Table Of ContentFor the Common Good and Their Own Well-Being
For the Common Good and
Their Own Well-Being
Social Estates in Imperial Russia
Alison K. Smith
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Alison Karen.
For the common good and their own well-being: social estates in Imperial Russia /
Alison K. Smith. pages cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–997817–5 (hardcover : alkaline paper) 1. Estates (Social orders)—Russia—History—
18th century. 2. Estates (Social orders)—Russia—History—19th century. 3. Peasants—Russia—
History. 4. Community life—Russia—History. 5. Group identity—Russia—History.
6. Taxation—Social aspects—Russia—History. 7. Russia—Social life and customs—1533-1917.
8. Russia—Social conditions—18th century. 9. Russia—Social conditions—1801-1917.
10. Russia—Social policy. I. Title. HN523.S59 2015
306.094709033—dc23
2014016790
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. The Meaning of Soslovie 14
2. Legal Standards and Administrative Reality: Local Interests and Central Ideals in
the Eighteenth Century 47
3. The Freedom to Choose and the Right to Refuse 72
4. Communities and Individuals: Soslovie Societies and Their Members 95
5. The Death and Life of Sosloviia in the Post-Reform Empire 123
6. The Evolution of Collective Responsibility 149
7. Soslovie in Context: Life Stories 177
Conclusion 206
Appendix: Archival Sources 209
Notes 213
Selected Bibliography 259
Index 275
v
Preface and Acknowledgments
I did not expect to write a book about the institution of soslovie in imperial Russia. In
May 1998, I traveled to Kazan' to do dissertation research at the National Archive of the
Republic of Tatarstan. While I was there, I ordered files from the Kazan' city artisan’s
society, hoping to find information about bakers and others engaged in the food trades.
Instead, I found requests by individuals to leave the society and to take on new soslovie
identities. My interest was piqued, and I kept at the back of my mind that there might be
more interesting materials to do with social mobility in local archives.
Then, half a decade later, I found myself thinking about a second major research
project at nearly the same time that it was announced that the Russian State Historical
Archive (RGIA) would be closing for an unspecified amount of time. I remembered my
experience in Kazan', and started planning a project that would focus on regional and
local archives. I initially conceptualized the project as a study of social mobility in impe-
rial Russia, and I thought it would be a quick project, gathering the few records I might
find in some number of local archives.
On my very first trip to start archival research on the project, however, I found so
much more. On that trip, in 2007, I worked in local archives in Moscow, St. Petersburg,
Tver', Riazan', and Saratov. I found not the tens or hundreds of cases I thought I might
be there but, instead, thousands upon thousands of them. And I found that they were
about much more than I had initially expected. The detail in some records brought the
individual lives of the little people of the past to vivid life. And, too, rather than being
simply a way to trace patterns of social mobility, the individual cases brought out the
meaning of soslovie more broadly. By finding the moments when people changed their
status, I also found what they meant by those statuses.
Fortunately, I was also able to return to Russia for several more trips. These later trips
gave me the opportunity to travel to another local archive, in Iaroslavl', and also to move
out beyond the bounds of the current Russian state. I traveled to Riga and Vilnius, in part
vviiii
viii Preface and Acknowledgments
to try to follow up on one particular story (the story of émigré fugitives who returned to
Russia), and in part to see how far the issues I had seen elsewhere in the empire traveled.
Even more important, these later trips occurred after RGIA had reopened. There, in
the records of imperial ministries, I found yet more visions of what soslovie meant, both
to individuals and to government institutions. Virtually every file I ordered contained
some new vision of what soslovie meant, and I quickly realized that the story I had to tell
was not just one of social mobility; it had much broader import. Although the idea of
movement is still a theme throughout this book, it has grown to be about that larger sys-
tem of soslovie, the system that gave status and opportunities, but that restricted mobil-
ity and set the boundaries of every individual imperial life.
In the course of researching and writing this book, I have accrued many debts, fortu-
nately ones of friendship and aid rather than those of soul taxes and other duties that
plagued so many of those I have written about in these pages. First, I received funding
to carry out research for this project from the Summer Research Lab at the University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; from the International Research and Exchange Board;
from the University of Toronto through its Connaught fund; and from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Given the archive-heavy nature
of this project, this funding has been absolutely necessary for carrying out its research.
While in Russia, I worked at a number of archives and libraries, and must give thanks
to all their staff. They include: in Moscow, the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts,
the Central Historical Archive of Moscow, the Russian State Library and its Manuscript
Division, and the State Public Historical Library of Russia (whose cinnamon pastries
fueled much of my work); in St. Petersburg, the Russian State Historical Archive, the
Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg, and the Russian National Library;
in Tver', the State Archive of Tver' Region; in Saratov, the State Archive of Saratov
Region; in Riazan', the State Archive of Riazan' Region; in Iaroslavl', the State Archive
of Iaroslavl' Region; in Riga the Latvian State Historical Archive; and in Vilnius the
Lithuanian State Historical Archive. I should also give special thanks to the Russian
National Library for its project of digitizing the Complete Collection of the Laws of the
Russian Empire, giving wide access to this boundless source of information on imperial
Russia. I must also thank Emma Antselevich for her friendship and enthusiasm.
I have presented parts of this book at a long series of workshops and conferences,
and feedback from audiences and commenters has helped it develop. These include
the Russian History Workshop at the University of Chicago; the Pogrankom held at
Carleton University; meetings of AAASS/ASEEES in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.,
and New Orleans; the conference Europe in Upheaval: The Era of the Napoleonic
Wars, in Espoo, Finland; at the European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon;
at the Women’s History Network Conference, Oxford; at the conference Mass Sources
for the Study of the Social and Economic History of Russia, Moscow; at the Midwest
Russian History Workshop in Madison and Evanston; and in talks at the University
of California, Riverside, the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
of Rochester. This is an incomplete list of those whose questions and comments have
been helpful as I have presented and discussed this work, and my apologies go to anyone
I may have omitted: Sergei Antonov, Kate Pickering Antonova, John Bushnell, Prachi
Desphande, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Victoria Frede, Boris Gorshkov, Richard Hellie, Elizabeth
Jones, Aleksandr Kaplunovskii, Matthew Lenoe, Andrei Markevich, Alexander Martin,
David McDonald, Tracy McDonald, Harsha Ram, David Ransel, John Randolph,
Alison Rowley, Christine Ruane, David Schimmelpenninck, Mark Steinberg, Charles
Steinwedel, Thaddeus Sunseri, Kiril Tomoff, Galina Ulianova, Christine Worobec.
Just before I started real work on this project I moved to the University of Toronto.
Teaching here has led to work with inspiring colleagues and students. Colleagues,
including especially Lynne Viola, Doris Bergen, Donna Tussing Orwin, Heidi Bohaker,
and Carol Chin, have let me talk through ideas and given sensible advice. Leo Livak
told me I wouldn’t be able to understand soslovie until looked at Chekhov, and I thank
him for that. Alex Rowlson gave me research assistance. Students in one graduate class
asked probing questions about soslovie exactly when I was first trying to articulate the
book’s overall approach to the subject—I have to especially thank Sarah Rutley, Roxane
Samson-Paquet, and Francesca Silano. A student-organized reading group also gave
me feedback on the introduction—thanks to Anka Hajkova, Lilia Topouzova, Seth
Bernstein, Vojin Majstorovic, Kristina Pauksens, Zbigniew Wojnowski. Thanks also go
to Sonya Tycko, Rebecca Hecht, and Nancy Toff at Oxford University Press for seeing
me through the process of finishing the book, and to the reviewers for the press, whose
generous comments helped make the final book better.
Final thanks should go to my parents, Rosemary and David Smith, to my sister and
brother-in-law, Amy and Matt McGowen, and to my niece and nephew, Megan and Ben
McGowan, who are about as old as this manuscript now is, and who are far more fun
than any two such small people have any right to be.
