, carpenters were needed to work in the palace, not a single craftsman could be found enrolled in either the Russian or German carpentry “shop,” as a result of which it was ordered to immediately enroll all “workers in the craft” into the “shops.”

The guild system in Russia received a more or less complete form only after Emperor Paul issued the “Charter of Guilds” on November 12, 1799. According to this law, all types of manual labor were introduced into the “shops” and three types of “shops” were established: 1) craft (the owner of the dyeing establishment, Vasily Kashirin, belonged to it); 2) service (seamstresses, servants, laundresses); 3) workers “who perform such work for which there is no need to establish special workshops or who carry out their fishing in the open air.” But although everyone who did manual labor was enrolled in one or another “guild,” the law distinguished between “indigenous,” that is, “eternal guild members” who enjoyed “the rights and benefits of the philistinism,” and “those enrolled in the guild only temporarily.”

Pavel's "Charter" was still in force in 1892, when Alexei Peshkov became the writer Gorky. In class terms, he remained a “guild member”, who at the same time enjoyed “the rights and benefits of the philistinism”, thanks to the fact that Varvara’s late mother corrected the documents for her son in the Crafts Council on time.

Nevertheless, Peshkov-Gorky cannot be considered a “guild” in the strict sense. He did not follow the rules of the “indigenous” or “eternal guild”, did not succeed in any craft, did not become a master (for this he had to study for at least seven years). This means that he was not a “paint shop foreman,” although he was listed as such according to the documents. By the way, the Kazan gendarmerie drew attention to this (and not just to the suspicious acquaintances of the visiting Peshkov with students and other dissident people): “Alexey Maksimov Peshkov<…>living in the mountains Kazan in 1887–88, was not engaged in painting skills, but served as a bread distributor in the city that existed from April 1887 to June 1888. Kazan, on the corner of Basseynaya Street and Bezymyanny Lane in Stepanov’s bakery house... This bakery had very suspicious purposes, the essence of which, however, it was not possible to find out.”

Nothing surprising. Not only the gendarmerie officer who wrote the report, but also the “paint shop foreman” Alyosha Peshkov himself could not find out the “essence of the goals” of Derenkov’s bakery.