Unprivileged kind. Concepts with the phrase “privileged class.” Unprivileged segments of the population in a class society

DEMOS

Synonyms of the Russian language. 2012

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Estates in Russia in the 19th century are an interesting historical and scientific question that is still being studied to this day.

It is very fascinating to observe how the society of our country has changed over time, how it has transformed, acquired new features, and approached the state in which it is today.

Until the 19th century, there was no class society in the country; completely different ways of dividing people into different layers were in effect here. But Peter I, together with his court of nobles, tried in every possible way to make Russia part of Europe. And it was from there that during the first half of the 19th century the king borrowed various classes. Let's take a closer look at how it all looked.

Formation of classes

The class structure of society existed in Western Europe, but in our country there were not even concepts describing this phenomenon.

The first evidence of the division of people into classes appeared in Russia in the late 1780s, but, as many historians note, this system never managed to fully establish itself and receive the recognition that it had in the West.

A person fell into one class or another based on what kind of work he did, what kind of education he had, what level of material wealth he had, what kind of pedigree he had.

The scheme of belonging to one class or another was quite confusing and is controversial even now. This issue was regulated by a special set of laws, published in several weighty volumes.

Estates in Russia in the 19th century

As already mentioned, Russian society had not seen a class society before, so Peter I completely copied it from the West, but with some features and adaptation to our area.

Certain layers of society treated innovations differently, and some individuals did not accept these changes, and therefore only formally and forcedly participated in the reforms.

Generally, both classes of a kind of aristocracy and tax-paying estates appeared- the most humiliated categories of the population who were forced to serve in the army, pay tribute for each person in the family, and obey many additional laws.

In such conditions, it is not surprising that the beginning of revolts against the tsarist system and the late advent of Marxism found very fertile ground.

Privileged

Estates were divided into privileged and unprivileged. The first included such categories of citizens.

Nobility

A fairly old class that originated in the 17th century during the reign of the princes. The nobles had broad powers; they formed part of the court of a major prince or boyar.

It was possible to receive the title of nobleman for special successes and merits in military service, at the will of the sovereign, depending on one’s pedigree.

It is worth noting: the title of nobleman was also inherited, but only through the male line. If a woman of a noble family married a simple man, then the title of nobleman was not passed on to him and her children.

Clergy

A traditional caste of the population for an Orthodox country, which included various kinds of clergy, monks, elders and others.

The social composition of the clergy is quite diverse. This included people with very different levels of material wealth, since this was not a determining factor here.

The clergy was divided into two large categories: white and black. The first part included the parish part of the believers, the second – monasticism. These people were not subject to conscription into the army and corporal punishment.

Merchants 1st and 2nd guilds

The merchants of the first guild included those who had a large turnover of goods both within the country and abroad. The merchants of the 2nd guild were engaged exclusively in domestic trade.

The former had fairly expanded powers and freedom of action. As for the 2nd guild, its representatives had to pay additional taxes and were even called up for military service as recruits.

All people belonging to this class had the right to self-government, many freedoms and rights, they had the right to receive a quality education.

Unprivileged

This class of inhabitants of the Russian Empire was more extensive than privileged. Its class structure looked like this.

Peasantry

Peasants were state and serf, but later these names underwent changes. The position of the peasants was unenviable - the serfs had no rights and were completely unfree in all respects.

As for state peasants, they could have land owned by the community and had the right to self-government.

All types of peasants were obliged to serve in the army, work the so-called corvee, pay dues, and also had other types of duties to their owners and the state.

In short, the position of this class was unenviable.

Philistinism

This class included craftsmen of various profiles, artisans, as well as representatives of small urban trade.

The burghers had the right to their own self-government and to receive an education, although limited in comparison with what was given to the nobles.

No titles were in effect here, and the townspeople were forced to pay all the taxes that were in the country; they were subject to recruitment, forming the basis of the army of the Russian Empire.

These people had few rights, but enough responsibilities. They also did not have the opportunity to own land.

Cossacks

Anyone could join the Cossacks; legends were made about this category of the population in their time.

Freemen, land ownership, exemption from any taxes - all this was available to the Cossacks in full.

The only thing the Cossacks owed the state was to serve in the army, while having their own equipment.

Merchants 3 guilds

Some researchers include merchants of the 3rd guild as a separate class. These are the main traders who provided city and county trade in the country.

There are no special differences from other guilds here, it’s just that representatives of the 3rd guild also had to serve in the army.

Below is a table with a brief summary of this topic.

The estate system did not last long - the Decembrist uprising, the impending world war, the Bolsheviks and many other shocks quickly threw the country into a completely different reality.

Significantly more gaps remain in the study of the genealogy of peasants, workers, merchants and other unprivileged families. The problem lies mainly in the paucity of available sources. For example, until the middle of the 18th century, a sufficient basis for classifying a person as a peasant population was considered to be his mention in a scribe or census book as a peasant. The Manifesto of March 17, 1775 gave the freed peasants the right to declare which class they wished to enter (petty bourgeois or merchant). The decree of February 20, 1803 called the peasants set free with land as free cultivators. Then the set of laws on states classified the entire peasant population as rural inhabitants. The Manifesto for the Abolition of Serfdom in 1861 granted both free peasants and former serfs the rights of free rural inhabitants. When a peasant left a rural society, he received a dismissal certificate from the volost foreman and was assigned to another rural or urban society. One of the last pre-revolutionary legislative acts documenting belonging to the peasant class was the Decree of October 5, 1906. According to it, peasants and persons of the former tax-paying classes were equal in the rights to enter the civil service, educational institutions, clergy and monasticism.1
Like other unprivileged classes, peasants extremely rarely kept their genealogies. While direct sources are scanty, indirect materials are of great importance.
The well-known researcher of the history of peasant clans M.V. Borisenko proposes to conditionally divide works on peasant genealogy into three groups: actual genealogical studies of families and clans; source studies and all others in which genealogical plots are auxiliary or related.2 There are no comprehensive works on the genealogy of the peasantry yet. All of them are limited chronologically, geographically or by other criteria.
For example, M.V. Prokhorov made the object of a genealogical search the ancient village of Pokrovskoye (Fili) near Moscow, known in history for the famous military council of M.V. Kutuzov on September 1, 1812. The village was a large fiefdom of the Naryshkins. It is known that serfs, as a rule, did not have a surname. In census books and revision tales, the name of the peasant himself and his father were usually indicated. Peasants often incorrectly indicated their age. The researcher managed, however, based on the analysis of genealogies, to make a number of interesting observations and conclusions about the stability of residence of individual peasant families in the village, the absence of transitions of village residents to other classes, the types of families of direct kinship, the structure and composition of peasant families during the 18th century. -first half of the 19th century. The author provides interesting statistics. The village lost almost a third of its population during the pestilence of 1771; during the Patriotic War of 1812, the population decreased by a quarter.1 M.V. Prokhorov thus provides a comprehensive
genealogical characteristics of the peasantry of just one village over the course of a century and a half (see appendix 2).
M.M. Gromyko devoted a number of articles to the genealogy of the Siberian peasantry.2 The value of her research lies in the fact that genealogical data is given in combination with statistical and other data. Along with census books and audit tales, such a little-studied source is used as confessional paintings, compiled by priests to identify unconfessed parishioners since 1737. Genealogical data allows M.M. Gromyko to draw important conclusions about the socio-economic processes in the Siberian village.

The genealogy of workers has specific features in comparison with both the genealogy of the ruling classes and the genealogy of other unprivileged strata. One of them is that it is much “younger.” In the full sense of the word, it is fair to talk about the genealogy of workers from the 18th century. The working class of the feudal period included heterogeneous groups. It is advisable to trace the genealogy of working families in individual enterprises. Work genealogy has its own specific sources: formal lists of artisans, office documentation of factories and factories, etc. The official lists indicated the name, age of the artisan, his origin, time and place of entry to work, changes in service, education, behavior of the artisan, punishments and fines , vacations, participation in military campaigns, salary, marital status, number of children, their age and occupation, and even the height and appearance of the artisan. The weaknesses of this type of source include the lack of information about parents and poor preservation of the lists. Among the earliest and most conscientious works on the genealogy of Russian workers, one should mention the study by L.N. Semenova on the genealogy of the artisans of St. Petersburg in the 18th - early 19th centuries.3 The researcher found out from which categories of the population the hereditary cadres of artisans were formed, how the working and living conditions of workers of different departments. Using the example of a number of biographies, L.N. Semenova traced the transitions of artisans and their children to other departments, to
merchants, philistines, army, etc. identified two types of social evolution of artisans. The first - when they retained the status of their fathers and replenished the working class, the second, more rare - when the literate children of artisans filled lower military positions in artillery teams and in offices.
The problem of the formation of proletarian dynasties is also dealt with by P.A. Kolesnikov (he restored the genealogy of I.V. Babushkin), M.G. Meyerovich (he analyzed the materials of the Yaroslavl Big Manufactory) (see appendix 3) and some other researchers. But, we repeat , all works are narrowly thematic in nature.
Sources on the genealogy of the merchants are inseparable from documenting membership in the urban classes. In the late XVII - early XVIII centuries. The urban population began to be divided into classes. In 1699, a burgomaster's chamber was established to govern merchants and townspeople. On January 16, 1721, the Rules of the Chief Magistrate were established, which defined the urban estates. In 1723, a capital requirement of 500 rubles was established for entry into the merchant class.
On April 21, 1785, a charter was adopted granting rights and benefits to the cities of the Russian Empire. Usually in the literature it is called the Charter of Cities. The charter was intended to regulate the organization and activities of the newly introduced city government bodies. The charter divided the inhabitants of cities into classes. The majority of the urban population remained disenfranchised. The competence of city government bodies has narrowed. Real power remained in the hands of mayors, police agencies and local officials appointed by governors. City government bodies were left with secondary issues of improving the sanitary condition of cities, developing trade and industry, etc. 4 Moreover, they were constrained by an insufficient financial base. The merchants were granted only secondary rights. But at the same time, the Charter granted to the cities created privileges for the commercial and industrial elite and thereby contributed to the growth of trade and industry in the country, without affecting serfdom relations.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Estates Laws redefined urban estates. In 1870, the City Regulations were introduced. Since that time, city philistine books have ceased to be kept. Important sources on the genealogy of merchants throughout its history remain census books, audit tales, and metric records.
A.I. Aksenov is considered the leading researcher of the genealogy of merchants.
He owns two serious monographs on the genealogy of the Moscow and district merchants of the 18th century and scientific articles on this problem. In his research, A.I. Aksenov is not limited to the 18th century.
The earliest information about Russian merchants dates back to the second half of the 18th century. Merchants were then called guests, since they traded in
living places, or churchyards. Usually these were large villages. After the adoption of Christianity, burial places at churches in such villages began to be called graveyards. The guests were the highest merchant organization; below them stood the living room and the cloth shop. Guests, unlike the latter, could conduct foreign trade, acquire land and had a number of other privileges.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the situation changed for a number of reasons. Firstly, the guests were a very closed social group; part of the living family disappeared due to the lack of internal reproduction. As a result of the economic policies of Peter I, guests lost some traditional types of trade and crafts. For example, Peter introduced a state monopoly on the sale of furs and salt, which undermined the financial power of a number of merchant families (Filatyevs, Pankratyevs, etc.). The tax policy of the government, which was waging a long Northern War, also played an important role in this. At the same time, merchant families rose to prominence, profiting from military operations.
In 1728, the institutions of guests and the living room of the hundred were abolished by law. The Living Hundred lasted a little longer because it did not conduct foreign trade. But the war had less impact on internal operations. In addition, the living room of the hundred significantly outnumbered the guests in numbers. At the beginning of the 18th century, the economic position of the merchants Bvreinovs, Markovs, Mokeevs, Startsovs, and Turcheninovs remained strong. The Evreinovs, for example, became rich by supplying cloth to the army.
The strongest merchant families turned out to be those who transferred their capital from trade to industry. Although it should be noted that these were still feudal entrepreneurs (see appendix 4).
The new guild merchants received from the government rights and privileges previously available only to guests and the living room hundred. Therefore, they became serious competitors of the latter.
In accordance with the Charter granted to cities in 1785, merchants of the first and second guilds shared the right to internal wholesale and retail trade, to establish factories and factories, and were exempt from government services. The first guild could trade outside the empire and therefore could have sea vessels, while the merchants of the second guild had only river vessels.
It is curious how the merchant class was formed. In addition to internal reproduction, individual merchant families originated from peasants. Although this was quite difficult, since the majority of peasants were in serfdom. Another base for the formation of the merchant class were commoners - townspeople, townspeople, soldiers, people from families of clergy, etc.
A.I. Aksenov is credited with studying the family connections of the merchants. Often marriage, along with the main function of procreation, also served as the economic preservation of the family name. In the formation of family relations among merchants who moved to Moscow, two trends were observed - past ties were preserved and kinship with Muscovites was established. The dowry given to the bride by merchant families played a significant role. It played a big role for the groom's surname as a means of initial accumulation. In the 19th century, the most stable merchant families were those that came from provincial cities or from peasants. They fought especially hard for a place under
the sun.

One of the factors in the decline of many of the first guild merchant families was the nobleization of merchants. In addition, they often became poorer as their family name grew.
In the end, the merchant class merged with the commercial and industrial class and existed only formally until 1917.
Officials played an important role in the fate of the Russian state. An important document for studying its early history is the Table of Ranks. “Officials, having received the rank of collegiate registrar, became personal nobles, collegiate assessors had the right to hereditary nobility. On December 15, 1763, the Decree “On filling judicial seats with worthy and honest people, on measures to stop extortion and bribes...” was adopted. The decree established the salary of all officials, that is, the bureaucracy received a special source of income. Since 1764, formal lists were introduced that contained information about the official’s family. They are important for genealogical research. On August 14, 1798, the Decree “On the exclusion of the command title of people from the per capita salary and on the non-assignment to the civil service from the merchant, petty bourgeois and other per capita tax-bearing ranks without representation to the Senate about the need for them." This Decree played a significant role in the formation of the bureaucracy as a special group. It for the first time provided for the possibility of officials leaving the tax-paying classes.
Thus, the bureaucracy gradually became a social group with its own sources of income and a special legal status.
M.F. Rumyantseva came to interesting conclusions about the course of this process by studying data on the inheritance of professions and the social nature of marriages of officials.
Most officials married representatives of the social environment from which they came. Of the 79 nobles, 31 were married to noblewomen, 22 were married to the daughters of officers; of the 51 who came from among civil servants, 19 were married to the daughters of minor clerical workers and lower-ranking officials; of the 4 sons of merchants, 2 were married to merchant daughters; Of the 28 sons of clergymen, a quarter are married to daughters of priests. Thus, socially homogeneous marriages predominated.1
In addition, all officials, regardless of social origin, sought to marry hereditary noblewomen.
As for sons inheriting their father's profession, the sons of nobles preferred military service. Much less often they chose civilian. Children of officials who came from the children of soldiers and from among civil servants entered the civil service more often. Moreover, the latter usually began to serve at a young age - from 10-12 years old - as copyists, etc.