Economy and Society in Rural Russia:
the Serf Estate of Voshchazhnikovo 1750-1860
Dr. Tracy Dennison
Centre for History & Economics and Robinson College
University of Cambridge
This project uses data for one particular serf society, the Voshchazhnikovo estate in
Yaroslavl’ province, to explore the nature of Russian rural society in the period before
the abolition of serfdom in 1861. Existing theories about serfs’ demographic
behaviour – in particular the idea that Russian serfs married young and lived in large,
multiple-family households – are tested against data from parish registers and census
documents. In addition, archival evidence is used to shed light on the nature of rural
communities, and the role of serfdom in shaping serfs’ economic and demographic
decisions. Inventories of households, landlord’s decrees and instructions, communal
and estate account books, land transactions contracts, credit agreements, communal
meeting minutes, petitions to the landlord, and serf wills are used to construct a
detailed picture of the inner workings of Russian serf society, and to examine the role
of institutions such as ‘the commune’ and ‘serfdom’ in a specific local context.