Novorossiya: Dead Souls

DEAD SOULS

The general crop failure in Novorossiysk during the summer of 1833 made for a stressful situation. Andrei Mikhailovich, Elena Pavlovna, and the children went to Penza to visit Prince Pavel Vasilyevich.[1] The old price was already very old, weak, and lazy, although in spirit and mind he was as vigorous and fresh as in his youth. He spent his old days almost entirely alone; partly in his estate Kutlya, and partly in his own house in Penza. Most everyone he had known in life were buried in the ground. Only the many portraits that covered the walls reminded him of his once lively family circle. Fortunately, several devoted people took care of him, and all the house servants adored him. Despite the infirmaries of old age, the prince retained an excellent appetite. He was always a wonderful gastronome and loved to eat well, like everyone else in his family (a trait that Elena Pavlovna inherited.) Every day after a hearty, plentiful, lunch, the prince would inevitably turn to his daughter with the question: “Well, Elenushka, what are we going to have for lunch tomorrow?” A serious, and lengthy, discussion about the next day’s meal would commence. Andrei Mikhailovich tried not to listen, as he could not think of food after having just eaten. The prince took them to his village of Kutlya and tried his best to entertain and amuse them. He rode them in a line through his forests and groves, and the children foraged for mushrooms and berries. Having stayed two months in Penza, it was time to say goodbye. The feeling was one of sadness, as it was doubtful that they would ever see the prince again. Before their departure, he blessed the Fadeevs with religious icons, ancient ancestral images in expensive frames. Among these items was a precious relic, a massive silver cross that belonged to his branch of the Dolgoruky princes. According to legend, it belonged to their ancestor, Grand Duke Mikhail of Chernigov, who was tortured by the Tater Horde.[2] He also gave the family possession of one of his two estates, which included 70 servants and two-hundred peasant Souls. The estate had little land and was mortgaged in a bank. They considered it best to sell it to Count Zakrevsky (who had long wanted the property.)

The Ukrainian writer, Nikolai Gogol, would write about the landowners of this time in his novel, Dead Souls.[3] The titular “souls” being a reference to the peasant Souls. They belonged to the old institution of “bonded peasants” (servile laborers) that in the 1830s gained the appellation “krepostnoe pravo,” or “serfs.” Serfdom shared more than a few similarities with the chattel slavery of the United States. Even the chronological development of the two institutions followed a parallel course, and though serfs were not a separate people displaced from a different continent, it emerged as a mature institution at the same time American chattel slavery began a rapidly accelerated growth.[4] Both slavery and serfdom initially served the same purpose, that is to say that it furnished a large immobile force of cheap, manageable, labor. As for the serfs, they were originally Russian peasants or individuals without land and members of a rural community. In time, they became attached to the land of the titled nobles on which they lived and worked. In the fifteenth century, the “poslushnaia gramota” (“obedience charter”) was granted to serfs living on state lands that were awarded to members of the provincial Cavalrymen. (Though the serfs were an appendage of the state, they had to pay rent to Cavalrymen.) In 1565, Ivan IV added a clause to the “obedience charter” which stipulated that serfs were obligated to obey the landholder, and the Cavalrymen viewed this as a license to increase rent. If the land was sold, the serfs who worked the land were included with the purchase. More legislation was declared in the following decades that further anchored this disenfranchised workforce to the land. But with territorial expansion and colonization of the steppe, it became easier for serfs to escape into the frontier. The Code of 1649 was then issued. It was a rigid set of restrictions that denied the peasantry legal escape from their status. These serfs themselves were increasingly sold without regard to their attachment to the land. A decade later, in 1661, the Virginia House of Burgesses enacted its first legislation related to slavery, declaring that certain Blacks would serve for life. Both the Russian Serf and the American slave were under the total control of their respective masters. The bulk of their labor was agricultural, and each system featured the “gang and task” methods of extracting work. Gang labor (the most popular in both systems) was assigned collectively to a group of men or women. Task labor, alternatively, allowed individual laborers to quit work when they had completed the task assigned to them. By the nineteenth century, when both institutions were fully developed, neither slaves nor serfs possessed any civil or legal rights.[5]

Russia and America were similar in many ways. With the frontiers of both nations expanding, it would not be difficult to swap the names and locations of literature contemporary to that time and achieve a recognizable story. In 1835 Alexis Tocqueville, a French political philosopher, would tour America and record his impressions of the young country in his book, Democracy In America. In it he compares and contrasts the two countries, writing:

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from different points: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations; and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power: but these are still in the act of growth; all the others are stopped or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him; the adversaries of the Russian are men: the former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter civilization with all its weapons and its arts; the conquests of the one are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the other, by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the citizens; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm: the principal instrument of the former is freedom, of the latter, servitude. Their starting point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.[6]

When the Fadeevs returned to Ekaterinoslav, they stopped in Moscow for three weeks. One day Andrei Mikhailovich read some surprising news in the local paper. The Office of Foreign Settlers was to be abolished. Only one “trustee committee” was to remain, the one chaired by General Inzov. When Andrei Mikhailovich arrived in Ekaterinoslav, he learned that he was appointed a member of General Inzov’s committee. The family now had to sell their house and garden (for practically nothing,) and move to Odessa, where everything was incomparably more expensive. It was a disruption in their lives, more than a nuisance, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

Andrei Mikhailovich went to Odessa to find a small property to purchase. Odessa was a beautiful city by the Black Sea, and in many ways, resembled a European city, and there was certainly a European spirit there. Captured from the Ottomans during the Russo-Turkish War in 1789, the Tatar-Turkish settlement of Khadzhibey was transferred to Russia in 1791 under the Treaty of Jassy. As was the convention of the time, territories conquered from the Turks were given Greek names, in this case, the ancient Greek colony of “Odessos” (though it is doubtful that this was the original site of said colony.) By 1810 Odessa had its own permanent opera, where famous metropolitan actors and singers performed. Andrei Mikhailovich soon found a property twenty-six miles from the city, near “Severinovka,” the estate of Count Pototsky, in the village of Polyakovka.

In the spring of 1834, the Fadeevs left Ekaterinoslav and said goodbye to their old friends. A lot of worries and troubles, inseparable from moving an entire house from one place to another did not escape them. The main thing that concerned Andrei Mikhailovich was the intensification of Elena Pavlovna’s ill condition. He hoped that Odessa doctors were more skillful than the ones in Ekaterinoslav and could treat her more efficiently. Despite her infirmities, Elena Pavlovna set about organizing Polyakovka with tireless activity, planting a beautiful garden, vineyard, and overseeing the creation of municipal service buildings, and other improvements to the economy, effectively turning a wild, neglected village into an exemplary economic institution and a pleasant summer residence. Count Vorontsov continued to show Andrei Mikhailovich a special affection, and several times asked him to go into his service; but Andrei Mikhailovich remained in his old position. There were many friends in Odessa, new and old, who often called on the Fadeevs, such as Alexei Iraklievich Levshin (Mayor of Odessa,) and the former governors of Ekaterinoslav, Shemiot, Svyechin, and Baron Frank.[7]

Alexei Iraklievich Levshin (Mayor of Odessa.)

Odessa was then at the best time of its social development. Many noble families (especially Polish nobility) settled their due to its southern climate. Almost all of them, starting with the Vorontsovs, lived openly. The wonderful Italian opera was not inferior to that of the capital in the winter, and there were endless series of festivals and amusements. The Fadeev daughters, Katya and Nadya (barely out of childhood) participated in almost all these pleasures, and really liked the excitement, the luxurious atmosphere of the balls, and the sophistication of chosen society. For Andre Mikhailovich, this was all of little interest, and Elena Pavlovna, due to her poor health and habit of solitary, concentrated life, was even burdened by the frequent trips into society. They placed their ten-year-old son, Rostya, in the Triten Boarding School, the best in the city. They were pleased by the reports of his learned instructors who had nothing but praise for the boy. He was truly skilled in the science and math, however, there was simply no way to force him attend dance classes.

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SOURCES:

[1] Fadeyev, Andrei Mikhailovich. Vospominaniia: 1790-1867: Vol. I. Vysochaishe Utverzhd. Yuzhno-Russkago. Odessa, Ukraine. [Russian Empire.] (1897): 108.

[2] Witte, Sergei Yulyevich; Yarmolinksy, Abraham (Translator) The Memoir Of Count Witte. Doubleday, Page & Company. Garden City, New York. (1921): 3; Blavatsky, Helena P. Collected Writings Volume III (1881-1882.) Theosophical Publishing House. Wheaton, Illinois. (1968): 162- 170.

[3] Freeborn, Richard. “‘Dead Souls’: A Study.” The Slavonic And East European Review. Vol. XLIX, No. 114 (January 1971): 18–44.

[4] Chattel slavery began in North America in 1619, when John Rolfe of the Jamestown Colony purchased twenty Africans from a Dutch man-o-war. At the time English piracy prevailed and was winked at by the British Government. Seventeen years later, the first slave-ship to be built in North America was constructed at Marblehead, Massachusetts. In 1638 William Pierce, the almanac-maker, brought a cargo of enslaved Africans back to his New England home from the West Indies. The slave trade began with the advent of New England international commerce. [Hale, William T. “Romance And Beginnings Of Dixie.” The Nashville Banner. (Nashville, Tennessee) July 29, 1905.]

[5] Hine, William C. “American Slavery And Russian Serfdom: A Preliminary Comparison. Phylon. Vol. XXXVI, No. 4 (4th Quarter 1975): 378-384; Stanziani, Alessandro. Bondage: Labor And Rights In Eurasia From The Sixteenth To The Early Twentieth Centuries. Berghahn Books. New York, New York. (2018): 101-126. (Chapter IV: “The Institutions Of Serfdom.”)

[6] De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy In America: Vol. I. George Adlard. New York, New York. (1839): 433-434.

[7] Fadeyev, Andrei Mikhailovich. Vospominaniia: 1790-1867. Vysochaishe Utverzhd. Yuzhno-Russkago. Odessa, Ukraine. [Russian Empire.] (1897): Part I: 108-111.