Tragedy'; he's been talking about the peasant situation for the last
xx pages. We are still in the 19th century; he's obviously
filling in the background in great great detail.
He talks about the effect of schooling
on peasants, which is not always appreciated: 'Young men and
adolescents often verbally abuse their elders and even beat them'.
The UK, anno 2008? Not sure that in the UK education is necessarily the root cause of this, though....
He describes the peasant legal system
(customary law) of the 19th century, which was unwritten.
Land and the flora and fauna on it was seen as belonging to those who
worked it, rather than to the landlord. So it was considered
perfectly all right to steal wood from the landlord, or poach on his
land. This reminds me of a study carried out by a friend on the
informal economy in Russia of the 21st century, where it
was found that following privatisations, people were, to their
astonishment, prosecuted and thrown in prison for stealing from their
employer.
Figes talks about the market economy
being weak in areas of Russia which had no access to cities or major
railway lines. In 2005 I spotted an article in a Nizhny Novgorod
paper where farmers in remote villages had the crops, but no way of
getting them to the market.
Where's the progress?
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