Historiography of agricultural modernization problem of Russia from the second part of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century

Abstract

The Russian history from the second part of 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century is a very significant period for the development of the country. One can say that at that time peasant community faced «globalization» challenge. Agricultural problem was a key issue, which penetrated the whole period bringing up political controversies, ideological strives, success in economical development, starvation in 1891, reforms and revolutions 80-90th of the 19th century were critical for the whole epoch as unsolved peasant issue at that moment was one of the reasons of revolutionary upheavals of the 20th century. For the last twenty-five years the study of different sides of peasant community life has progressed really far and has broken new ground. It is necessary to single out that this progress has been done due to extensive capabilities, which started in the soviet time as well as to the prerevolutionary study of this question. We single out following areas of focus in modern researches which form the problem of modernization of the agricultural sphere from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Firstly, it is the policy to peasant community and race because of the governmental deal. Then it is a huge amount of works dedicated to social-economical village development - peasant autonomy, farming and landed property, land market development, productivity of land, condition of labor force, cooperation problem and development of peasant industry, financial issue of the peasant community. Traditionally social-cultural development of the village is in the great demand including popular education, common law for peasants and the evolution of the peasant family.