Peasant Icons

Book excerpt: In the thirty years after Russian peasants were emancipated in 1861, they became a major focus of Russian intellectual life. This text is the first to examine the revealing images of the peasant created by Russian writers, scholars, journalists, and government officials during that period, as the identity and fate of the Russian peasant became an integral component in the future of Russia envisioned by liberal reformers and conservatives alike. Frierson examines the persisting stereotypes created by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and other intellectuals seeking to understand village life, from the likable narod, the simple folk, to the exploitative kulak, the village strongman.