Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia
(Indiana-Michigan Series in Russian
and East European Studies) by Olga
Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia
On The Ground In Pre-Revolutionary Russian Villages
...a marvelous source for the social history of Russian peasant society in
the years before the revolution...The translation is superb. - Steven
Hoch. ...one of the best ethnographic portraits that we have of the Russian
village...a highly readable text that is an excellent introduction to the world
of the Russian peasantry. - Samuel C. Ramer. Village Life in Late Tsarist
Russia provides a unique firsthand portrait of peasant family life as
recorded by Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia, an ethnographer and
painter who spent four years at the turn of the twentieth century observing
the life and customs of villagers in a central Russian province. Unusual in
its awareness of the rapid changes in the Russian village in the late
nineteenth century and in its concentration on the treatment of women and

children, Semyonovas ethnography vividly describes courting rituals,
marriage and sexual practices, childbirth, infanticide, child-rearing
practices, the lives of women, food and drink, work habits, and the
household economy. In contrast to a tradition of rosy, romanticized
descriptions of peasant communities by Russian upper-class observers,
Semyonova gives an unvarnished account of the harsh living conditions
and often brutal relationships within peasant families.
Personal Review: Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia (Indiana-
Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies) by Olga
Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia
First and foremost, this book is an outstanding anthropological
achievement by the original author, Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia, who
died a few years prior to its actual publication in 1914.
In spite of the longwinded and boring (but still informative) introduction by
Editor David L. Ransel, the core of Tian-Shanskaia's writing and her
straightforward approach to the [then] young science of anthropology
shines through to make this account quite a fascinating read for nearly
anyone. I don't mean treat Ransel harshly but, as a university professor
carrying out a funded project, he was clearly forced to swallow a certain
amount of input from associates and other scholarly drones.
I'm certain that this 20-page Introduction would have come off as infinitely
more palatable and devoid of academic baggage had Ransel just sat down
and written it from his clear knowledge of the author and from his heart --
in other words, there were too many cooks in the kitchen. But this is only a
mild critique of the work and the fact that Ransel included a nice black-
and-white photo of the author as well as a map of the study area at the
very outset balances out the other shortcomings. I also found Ransel's
footnotes, throughout the book, to be quite enlightening.
Chiefly, the reader gets a view of the post-emancipation Russian serf world
from Tian-Shanskaia's aggregate fictional "Ivan". She was pretty much
forced to eavesdrop on village gossip as she painted pictures in these
villages to garner mostly anecdotal information about life among the
peasants. In any case, we discover what Ivan liked and disliked, how his
life was pre-ordained from even before his birth until his death including his
infancy, adolescence, married life, and his life as a parent. The account
includes discussion of social interaction, economics, and the many
ominous labors which every peasant had to bear in order to survive. Death
by accident, disease, or homicide was clearly a daily possibility for
Russia's muzhiks.
This is a nicely-bound college text-type paperback, 176 pages in length. It
reads as smoothly as fiction and I highly recommend it.
I should also add that if you read and enjoy this book, you'll probably also
like Lyeskov's fictional Enchanted Wanderer.

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