Development of a child’s personality in work. Peasant labor as depicted by Nekrasov

Originally posted by nfcausa at Women's labor in peasant farming in the mid-late 19th century.

A fairly common point of view these days is that now women have received equal rights, because work has become simple and feasible, but before - in the harsh times of our great-great-grandfathers - a woman could not live without a man. A man could live alone, but a woman simply couldn’t, so all she could do was exchange sexual services and comfort for food. The Protopopovs, Novoselovs, Nikonovs and other fools like to write about this, and young (and not only) young readers and admirers of these jokes passionately dream of returning to a time when a woman could not live without the patronage of a man, even if they had to part with the Internet, iPhone, cozy and warm toilet. Let's try to figure out whether the average great-great-great-grandfather of a modern admirer of Nikonov (a peasant mid-19th- the beginning of the 20th century, who, as the average person knows, was “in the field”) to feed his family alone and what his great-great-great-grandmother (who supposedly was supposed to provide comfort) did.

First of all, let's try to figure out what the size of a peasant family was and whether a 19th century peasant man could feed himself and his family, allowing a woman to create comfort.

The first thing to say is that the peasant family was not nuclear. The peasant household consisted, as a rule, of one family, connected by ties of kinship or property. The predominant form was the family, limited to two to three generations and second cousins. Most often it was an undivided family, which was created on the basis of a small one (S.I. Shapovalova, Peasant woman of the Central Black Earth Region in the 60-90s of the 19th century: Historical portrait). That is, it did not consist of a man, a woman and their children, but of a larger number of members connected by ties of kinship. IN peasant family The way of life familiar to modern man was unimaginable: a man goes to work, where he receives a salary, and a woman stays at home, taking care of the child’s development, cleaning, buying groceries and cooking, while the work of one man can bring in so much money that it is enough for all members families. To maintain peasant farming in in good condition Several workers were required - the labor of one man was not enough. How many people were needed for the normal functioning of the economy? To answer this question, let's look at some studies:

In 1858 in the Non-Chernozem Center the average size families - 6.8 people, in Pomerania - 7.4, in the Volga region - 8.2, in the Black Earth Center - 10.2 (See: History of the peasantry of Russia from ancient times to 1917. Vol. 3. Peasantry of the period of late feudalism (mid-17th century - 1861). M., 1993. P. 366; Struve Petr. Serfdom. Research on economic history Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. St. Petersburg, 1913. S. 224 - 227.).

And here is a more detailed certificate about the number of employees:
115 years ago, a study of the peasant economy of Kotelnichsky district was carried out. The Vyatka province was explored in the period from 1884 to 1893. We started from Malmyzh district. In 1900, “Essay on the peasant economy of the Vyatka province” was compiled. On average, there were 6.4 souls per household in the district, and 6 souls in the province. The county also had an economically unfavorable age composition of the population among men and women: 45.4 years for men, 49.7 years for women. There were 1.4 male workers per yard; women - 1.6. Family size: 6.4 people. On average in the province, per 100 acres of convenient land there were about 17 workers (8 men, 9 women), the same figure in the district.(S. Pankova; Peasant farming at the end of the 19th century).

As we see, not a single one of the yards was supported by the efforts of only one worker - a man. In addition, in statistics, “workers” include not only men, but also women. K.K. Fedyaevsky drew attention to the fact that in peasant households a balance was maintained, sometimes even artificially, between men and women, both in the workforce and in the workforce (Fedyaevsky K.K. Peasant families of the Voronezh district according to the 1897 census).

Using materials from the Voronezh province, it was revealed that 57% of peasant farms had quantitative equality of full-fledged male and female hands. To denote equality, we have introduced a new concept - “labor balance”. It characterizes the presence in families of a correspondence between each worker and a worker.
Households where there was a deviation from the labor balance towards the predominance of male or female labor accounted for 37.3%. It rarely exceeded only working hands. Often, such a disproportion was a temporary phenomenon, and in the future many found “their half,” while balance was restored in the workforce of the economy. Only in 5.7% of households was there a significant excess of the number of workers of the same sex.
The normal functioning of a peasant farm was impossible not only without a worker, but also without a woman worker. A study of indicators of the well-being of households with a lack of full-time female workers helped to identify the presence of debts and arrears in them. Some farms showed signs of ruin and decline (budget deficit, lack of sufficient material and technical equipment, high debt levels, etc.)(Laukhina G.V. WOMEN’S WORK IN THE PEASANT ECONOMY OF THE CENTRAL BLACK EARTH REGION (60s of the 19th - EARLY 20th centuries).

So, it turns out that the welfare of the households left without female workers was collapsing. That is, the percentage of work performed by women was quite large, and a woman in a peasant farm was a fairly important working unit.

What kind of work did women do?
The wife’s duties around the house, “which the husband does not interfere with,” consisted of dressing and washing the children, heating, cleaning the hut, processing flax, and making clothes for the whole family. In addition, the woman was responsible for taking care of the garden and vegetable garden, which were in every household, as well as caring for livestock.

To imagine the volume of work of peasant women in the yard, you need to understand what the size of this yard was
The peasant courtyard with its inhabitants was the main production unit in the village. It is usually called a plot of land where residential and outbuildings, a vegetable garden, a garden were located, which were in the possession of a peasant family and provided for its housing and economic needs.
Here is a description of one of these yards

Description of Petrov's yard (See: History of the peasantry of Russia from ancient times to 1917. Vol. 3. Peasantry of the period of late feudalism (mid-17th century - 1861). M., 1993. P. 366; Struve Petr. Serfdom . Studies on the economic history of Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. St. Petersburg, 1913).

This peasant lives well and does not suffer long-term needs for anything, he has a decent house and all the necessary buildings that he has in order, he always gets a lot of his own grain a year and sells and lends to others. The capitation does not stand behind him, and the master’s rights correct everything as it should.
Scott has:
Horses...... 12
Cows............4
Calves..............3
Sheep...............22
Pigs............6
Goats...................3
In addition, he also keeps geese and Russian chickens: he also has a small bee breeder.

If men had to look after the horses, then women took care of all the other animals: 4 cows, 3 calves, 6 pigs, 3 goats, 22 sheep, geese and Russian chickens. There were 3 female workers and four male workers in this yard.

It usually provides 2 workers, and in when necessary husband. 4, female 3.
The land under it is taxable in such and such a field 6 dessiatines, in this field 5 and a half dessiatines, and in such and such a field 5 dessiatines.(See: History of the peasantry of Russia from ancient times to 1917. Vol. 3. Peasantry of the period of late feudalism (mid-17th century - 1861). M., 1993. P. 366; Struve Petr. Serfdom. Research on economic history of Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. St. Petersburg, 1913. pp. 224 - 227.).

Weaving was not so simple either: in ethnographic studies, weaving linen by women in winter evenings shown as monotonous work, interspersed with songs. But no attention is paid to the enormous physical exercise in this process. The time allotted per day for weaving reached 8.8 hours for 3 months, while the peasant woman was not freed from other work and worries. All this testifies to the hard labor of peasant women.

Weaving, spinning, and "yard work" were important productive labor, not "making comfortable." Women, without any participation from men, processed flax and made threads, linen and clothing. Almost until the beginning of the 20th century, peasant clothes were homespun. Caring for livestock and poultry, which was also primarily done by women, was also extremely important for the functioning of the household.

However, the scope of female labor in a peasant family was not limited to yard work, fabric and clothing production, cooking, and picking berries and mushrooms. Often, women also performed many of the men's jobs. First of all, this concerned peasant women in small families, where at the end of the post-reform period there was an outflow of men to work in other provinces. Thus, ordinary women's duties were combined with field work. It was especially difficult for peasant women in former landowner villages during the period of temporary obligation, when they had to combine their farming with working corvee labor in the master's plowing. Women, along with men, often sabotaged the service of corvée after the abolition of serfdom.(Shapovalova S.P. Peasant woman of the Central Black Earth Region in the 60-90s of the 19th century: Historical portrait).

In most of the provinces, both women and men were forced into corvee for three days. Only in the Podolsk province did the majority of women work in corvée for one day, and men for three.
(See: V.A. Fedorov. The fall of serfdom in Russia: Documents and materials. Issue 1: Socio-economic prerequisites and preparation of peasant reform. M., 1966. P.38-44.). Here I would like to give an example of how the work in the corvée took place and what kind of work women were engaged in there:

“For the Kursk landowner Briskorn, the three-day corvee was a complete fiction, since all the work was done according to lessons, which, if not completed at the scheduled time, had to be completed on their own days, on Sundays and holidays. In addition, on holidays, peasants were occupied with carting firewood and other work. In the barns, where mostly women worked, work continued until late at night; The master's bread was sometimes reaped even at night. Some work sites were 15-25 versts from the peasants' homes, and the passage time was not taken into account. The amount of work was further increased by the fact that the fallen taxes were not removed, but were laid out on the rest. As a result, the peasants did not always have time to cultivate their fields55 and harvest bread and hay, and it was forbidden to rent out the land. Construction work on the Brieskorn estate consisted of the construction of a church and a factory. In them and in brick making, the majority of workers were women; worked on lessons from morning until night; women with infants and pregnant women in labor were forced out to work. The latter did not get rid of the beating, despite their position, so there were cases of miscarriages; mothers were beaten for breastfeeding their children while working. The peasants, while transporting heavy trees, strained their horses, and many of them fell. Children from 8 to 15 years old were busy hauling bricks and sand, and this work was sometimes done at night and in the holidays. IN winter time Mrs. Briskorn's corvée peasants were also assessed a quitrent of 6 rubles. per woman, and 20 rubles. with tax." Semevsky V.I. The peasant question in Russia in the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th century // Peasant system. St. Petersburg, 1905. P.192-195.

A lot about women’s work “in the field” is written in the dissertation of G. V. Laukhina WOMEN’S WORK IN THE PEASANT FARM
CENTRAL BLACK EARTH REGION (60s of XIX - BEGINNING of XX centuries). I will give a long quote from there without any comments of my own.
Women's labor was used in various agricultural work. Main women's work in the field was carried out by peasant women workers, and semi-workers were used as auxiliary forces.
Used as an auxiliary force during the plowing and sowing periods, women's labor reached foreground during the harvest season. It was women's hands that carried out the main operations of collecting grain.
During the period of suffering, without female labor, peasant farms would not be able to carry out short terms a lot of work involved in harvesting. Peasant women reaped with sickles, made bundles, knitted sheaves, and put the sheaves in rumps for drying.
If for some reason during the harvest season female hands were not in demand in their yard; they were used as hired ones on other farms.
Women's labor was actively involved in grain processing. Peasant women participated in threshing and winnowing grain, both manually and using machines. The use of technology facilitated women's work, but the provision of it during the period under review was still low.
The market price of female labor increased during the period under review. There were also seasonal fluctuations in prices. The ratio of market prices for female labor at different stages of the agricultural cycle corresponded to the role of peasant women in various works. If during the sowing season a woman helped a man, then during haymaking, and especially the harvest, it was simply impossible to do without her participation. Accordingly, the wages of day laborers during the harvest period were as high as possible compared to earnings at other stages.
Labor prices in the provinces of the Black Earth Center generally corresponded to the average statistical indicators for Russia. In 1891, the wages of day laborers in the districts of the Tambov province during the sowing season ranged from 7 to 25 kopecks, during haymaking - from 10 to 45 kopecks, and during the harvest period - from 10 to 30 kopecks.

The same work also talks about the rights of peasant women. The majority of complaints from peasant women, accounting for 68.5% and 70.4% of all “women’s” cases in the Kolybelsky and Kryuchkovsky courts, respectively, concerned property issues. An analysis of records of decisions of volost courts led to the conclusion that in the 60s of the 19th - early 20th centuries. rural women had fairly broad property rights. They were recognized as having the right to own and dispose of personal property and quarterly lands. As sources show, the owners of quarterly lands had in their full possession land plots of significant size, which had a significant impact on her position in the family. The right to land gave women a sense of stability in their property status and personal independence.
A single woman (widow, soldier) could independently manage the family household, manage sums of money and other property, concluding transactions at her own discretion. She had the right to demand a share for herself and her children when her husband was separated from the family or when the household was divided after the death of her father-in-law.
The rights of peasant women gradually expanded. Among the peasant women, there was a category of those who independently rented land, hired workers, managed the farm and made a profit, although only male community members had the right to cultivate the communal land and only they had the right to participate in worldly gatherings where the most important issues were resolved.

In addition to caring for livestock, weaving, spinning, and agricultural work, women were engaged in handicrafts (hereinafter I again quote the work of G.V. Laukhina). The largest in the Black Earth Region and in Russia in terms of the number of peasant women participating in it and the volume of output was lace craft in Yeletsk district. It can be considered as a manifestation of the involvement of the female population of the Central Black Earth Region in commodity-money relations.

In addition to handicrafts, peasant women in post-reform times were engaged in waste crafts. However, the restriction on their ability to do something similar was due to the lack of a number of rights: women's right to free movement was limited. According to the Code of Laws, when leaving the volost, a peasant woman had to obtain permission from her husband or senior family member. With the liberalization of the political course in the second half of the 19th century, with the expansion of the labor market and other social transformations, this resolution seemed outdated for some pre-revolutionary jurists. Lawyer of the late 19th century. G. F. Shershenevich noted that the ruling on the impossibility of obtaining a passport without the permission of the husband was “extremely restrictive, especially in the lower class, depriving a woman of the opportunity to earn money independently.” I. A. Pokrovsky considered the husband’s refusal to issue his wife a passport as one of the ways to put pressure on her. In post-reform times, the number of women employed in
walking. Peasant women of the Olonets province went mainly to St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk, where they found work as nannies, nurses, cooks, laundresses, dressmakers, workers, as well as “kaporok”, engaged in gardening in the suburbs of the capital.(Litvin Yulia Valerievna THE RIGHTS OF A PEASANT WOMAN TO FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH - BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURIES (BASED ON MATERIALS OF THE OLONETS PROVINCE).

By 1861, the proportion of female otkhodniks among peasants in the Tver and Yaroslavl provinces was 14.2 and 11.4. The proportion of male otkhodniks (landowner peasants) for comparison is 23.5 and 21.1 (See: History of the Russian peasantry from ancient times to 1917. Vol. 3. Peasantry of the period of late feudalism (mid-17th century - 1861). M., 1993. S. 328 - 329.)

Pregnancy and motherhood did not free peasant women from their household and agricultural chores. The need for female labor in peasant farms was so great that a short time after giving birth, the peasant woman was forced to return to intense agricultural work. And one more quote:

Work village woman in areas living by agriculture, it is huge; it is no less in provinces with a developed latrine industry, where, with the care of men, women perform all rural work and all services. Not to mention the time of need, even in autumn and winter the housewife is all at work: late at night and early in the morning she spins and weaves, carries water on herself, often from afar, along a difficult road; cooks twice a day, cleans the cattle; kneading a kneading dough with two pounds of rye dough, languishing in the cold while washing thick linen. In the center of Russia, she carries three-pound bags of cucumbers; in the black earth provinces she stands waist-deep in icy water, washing the sheep she shears in the cold; and all this is done by a pregnant woman, with all the hardships of the female body.
(E. D Shchepkina Labor and health of a peasant woman Proceedings of the First All-Russian Women's Congress (December 10-16, 1908, St. Petersburg).

Of course, the lack of opportunity to look after children, as well as hard work during pregnancy, were the reasons for the incredibly high infant mortality rate. E. D. Shchepkina writes about two peasant women:

55 years
35 years married
24 pregnancies
2 living children
14 died
8 miscarriages

51 years old
29 years married
22 pregnancies
2 living children
15 died
3 stillborns
2 miscarriages

Engelhardt writes in his famous “Letters from the Village”
“Children eat worse than calves from an owner who has good livestock. The mortality rate of children is much higher than the mortality rate of calves, and if the mortality rate of calves for an owner with good livestock was as high as the mortality rate for children of a peasant, it would be impossible to manage it. And we want to compete with the Americans when our children are not white bread even in the pacifier? If mothers ate better, if our wheat, which the German eats, stayed at home, then the children would grow better, and there would not be such mortality, all this typhus, scarlet fever, and diphtheria would not be rampant. By selling our wheat to the German, we are selling our blood, that is, peasant children” (Letters from the village. 12 letters. 1872-1887. St. Petersburg, 1999. pp. 351-352, 353, 355).

Since an adult woman devoted almost all her time to work, either very old family members or children looked after the babies: Replacing nannies, they had to amuse the babies, rock them in the cradle, feed them porridge, give them milk and give them a pacifier. Small children, one-year-olds, were already left under the supervision of an older sister, even if she was five years old. It happened that such an “Alyonushka” would play with her friends, but the child was left without supervision. Therefore, cases of death of young children were not uncommon in villages, when “a child was eaten by a pig, crushed by straw, or mutilated by a dog.”(Bezgin V. Peasant everyday life (traditions of the late XIX - early XX centuries).

Often there were no children or elderly people available for care:
The Synod of the Oryol diocese reported: “Children of the poor, often abandoned without supervision, die in early childhood for this reason. This is especially noticeable in families of land-poor peasants. Here the father and mother, busy all day long getting a piece of bread, spend the whole day outside the house, and the children are left to their own devices. Now it is not uncommon that there is not a single old person in the house under whose supervision the children could be left. As a rule, small children stay with their little sisters and brothers, so without proper supervision they are hungry, cold and dirty all day long.” Bezgin V. Peasant everyday life (traditions of the late XIX - early XX centuries).

And finally, another rather large quote about motherhood, childhood and women’s work:

Already on the 3rd - 4th day, necessity forces the woman in labor to get up and get to work. When going to the field, the mother either takes the newborn with her, or leaves him at home in the care of a nanny. Personally, for the mother, of course, it is more convenient to leave the child at home, since in such cases the mother does not need to carry the child with her to work, sometimes several miles away, and then, at work, the mother is not constantly torn away from her by the crying of the child who is right there. Meanwhile, in time of suffering the work is hot, every hour, every minute is important and therefore, it is clear, the vast majority of mothers leave their newborns and infants Houses. “Never does a baby lose so much of its mother’s breast,” says such an expert on folk life as Archpriest Gilyarovsky, “and never extracts such poor-quality milk from the same breast as in July and August, for the mother in the best farms on the third day in the morning should goes to field work, where he cannot take the baby with him, and returns to him only late in the evening. And if field work is more than 10 miles from home, then the mother must leave the child for 3-4 days every week. In some households, a woman gives birth the next (!) day after giving birth.” “What will she bring,” the venerable author further exclaims, “to the baby in her breasts, when she herself is exhausted by labor and effort beyond measure, by thirst and staleness of food, which does not restore her strength, by sweat and feverish movements of milk, which has become a completely product for her?” alien, boredom for the baby, who is languishing from the lack of milk just as she is from its excess.” How warmly and truthfully the sad and difficult situation of mother and child in times of suffering is described!
However, what does the child feed on, and in what conditions does he find himself while staying at home? Perhaps the child is in better conditions than if he were taken by his mother into the field and there exposed in the open air to all the hardships of changing weather.
Since the entire population of the village capable of working leaves during the time of need, i.e. in July and August, in the field, then all the children remain in the care of children, teenagers of 8-10 years old, who perform the duties of nannies. Therefore, one can imagine what happens to small children under such supervision of children.
The mother, leaving early in the morning for work, swaddles the child, even, suppose, wrapping him in a clean diaper. It is clear that soon after the mother leaves and an 8-10 year old girl is assigned to look after the child, who, due to her age and an understandable complete lack of understanding of the importance of her task, wants to run and play fresh air, such a nanny leaves the child and the child sometimes lies in soaked and soiled diapers and swaddles for the whole day. Even in those cases, if the mother leaves the nanny a sufficient number of changes of linen, it is not in the latter’s interests to change this soiled linen as needed, since she will have to wash this linen herself. And therefore, one can imagine what a terrible situation the swaddled children are in, wrapped in diapers soaked in urine and feces, and this, moreover, in the hot summer season. The statement of the same observer, Rev., will become completely understandable and not at all exaggerated. Gilyarovsky, that from such a urinary compress and from the heat “the skin under the neck, under the armpits and in the groins becomes wet, resulting in ulcers, often filled with worms,” etc. It is also not difficult to complement this whole picture with the mass of mosquitoes and flies that are especially willingly attracted by the stinking atmosphere around the child from rotting urine and feces. “Flies and mosquitoes hovering around the child in swarms,” says Gilyarovsky, “keep him in a constant fever of stinging.” In addition, in the child’s cradle and, as we will see below, even in his horn, worms are bred, which, according to Gilyarovsky, are “one of the most dangerous creatures” for the child.(Mortality in Russia and the fight against it. Report at the joint meeting of the Society of Russian Doctors, the Society of Children's Doctors in St. Petersburg and the Statistical Department of the Highest Approved Russian Society for the Preservation of Public Health, March 22, 1901, in the hall of the N.I. Pirogov Museum, D.A. Sokolov and V.I. Grebenshchikov).

So, let's see what results we came to:
1) peasant women of the mid-19th - early 20th centuries were engaged not only in creating comfort, cleaning, washing and cooking. They generally did very little of the things listed above compared to other productive activities, such as: processing of materials, manufacturing of textiles and clothing, agricultural work of different nature(including hired labor), caring for livestock and poultry, handicrafts and waste industries;
2) the female worker was almost not involved in caring for children - even babies; caring for an infant is work for either a very elderly family member who is not suitable for any more work, or for a child 5-9 years old;
3) a man working alone in the field could not feed his family;
4) the work performed by women on peasant farms was very significant; the presence of a full-fledged female worker on a farm was about as critical as the presence of a male worker, since farms without full-fledged female workers fell into decay.

I love to go to the pole
I love to move the hay.
How can I see my dear one?
Three hours to talk.

In the hayfield. Photo. Beginning of the 20th century	B. M. Kustodiev. Haymaking. 1917. Fragment
A. I. Morozov. Rest in haymaking. OK. I860	Women in mowing shirts harvesting hay. Photo. Beginning of the 20th century
A group of young women and girls with a rake. Photo. 1915. Yaroslavl province.	Drying hay on stakes. Photo. 1920s. Leningrad region.

Haymaking began at the very end of June: “June went through the forests with a scythe,” from the day of Samson Senognoy (June 27/July 10), from Peter’s Day (June 29/July 12) or from the summer day of Kuzma and Demyan (July 1/14 ). The main work took place in July - “senozornik”.
Hay was harvested on water meadows located in river valleys and on small plots of land reclaimed from the forest. Hayfields could be located both near the village and at some distance from it. Peasants went to the distant meadows with their whole families: “Everyone who is old enough, hurry to the haymaking.” Only old men and women remained at home to look after the children and care for the livestock. Here is how, for example, the peasants of the villages of Yamny, Vassa, Sosna, Meshchovsky district, Kaluga province, went to haymaking in the late 1890s: “The time has come for mowing... The Yamnenstsy, Vassovtsy, Sosentsy are riding on seven or eight horses with chests (with edibles) , with scythes, rakes, pitchforks. On almost every cart there are three or four people, of course, with children. Some are carrying a barrel of kvass and jugs of milk. They ride dressed up: men in cotton shirts of all colors and the wildest imagination; young people in jackets, and even vests... Women imagine from their frilly sundresses and waist-length Cossack blouses such a flower garden that it dazzles your eyes. And the scarves! But it’s better not to talk about scarves: their variety and brightness are endless. And in addition, aprons, that is, aprons. Nowadays there are also sailor women here, so if you meet a pretty peasant girl, you may well think that she is a city young lady, or, what’s more, a landowner. Teenagers and children also try to dress up in their best. They ride and sing songs at the top of their lungs” [Russian peasants. T. 3. P. 482).
The girls looked forward to the haymaking season with great impatience. Bright sun, the proximity of water, fragrant herbs - all this created an atmosphere of joy, happiness, freedom from everyday life, and the absence of the stern eyes of old men and women - village guards morality - allowed one to behave somewhat more relaxed than in normal times.
Residents of each village, having arrived at the place, set up a camp site: they set up huts in which they slept, prepared firewood for the fire on which they cooked food. There were many such machines along the banks of the river - up to seven or eight on two square kilometers. Each machine usually belonged to the inhabitants of one village, who worked in the meadow all together. The machine divided the cut and dried grass according to the number of men in the family.
We got up early in the morning, even before sunrise, and, without breakfast, went to mowing so as not to miss the time while the meadow was covered with dew, since wet grass was easier to mow. When the sun rose higher above the horizon and the dew began to settle, families sat down to have breakfast. On the fast day they ate meat, bread, milk, eggs, fast days(Wednesday and Friday) - kvass, bread and onions. After breakfast, if the dew was heavy, they continued to mow, and then laid out the grass in even thin rows in the meadow to dry. Then we had lunch and rested. During this time, the grass withered a little, and they began to rake it so that it would dry better. In the evening, the dried hay was piled up. IN general work family, everyone knew their business. Guys and young men were mowing the grass. Women and girls laid it out in rows, stirred it up and collected it into piles. Throwing haystacks was the job of the boys and girls. The guys served the hay on wooden forks, and the girls laid it out on a stack and kneaded it with their feet so that it lay down more tightly. The evening for the older generation ended with beating the braids with hammers on small anvils. This ringing echoed throughout all the meadows, meaning that the work was over.
“The haymaker has knocked down the peasant’s arrogance that there is no time to lie down on the stove,” says the proverb about the busyness of people on the mower from morning to evening. However, for boys and girls, haymaking was a time when they could show each other the ability to work hard and have fun. It is not for nothing that on the Northern Dvina the communication of young people during haymaking was called showing off.
Fun reigned at lunchtime, when the elders rested in huts and the youth went swimming. Boys and girls swimming together was frowned upon public opinion, so the girls went away from the machine, trying so that the guys wouldn’t track them down. The guys still found them, hid their clothes, causing the indignation of the girls. They usually returned together. The girls sang to their boyfriends, for example, this song:

It will rain, the hay will get wet,
Daddy will scold -
Help me, good one,
My embryo is to finish.
Frequent rain falls,
My darling remembers me:
- He wets my darling
In the haymaking, poor thing.

The main fun came in the evening, after sunset. Young people flocked to one of the machines, where there were many “glorious women”. The accordion played, dances, songs, round dances, and walks in pairs began. The joy of the festivities, which lasted almost until the morning, is well conveyed by the song:

Peter's night,
The night is small
And really, okay,
Not big!
And I, young,
Didn't get enough sleep
And really, okay,
Didn't get enough sleep!
Didn't get enough sleep
I haven't had enough fun!
And really, okay,
I haven't had enough fun!
I'm with my dear friend
It didn’t brew!
And really, okay,
It didn’t brew!
Didn't insist
I didn't say enough
And really, okay,
I haven't said enough!

At the end of the festivities, the girls’ “collapsible” song was sung:

Let's go home, girls,
Zorka is studying!
Zorka is busy
Mommy will swear!

Haymaking remained “the most pleasant of rural jobs” even if it took place close to the village and therefore had to return home every evening. Eyewitnesses wrote: “The time of year, warm nights, swimming after the tiring heat, the fragrant air of the meadows - all together have something charming, pleasantly affecting the soul. Women and girls have a custom when working in the meadows to put on not only clean underwear, but even dress in a festive way. For the girls, there is a meadow where they, working together with rakes and accompanying the work common song, show off in front of the grooms” (Selivanov V.V.S. 53).
Haymaking ended for the holiday of the Kazan Icon Mother of God(July 8/21) or for Elijah’s Day (July 20/August 2): “Ilya the Prophet - it’s time to mow.” It was believed that “after Ilya’s day” the hay would not be so good: “Before Ilya’s day there is a pound of honey in the hay, after Ilya’s day there is a pound of manure.”

Harvest

You are reaping, you are reaping
My young ones!
Young people,
Golden sickles!
You reap, reap,
Live life, don't be lazy!
And having compressed the cornfield,
Drink, have fun.

Following the haymaking came the harvest of “bread” - that’s what all grain crops were called. IN different regions bread ripened in different time depending on climatic conditions. In the southern part of Russia, the harvest began already in mid-July - from the feast of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, in the middle zone - from Ilyin's day or from the day of St. Boris and Gleb (July 24 / August 6), and in the north - closer to mid-August. Winter rye ripened first, followed by spring grains, oats, and then buckwheat.

I stung, I stung oats,
I switched to buckwheat.
If I see a sweetheart -
I'll meet him.

Harvesting was considered the work of girls and married women. However, the main harvesters were girls. Strong, strong, dexterous, they easily coped with quite difficult work.

P. Vdovichev, Harvest. 1830s	The rye is ripening. Photo by S. A. Lobovikov. 1926-1927
Reaper. Photo by S. A. Lobovikov. 1914-1916	A. G. Venetsianov. At the harvest. Summer. Before 1827

Everyone was supposed to start the harvest on the same day. Before this, the women chose from among themselves a harvester who would perform a symbolic harvest of the field. Most often it was a middle-aged woman, a good reaper, with “ with a light hand" Early in the morning, secretly from everyone, she ran to the field, reaped three small sheaves, saying, for example, like this:

Shoo, little bird, at the end,
Like a Tatar stallion!
Run and laugh, die and tear
And look for the end of the field!
Run out, run out,
Give us some will!
We came with sharp sickles,
WITH white hands,
With soft ridges!

After this, the harvester laid the sheaves crosswise at the edge of the field, and nearby left a piece of bread with salt for Mother Earth and an icon of the Savior to protect the harvest from evil spirits.
Everyone went out to the harvest female half families headed by the mistress. Girls and women wore special harvest clothes - belted white canvas shirts, decorated along the hem and on the sleeves with a red woven or embroidered pattern. In some villages top part The shirts were made of bright chintz, and the undershirts were made of canvas, which was covered with a beautiful apron. Their heads were tied with cotton scarves. The harvest clothes were very elegant, corresponding to such important day, when Mother Earth gives birth to the harvest. At the same time, the clothes were also comfortable for work, loose, and it was not hot in the summer sun.
The first day of the harvest began with common prayer families in their own lane. The reapers worked in the field in a certain order. The mistress of the house walked ahead of everyone, saying: “God bless you to clamp the field! Give, Lord, ergot and lightness, good health! (Folk traditional culture of the Pskov region. P. 65). By right hand came from her eldest daughter, followed by her in seniority are the rest of her daughters, and after them her daughters-in-law. The first sheaf was supposed to be reaped by the eldest daughter in the family so that she would get married in the fall: “The first sheaf to reap is to get a groom.” They believed that the first pistil of cut rye stalks and the first sheaf collected from them possessed “spores”, “spuriness” - a special life-giving force, so necessary for the future housewife and mother.
The harvesters went to the field after the sun dried the dew. Bread covered with dew could not be reaped, so that the grain and straw would not rot before threshing. The girls went to the field together and sang songs that were called harvest songs. The main topic songs was unhappy love:

Sooner or sooner our yard becomes overgrown.
Our farmstead is overgrown with grass and ants.
It’s not grass in the field, it’s not an ant, it’s pink flowers.
There were flowers blooming in the field, blooming, but withered.
The guy loved the beautiful girl, but left her.
Having left the girl, he laughed at her.
Don't laugh at the girl, guy, you're still single.
Single, unmarried, no wife taken.

While working, girls were not supposed to sing - this was the prerogative of only married women. Married women They turned in songs to God, the fields, the sun, and field spirits asking for help:

Yes, God, take away the thundercloud,
May God save the working field.

Peasant fields (strips) were located nearby. The reapers could see their neighbors working, call to each other, encourage the tired, and reproach the lazy. The songs were interspersed with so-called hooting, that is, screams, exclamations of “Oooh!”, “Hey!”, and hoots and hoots. The hooting was so strong that it could be heard in villages far from the fields. All this polyphonic noise was beautifully called “the singing of the stubble.”
In order for a certain part of the work to be completed by the evening, those lagging behind were urged: “Pull up! Pull up! Pull! Pull your goat!” Each girl tried to press more sheaves, get ahead of her friends, and not fall behind. They laughed at the lazy ones and shouted: “Girl! Kila for you! - and at night they “put a stake” on the strip for careless girls: they stuck a stick into the ground with a bunch of straw or an old bast shoe tied to it. The quality and speed of work determined whether the girl was “hardworking” and whether she would be a good housewife. If the reaper left an uncompressed groove behind her, they said that she “will have a man’s guts”; if the sheaves turned out to be large, then the man will be big; if they are even and beautiful, then he will be rich and hardworking. To make the work go smoothly, the girls said: “The stripe is like a white hare, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo!” (Morozov I.A., Sleptsova I.S.S. 119), and in order not to get tired, they girded themselves with a flagellum from the stems with the words: “Just as mother rye became a year old and was not tired, so my back would not get tired of reaping” ( Maikov L. N. S. 204).
The work ended when the sun was setting and the stubble was covered with dew. It was not allowed to remain in the field after sunset: according to legend, this could prevent the deceased ancestors from “walking through the fields and enjoying the harvest.” Before leaving the underharvested strip, it was supposed to place two handfuls of stems crosswise to protect it from damage. The sickles, having been hidden, were usually left in the field, rather than carried into the house, so as not to cause rain.
After working day The girls again gathered in a flock and all went to rest together, singing about unhappy love:

I sang songs, my chest hurt,
My heart was breaking.
Tears were rolling down my face -
I broke up with my sweetheart.

Hearing loud singing, guys appeared and flirted with the girls, hoping for their favor. The guys' jokes were sometimes quite rude. For example, the guys frightened the girls by unexpectedly attacking them from behind the bushes, or they set up “gags”: they tied up the tops of the grasses that grew on both sides of the path along which the girls walked. In the dark, the girls might not notice the trap and would fall, causing the guys to laugh joyfully.
Then they walked together, and the girls chanted to the brides’ boyfriends:

Our Maryushka was walking through the garden,
We have Vasilievna in green.
Well done Ivan looked at her:
“Here comes my precious, priceless beauty.
Went through the whole village,
I haven’t found a more beautiful Maria.
You, Maryushka, darling,
Surround me joyfully
Please kiss me on the mouth."

They tried to complete the harvest all in one day. If someone did not make it on time, neighbors rushed to his aid. This was caused by a natural desire to help a neighbor, as well as by the fact that unharvested strips interfered with the removal of sheaves from the fields to the threshing floor and grazing of livestock, which were released for the stubble.
The end of hard, suffering work was celebrated very festively. Girls and women sang final songs in which they praised the field and God:

And thank God
Until the new year,
God bless,
They reaped the cornfield,
Strada suffered!
God bless
Until the new year!

On the last day of the harvest, many rituals were performed. Their essence was to thank the field for the harvest, ask it to bear fruit for the next year, and take health from the field for yourself and your loved ones. In some villages, girls and women stood in a circle, took sickles, raised them up and asked: “Ugly, Lord! next year, so that the rye will be a wall.” In others, they thanked the sickle for the work, winding stalks of rye on it: “Thank you, gray one, for taking care of me, now I’ll take care of you, I’ll feed you wheat.”
Almost throughout Russia, the custom of “curling a beard” was widespread, that is, ears of grain specially left unharvested in the field were tied with ribbons or braided, and a piece of bread with salt was placed on the ground under them. The “beard” was tied by the mistress of the house in the presence of all the reapers of the family. Before the ceremony, the girls were allowed to squeeze a few pistils left for Ilya’s beard. If a girl reaped an odd number of ears of grain, this meant that matchmakers would come to her on Pokrov; if it was an odd number, she would have to wait for the matchmakers until the winter meat-eater. After this, the girls left to have fun in their flock, and the women, holding hands, began to dance around the beard, chanting a spell:

We are already weaving, we are weaving our beard
At Gavrila's field,
Curling the beard
At Vasilyevich's and on the wide one,
At Vasilyevich’s, yes, on a wide one.
On the great fields,
On wide stripes,
Yes, to the mountains high,
On the black arable land,
On arable land.

After harvesting all the grain in the village, a collective meal was held with beer, boiled meat, “feast” pies, and scrambled eggs. Girls and boys, after sitting with everyone else, went on a walk and had fun until the morning.

http://www.booksite.ru/fulltext/girls/rus/san/2.htm

Page 1

The work of a real peasant, just like a real artisan, is solitary creativity: in quiet absorption he devotes himself to his occupation. He lives in his creation, just as an artist lives in his; he most likely would not have given it to the market at all. With bitter tears in their eyes, the peasant women take their beloved pawn out of the stall and take her to the slaughterhouse; an old artisan is fighting for his pipe, which a merchant wants to buy from him... The peasant, just like the artisan, stands behind his work, he vouches for it with the honor of the artist.

Under feudalism, the division of peasant labor into necessary and surplus appeared in an open form: during the necessary working time, the peasant ensured the existence of himself and his family. During surplus time, he created a surplus product, which was appropriated free of charge by the feudal lord in the form: eat.

The landowners, deprived of the free labor of the peasants, were forced to rebuild their farms in accordance with the new conditions. However, the transition from the feudal system of farming to the capitalist one could not be carried out immediately, since the old system was only undermined, but not destroyed. Therefore, the landowner economy was based on a combination of two systems - labor and capitalist.

The labor of peasants is used to an even lesser extent in various crafts. The erroneous attitudes that existed at one time led to the fact that handicraft industries gradually fell into decline and were eventually almost completely eliminated. This had a detrimental effect on the financial situation of the village, and socially led to the fact that the country lost large quantity products that satisfy the household needs of the population. Let us also note that the labor resources of the village were not fully used, and there were great losses in the income that these trades brought when selling products both within the country and abroad.

During the 15th century, while the labor of independent peasants and agricultural workers, engaged in independent work along with hired work at the same time, went to their own benefit, the standard of living of the farmer was as insignificant as the scope of his production.

What conditions should be created to make the peasant’s work easier? There must be machines, and machines can only be used effectively in a cooperative. As a communist, I am interested in people, regardless of what nation they are, what language they speak, what faith they worship, to live well. Working people are the same everywhere. The working people earn bread by the sweat of their brow, and I want the working people to shed less sweat and receive more products from their labor. This is what I am interested in as a person. I am also interested in you achieving the same things that we, the Soviet people, achieved, and even better results, using the experience of our peasants.

The theoretical reflection of the economic productivity of the land (along with the labor of the peasants) was the teaching of the French physiocrats (Quesnay, Boisbilguera, Turgot) that only Agriculture has a productive nature, allowing not only to reimburse its costs, but also to obtain a surplus product. In other branches of handicraft and industrial production that do not cultivate the land, supposedly only their costs are reimbursed, nothing more, and therefore no surplus product is created by them.

Similar problems arise in socialism - whether the peasant’s labor on his plot should be taken into account.

This acceleration, which was based on the principle of material stimulation of peasant labor, in the second half of the 20s. began to slow down, but not through the fault of the rural worker.

The transformation of the nobles into a privileged class was accompanied by an expansion of their rights to the personality and labor of the peasant.

Under feudalism, the source of land rent was the surplus (partially necessary) labor of personally dependent peasants.

This means that the landowner's land is cultivated with the same peasant implements, the labor of a ruined, impoverished, enslaved peasant. This is what it is, the culture that the deputy Svyato-polk-Mirsky spoke about and which all the defenders of landowners’ interests talk about. The landowners, of course, have the best livestock, which live better in the master's stable than the peasant in peasant hut. The landowner, of course, has the best harvests, because the landowner committees took care back in 1861 to cut off best lands from the peasants and write them down to the landowners.

Social policy of the party, Soviet state is to, on the basis of modern technology and science, bring closer and closer the nature of the work of the peasant and the work of the worker, to improve the life of the village, to improve the culture rural life. All this practically leads to the gradual elimination of socio-economic, cultural and everyday differences between city and countryside, between the working class and the peasantry.

Over time, the monasteries from labor communities, where everyone worked for everyone and everyone spiritually supported each of their brethren, turned into large land owners who used the forced labor of peasants.

The reduction in the sources of recruitment for slaves, as well as the blurring of the lines between them and the peasants, entailed the elimination of the archaic form of exploitation: the labor productivity of a slave per month was lower than the labor productivity of a peasant who cultivated his allotment.

There are quite a lot of young people in our villages. Hence the following two-sided conclusion: either the exodus of a new generation of peasants has ended, or this is a temporary lull before the mass exodus to large and small industrial cities. Both are equally likely. On the one hand, the surrounding farms are withering away before our eyes, while others are directly looking into the grave, and it seems that nothing hints at a renaissance. On the other hand, there is little work in the cities; in our regional center, Zubtsovo, for example, it is much more difficult to find a job than to meet a wife destined by God. How six thousand townspeople live and feed there is dark for us.

In general, the peasantry is a cold-blooded, unpoetic people, and yet I would like to think: what if rural youth have finally comprehended the poetics of agricultural labor... After all, this is still not like drilling the same hole for eight hours in a row, or hanging around behind the counter, or lay sand-lime bricks with a poke and poke...

Peasant labor this is what... After you got up with the sun, washed your face from the washstand nailed to the birch tree, had breakfast with scrambled eggs and your lard, the gentleman leaves the village on a tractor with dogs barking and roosters crowing. If plowing is on the agenda, then it’s nice to watch how the ground rises behind you, looking like chocolate butter, and, instead of seagulls, crows circle above it. If it’s haymaking, then the smell of freshly planted clover, tart-sweet, like a good cologne, will take your breath away. If this is cleaning, then all the time you are caressed by the thought that in your bunker you already have buns and rolls stored in some part of Russia.

In a word, if you approach the matter somewhat poetically, then peasant labor is an enviable lot for a serious man. Firstly, it’s beautiful, because you’re plowing, and above your head blue sky, on both sides there are endless fields, and quiet mixed forests darken in the distance. Secondly, it is noble, because the farmer feeds the people, receiving mere trifles for his work. Thirdly, it’s great, because it’s varied and in the fresh air - it’s not for nothing that there are no crazy people in the villages.

Finally, it is a prejudice that the peasant works on the land full daylight hours. Except that when plowing you have to sweat almost from dawn to dusk, because there is a lot of land, but not enough equipment, and even it starts up every once in a while. During haymaking and the harvest season they work from dew to dew, that is, in our places, from about noon to six.

Just like in the old days, which despite all the current troubles one cannot dare to call good, they don’t drink during the famine, they carry lunch in the field, the bread is no thinner than in the era of work meetings and workdays.

Troubles happen like this: every year, the loans that the region allocates to collective farms for diesel fuel and other utilities disappear somewhere. And then the Rossiya collective farm bought the latest hay harvesting machine, which itself packs rolls of mowed grass into film - it now stands near the chairman’s fence and is only of interest to stray dogs. The reason for this trouble is this: our film, manufactured in St. Petersburg, breaks every now and then, and the Dutch film, which never breaks, cannot be raised given the collective farm poverty. If you buy Dutch film, then a kilogram of hay will cost five rubles, and our collective farms sell milk at three rubles per liter - they don’t give them more.

The peculiarity of peasant labor in modern times is that there are far fewer workers than those registered in the countryside. On the collective farm “Ilyich’s Way” there are only sixty farmers, one free tiller and several hundred villagers who live on who knows what. That is, it is known what: a vegetable garden, otherwise they sell milk and meat to the outside, build fences for summer residents, steal, collect non-ferrous metal wherever necessary. As for the free tiller, he grows cabbage on his ten hectares and takes it to Rzhev to sell. This occupation is dangerous for three reasons: because there is a market mafia everywhere, because you can’t get sick - there are only three pairs of hands in a family, because at times you have to hire farm laborers and thereby instill a sense of class in your fellow villagers. Our families are small because, according to the general belief, a large family is too labor-intensive; a hole for a latrine will need to be dug at least once a year.

Apparently, the most prosperous category of our peasantry are those who live on who knows what. Judging by the fact that in two months of the summer season in our village they took away: one car, two windshields, four wheels, one gun, one spinning rod and seven refrigerators, we can live.

Some villagers also work in the police, but this is a pure sinecure, because our police officers are mainly engaged in traveling around villages and explaining why they are not able to catch robbers and thieves.

Peasant labor as portrayed by N.A. Nekrasova

I. Introduction

The work of a peasant gives rise to conflicting feelings in Nekrasov. On the one hand, it is in labor that the strength of the people and their rich capabilities are manifested. The peasant loves and knows how to work; idleness is alien to him. It is peasant labor that will create what is good in Russia. On the other hand, the work of a peasant is forced labor, which brings him suffering.

II. main part

1. Labor as joy and creation. In many of Nekrasov’s works, peasant labor is described precisely from this side. With the labor of the peasant, everything is created - from bread to the railway, which was built not by “Count Kleinmichel”, but by ordinary people. (" Railway"). Labor is the basis of a man’s self-respect, even his pride. In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” it is not for nothing that Yakim Nagoy asks Pavlusha Veretennikov: “Our fields are vast, // And not much generous, // Tell me, by whose hand // They will get dressed in the spring, // And in the fall they will undress? " Not white-handed gentle ones.

And we are great people // In work and in revelry!” Savely’s proud words echo these words: “Do you think, Matryonushka, // A man is not a hero?” Even a child feels this pride in his work (“Peasant Children”, “Little Little Man”). Labor is the basis of a peasant’s life. It’s not for nothing that the seven wanderers, yearning for work, in “Who Lives Well in Russia” take up mowing so cheerfully: “Woke up, flared up // A forgotten habit // To work! Like teeth from hunger, // Works for everyone // A nimble hand.” Nekrasov was one of the first to poeticize peasant labor, considering it as the basis of existence and contrasting it with the idleness of the ruling classes.

2. Labor is suffering. Under the conditions of an exploitative system, the labor of a peasant is forced labor, not for himself, but for “God, the king and the master”; This is labor through force, exhausting and gradually killing a person. Nekrasov’s lyrics (“Railroad”, “On the Volga”, “Uncompressed Strip”, etc.) and especially the poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” are filled with pictures of such work. Yakim Nagoy, telling Veretennikov about how “the peasant’s navel is cracking” in backbreaking work, says about himself: “He works himself to death”; in the same episode, Nekrasov also paints an impressive portrait of a peasant exhausted from work. Literally about hard labor Savely says. Nekrasov especially feels sorry for women and children who are straining themselves at work (poems “The Cry of Children”, “In full swing of the village suffering ...”, the story of Matryona Timofeevna in “Who Lives Well in Russia”, etc.).

III. Conclusion

The theme of labor in Nekrasov’s work is one of the most important. It combines pride in the Russian peasant, deep sympathy for him, and denunciation of the ruling classes who made labor the basis human life- literally hard labor.