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What was daily life like for old people in Russian villages at the turn of the twentieth century? Sarah Badcock discusses

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 24, 2024

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The speaker expresses their motivation to write about the overlooked experiences of old age and death in rural Russian contexts, especially as there has been little scholarly focus on this area. Noting a significant absence of references to old age compared to children in existing literature, the speaker employs an ethnographic survey by Prince Tesev, an affluent industrialist, as a primary resource for their study. Tesev's survey, which gathered data from a diverse group of individuals across European Russia, includes insights that help illuminate attitudes towards aging.

The speaker discusses the definitions of old age, highlighting the difference between chronological and functional approaches, and suggests that functional age often prevails in societal perceptions. They emphasize that old age is a process rather than a fixed state and that older individuals can play crucial roles in their communities, particularly those in good health, defined as the "third age." This video video group tends to exhibit leadership in religious and moral practices, while older individuals also serve as repositories of history and tradition.

The speaker notes that older people in rural Russia often work in various capacities, and economic pressures can lead to significant challenges, including social isolation and neglect. Given the absence of state support, family networks are essential for elderly care, often manifesting in the community and kinship practices. However, there arises a tension around resource allocation, particularly how older individuals are treated during economic downturns, often being prioritized less at the family table.

Wills and inheritance practices emerge as strategies through which elderly individuals can assert some control over their care and ensure they are treated respectfully in their final years. The speaker presents a nuanced view of community support, recognizing that while begging becomes prevalent among the elderly, it can also serve as a mechanism for communal assistance.

Ultimately, the speaker calls for a broader historical understanding of old age, challenging the notion that all older individuals are revered leaders. They argue for incorporating the realities of the "fourth age"—a period marked by decline—into discussions of rural life, thereby enriching the discourse on aging and the complexities of societal dynamics in historical contexts.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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I was motivated to write this article

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because, I realized that there was very, very limited,

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study and discussion of the experience of, old age

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and, and death in, rural Russian contexts.

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So I looked at, there's a, a wonderful scholar by bar,

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called Barbara Engel, who's written some really,

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really important work on, on,

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rural spaces in the 19th century.

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And I looked at one of Barbara's, books

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and looked at the index and there were 50 separate,

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items for children and not a single one for old age.

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Um, and so then I looked at some other ones

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and found the same pattern that actually this, this kind

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of category of the population had been really overlooked.

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Um, so I thought it was worth just coming back

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and thinking about that, in a bit more detail,

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the methodology for this, particular study.

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So as you, you're probably aware

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that in the current climate, it's not possible

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for western researchers to work in Russian archives.

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And that was the way that we worked for, for, certainly

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for my academic career.

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Um, and so I needed to think creatively about what kind

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of materials I could use to explore this particular topic.

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And I came upon a, a source, which has been used over,

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over many years by different scholars,

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which is an ethnographic survey conducted by,

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a guy called Prince Tesev.

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And Tesev was a, phenomenally wealthy industrialist

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and amateur ethnographer.

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Um, and as, as is the way

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with phenomenally wealthy industrialists

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and amateur ethnographers, he was thrilled

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to find out more about these mysterious everyday people

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within, within Russian spaces.

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So he commissioned a survey which, went out to,

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to people all over European Russia.

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So it's the sort of central and northern regions of Russia.

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And he commissioned a survey with around,

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two from memory about 250 questions.

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Um, and, he paid for responses,

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and he got, he got, around,

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was it 167 different correspondents, answered his call.

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Um, and they ranged from, nobleman

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to peasant sons.

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Um, I would say if you, if you look at the, the, the,

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the framework of these different individuals,

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I'd say the majority were from more humble backgrounds.

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That is priests sons, teachers sons, peasant sons.

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They're overwhelmingly male.

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Um, but they, each provide answers to some

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of the questions in Tenish chef's survey.

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And so this provides this enormous basis for, social

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and cultural, cultural history.

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Um, I had an additional advantage, which is that there,

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there were, a large part

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of this survey was published in the two thousands.

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Um, and I digitize these, resources so that I could do,

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I could search.

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What that lets me do is it lets me confound some of the

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assumptions and,

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Um, scripts that

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somebody like tennis chef imagined when

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he came up with his questions.

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So he was really interested, for example, in rural violence,

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in rural law and order in rural

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attitudes towards governance.

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These are things that he was particularly interested in.

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He wasn't necessarily that interested in old age.

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And because I've digitized it, it means that I can find,

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find threads of reca recounting old age in different

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parts of these surveys.

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So that was my, my approach was, was to explore.

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So I came up with a list, quite a substantial list

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of different keywords,

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which I thought might help me find old people in

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this ethnographic survey.

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When old age begins, is that it is, is something which is

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so, lived and understood by anyone you speak to

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because we all have experience of aging and the elderly.

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It is, is a part of our, of our human experience.

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I would say that historically and,

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and in the, in the scholarship, you can find two core ways

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of defining when old age begins,

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you can look at chronological understandings of old age,

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which is at, at an age a, a a numerical age.

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You will become old,

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or we can look at the functional age that is, at what stage

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does your body work less well?

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At what age are you less able to complete certain tasks?

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Um, and I think I would argue that generally speaking,

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that functional age dominates,

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the ways in which we understand the aging process.

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I mean, old ages, often societally recognized

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and defined by fitness to work,

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and by appearance and by de ability.

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So if you are, of bright appearance, if you are able,

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if you are fit to work,

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then your chronological age is less important

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than your capacity to work.

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And I, I would say that probably is, is, is,

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quite consistent across time and space as well.

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Um, and the other point I'd like to make is I,

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I really like this idea, which again,

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has contemporary resonance, which is

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that old age is not an achieved state.

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It is a state of becoming.

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It is a, it is a process that we meet.

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Um, there's a real, strong visibility

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and power for older people in what you describe

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as their third age.

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And by which, which is a, is a, is a modern term, which is

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to describe, those, older people who are physically

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and mentally well and active.

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Um, and so that that group of physically and mentally well

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and active people would take on key leadership roles

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within their community.

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They'd be very important core workers.

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Um, they would provide, moral

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and political leadership for their community,

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and that's both men and women.

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We we're looking at, in, in turn of the century, in 19th

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to early 20th century Russia, we're looking at,

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rural societies whi, which are very patriarchy dominated.

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And the patriarchy means not only the dominance

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of men over women, but generally speaking, the dominance

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of older voices over younger voices.

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So that as a kind of general rule.

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Um, so if we pick into that a little bit more

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and say, well, what, what is it that older people offer?

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You can see leadership in things like religious practice.

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So it's very consistent across the,

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ethnographic materials that have surveys

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that the older people are most likely

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to be religiously active,

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and they're most likely to lead religious

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practice in their communities.

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If they pray, they pray with the most vehement,

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they're most likely to read the scriptures,

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they're most likely to be reluctant about secular practice.

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Going on from there, having talked a little bit about,

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about secular practice, then, another sort of key way

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of understanding old age is thinking about, I,

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I like this, this, notion of moral way markers.

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So the idea that the old older people within the community

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are both repositories of the past, that they remember

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a period that that is outta living memory

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for the younger generations,

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which in this context is particularly important

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because, in 1900 in Russia, serfdom was a living memory.

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So serfdom was abolished in 1861.

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So the older people remembered a complete, a different way

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of life, a different way of being.

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And as such, their, their memories, their recollections

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as storytellers, as historians, as folklore,

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they're important parts of the community

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and important parts of leadership, moral leadership.

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Another bit would be around the kind of, I mean,

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they're often constructed.

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I wouldn't say this is a, necessarily the case,

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but they're often constructed as res sort of,

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a restraint on modernity, a res, a restraint on, on kind

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of modern practice.

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So maybe reluctance about modern dancing or modern singing

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or, or,

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or even tea drinking as an undesirable practice, you know,

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so th this, this kind of stuff.

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Um, but I mean, my final point is I would say

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that work is absolutely integral

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to everyday life in these rural communities.

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Um, and so older people worked

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and they worked in, in, in a wide range of areas.

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They worked in the agrarian fields, which were often one

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of the, the dominant parts of the economy in these contexts.

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Um, but they also, took on a range of different roles,

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which might only be for them.

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So for example, washing the Dead was something which was an

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exclusively a, a practice for older people,

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for respectable older people.

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A number of sources that indicate that if you want

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to eat well, you need to work well.

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And this is really problematic for our, older people

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because obviously the, the process of senescence

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of aging indicates a, a reduction of the capacity to work,

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intensively in, in, laborious contexts.

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Uh, so distribution

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and division of food is probably one

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of the most contested spaces within the intimate sphere

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that is within the family.

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Um, on the family table, if you like,

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and I, I would argue probably that those,

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those tensions are most marked in

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periods of economic crisis.

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Um, so it's not that this is a consistent line

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that everybody always behaves in certain ways,

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but rather that where a communi where a family is under

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pressure, because of economic downturn,

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then the elderly are likely to be the first

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to be withdrawn from the table.

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Um, and that there's, there's often a sense that, well,

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there's an absolute consensus actually

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that older people should eat less.

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Um, and that, that, that the working people need

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to be given priority at the table.

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I think it's important to set a little bit of context,

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and that is that in, you know, turn of the century,

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rural Russia, there is almost no state intervention.

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There are no arms houses, there's no state hospitals,

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there are, there, there is no pensions.

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So there, there is no safety net.

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This is a, a society where family,

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kinship community are your networks.

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So just to, just to really iterate that as, as just

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how important that is.

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Um, so the, the care of for,

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for the elderly then is the responsibility of the family

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and then the community, individuals could, so I,

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what I tried to do in my article is I tried to show,

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which is difficult, but I tried to show some agency

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for elderly people the ways in which they used what they had

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to try to ensure that they had a reasonable,

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advanced old age and death.

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Um, and so the ways in which you can see

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that is if you look at the court records

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and you look at the ways in which wills are used.

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So wills are used pretty extensively

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by the early 20th century in Russian rural spaces,

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and people use their wills to try to protect themselves.

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So they might, privilege a certain child in, in the will

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with the proviso that that child would care for them

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until death kindly,

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and that they would be respectfully buried.

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And I think that it's interesting

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that they put that in as a line.

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Um, and so the idea that, you know, one,

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one son might get a, a more generous share of the property

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because he's caring for his, for his parent, you can see

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that actually as, as quite a sophisticated way

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for the individual to, to, to empower themselves,

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to give themselves a chance.

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Another thing you could do,

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you are in a really unfortunate situation if you don't have,

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any, any children at all,

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or if you don't have male children,

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because generally speaking, girls would be considered

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to be lost to your family because they marry out.

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Um, so what you can do is you can, you can adopt a child

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and you can, and, and when I say a child,

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I actually mean an adult man.

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So you might adopt your daughter's husband as your,

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as your heir, or you might adopt an entirely unrelated adult

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man with the requirement that they will care for you with,

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with, with due care until you die,

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and then they will bury you respectfully.

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So again, the attempt to try to control

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and manipulate your final years so that you are treated

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with care and respect.

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If you don't have kinship,

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if you don't have a close family network, then this is

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where the community in principle ought to be stepping up

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and caring for you.

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Um, I think that the scholarship is slightly,

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overblown the extent to which communities care.

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Um, the, there was, there was, there was some examples

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of funds and provisions being given to elderly people,

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but in quite a lot of cases, care for the elderly was,

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encapsulated by begging.

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Um, so begging was a, a very,

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normalized practice in rural spaces.

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And the majority in, in the sources that I've read,

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the majority of beggars are actually often the elderly.

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Um, and so begging around the households offers a means to,

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to offer community support.

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So you would not normally refuse a beggar.

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Um, and, and so that, so this is a kind of a means

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of a means of, community support.

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Just because it's not uplifting doesn't mean

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that we shouldn't think about it,

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because I think as a historian, it behooves us to try

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to get into what I regard

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as the intimate spaces of everyday life.

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These are the spaces that are probably the most difficult,

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well, one of the most difficult areas to navigate

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because they are internal.

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They're not, exposed to public view.

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Um, they're not necessarily managed

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or contained by, by state practice.

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So they're, they're quite difficult to find.

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And these ethnographic surveys gave me a way in

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because they do talk about the, the experience

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and the practice of caring for, for

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extremely elderly people.

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Um, so I mean, children were expected

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to feed and care for their parents.

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Um, and if this was absent

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or non-functioning, the community could,

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and in some circumstances did step in

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and chastise the child for not caring

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for their, for their parent.

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It really, care in the home.

13:53.145 --> 13:56.525
Uh, I think you could, you could characterize it by,

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often a combination of isolation and neglect.

14:00.225 --> 14:01.485
Um, and that isolation

14:01.545 --> 14:04.725
and neglect could be philosophical around the idea

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that an elderly person has had their time,

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that it's time for them to die.

14:09.255 --> 14:12.365
These are the, these are some of the kind of common sort

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of phrases that come up in, in these ethnographic surveys.

14:15.625 --> 14:17.765
Um, and the other, the other aspect is a practical one,

14:17.765 --> 14:19.885
and that is agrarian communities

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where in the summer field work is long and hard

14:23.745 --> 14:26.285
and people had to, the whole community would go out

14:26.345 --> 14:29.605
or the, the whole able-bodied community would go out in the

14:29.605 --> 14:31.845
summer to the fields to work right down

14:31.845 --> 14:34.845
to the infants who'd be carried in a sling by their mothers.

14:35.065 --> 14:38.365
And so only the very decrepit elderly would be left at home.

14:38.785 --> 14:42.365
And so for those very decrepit elderly, we can get a sense

14:42.705 --> 14:45.525
of them being left alone,

14:45.795 --> 14:48.005
without any, any support at all.

14:48.025 --> 14:49.845
And there, there were a number of accounts of,

14:49.865 --> 14:52.205
of elderly people dying alone in,

14:52.205 --> 14:56.005
in their homes in these contexts that first, that we need

14:56.065 --> 15:00.245
to, we need to consider these questions about patriarchies

15:00.245 --> 15:01.565
and what patriarchies mean

15:01.565 --> 15:04.645
because I think that there is an assumption there about the

15:04.885 --> 15:07.725
privileging of the senior voice, which ignores

15:07.955 --> 15:10.285
what I talk about using these contemporary

15:10.285 --> 15:12.045
terminologies as the fourth age.

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That is the stage when one's body declines

15:15.585 --> 15:18.125
and we, we, we move towards death.

15:18.555 --> 15:22.285
That stage, that fourth age is, has been,

15:22.285 --> 15:23.845
missing from the ways in which we

15:23.845 --> 15:25.205
understand everyday rural life.

15:25.525 --> 15:27.885
I think it's really important that we put it back

15:27.995 --> 15:30.645
because in order to understand a society

15:30.785 --> 15:33.525
and to to be, to be a thoughtful

15:33.525 --> 15:36.285
and careful historian, we need to look across the piece.

15:36.285 --> 15:39.325
And what that means then is it undermines the assumptions

15:39.455 --> 15:43.045
about older men are always the family leaders

15:43.065 --> 15:44.165
and the community leaders.

15:44.695 --> 15:46.925
Older, but not old.

00:00 - I was motivated to write this article because, I realized that there was very, very limited, study and discussion of the experience of, old age and, and death in, rural Russian contexts. So I looked at, there's a, a wonderful scholar by bar, called Barbara Engel, who's written some really,

00:21 - really important work on, on, rural spaces in the 19th century. And I looked at one of Barbara's, books and looked at the index and there were 50 separate, items for children and not a single one for old age. and so then I looked at some other ones and found the same pattern that actually this, this kind of category of the population had been really overlooked. so I thought it was worth just coming back and thinking about that, in a bit more detail,

00:48 - the methodology for this, particular study. So as you, you're probably aware that in the current climate, it's not possible for western researchers to work in Russian archives. And that was the way that we worked for, for, certainly for my academic career. and so I needed to think creatively about what kind of materials I could use to explore this particular topic. And I came upon a, a source, which has been used over, over many years by different scholars,

01:15 - which is an ethnographic survey conducted by, a guy called Prince Tesev. And Tesev was a, phenomenally wealthy industrialist and amateur ethnographer. and as, as is the way with phenomenally wealthy industrialists and amateur ethnographers, he was thrilled to find out more about these mysterious everyday people within, within Russian spaces. So he commissioned a survey which, went out to,

01:44 - to people all over European Russia. So it's the sort of central and northern regions of Russia. And he commissioned a survey with around, two from memory about 250 questions. and, he paid for responses, and he got, he got, around, was it 167 different correspondents, answered his call. and they ranged from, nobleman to peasant sons. I would say if you, if you look at the, the, the,

02:16 - the framework of these different individuals, I'd say the majority were from more humble backgrounds. That is priests sons, teachers sons, peasant sons. They're overwhelmingly male. but they, each provide answers to some of the questions in Tenish chef's survey. And so this provides this enormous basis for, social and cultural, cultural history. I had an additional advantage, which is that there, there were, a large part

02:44 - of this survey was published in the two thousands. and I digitize these, resources so that I could do, I could search. What that lets me do is it lets me confound some of the assumptions and, scripts that somebody like tennis chef imagined when he came up with his questions. So he was really interested, for example, in rural violence, in rural law and order in rural

03:10 - attitudes towards governance. These are things that he was particularly interested in. He wasn't necessarily that interested in old age. And because I've digitized it, it means that I can find, find threads of reca recounting old age in different parts of these surveys. So that was my, my approach was, was to explore. So I came up with a list, quite a substantial list of different keywords, which I thought might help me find old people in

03:36 - this ethnographic survey. When old age begins, is that it is, is something which is so, lived and understood by anyone you speak to because we all have experience of aging and the elderly. It is, is a part of our, of our human experience. I would say that historically and, and in the, in the scholarship, you can find two core ways of defining when old age begins, you can look at chronological understandings of old age, which is at, at an age a, a a numerical age.

04:07 - You will become old, or we can look at the functional age that is, at what stage does your body work less well? At what age are you less able to complete certain tasks? and I think I would argue that generally speaking, that functional age dominates, the ways in which we understand the aging process. I mean, old ages, often societally recognized and defined by fitness to work, and by appearance and by de ability.

04:35 - So if you are, of bright appearance, if you are able, if you are fit to work, then your chronological age is less important than your capacity to work. And I, I would say that probably is, is, is, quite consistent across time and space as well. and the other point I'd like to make is I, I really like this idea, which again, has contemporary resonance, which is that old age is not an achieved state.

05:01 - It is a state of becoming. It is a, it is a process that we meet. there's a real, strong visibility and power for older people in what you describe as their third age. And by which, which is a, is a, is a modern term, which is to describe, those, older people who are physically and mentally well and active. and so that that group of physically and mentally well and active people would take on key leadership roles

05:29 - within their community. They'd be very important core workers. they would provide, moral and political leadership for their community, and that's both men and women. We we're looking at, in, in turn of the century, in 19th to early 20th century Russia, we're looking at, rural societies whi, which are very patriarchy dominated. And the patriarchy means not only the dominance of men over women, but generally speaking, the dominance

05:55 - of older voices over younger voices. So that as a kind of general rule. so if we pick into that a little bit more and say, well, what, what is it that older people offer? You can see leadership in things like religious practice. So it's very consistent across the, ethnographic materials that have surveys that the older people are most likely to be religiously active, and they're most likely to lead religious

06:19 - practice in their communities. If they pray, they pray with the most vehement, they're most likely to read the scriptures, they're most likely to be reluctant about secular practice. Going on from there, having talked a little bit about, about secular practice, then, another sort of key way of understanding old age is thinking about, I, I like this, this, notion of moral way markers. So the idea that the old older people within the community are both repositories of the past, that they remember

06:51 - a period that that is outta living memory for the younger generations, which in this context is particularly important because, in 1900 in Russia, serfdom was a living memory. So serfdom was abolished in 1861. So the older people remembered a complete, a different way of life, a different way of being. And as such, their, their memories, their recollections as storytellers, as historians, as folklore, they're important parts of the community

07:18 - and important parts of leadership, moral leadership. Another bit would be around the kind of, I mean, they're often constructed. I wouldn't say this is a, necessarily the case, but they're often constructed as res sort of, a restraint on modernity, a res, a restraint on, on kind of modern practice. So maybe reluctance about modern dancing or modern singing or, or, or even tea drinking as an undesirable practice, you know,

07:45 - so th this, this kind of stuff. but I mean, my final point is I would say that work is absolutely integral to everyday life in these rural communities. and so older people worked and they worked in, in, in a wide range of areas. They worked in the agrarian fields, which were often one of the, the dominant parts of the economy in these contexts. but they also, took on a range of different roles, which might only be for them.

08:11 - So for example, washing the Dead was something which was an exclusively a, a practice for older people, for respectable older people. A number of sources that indicate that if you want to eat well, you need to work well. And this is really problematic for our, older people because obviously the, the process of senescence of aging indicates a, a reduction of the capacity to work, intensively in, in, laborious contexts. so distribution

08:42 - and division of food is probably one of the most contested spaces within the intimate sphere that is within the family. on the family table, if you like, and I, I would argue probably that those, those tensions are most marked in periods of economic crisis. so it's not that this is a consistent line that everybody always behaves in certain ways, but rather that where a communi where a family is under

09:10 - pressure, because of economic downturn, then the elderly are likely to be the first to be withdrawn from the table. and that there's, there's often a sense that, well, there's an absolute consensus actually that older people should eat less. and that, that, that the working people need to be given priority at the table. I think it's important to set a little bit of context, and that is that in, you know, turn of the century,

09:36 - rural Russia, there is almost no state intervention. There are no arms houses, there's no state hospitals, there are, there, there is no pensions. So there, there is no safety net. This is a, a society where family, kinship community are your networks. So just to, just to really iterate that as, as just how important that is. so the, the care of for, for the elderly then is the responsibility of the family

10:03 - and then the community, individuals could, so I, what I tried to do in my article is I tried to show, which is difficult, but I tried to show some agency for elderly people the ways in which they used what they had to try to ensure that they had a reasonable, advanced old age and death. and so the ways in which you can see that is if you look at the court records and you look at the ways in which wills are used. So wills are used pretty extensively

10:30 - by the early 20th century in Russian rural spaces, and people use their wills to try to protect themselves. So they might, privilege a certain child in, in the will with the proviso that that child would care for them until death kindly, and that they would be respectfully buried. And I think that it's interesting that they put that in as a line. and so the idea that, you know, one, one son might get a, a more generous share of the property

11:00 - because he's caring for his, for his parent, you can see that actually as, as quite a sophisticated way for the individual to, to, to empower themselves, to give themselves a chance. Another thing you could do, you are in a really unfortunate situation if you don't have, any, any children at all, or if you don't have male children, because generally speaking, girls would be considered to be lost to your family because they marry out.

11:28 - so what you can do is you can, you can adopt a child and you can, and, and when I say a child, I actually mean an adult man. So you might adopt your daughter's husband as your, as your heir, or you might adopt an entirely unrelated adult man with the requirement that they will care for you with, with, with due care until you die, and then they will bury you respectfully. So again, the attempt to try to control and manipulate your final years so that you are treated

11:59 - with care and respect. If you don't have kinship, if you don't have a close family network, then this is where the community in principle ought to be stepping up and caring for you. I think that the scholarship is slightly, overblown the extent to which communities care. the, there was, there was, there was some examples of funds and provisions being given to elderly people, but in quite a lot of cases, care for the elderly was,

12:29 - encapsulated by begging. so begging was a, a very, normalized practice in rural spaces. And the majority in, in the sources that I've read, the majority of beggars are actually often the elderly. and so begging around the households offers a means to, to offer community support. So you would not normally refuse a beggar. and, and so that, so this is a kind of a means of a means of, community support.

12:56 - Just because it's not uplifting doesn't mean that we shouldn't think about it, because I think as a historian, it behooves us to try to get into what I regard as the intimate spaces of everyday life. These are the spaces that are probably the most difficult, well, one of the most difficult areas to navigate because they are internal. They're not, exposed to public view. they're not necessarily managed

13:20 - or contained by, by state practice. So they're, they're quite difficult to find. And these ethnographic surveys gave me a way in because they do talk about the, the experience and the practice of caring for, for extremely elderly people. so I mean, children were expected to feed and care for their parents. and if this was absent or non-functioning, the community could,

13:43 - and in some circumstances did step in and chastise the child for not caring for their, for their parent. It really, care in the home. I think you could, you could characterize it by, often a combination of isolation and neglect. and that isolation and neglect could be philosophical around the idea that an elderly person has had their time, that it's time for them to die.

14:09 - These are the, these are some of the kind of common sort of phrases that come up in, in these ethnographic surveys. and the other, the other aspect is a practical one, and that is agrarian communities where in the summer field work is long and hard and people had to, the whole community would go out or the, the whole able-bodied community would go out in the summer to the fields to work right down to the infants who'd be carried in a sling by their mothers. And so only the very decrepit elderly would be left at home.

14:38 - And so for those very decrepit elderly, we can get a sense of them being left alone, without any, any support at all. And there, there were a number of accounts of, of elderly people dying alone in, in their homes in these contexts that first, that we need to, we need to consider these questions about patriarchies and what patriarchies mean because I think that there is an assumption there about the privileging of the senior voice, which ignores

15:07 - what I talk about using these contemporary terminologies as the fourth age. That is the stage when one's body declines and we, we, we move towards death. That stage, that fourth age is, has been, missing from the ways in which we understand everyday rural life. I think it's really important that we put it back because in order to understand a society and to to be, to be a thoughtful

15:33 - and careful historian, we need to look across the piece. And what that means then is it undermines the assumptions about older men are always the family leaders and the community leaders. Older, but not old.

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