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The Woman's Side: Male Out-Migration and the Family Economy in Kostroma Province

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Barbara Alpern Engel
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Extract

“It isn't the land that attaches a man to the village, it's the family [rodnye].

Prokopovich

In the last decades of Imperial Russia, peasant migrants from all over Russia swelled the ranks of urban dwellers. Impelled by the increasing impoverishment of their villages and the hope of a steady wage, they poured into the cities, some to remain for months or years, others to stay for life. The number of male migrants always exceeded the number of female, although the proportion of women was growing steadily. Even so, the majority of men either remained single or left wives and children in the village.

Thus far, the attention of most social historians has focused on the migrant: his relation to the means of production; the extent to which his experiences in city and factory contributed to the transformation of his consciousness from peasant to proletarian. This approach has yielded rich scholarly results. But, with the exception of the work of Rose Glickman, that scholarship has addressed the peasant migrant almost exclusively as male and regarded his relation to his village primarily as an obstacle on the path to proletarianization.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , Summer 1986 , pp. 257 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1986

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References

Research for this article was made possible by grants from the Averill Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union of Columbia University, the Council for Research and Creative Work of the University of Colorado, and the International Research and Exchanges Board. I would like to thank the staffs of the Slavonic Section of the University of Helsinki Library and the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR for generous assistance in the research, and Robert Edelman, Rose Glickman, Robert Johnson, Timothy Mixter, and Rochelle Ruthchild for helpful suggestions for revising earlier versions of the article.

1. Glickman, Rose, Russian Factory Women: Workplace and Society, 1880–1914 (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1984 Google Scholar. The epigraph is from S. N. Prokopovich, Biudzhety peterburgskikh rabochikh (St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 37.

2. Shuster, Iu. A., Peterburgskie rabochie v 1905–1907 gg. (Leningrad, 1976), p. 31 Google Scholar.

3. Ibid., p. 26. L. M. Ivanov quotes the somewhat higher figure of 18.8 percent of marriedworkers living with their families, based also on the census of 1897. See Rabochii klass i rabochee dvizhenie, 1861–1917 (Moscow, 1966), p. 108. For a breakdown of marriage rates by trade, see Bernshtein-Kogan, S., Chislennost', sostav ipolozheniepeterburgskikh rabochikh (St. Petersburg, 1910), p. 54–55 Google Scholar.

4. Shanin, Teodor, “Peasantry as a Political Factor,” in Peasants and Peasant Societies, ed. Shanin, Teodor, (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1971), p. 30–31 Google Scholar. See also Tilly, Louise, Scott, Joan, and Miriam, Cohen, “Women's Work and European Fertility Patterns,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (Winter 1976): 452–454 Google ScholarPubMed, especially.

5. Shanin, “Peasantry as a Political Factor,” p. 35.

6. Shuster, Peterburgskie rabochie, p. 31.

7. See Whitehead, Ann, “'I'm Hungry, Mum': The Politics of Domestic Budgeting,” in Of Marriage and the Market, ed. Young, Kate et al. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 93–116 Google Scholar, for a penetrating discussion of the need to attend to the sexual division of labor, as well as tothe “changing nature of the production, distribution and consumption relations within the household, especially as they are affected by its position in the overall socioeconomic structure, or the changesin that structure over time” (p. 94).

8. Zhbankov, D. N., Bab'ia storona (Kostroma, 1891)Google Scholar; idem, “K voprosu o plodovitosti zamuzhnikhzhenshchin. Vliianie otkhozhikh zarabotkov,” Vrach 7 (no. 39, 1886): 700; idem, “Ogorodskikh otkhozhikh zarabotkakh v Soligalichskom uezde, Kostromskoi gubernii,” Iuridicheskii vestnik (September 1890): 130–149; idem, “Vliianie otkhozhikh zarabotkov na dvizhenie narodonaseleniia Kostromskoi gubernii po dannym 1866–1883,” Materialy dlia statistiki Kostromskoi gubernii, vol. 7 (Kostroma, 1887).

9. Mitskevich, S. I., Revoliutsionnaia Moskva 1888–1905 (Moscow, 1940), pp. 108–110 Google Scholar. See also Frieden, Nancy, Russian Physicians in an Era of Reform and Revolution, 1856–1905 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

10. Zhbankov, “O gorodskikh,” pp. 131–132; G. M., Gertsenshtein, “K voprosu ob otkhozhikhpromyslakh,” Russkaia mysl’ (1887)Kn IX, p. 151–152 Google Scholar; Vladimirskii, N. N., Otkhozhie promysly krest'ianskogo naseleniia Kostromskoi gubernii (Kostroma: Izd. Kostromskogo Gubstatburo, 1926), p. 12–18 Google Scholar. In the late 1850s, in both districts combined, four distilleries employed ninety-one workers, three brickmaking workshops employed five men, two cheese dairies hired twenty workers, and fiveshops manufacturing soap employed twelve. Te-ov, “Zametki o Kostromskoi gubernii,” Vestnik pro-myshlennosti, no. 2 (1860): 281–282. On wooden handicrafts, see Materialy dlia izucheniia kustarnoi promyshlennosti i ruchnogo truda v Rossii (St. Petersburg: Tsentral'nyi statistich. komitet MVD, 1872) chap. 1, p. 133. The towns of Soligalich and Chukhloma were each utterly insignificant astrade or manufacturing centers and were considered backwaters in every possible respect. Vladimirskii, N. N., Kostromskaia oblast’ (Kostroma: Kostromskoe knizhnoe izd-vo, 1959), p. 131 Google Scholar.

11. Materialy dlia statistiki Kostromskoi gubemii, vol. 3 (Kostroma, 1872), p. 155.

12. Vladimirskii, Otkhozhie, pp. 18–20; Iatsevich, A., Krepostnye v Peterburge (Leningrad, 1933), p. 8 Google Scholar; Ocherki ekonomicheskoi istorii Rossii pervoi poloviny XIX veka (Moscow, 1959), p. 79.

13. Krzhivoblotskii, LA., Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki Rossii, sobrannye of its efami General'nogo shtaba. Kostromskaia guberniia (St. Petersburg, 1861), p. 500 Google Scholar.

14. Concerning land allotments, see Matveeva, E. V., “K voprosu o sviazi rabochikh tekstil'shchikovKostromskoi gubemii s zemlei v 90e gody XIX veka,” in Promyshlennost’ i proletariat gubemii Verkhnego Povolzh'ia v kontse XlX-nachale XX vv. (Iaroslavl': Ministerstvo prosveshcheniia, 1976), p. 2 Google Scholar, where she calculates that allotments dropped from 6.8 desiatinas for each revisionalsoul to 4.9 for former landlords’ peasants and to 6.1 for state peasants. She writes that redemptionpayments amounted to 240 percent of the productivity of the land. Vladimirskii, Otkhozhie, p. 14, writes that redemption a payment of 1 ruble, 40 kopeks was set on each desiatina of land. A desiatinaproduced, on the average, 92 kopeks a year. On grain, see Gertsenshtein, “K voprosu,” p. 151.

15. Vladimirskii, Kostromskaia oblast', p. 113.

16. Johnson, Robert, “Family Relations and the Rural-Urban Nexus: Patterns in the Hinterlandof Moscow, 1880–1900,” in The Family in Imperial Russia, ed. Ransel, David (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978, pp. 263–279 Google Scholar.

17. S., Kanatchikov, Iz istorii moego bytiia (Moscow-Leningrad: Zemlia i fabrika, 1929) 1: pp. 20, 45Google Scholar. Or as an observer of peasant life in Tver’ put it, “peasants regard marriage as a way ofattaching a person to the household.” Tenishev Archive, Gos. Muzei etnografii narodov SSSR [hereafterrefered to as Tenishev Archive], fond 7, op. 1, delo 1724, p. 19.

18. Tenishev Archive, delo 588, p. 3 (Galich, Kostroma).

19. Ibid., p. 9; Zhbankov, Bab'ia, pp. 24–25, 27, 63, 80–82.

20. Krzhivoblotskii suggests that even under serfdom, migrants chose their own brides, Material)/ dlia geografii, pp. 55, 516–517. If he and Zhbankov are right, then Soligalich and Chukhloma provideevidence of how much developmental patterns might influence social mores. The ethnographic correspondentfrom neighboring Galich, where out-migratory levels were somewhat lower, reported thatin Galich, “Rarely do men follow their hearts, and how can they, when they visit such a short time.Parents run it all.” Tenishev Archive, fond 588, pp. 5–6. On the other hand, weddings in Galichrarely occurred without the consent of the couple.

21. Tenishev Archive, delo 588, p. 5. Or, as Zhbankov put it: “If marriage in the agriculturalzone is strongly subject to economic needs, then here its character is primarily economic.” Zhbankov, Bab'ia, p. 82.

22. Tenishev Archive, delo 589 (Galich), p. 19. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, p. 134.

23. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, pp. 72, 83. Lengthy separations are also discussed in Timofeev, P. G., Chem zhivet zavodskii rabochii (St. Petersburg: Russkoe bogatstvo, 1906), pp. 13–14 Google Scholar.

24. Materialy dlia statistiki, vyp 3, pp. 103–104.

25. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, p. 71–72.

26. Tenishev Archive, delo 588, p. 11; Zhbankov, Bab'la, p. 82.

27. Writes the correspondent from Galich: “If some boy is home over the summer, no girl willaccept his attentions, because he's not a Pitershchik.” Tenishev Archive, delo 587 (Galich), p. 5;Krzhivoblotskii, Materialy dlia geografii i statistiki, p. 516.

28. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, pp. 27; 126, n. xxv; 127, n. xxvii.

29. Semenov, V P., ed., Rossiia: Polnoe geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otechestva (11 vols., St. Petersburg: A. F. Devrien, 1899) 1: 110 Google Scholar; Balov, A., “Ocherki Peshekhoniia,” Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 35 (no. 4, 1897): 57 Google Scholar. I. Krasnoperov provides a detailed description of the physical laborthat the peasant women of Tver’ performed in their husbands’ absence in “Zhenskie promysly vTverskoi gubernii,” Mir bozhii, no. 2 (1898): 22–24.

30. Frenkel', Z. G., “Osnovnye pokazateli, kharakterizuiushchie dvizhenie naseleniia v Kostromskoigubernii v tri poslednie piatiletiia (1891–1905),” Trudy IX gubernskogo s “ezda vrachei Kostromskoi gubernii, vol. 3 (Kostroma, 1906) p. 65 Google Scholar. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, p. 91, and “K voprosu,” p. 700. In Riazan’ province, A. O. Afinogenov observed the same phenomenon. Zhizn’ zhenskogo naseleniia Riazanskogo uezda v period detorodnoi deiatel'nosti zhenshchiny i polozhenie dela akusherskoi pomoshchi etomu naseleniiu (St. Petersburg, 1903), p. 44.

31. M. S., Uvarov, “O vlianii otkhozhego promysla na sanitarnoe polozhenie Rossii,” Vestnik obshchestvennoi gigieny i sudebrwi meditsiny 31 (no. 7, July 1896): 34–39 Google Scholar; S. N., Karatenko, “Osanitarnom znachenii otkhozhego promysla v Rossii,” Zhurnal Russkago Obshchestva okhraneniia narodnago zdraviia, no. 2 (1895): 127 Google Scholar; Krasnoperov, “Zhenskie promysly,” p. 22.

32. Materialy dlia statistiki, vyp. 3, p. 115.

33. “Iz Kostromskoi volosti Soligalichskogo uezda,” Kostromskie gubernskie vedomosti, no. 37 (1880): 213.

34. Semenov, ed., Rossiia, p. 103.

35. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, pp. 93–98.

36. Trudy IX gubernskogo s “ezda vrachei, vol. 2, p. 28. For average life expectancy of a fifteenyear-old male in the years 1874–1910, see Paevskii, V. V., Voprosy demograficheskoi i meditsinskoi statistiki (Moscow, 1970), p. 290 Google Scholar.

37. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, pp. 103–110.

38. N., , “Zametka ob otkhozhikh promyslakh krest'ian Ignatovskogo prikhoda,” in Materialy dlia statistiki Kostromskoi gubemii, vol. 6 (Kostroma, 1884), pp. 143–145 Google Scholar.

39. Trudy IXgubernskogo s “ezda vrachei, vol. 2, p. 28. For the period 1874–1910, Paevskii has calculated that on the average, the life expectancy of women at age fifteen was only marginally higher than men's, Voprosy demograficheskoi, p. 290.

40. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, pp. 103–110.

41. Ibid., p. 119. For examples of traditional plaints, see Borovikovskii, A., “Zhenskaia doliapo malorossiiskim pesniam,” Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnei Rossii, no. 4 (1867): 96–142 Google Scholar; N. I., Kostomarov, “Velikorusskaia narodnaia poeziia,” Vestnik Evropy, no. 6 (1872): 557, 574–577.Google Scholar

42. Tenishev Archive, delo 588, p. 22. In Iaroslavl’ district of Iaroslavl’ province, another areaof high male out-migration, women had become “almost completely men's equals,” and men's authorityhad declined so far that occasionally it was the wife who exercised authority over her husband “;Tenishev Archive, delo 1832, pp. 10, 11.

43. Zhbankov, Bab'ia, p. 68; F. I. Pokrovskii, “ 0 semeinom polozhenii krestianskoi zhenshchinyv Kostromskoi gubernii po dannym volostnogo suda,” Zhivaia starina (1896) otd. 1, pp. 459, 462.

44. F. I., Pokrovskii, “Semeinye razdely v Chukhlomskom uezde,” Zhivaia starina (1903), vyp.1–2, pp. 43–44 Google Scholar; Obzor Iaroslavskoi gubernii, vol. 2, chap. i. “Otkhozhie promysly krest'ian Iaroslavskoigubernii,” (laroslavl', 1896), p. 191; Tenishev archive, delo 1725 (Tver’), p. 66; Zhbankov, Bab'ia, pp. 81–82.

45. Semenov, ed., Rossiia, p. 110; Obzor Iaroslavskoi gubernii, p. 166; Krasnoperov, “Zhenskiepromysly,” p. 22; Zhbankov, Bab'ia, p. 68. In Peshekhonov district of laroslavl', women attendedthe district assembly as well, and without having to don a man's hat as apparently was the customelsewhere. Tenishev Archive, delo 1788, p. 27.

46. Semenov, ed., Rossiia, p. 110; Tenishev Archive, delo 40 (Vladimir), p. 4; delo 588 (Galich), p. 16; delo 1462 (Riazan’), p. 41; delo 1767 (laroslavl’), p. 31; delo 1832 (laroslavl’), p. 11.

47. Sudebnyi vestnik, no. 14 (1873): 4.

48. Vladimirskii, Kostromskaia oblast', pp. 40–42.

49. Zhbankov, “O gorodskikh,” pp. 136–137.

50. Vladimirskii, Otkhozhie, pp. 38–40.

51. Prokopovich, Biudzhety peterburgskikh rabochikh, pp. 26–29. Bernshtein-Kogan notes thatworkers who had families in the villages were financially in far better positions to marry than workerswho were fully urbanized, Chislennost', pp. 48–61. For a detailed account of the expenses of urbanworking-class families, see M., Davidovich, Peterburgskii rabochii v ego biudzhetakh (St. Petersburg, 1912)Google Scholar.

52. A. P. Zvonkov, writing of an out-migratory area of Tambov, noted that women and childrenhad much in common, “but they are far apart from the head of the family; their interests aredifferent.” “Sovremennyi brak i svad'ba sredi krest'ian Tambovskoi gubernii,” Sbomik svedenii dlia izucheniia byta sel'skogo naseleniia Rossii, vyp. 1 (Moscow, 1889), p. 70–71.

53. For example, Nancy Frieden describes how the collectivity of women within the householdcould serve as an obstacle to the modernizing practices of physicians; “Child Care: Medical Reformin a Traditionalist Culture,” in The Family, ed. Ransel, pp. 236–259.