11th Century Russia Serfdom Analysis

Since the formation of serfdom in the 11th century Russia, peasants have been sold to land-owning aristocrats as an agricultural labourer bound under the feudal system. For over 800 years the serfs had no social or economic power, no legal status or right of freedom and no way to escape from their situation. Over 80% of population was peasants and by the late 1600s numerous rebellions have sprung up. However it wasn’t until the 1800s that things finally began to change. Faced with the consequences of the French Revolution Alexander the second decided to “liberate the peasants from above” before they own their freedom by rising “from below”. In 1861 the emancipation reform gave all serfs the right of a full citizen, which included the right
Dostoevsky encompasses this mindset in many of his characters, but the most obvious and critical example is Katerina Ivanovna’s desperate attempts to cling onto her past social standings. We see many examples of this throughout the novel, such as when Katerina spends all the money that Raskolnikov gave her on the making the funeral as lavish and opulent as she can instead of saving some for her future. Katerina even brought along her certificate of honour to prove “incontestably that Katerina Ivanovna was of the most noble, “she might even say aristocratic family, a colonel’s daughter and was far superior to certain adventuresses who have been so much to the fore of late” (383). In this scene we can see how Katerina views herself superior to all the other peasants, despite her fallen social standing. Despite the emancipation of the serfs the linage Russia class mindset is evidential in Katherina’s actions, she believes herself better than other due to her
With over a million peasants left without a job due to the emancipation, major cities such as St.Peterburg and Moscow were flowed beyond their holding capacity. The growth in housing could not match the growth in population so industrial employers had to house workers in ramshackle dormitories and tenements. Most lived in unhygienic and often freezing conditions; they ate meals of stale bread and buckwheat gruel (porridge) in crowded meal-houses. Things were even worse in the factories, where hours were long and the work was monotonous and dangerous. These living conditions gave rise to a working class that was poor treated, clustered together and very susceptible to revolutionary ideas. The economic revolution and emancipation of the serfs gave rise to a group of people who have experienced rapidly changing social structure and ideals as well as the success of a reform. Raskolnikov embodies many characteristics of this working class including their easy acceptance of philosophical theories. The origins of Raskolnikov’s article ON CRIME can be traced to the philosopher Pisarev, a philosopher who believed that there are two types of people those who live “a customary, dreamily tranquil, vegetative existence” and others who are “eternally alien to the masses, eternally regarding it with contempt and at the same time eternally working to increase the amenities of its life”. Dostoevsky