Non-Agricultural Crafts in the Peasant Farms of the Northwestern Provinces of Russia in the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study of nonagricultural crafts of peasants in the postreform period in the northwestern region of the Russian Empire, which included the Novgorod, Pskov, and St. Petersburg provinces. A general description of the craft activities of peasants during the period of rapid formation and development of bourgeois relations in the country’s economy in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries is given. The objects of study are the most significant local crafts of peasants and the otkhodnichestvo (the temporary departure of peasants from their permanent residences in villages to earn money in regions where industry and agriculture were well developed) of farmers. The factors that determined the dynamics of the development of crafts, the place of craft income in the budget of the peasant economy, the evolution and direction of the otkhodnichestvo, and the influence of crafts on the socioeconomic situation of the northwestern countryside are studied. This approach makes it possible to identify both general trends and features of the development of peasant local and seasonal crafts in the northwestern countryside over a long period of time, as well as determine the local specifics of the transformation of crafts. This article is written based on an extensive corpus of both published and archival materials, a significant part of which was introduced in scientific publications for the first time.