Peasant War Research Articles

The image of Yemelyan Pugachev in Tatar historical folklore

This article examines samples of the Tatars’ non-fairy tale prose, which reflects the historical figure of the popular uprising leader in the Urals and the Volga Region, Yemelyan Pugachev. The author summarizes the popular assessment of the Peasant War leader’s actions, found in the historical tales of the Tatars from the republics of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and other regions of Russia. Based on the analyzed sources, it is possible to obtain valuable information about those socio-political clashes that have left deep traces in the worldview and psychology of the local population. The relevance of the research topic is due to the need to understand the role of one of the key personalities for the Bashkortostan Tatars, Yemelyan Pugachev, as well as the need to replenish the knowledge about the local history specifics and the national policy of the tsarist government. The object of the study is the Tatar people’s historical tales about uprisings and riots. The subject of the study is the image of Yemelyan Pugachev in Tatar historical tales. The purpose of the work is to identify the features reflecting the image of Yemelyan Pugachev in Tatar tales and the prerequisites that form the basis of the popular assessment of this hero’s deeds. The objectives of the article are to review historical tales about popular uprisings, unrest and riots and their leader, to identify the specifics, reflecting people’s indignation based on the transformation of the dissenter’s image, an opponent of state power in the oral folk art of the Tatars living in various regions of Russia, in particular in the Volga Region and the Urals. The article concludes that despite the strengths and weaknesses of Yemelyan Pugachev’s personality, the people portray him with respect, recognizing his strength and charisma, but they are in no hurry to take the “oath of allegiance”; at the same time, through the description of everyday events, he reveals himself, first of all, as a Person.

동학 주술에 내포된 유교 윤리적 요소

This study examined the Confucian ethics connoted in Donghak magic. Donghak magic had the characteristics of religious practice, elements of military force, and politicality of community. Donghak magic and Confucian ethics had similarities in these three aspects.
 This paper examined the relationship between Donghak magic and Confucian ethics during the Period of the Donghak missionary, during the Period of the movement vindicating the innocence of the founder of Donghak, during the Period of the Donghak Peasant War. Through this paper, it can be seen that each period had a relationship in the three aspects mentioned above.

Sites of Memory and Forgetting: Gyula Derkovits’s Woodcuts of the 1514 Peasant War

Sites of Memory and Forgetting: Gyula Derkovits’s Woodcuts of the 1514 Peasant War

19세기 후반 경상도 상주의 향촌문제와 동학농민전쟁

19세기 후반 경상도 상주의 향촌문제와 동학농민전쟁

Composing the Statutes – Norms and Franciscan Identities among Observants in Central and Eastern Europe (c. 1450–1520): A Lexicometrical Approach

Central and eastern Europe constitutes a privileged space to capture the dynamics of rivalry and cooperation affecting the order of the Friars Minor at the end of the Middle Ages. From a comparative perspective, I propose approaching defining texts – statutes and constitutions – of central European observant vicariates with a global analysis to detect their proximities, differences, and accents. Then, focusing on the regulations governing the visitatio, I discuss the process of normalization in a vicariate with a changing institutional position: the Hungarian vicariate from the 1490s to the 1520s. The codification of the visitatio allowed for rivalries and cooperation in the process of writing norms to be highlighted, while relations with the Cismontanes became strained and the peasant war broke out in the spring of 1514.

Georg B. Michels. The Habsburg Empire under Siege: Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76).

Georg B. Michels. <i>The Habsburg Empire under Siege: Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (1661–76)</i>.

7 - Decolonization and Popular Contestation in Sierra Leone: The Peasant War of 1955-1956

Between 1955 and 1956, peasants in the northern region of Sierra Leone, following the steps of workers in Freetown, launched an insurrection to protest colonial taxation and the exploitative practices of their paramount chiefs and local ruling elite. The insurrection, which started as a protest against the paramount chief of Port Loko, Alkali Modu, soon engulfed all of the districts in the northern region and parts of the southern region. Through their violent actions, the peasants indicated that the oppressive practices and the excessive financial demands by the paramount chiefs and the state were neither tenable nor acceptable during the decolonization era. Their actions also illustrated the inadequacy of ‘traditional’ and ‘paternalistic’ forms of governance that had been the linchpin of British colonialism in Sierra Leone, and which still underpinned the chieftaincy and new local institutions that had been created by the departing British. The peasant insurrection interrupted the tranquil process of decolonization being executed between the Sierra Leonean elite and the British, and it took a heavy toll on the national and local security forces. However, the subsequent public investigation and acknowledgement of the peasant grievances by the Cox Commission of Inquiry as well as the restitutive actions by the SLPP government affirmed the legitimacy of many of the peasant claims. With the 1955-56 insurrection, it could be argued that the peasants in northern Sierra Leone had not only rudely interrupted the process of decolonization, they had forcib y renegotiated the terms of a ‘new’ Sierra Leone political order in their favour.

Colonial Revolution and Liberatory War: from Communist to Post-Colonial Theory (Georgy Safarov, Mao Zedong and Frantz Fanon)

The article investigates the intellectual roots of the concept of colonial revolution, which goes back to the 2nd congress of the Communist International, examines its importance in shaping the Communist political thought and outlines its subsequent transformation in the wake of post-colonial theory. The author starts with analyzing the political ideas of Georgi Safarov—Comintern [the Communist International] theorist. He was among the most original thinkers who elaborated the concept of colonial revolution. Safarov, drawing from his own experience in Central Asia, insisted that global capitalism is “retreating to the positions of feudalism” while operating in colonies, treating them as collective “serfs” and lacking any proper social basis save for its own enormous military force. Such analogy led Safarov to envisage the colonial revolution as a “plebeian” revolt and liberatory war against the inhumane and stagnant colonial order, opening the way for a non-capitalist development with certain assistance from the Soviet Union. Similar ideas were independently formulated by Mao Zedong in the 1930s. He saw colonial revolution in China as a “protracted war” of liberation and listed the conditions under which victory was possible. However, the subsequent development of a former colony was seen by Mao as a transitory period of “democratic dictatorship”. Similar ideas of colonial revolution as a liberatory peasant war and “plebeian” movement were developed by Franz Fanon in the context of his own war experience in Algeria. Developing the idea of “plebeian”, peasant revolt and justifying the violence as the sole means of ending the rule of colonial power, Fanon at the same time differed from the tradition of the 2nd Comintern Congress (represented by Safarov, Mao and the others) while describing the independent existence of former colonies. For Fanon, the worst consequence of colonial rule is not permanent backwardness but psychological trauma, an inevitable result of a brutal conquest which requires therapy. The author concludes that such conceptual transformation was stimulated not merely by the disappointment in Soviet and Chinese economic strategies, but also in the geographical and cultural factor which made the reintegration with the former colonial powers preferable to the direct “escape” into the socialist camp.

한국 근대 사회운동의 계승관계에 대한 고등학교 한국사 교과서 서술 분석 - 동학농민전쟁과 의병운동을 중심으로 -

When we analyze [Donghak Peasant Revolution Participation White Paper] and [Independence Patriots Achievement Record], severance was more common than succession in terms of the succession of personnel from Donghak to Righteous Army. Also, the Confucian students, who were the central force of the Righteous Army, were generally hostile to Donghak. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider the schema of simply connecting the genealogy setting of the modern and contemporary social movement history from Donghak to Righteous Army.BR However, we should not completely deny the succession from Donghak to Righteous Army altogether and determine the succession from anti-Donghak to Righteous Army, e ither. As mentioned in this paper, there was no Righteous Army leader in then northern Gyeongsang-do area who was from anti-Donghak party and there were several cases that some former Donghak participants joined the Righteous Army. These mean that there were people who crossed between different forces in the local communities. However, the existence of people in the intersection of those two forces and defining the succession of personnel between the two powers is another matter. This is because the aspect of the succession of orientations between the two forces must also be considered.BR In conclusion, the dichotomy between the progressive succession and severance from Donghak Peasant War to the Righteous Army Movement must be overcome. The reality of the time was not simply the succession based on the developmental stage theory, nor was it a complete segmentation. It is necessary to accurately recognize the concrete reality of the time where some forces were intertwined, even though they were mostly opposed, and their boundaries were not fixed but variable. On this basis, we will be able to figure out the succession and historical position of the modern and contemporary social movements history in Korea more correctly.

Engels and the Worker–Peasant Alliance

Friedrich Engels’ bicentenary was celebrated in 2020. As a contribution to this celebration, this article argues that Engels, among his various other substantive contributions, must be credited with his conceptualization of the worker–peasant alliance. Given that this alliance was fundamental to democratic and socialist revolutions in the Third World in the twentieth century, and continues to be so in the twenty-first, it remains important to clarify its trajectory within classical Marxism. Engels turned his attention to the sixteenth-century peasant war in Germany so as to illuminate the challenges faced in the course of the 1848 revolutions that swept across Europe. He argued that, for large sections of the peasantry, the throwing off of their feudal yoke required an alliance with the proletariat. This, however, did not mean land redistribution via private landholdings but nationalization of the land. It also did not mean an alliance with the whole of the peasantry. These two questions and the antagonisms that they entailed were central to the development of Marxist theory and practice in the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions, as well as others in the Third World. Today, neoliberal globalization has shifted the terrain of struggle further by the fact of corporate dominance over the whole of the peasantry. The massive agitation of the Indian agriculturists since the end of 2020 and the alliances that have emerged should be an eye-opener.

On the Problem of the Czech-German Opposition in the Hussite Wars

Since the time of the historico-political polemics between František Palacký and Constantin von Höfler in the middle of nineteenth century, the term “national” has been used by Czech historians to identify the character of the Hussite wars. The execution of Jan Hus in Constance as well as the proclamations of the crusades against the Hussites in Bohemia are defined as “an insult to national honor” (František Palacký), and they produced the Taborite movement as “a national peasant war of the Czech under the flag of religion against the German nobility and the supremacy of the German Emperor” (Friedrich Engels / Josef Macek), while the military invasion released a “national” which spread among the whole society (František Šmahel). To what extent does the term “nationalism of defense” and its derivates befit the study of the contradictions that existed between the Czechs and the Germans in the Bohemian kingdom of that period? This paper proves that the Prague Hussites did not consider the Bohemian Germans their “natural foes” but did so of the crusaders who came from the German lands along with King Sigismund. The author argues that the Prague Hussites had not a cultural, but a political xenophobia focused on the foreign German invaders.

Akai Boliaev and the Peasant War of 1670–1671 on the Mordovian territory

Introduction. 350 years ago, the Peasant War of 1670–1671 began, which received the name of the Second Peasant War in Russia. It acquired the greatest scope in the Volga region, and in Volga lands, namely on the territory of Mordovia. At the beginning of the XVII century, the Mordovians unified in the defense of Moscow state, playing an important role in the expulsion of aggressors and the restoration of central power. There were good reasons for rising up against this power. Materials and Methods. These events are reflected in a variety of documentary sources, including the fundamental edition in several volumes published by USSR Academy of Sciences and many other studies, which conclusions unfortunately not always corresponded to these sources. The author uses the historiographic method, which includes the principles of historicism, objectivity and the method of logical analysis. The material of the material used the problem-chronological method. Results and Discussion. National historiography developed an opinion that the Second Peasant War was an uprising, a movement of primarily social causes class, led by Stepan Razin, and on the territory of Mordovia by Mikhail Kharitonov, his envoy. The analysis of the sources does not support the proof for it. According to them, the main events of the Peasant War took place in the Volga region after Razin’s flight to the Don, and the leader of the uprising in the region was Akai Boliaev, Mordovian stanitsa Murza. Conclusion. After analyzing the sources and subject literature, the author came to the conclusion that the main reason for the uprising in the region was a consequence of the interaction of social, political and national liberation factors.

3.1운동 전후 동학농민전쟁 인식의 변화와 확산

3.1운동 전후 동학농민전쟁 인식의 변화와 확산

Гражданская война и ее последствия для российского общества

Currently, the interpretation of the essence of such important historical events as the revolution of 1917 and the civil war in Russia continues. These events are also characterized as “turmoil” and “peasant war”. The author relies on the tools of the theory of socio-economic formations and analyzes the situation in the country after the civil war. The author points out that the social structure of society is extremely simplified, and this greatly affected the subsequent development of the country. The society, in its development over the next 70 years after the revolution, passed the stages resembling serfdom, the use of slave labor was repeated in the Gulag system, and finally, in the depths of the system, called socialism, capitalist relations objectively ripened. The author shows the events in the left-Bank Ukraine after the “Ruin”, as a similar situation, when society was simplified, rolled back to the level of military democracy, but then returned to the establishment of serf-dom. The author believes that the theory of socio-economic formation has been discarded by researchers, because in spite of it the society has moved from socialism to capitalism. The author believes that this is unfair, since there was no socialism in the USSR, and there was a still unqualified scientific period.

1894년 농민군 진압자의 政局 認識과 政治的 行路의 分岐 - 『甲午軍功錄』 등재자를 중심으로 -

1894년 농민군 진압자의 政局 認識과 政治的 行路의 分岐 - 『甲午軍功錄』 등재자를 중심으로 -

Overseas Resources and Applications of the Donghak Peasant War

동학농민전쟁은 역사적 중요성만큼 자료의 양도 방대하다. 이를 잘 이해하기 위해서는 우리나라의 것은 물론 중국과 일본에 있는 자료를 최대한 수집하고 정리해야 한다. 이와 관련한 일본의 주요자료는 외부와 군부의 기록, 국회도서관 소장 문서, 공사관 기록, 각종 신문 등이다. 중국은 이홍장과 원세개가 주고받은 공식 문서, 농민군 진압을 위해 출동한 장군 섭사성의 일기 등이 중요하다. 종군일지, 회고록, 통계집 등을 비롯한 새로운 자료의 조사와 번역사업도 필요하다. 당시의 화보, 사진, 삽화 등 이미지 자료도 많이 활용되어야 한다. 이 글에서는 이와 관련한 일본과 중국의 문서자료의 현황과 소장처를 살폈다. 또한 자료에 담겨 있는 내용과 자료 수집 및 활용 등의 방안을 모색해 보았다.The Donghak Peasant War is as massive as it is of historical importance. To understand this well, we need to collect and organize the data in China and Japan as much as possible. In this regard, Japan s main materials are the records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Military authorities, documents of the National Assembly Library, records of Embassy, and various newspapers. In China, the official documents exchanged between Lee Hong-chang and Yian S-kai, and the diary of General Nie Shi-chung, sent out to suppress the peasant army, are important. Research and translation of new data, including military journals, memoirs, and statistics collections, are also needed. Image mat erials such as pictorials, photographs, and illust rat ions at t he t ime should also b e ut ilized. This a rt icle e xamines t he c urrent st at us a nd c ollect ion of documents in Japan and China. In addition, the contents of the data, the status of data collection, and how to use them were sought.

Tonghak: A Progressive Ideological Heritage Indigenous to the Chosŏn Nation

Tonghak:A Progressive Ideological Heritage Indigenous to the Chosŏn Nation* Hak Hui Ro (bio) Translated by Keiran Mcrae Preface Vladimir Glomb Tonghak thought and its legacy, since the very beginning of the DPRK regime, were part of its political and ideological structure and a frequently discussed part of North Korean historical discourse. Evaluations of the Tonghak movement, the Kabo Peasant War, Ch'oe Cheu, or the anti-Japanese struggle of Ch'ŏndogyo members variegated through seven decades of the regime to a certain degree, but in spite of partial criticism always remained positive. This attitude was further strengthened in the last two decades when Tonghak gained an even more prominent position in the historical narrative and became a highlighted chapter in the history of the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggle of the Korean people.1 These changes in interpretation of Tonghak are especially [End Page 545] prominent within the field of the history of philosophy, where Ch'oe Cheu's thought and later developments of the Tonghak doctrine became intensively discussed topics. Such qualitative and quantitative change can be best illustrated by plain numbers: the first comprehensive history of Korean thought, Chosŏn ch'ŏrhaksa 1,2 published in 1960, spent only three pages out of 370 on Ch'oe Cheu's thought, while an analogous publication of similar size (also titled Chosŏn ch'ŏrhaksa)3 published in 2007 contains thirteen pages, in which Chŏn Pongjun's thought is also discussed. The rise of Tonghak to prominence in the sphere of the history of ideas is also attested in the most comprehensive up-to-date North Korean work on the history of Korean philosophy, Chosŏn ch'ŏrhak chŏnsa,4 where the topic is covered in more than forty pages in the seventh volume. The shift of the historical debate from the social and political aspects of Tonghak toward its philosophical message is marked not only by new works like Yang Mansŏk's Tonghak ŭi aeguk aejo sasang [Tonghak patriotic and nation-loving thought] from 2009,5 but above all by a surge of articles on Tonghak and the philosophy of the New Man (sin'in ch'ŏrhak) in North Korean philosophy journals. Ch'ŏrhak yŏn'gu (recently renamed as Ch'ŏrhak sahoe chŏngch'ihak yŏn'gu) and issues of Journal of Kim Il Sung University focusing on philosophy in recent years published dozens of articles on the topic, more than in all preceding decades combined and more than on most other topics of Korean thought. There is a hectic ongoing interest in Tonghak thought and the here presented study serves as a direct example of the shifting contours within North Korean historical and ideological discourse. The new focus is also documented by the author of this study. Prof. Ro Hak Hui is an eminent historian of philosophy active both at Kim Il Sung University and the Academy of Sciences. A specialist on traditional Korean thought, he [End Page 546] authored dozens of articles on topics ranging from Parhae and Silla thought to Yulgok's epistemology and several monographs, including Chosŏn yugyo sŏngnihak yŏn'gu [Studies on Korean Confucianism and learning of nature and principle]6 or Chosŏn chŏrhaksa saryo chip [Collected documents on history of Korean philosophy].7 The present study revisits many parts of his previous seven articles published on various aspects of Tonghak thought and the philosophy of the New Man. It is rare to gain access to North Korean sources on the history of philosophy, yet it is even rarer to directly see its contemporary development. Introduction The Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung8 teaches the following: "The Tonghak and Ch'ŏndogyo ideologies, unceasingly animated by the national spirit [ŏl], are the pride of the nation. The patriotism and loyalty of the Ch'ŏndogyo martyrs who devoted themselves to loving the state, nation, and people will long remain in the nation's history."9 Tonghak was a feature of the Chosŏn nation's progressive ideological heritage, which took form, developed, and circulated extensively through the lawful process of development of Chosŏn national philosophical thought that began in the medieval...

The Concept of a ‘Peasant War’ in Soviet and Western Historiography of the ‘Troubles’ in Early 17th-Century and Early 20th-Century Russia

The concept of ‘peasant wars’ in 17th- and 18th-century Russia was borrowed by Soviet historians from Friedrich Engels’ work on the Peasant War in Germany. The four peasant wars of the early modern period were identified as the uprisings led by Ivan Bolotnikov (1606-1607), Sten’ka Razin (1667-1671), Kondratiy Bulavin (1707-1708) and Emel’ian Pugachev (1773-1775). Following a debate in the journal Voprosy istorii in 1958-1961, the ‘first peasant war’ was generally considered to encompass the period c.1603-1614 rather than simply 1606- 1607. This approach recognised the continuities in the events of the early 17th century, and it meant that the chronological span of the ‘first peasant war’ was virtually identical to that of the older concept of the ‘Time of Troubles’. By the 1970s the term, ‘civil wars of the feudal period’ (based on a quotation from Lenin) was sometimes used to define ‘peasant wars’. It was recognised by Soviet historians that these civil wars were very complex in their social composition, and that the insurgents did not exclusively (or even primarily) comprise peasants, with Cossacks playing a particularly significant role. Nevertheless the general character of the uprisings was seen as ‘anti-feudal’. From the 1980s, however, R.G. Skrynnikov and A.L. Stanislavskiy discarded the view that the events of the ‘Time of Troubles’ constituted an anti-feudal peasant war. They preferred the term ‘civil war’, and stressed vertical rather than horizontal divisions between the two armed camps. Western historians, with the notable exception of the American historian Paul Avrich, generally rejected the application of the term ‘peasant wars’ to the Russian uprisings of the early modern period, regarding them as primarily Cossack-led revolts. From the 1960s, however, Western scholars such as Teodor Shanin (following the American anthropologist Eric Wolf) began to use the term ‘peasant wars’ in relation to the role played by peasants in 20th-century revolutionary events such as those in Russia and China. Some of these Western historians, including Avrich and Wolf, used the term not only for peasant actions in the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, but also for peasant rebellions against the new Bolshevik regime (such as the Makhnovshchina and the Antonovshchina) that Soviet scholars considered to be counter-revolutionary banditry. The author argues that, in relation to the ‘Time of Troubles’ in early 20th-century Russia, the term ‘peasant war’ is not entirely suitable to describe peasant actions against the agrarian relations of the old regime in 1905 and 1917, since these were generally orderly and non-violent. The term is more appropriate for the anti-Bolshevik uprisings of armed peasant bands in 1918-1921, as suggested by the British historian Orlando Figes.

Traditions and Prospects of Studying Mass Public Movements in the Russia of the 17th – 18th Centuries

“The Peasant War in Russia in 17th – 18th Centuries” monograph, which was published in 1966, and “The Peasant War in Russia in 17th – 18th Centuries: Problems, Searches, Solutions” collection of articles , published in 1974, summed up the Soviet historiography study on the great issues of mass popular movements. Common outcomes include regarding them as peasant wars or the phenomena, which express the essence of public relations of antifeudal character in the era of serfdom. These works particularly noted their progressive significance. For the modern researcher the monographs give a general idea of the state of studying peasant wars in Soviet historical science and contain a clear indication to the controversial issues of the history of these movements. They make it possible to understand that modern studies of the problem are based on the cultural-anthropological approach, and put a person who participated in these events, his psychology and culture at the center of attention. Modern research on mass popular movements in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries does not address the concept of peasant wars. They raised new problems, the solution of which allows to understand participants in these movements, the peculiarities of their consciousness and the role of unconscious beginnings in their actions. The works give a new, sociocultural sense to the traditional concept of the Russian revolt. But at the same time we should keep in mind that the achievements of our time, which are undoubted, are the result of rethinking what has been achieved by the Soviet historical science of peasant wars. We should also emphasize that the provisions and conclusions were made on the basis of colossal factual material. At the same time, we shouldn’t completely abandon the provision on the peasant war.

강진지역 동학농민전쟁의 지역적 특성과 『경세유표』 전래설

강진지역 동학농민전쟁의 지역적 특성과 『경세유표』 전래설