The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia

By Wayne S. Vucinich

Book Overview

Soviet scholars have been greatly interested in the long history of the peasant problem and in the continuing presence of a peasantry that both baffles and frustrates the State. The result has been an unusually large amount of material dealing with the peasant problem, material that not only assesses the problem's contemporary aspects but also delves into its origins.

Similarly, the studies of foreign scholars and observers have created many useful perspectives on the Russian peasant. The present volume is part of this continuing expansion of scholarship on the peasantry. The eight papers it contains are important not only as timely assessments of the present state of scholarship on the Russian peasantry, but also as original contributions that add significantly to the record of that scholarship. Each study deals with a single, often long-neglected, aspect of the peasant's life, and all are concerned with the effects of modernization on a traditional, agrarian society. Professor Riasanovsky's sensitive and judicious "Afterword" deals with the theme of modernization in more general terms, and directs the reader toward some tentative conclusions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804706387
• ISBN13: 9780804706384
• Release Date: June 1968
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"