Authors : Vladimir A. Shapovalov, Svetlana P. Shapovalova, Irina V. Istomina, Vladimir N. Fursov and Svetlana I. Shatohina
Abstract: The gentry of Russia at the present stage domestic and foreign historiography is largely unexplored layer of the noble class. And this despite the fact that in the pre-reform period in some regions of the Russian Empire, they represented more than half of representatives of the nobility. The poor knowledge of the layer of landowners is due to actually lack of the necessary source base. On the other hand, as for historians of the 19-20th early 20th centuries and modern scholars of the upper class of the Empire, they were not of particular interest. Primarily, this was due to their "unnobility", everyday life of small landlords more resembled the life and worldview of the peasants, the middle arm. The "bottom" of the landed nobility and peasant standards was poverty. This applies to those who had from 1-3 Dec. and personally I went for the plow, sowed bread, the hired farmhand to a more prosperous neighbor. No knowledge of this stratum of the nobility, its evolution in the post-reform period, can lead to the depersonalization of the nobility of Russia in social history. That is, the nobility will be presented in a truncated form.
Vladimir A. Shapovalov, Svetlana P. Shapovalova, Irina V. Istomina, Vladimir N. Fursov and Svetlana I. Shatohina, 2016. "Sometimes Bread Was Not Enough for Our Own Sustenance" The Gentry of Russia on the Eve of the Abolition of Serfdom in the Years Post-reform Social Emancipation. The Social Sciences, 11: 6005-6007.