Peasant labor as depicted by Nekrasov. Development of a child’s personality in work

Bitter taste of peasant bread

In the autumn, in every peasant hut, in the red corner under the icons, like a shrine, a small rye sheaf with ears of grain was displayed - “obzhinok”, “dozhinok” or “birthday boy” - the last bread harvested from the autumn field. Spikelets entwined with colored ribbons are the most beautiful girl carried it into the house. The reapers accompanied the last sheaf with songs. There was something to rejoice and have fun: the long, grueling time of growing bread, a journey lasting almost a year, was ending. However, it all started much earlier.

"For every seed there is its time"

In those distant times, it was no longer fields, but forests that covered the Russian land. In the spring, trees in the forest fell under the blows of axes. The larger ones were used for construction, the rest were burned. The burnt stumps were left for a while, but the coals were broken up and fertilized the soil with them. So, step by step, man liberated many thousands of hectares of arable land from the forest, which became his breadwinner.

Since then, in Rus', year after year, in the fall and spring, plowing began in the fields: a horse pulls a wooden plow, and the plowman walks behind, straightening it so that the furrow comes out even. In ancient Russian epics, the plow and the plowman (ratai) are often mentioned:

The peasant plowed the ground with a plow two or three times, because it did not loosen the soil well. After plowing, the field was harrowed. “A sieve with four corners, five heels, fifty rods, twenty-five arrows” - this is how the harrow is described in the sophisticated folk riddle. Indeed, the harrow was connected in the form of a lattice of longitudinal and transverse slats with filled wooden teeth.

The plow and the harrow in the field seemed to be competing with each other, arguing over who was more important. “Deeper already,” the harrow reproached the plow. “Wider and smaller,” the plow answered her.

Following the autumn harrowing, the time for winter sowing came. After him, agricultural work stopped until spring. But even in winter, the thought of bread did not leave the peasant: will there be enough snow, will the crops freeze? In winter, it was necessary to tidy up the worn-out plow and harrow, repair the cart, and accumulate manure.

And in the spring, as soon as the snow melted from the fields, the earth dried out and softened, the peasant plowed the spring field. The teenagers were delivering manure. This work is not very pleasant, but it is extremely necessary. It is no coincidence that they say: “Put the manure thick so that the barn is not empty.” The plow again passed through the manured field, mixing fertilizer with the depleted, weakened soil.

Spring is the time for spring sowing. Based on many signs, they accurately guessed its date - not earlier, not later, otherwise there would be no good harvest. “For every seed there is its time”: the birch tree begins to blossom - these are oats, the apple trees have bloomed - it’s time to sow millet, the cuckoo has begun to crow - it’s time to sow flax. These are the folk signs.

What is needed for good harvest? The peasant knew this for sure: more sun, moderate rain, and fewer weeds and harmful insects. Alas, nature has not always been favorable to people. One of the worst harvest failures occurred in beginning of XVII V. All summer 1601 they walked heavy rains. The bread did not ripen, and in August it was completely destroyed early frosts. On next year neither winter nor spring crops sprouted, and where they did emerge, they were destroyed by the early cold. A terrible famine began, the likes of which had never been known in Rus'.

But let's get back to sowing. The peasant prepared especially for this responsible task: the day before he washed himself in a bathhouse so that the bread would come out clean, without weeds. On sowing day, he put on a white shirt and went out into the field with a basket on his chest. During the sowing season, the priest was invited to perform a prayer service and sprinkle the field with holy water. Only selected grain was sown. "You'd better starve, huh? good seed sow" - says folk wisdom. The sower took a handful of grain from the basket and, every two steps, with a measured movement of his hand, fanned it out to the left and right. That is why a quiet, windless day was chosen for sowing.

What did the peasant sow? Only what has been selected and tested by centuries of experience: rye, wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat. Wheat was considered the most demanding of all cereal crops. Sensitive to any changes in weather, it also required particularly careful cultivation of the soil, which it greatly depleted. If you are lucky, there will be a good harvest and good earnings, because excellent white bread was baked from noble wheat flour for the master's table. But no, all the work will go down the drain. Rye is the main breadwinner for peasants; on the contrary, it is the most unpretentious and reliable crop. There is almost always a harvest for it, which means a black loaf on the peasant table. “Rye bread is our dear father, buckwheat porridge is our mother,” they used to say in the villages. It was convenient to deal with buckwheat. If you plant it on poor soil, it will fertilize it. Buckwheat will kill the weeds and make the soil juicy and soft, so the peasant loved to alternate buckwheat with other crops, knowing that after it all bread would produce well.

Why did the peasant “suffer”

Summer is the busiest working time in the village. Three times the peasant plowed and fertilized the fallow field so that it would accumulate strength for future harvests. Before he had time to deal with the fallows, it was time to start haymaking, because the well-being of the livestock depended on its success.

The first mowing took place at the end of June - the holiday of Ivan Kupala. By this time the grasses were growing tall and lush. We went out to mow early in the morning, before the dew disappeared: the scythe does not like dry grass. “Mow the scythe while there is dew, away with the dew - and we’ll go home” - this is the rule of the mowers. This occupation was considered pleasant, which is why the mowers went to work cheerfully, singing. It's not enough to mow the grass. While it is drying, you need to turn it over with a rake several times, and when it is completely dry, then “sweep away the stacks.” IN free time the peasant transported the hay to the yard and stored it in the hayloft.

Meanwhile, the bread was ripening. There were immediately a lot of hunters for other people's property: voles, birds, and various insects. The locusts were especially scary. Its voracious hordes could turn golden fields into a dead desert in a matter of minutes. In 1649, due to a locust invasion, there was a shortage of crops in many regions of Russia.

If God had mercy on the peasant from all kinds of misfortune and good bread was produced, the time of harvest had come. “Zazhinki” was the popular name for its beginning and was accompanied by ancient rituals. The first sheaf, the “zazhinochny” one, like the last one, the autumn one, was decorated with flowers and ribbons, brought into the house and placed in the red corner. Later, this sheaf was the first to be threshed, and its grains were credited with miraculous powers. Everyone who could work went to the harvest: men, women, old and young. Some are essential workers, others are on the sidelines. Some reaped with a sickle, some knitted sheaves. The harvest was considered the most difficult time in the village. The very word “suffering” is akin to the suffering that the farmer experienced from his hard labor. The peasant worked all day from dawn to dusk, tirelessly and without straightening his back. When finishing the harvest, the reapers left a “beard” in the field - an unharvested bunch of ears of grain. It was curled, decorated with flowers and buried in earth. This ritual symbolized feeding the depleted earth, the desire to restore its strength for the future harvest.

However, ears of corn in the field do not mean a loaf on the table. The tied sheaves were taken to the threshing floor. If the bread turned out to be wet, it was dried in ovins - special dryers. They dug a deep hole in the ground, placed a log frame with lattice flooring over it, laid out sheaves, and lit a fire in the hole. Drying sheaves in a barn required great care. As soon as a barn flared up like a candle, both the building and the bread burned.

Dried ears were threshed on a thresh - a compacted earthen platform under open air. The sheaves were laid out in two rows with the ears facing inward and beaten with a flail - a simple tool with a long wooden handle, from which a beater - a heavy stick with a rounded thickened end - was hung on a belt. It was she who knocked the grains out of the ears.

The tools of peasant labor are few: plow, harrow, sickle, scythe, pitchfork, rake, flail. The peasant made his simple work equipment mainly from wood and passed it on by inheritance. People have written many proverbs, sayings, and riddles about guns. agricultural labor. Try to guess: “Baba Yaga uses a pitchfork: she feeds the whole world, but she herself is hungry” (Sokha). “The thin matting covered the entire field” (Harrow). “Bent in an arc, all summer in the meadow, in winter on a hook” (Scythe). “The geese and oak socks are flying, saying: so-and-so, so-and-so” (Tsep).
After threshing, the straw was removed, but not thrown away - in a practical peasant farm, nothing was wasted, everything went into use. Thatch was used to cover the roofs, it was added to livestock feed and spread for cleanliness and warmth in the barn. Yes, the peasant slept not on a feather bed, but on a straw mattress. This is what the people used to say: a Russian man is born on straw, and dies on it. The straw on which the deceased lay was carried out of the gate and burned.

After threshing, the grain was raked into a heap. There was a lot of debris left in it - particles of straw, ears of corn, dust. To clean the grain, they winnowed it: they threw it up in the wind with a shovel, and the debris was blown away. At the same time, the best, larger and heavier grain fell closer to the winnower. It was this that was put aside for the future sowing.

This was the end of the bread preparation. All that remained was to store the grain in granaries and barns. If the bins are full, the peasant will easily overwinter, but if there is not enough grain until the next harvest, he will have to add acorns and quinoa to the bread flour in the spring.

The work of the tiller, who fed both the landowner and the townspeople - all of Russia, and half of Europe to boot, was held in great esteem in Rus'. In Christian times, the grain grower also had his own patron – Saint George, whose name translated from Greek means “farmer”.

"The bestial god" - Saint Yegoriy

But the peasant lived not only by working on the land. Livestock required no less care. What is a peasant farm without a cow and a horse? The housewife will milk it and make cottage cheese, sour cream, cheese, and butter out of it. What else does? Nourishing and tasty. When the time came to slaughter the cow, the family was provided with meat for the year. They will salt it, put it in the cellar for storage, and for many months there will be rich cabbage soup and porridge, pies with good filling on the table. Excess meat was sold to buy something needed for the household.

The cow was the main breadwinner in the peasant farm, and the horse was the main worker. Plow, harrow the field, transport manure to the arable land, transport hay to the yard, transport grain to the barn - nowhere without a horse! During the day, during the harvest, she had no time to rest, but as soon as dusk came and field work ended, the peasant children led the horses to the meadows at night, so that the animals could nibble the juicy grass to their heart's content and gain strength for the new working day. The owner treasured the horse and took care of it himself. If I had to choose between a horse and a cow, I would give preference to the horse without hesitation. He knew that she would help in the field in the spring and summer, the peasant would reap a good harvest, sell some of it and be able to buy another cow. Those who had no horses had the hardest time in the village.

The peasant farm had smaller livestock - goats, pigs, sheep. “A fur coat and a caftan walk across the mountains and across the valleys,” who doesn’t know this riddle. The sheep produces little milk and meat, but from its thick wool they made felt boots, which were indispensable for the Russian winter, knitted socks and mittens, and wove cloth. What about peasant sheepskin coats, hats, mittens? All thanks to the sheep.

The peasant could not do without cattle, although it required a lot of time and effort to care for them. This work lay mainly on the shoulders of women. In the summer, the housewife got up at first light, milked the cow and drove the animals out into the field for the whole day to gain weight under the supervision of children or a hired shepherd. In the evening the cattle were driven back, fed, watered, and milked.

In winter the troubles increased. Early rise, feeding, milking, cleaning the barn. Only one cow eats a pound of hay and drinks several buckets of water per day. The water needs to be warmed so that, God forbid, the cattle don’t get sick. If this happened, the peasants took the cow into a warm hut and looked after it, the nurse, like a small child: they sprinkled it with holy water, fed it with bread, and gave it flour drink. When it was time for calving, the owners were deprived of peace day and night, for fear of missing the moment the calf appeared. He was brought to the hut, warmed, watered, and fattened.

Cattle breeding was such an important branch of the peasant economy that it had not one, but several Christian patrons. Saints Frol and Laurus were revered as patrons of horses. They were depicted on ancient icons surrounded by a herd of assorted horses. These icons were hung over the gates of the stables. Saint George, the patron saint of warriors and farmers, was also the “god of cattle.” On the day of spring Yegor (as George was popularly called) April 23, for the first time after the winter home “imprisonment,” cattle were released to pasture.

Peasants were also involved in gardening. There was a garden and a vegetable garden in every household, and the care of them lay entirely on the shoulders of the woman: digging, manuring, planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting. Cabbage, turnips, onions, garlic, cucumbers, and carrots have long taken root in Rus'. Cabbage was fermented in large quantities for the winter. In the fall, they organized "cabbage gardens" - traditional collective cabbage cutting. IN large quantities prepared onions and garlic. Foreigners who visited Russia in the 16th-17th centuries complained that Russian food was excessively flavored with onions and garlic.

Apple trees, cherries, pears, currants, and gooseberries were grown in the gardens. Fruits and berries were dried for the winter, and fruit drinks, kvass, and marshmallows were made from them. And apples, pears and cherries were also fermented.

In the peasant economy, as you can see, there was a clear division of labor. Men were mainly engaged in agriculture, construction, crafts, hunting, fishing, and collecting firewood. Women ran the household and raised children; looked after livestock, garden, vegetable garden; collected herbs, berries, mushrooms, nuts; they spun, weaved, sewed, knitted. On hot days, the wife came to the field to help her husband - reaping, mowing, throwing haystacks and even threshing grain.

“Teach a child when he lies across the bench”

Children in the village began to work early. At first, they did auxiliary work, but without their help the parents would have had a hard time.

Since ancient times, the age of a person in Rus' was calculated in seven years. The first seven years are childhood, the second seven are adolescence, and another seven years are adolescence. A peasant boy of five or six years old learned to ride a horse and began to drive cattle to watering; at the age of seven or eight he helped in the arable land - he controlled a horse. At the age of nine, the young owner had more responsibilities: feeding the cattle, transporting manure to the field, harrowing the arable land plowed by his father and harvesting grain with him. The father took his son hunting, taught him to set a snare, shoot a bow, and fish. By the age of 14, the teenager owned a scythe, sickle, flail, and axe, and a year later he could well replace his father in the event of his illness or departure.

The daughter of a peasant family also did not sit idle: at the age of six she began to master the spinning wheel, at ten she worked with a sickle and sewed. By the age of 12-13, the girl completely ran the household in the absence of her parents: she carried water, did laundry, fed birds, milked cows, sewed, knitted, cooked, and looked after the younger children. At the age of 14 she weaved, reaped bread, cut hay, and at 15 she worked equally with adults.
Peasant wisdom says: “Teach a child when he lies across the bench.” The girls were taught everything that she could do by her mother, and the boys by her father. 14-15 years after the birth of a child, the peasant family received another full-time worker.

"Three girls were spinning under the window late in the evening"

Life itself forced the peasant to master many crafts. Men built houses, made furniture and tools, and made wooden utensils. Women spun, weaved, sewed, knitted.

They worked as craftsmen mainly in winter, when there was no field work. In the evenings, the owner of the house would sit on a bench in his corner and begin, for example, to weave bast shoes. These shoes were considered indispensable in the village - comfortable, light, cheap. The only drawback is that it is not durable. IN time of suffering When my legs knew no rest, a pair of bast shoes was barely enough for a week.

The expression “to weave bast shoes” in modern Russian means to confuse something. But it only seems that making bast shoes is a simple matter. A good craftsman could weave no more than two pairs per day.

For one pair of bast shoes, three or four young linden trees were peeled. The bast was soaked in water, then straightened, and the top layer was removed. The bast was cut into long narrow strips and, having been fitted to a wooden block, they were put into action using a kochedyk - a tool similar to a crooked awl. A true master made bast shoes such that you could even walk through a swamp without getting wet. It is no coincidence that the bast shoes dealers, attracting customers, shouted: “At least eat your cabbage soup with my bast shoes.” In addition to bast shoes, the owner wove baskets for berries from bast, pesteri - large backpack bodies for mushrooms, and boxes for storing various products and things.

Bye winter evenings the owner weaved from bast, the wife sewed a linen shirt. And how much work must be put in to have something to sew it from! The flax stems were pulled together with the roots by hand and threshed with flails to remove the seeds. The best of them went to sowing, from the rest they extracted linseed oil. But the most valuable thing - flax fiber - was contained in the stem.

It was not so easy to get it: flax was soaked in water for two to three weeks, then dried. The stems were crushed, ruffled, removing the fire - the woody part - and combed with combs. The result was a soft, fluffy tow - raw material for spinning. The girls spun yarn from it in the evening.

By the light of a torch, girlfriends gathered in someone's hut with their spinning wheels and tow. They sat on benches on the bottom of the spinning wheels, and attached the tow to the vertical blades. With her left hand the spinner pulled out the strand, and with her right hand she rotated the spindle, similar to a fishing float. It spun like a top, twisting the strand into a thread and winding it around itself. Spinning is a boring, monotonous job, but in company, with a song or a conversation, time flew by. Guys often dropped in on such gatherings, entertained the girls with conversations and jokes, and looked for brides for themselves.

They tried to finish spinning by Maslenitsa. There was even a tradition during Maslenitsa week to ride with ice mountains on a spinning wheel that has become unnecessary. But usually the spinning wheel was taken care of and passed on by inheritance. Often it was made by the groom as a gift to his bride. Such a spinning wheel was decorated with elegant carvings and paintings. Some of them are now kept in museums.

When the spinning was completed, the peasant women began to weave canvas. The loom was moved from the barn to the hut for several weeks. In Rus' it has been used since pre-Mongol times.

Long strips of grayish linen, woven at home, were soaked in water and spread in the meadow, bleaching in the sun. After bleaching, the finished fabric was cut out and peasant shirts, trousers, and skirts were sewn from it.

IN peasant environment Mutual assistance has always been developed. There is no other way to survive in combat with nature. Is this why the community has been preserved in Russia for so long - a collective of people ready to Hard time support each other?

If a peasant had a problem, for example his house burned down, the whole community came to his aid. Together they cut down the wood, took it to the yard, and stacked the frame. When the owner became seriously ill during the lean season, the neighbors helped his family harvest the harvest. In the villages they helped widows and orphans. But misfortune was not the only reason to help one’s neighbor. If the family was unable to cope with urgent work on its own, fellow villagers were invited. This custom was called the good Russian word “help”. In the morning, volunteer helpers with their work equipment gathered at the house of those in need of help or right in the field. They worked together, cheerfully, with songs and jokes. And after work, the owner invited everyone to his yard and heartily treated them.

The peasant lived by his labor; work was the whole meaning of his life. The idea that labor is blessed by God has taken root among the people. It is not for nothing that the worker was addressed with the words: “God help!”, “God help.”

Peasant labor as portrayed by N.A. Nekrasova

I. Introduction

The work of a peasant gives rise to conflicting feelings in Nekrasov. On the one hand, it is in labor that the strength of the people and their rich capabilities are manifested. The peasant loves and knows how to work; idleness is alien to him. It is peasant labor that will create what is good in Russia. On the other hand, the work of a peasant is forced labor, which brings him suffering.

II. main part

1. Labor as joy and creation. In many of Nekrasov’s works, peasant labor is described precisely from this side. With the labor of the peasant, everything is created - from bread to the railway, which was built not by “Count Kleinmichel”, but by ordinary people. (" Railway"). Labor is the basis of a man’s self-respect, even his pride. In the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” it is not for nothing that Yakim Nagoy asks Pavlusha Veretennikov: “Our fields are vast, // And not much generous, // Tell me, by whose hand // They will get dressed in the spring, // And in the fall they will undress? " Not white-handed gentle ones.

And we are great people // In work and in revelry!” Savely’s proud words echo these words: “Do you think, Matryonushka, // A man is not a hero?” Even a child feels this pride in his work (“Peasant Children”, “Little Little Man”). Labor is the basis of a peasant’s life. It’s not for nothing that the seven wanderers, yearning for work, in “Who Lives Well in Russia” take up mowing so cheerfully: “Woke up, flared up // A forgotten habit // To work! Like teeth from hunger, // Works for everyone // A nimble hand.” Nekrasov was one of the first to poeticize peasant labor, considering it as the basis of existence and contrasting it with the idleness of the ruling classes.

2. Labor is suffering. Under the conditions of an exploitative system, the labor of a peasant is forced labor, not for himself, but for “God, the king and the master”; This is labor through force, exhausting and gradually killing a person. Nekrasov’s lyrics (“Railroad”, “On the Volga”, “Uncompressed Strip”, etc.) and especially the poem “Who Lives Well in Russia” are filled with pictures of such work. Yakim Nagoy, telling Veretennikov about how “the peasant’s navel is cracking” in backbreaking work, says about himself: “He works himself to death”; in the same episode, Nekrasov also paints an impressive portrait of a peasant exhausted from work. Savely literally talks about hard labor. Nekrasov especially feels sorry for women and children who are straining themselves at work (poems “The Cry of Children”, “In full swing of the village suffering ...”, the story of Matryona Timofeevna in “Who Lives Well in Russia”, etc.).

III. Conclusion

The theme of labor in Nekrasov’s work is one of the most important. It combines pride in the Russian peasant, deep sympathy for him, and denunciation of the ruling classes who made labor the basis human life- literally hard labor.

Fedot Vasilievich Sychkov (1870 -1958) "Peasant Girl"

I love to go to the pole
I love to move the hay.
How can I see my dear one?
Three hours to talk.

In the hayfield. Photo. Beginning of the 20th century	B. M. Kustodiev. Haymaking. 1917. Fragment
A. I. Morozov. Rest in haymaking. OK. I860	Women in mowing shirts harvesting hay. Photo. Beginning of the 20th century
A group of young women and girls with a rake. Photo. 1915. Yaroslavl province.	Drying hay on stakes. Photo. 1920s. Leningrad region.

Haymaking began at the very end of June: “June went through the forests with a scythe,” from the day of Samson Senognoy (June 27 / July 10), from Peter’s day (June 29 / July 12) or from summer day Kuzma and Demyan (July 1/14). The main work took place in July - “senozornik”.
Hay was harvested on water meadows located in river valleys and on small plots of land reclaimed from the forest. Hayfields could be located both near the village and at some distance from it. Peasants went to the distant meadows with their whole families: “Everyone who is old enough, hurry to the haymaking.” Only old men and women remained at home to look after the children and care for the livestock. Here is how, for example, the peasants of the villages of Yamny, Vassa, Sosna, Meshchovsky district, Kaluga province, went to haymaking in the late 1890s: “The time has come for mowing... The Yamnenstsy, Vassovtsy, Sosentsy are riding on seven or eight horses with chests (with edibles) , with scythes, rakes, pitchforks. On almost every cart there are three or four people, of course, with children. Some are carrying a barrel of kvass and jugs of milk. They ride dressed up: men in cotton shirts of all colors and the wildest imagination; young people in jackets, and even vests... Women imagine from their frilly sundresses and waist-length Cossack blouses such a flower garden that it dazzles your eyes. And the scarves! But it’s better not to talk about scarves: their variety and brightness are endless. And in addition, aprons, that is, aprons. Nowadays there are also sailor women here, so if you meet a pretty peasant girl, you may well think that she is a city young lady, or, what’s more, a landowner. Teenagers and children also try to dress up in their best. They ride and sing songs at the top of their lungs” [Russian peasants. T. 3. P. 482).
The girls looked forward to the haymaking season with great impatience. Bright sun, the proximity of water, fragrant herbs - all this created an atmosphere of joy, happiness, freedom from everyday life, and the absence of the stern eyes of old men and women - village guardians of morality - made it possible to behave somewhat more relaxed than in ordinary times.
Residents of each village, having arrived at the place, set up a camp site: they set up huts in which to sleep, prepared firewood for the fire on which they cooked food. There were many such machines along the banks of the river - up to seven or eight on two square kilometers. Each machine usually belonged to the inhabitants of one village, who worked in the meadow all together. The machine divided the cut and dried grass according to the number of men in the family.
We got up early in the morning, even before sunrise, and, without breakfast, went to mowing so as not to miss the time while the meadow was covered with dew, since wet grass was easier to mow. When the sun rose higher above the horizon and the dew began to settle, families sat down to have breakfast. On the fast day they ate meat, bread, milk, eggs, fast days(Wednesday and Friday) - kvass, bread and onions. After breakfast, if the dew was heavy, they continued to mow, and then laid out the grass in even thin rows in the meadow to dry. Then we had lunch and rested. During this time, the grass withered a little, and they began to rake it so that it would dry better. In the evening, the dried hay was piled up. IN general work family, everyone knew their business. Guys and young men were mowing the grass. Women and girls laid it out in rows, stirred it up and collected it into piles. Throwing haystacks was the job of the boys and girls. The guys served the hay on wooden forks, and the girls laid it out on a stack and kneaded it with their feet so that it lay down more tightly. The evening for the older generation ended with beating the braids with hammers on small anvils. This ringing echoed throughout all the meadows, meaning that the work was over.
“The haymaker has knocked down the peasant’s arrogance that there is no time to lie down on the stove,” says the proverb about the busyness of people on the mower from morning to evening. However, for boys and girls, haymaking was a time when they could show each other the ability to work hard and have fun. It is not for nothing that on the Northern Dvina the communication of young people during haymaking was called showing off.
Fun reigned at lunchtime, when the elders rested in huts and the youth went swimming. Boys and girls swimming together was frowned upon public opinion, so the girls went away from the machine, trying so that the guys wouldn’t track them down. The guys still found them, hid their clothes, causing the indignation of the girls. They usually returned together. The girls sang to their boyfriends, for example, this song:

It will rain, the hay will get wet,
Daddy will scold -
Help me, good one,
My embryo is to finish.
Frequent rain falls,
My darling remembers me:
- He wets my darling
In the haymaking, poor thing.

The main fun came in the evening, after sunset. Young people flocked to one of the machines, where there were many “glorious women”. The accordion played, dances, songs, round dances, and walks in pairs began. The joy of the festivities, which lasted almost until the morning, is well conveyed by the song:

Peter's night,
The night is small
And really, okay,
Not big!
And I, young,
Didn't get enough sleep
And really, okay,
Didn't get enough sleep!
Didn't get enough sleep
I haven't had enough fun!
And really, okay,
I haven't had enough fun!
I'm with my dear friend
It didn’t brew!
And really, okay,
It didn’t brew!
Didn't insist
I didn't say enough
And really, okay,
I haven't said enough!

At the end of the festivities, the girls’ “collapsible” song was sung:

Let's go home, girls,
Zorka is studying!
Zorka is busy
Mommy will swear!

Haymaking remained “the most pleasant of rural jobs” even if it took place close to the village and therefore had to return home every evening. Eyewitnesses wrote: “The time of year, warm nights, swimming after the tiring heat, the fragrant air of the meadows - all together have something charming, pleasantly affecting the soul. Women and girls have a custom when working in the meadows to put on not only clean underwear, but even dress in a festive way. For the girls, there is a meadow where they, working together with rakes and accompanying the work common song, show off in front of the grooms” (Selivanov V.V.S. 53).
Haymaking ended for the holiday of the Kazan Icon Mother of God(July 8/21) or for Elijah’s Day (July 20/August 2): “Ilya the Prophet - it’s time to mow.” It was believed that “after Ilya’s day” the hay would not be so good: “Before Ilya’s day there is a pound of honey in the hay, after Ilya’s day there is a pound of manure.”

Harvest

You are reaping, you are reaping
My young ones!
Young people,
Golden sickles!
You reap, reap,
Live life, don't be lazy!
And having compressed the cornfield,
Drink, have fun.

Following the haymaking came the harvest of “bread” - that’s what all grain crops were called. IN different regions breads ripened at different times depending on climatic conditions. In the southern part of Russia, the harvest began already in mid-July - with the feast of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, in middle lane- from Ilyin's day or from St. Boris and Gleb (July 24 / August 6), and in the north - closer to mid-August. Winter rye ripened first, followed by spring grains, oats, and then buckwheat.

I stung, I stung oats,
I switched to buckwheat.
If I see a sweetheart -
I'll meet him.

Harvesting was considered the work of girls and married women. However, the main harvesters were girls. Strong, strong, dexterous, they easily coped with quite difficult work.

P. Vdovichev, Harvest. 1830s	The rye is ripening. Photo by S. A. Lobovikov. 1926-1927
Reaper. Photo by S. A. Lobovikov. 1914-1916	A. G. Venetsianov. At the harvest. Summer. Before 1827

Everyone was supposed to start the harvest on the same day. Before this, the women chose from among themselves a harvester who would perform a symbolic harvest of the field. Most often it was a middle-aged woman, a good reaper, with “ with a light hand" Early in the morning, secretly from everyone, she ran to the field, reaped three small sheaves, saying, for example, like this:

Shoo, little bird, at the end,
Like a Tatar stallion!
Run and laugh, die and tear
And look for the end of the field!
Run out, run out,
Give us some will!
We came with sharp sickles,
WITH white hands,
With soft ridges!

After this, the harvester laid the sheaves crosswise at the edge of the field, and nearby left a piece of bread with salt for Mother Earth and an icon of the Savior to protect the harvest from evil spirits.
The entire female half of the family, led by the mistress, went to the harvest. Girls and women wore special harvest clothing - belted white canvas shirts, decorated along the hem and on the sleeves with a red woven or embroidered pattern. In some villages, the upper part of the shirt was made of bright calico, and the lower part was made of canvas, which was covered with a beautiful apron. Their heads were tied with cotton scarves. The harvest clothes were very elegant, corresponding to such important day, when Mother Earth gives birth to the harvest. At the same time, the clothes were also comfortable for work, loose, and it was not hot in the summer sun.
The first day of the harvest began with a common prayer of the family in their lane. The reapers worked in the field in a certain order. The mistress of the house walked ahead of everyone, saying: “God bless you to clamp the field! Give, Lord, ergot and lightness, good health!” (Folk traditional culture Pskov region. P. 65). By right hand came from her eldest daughter, followed by her in seniority are the rest of her daughters, and after them her daughters-in-law. The first sheaf was supposed to be reaped by the eldest daughter in the family so that she would get married in the fall: “The first sheaf to reap is to get a groom.” They believed that the first pistil of cut rye stalks and the first sheaf collected from them possessed “spores”, “spuriness” - a special life-giving force, so necessary for the future housewife and mother.
The harvesters went to the field after the sun dried the dew. Bread covered with dew could not be reaped, so that the grain and straw would not rot before threshing. The girls went to the field together and sang songs that were called harvest songs. The main topic songs was unhappy love:

Sooner or sooner our yard becomes overgrown.
Our farmstead is overgrown with grass and ants.
It’s not grass in the field, it’s not an ant, it’s pink flowers.
There were flowers blooming in the field, blooming, but withered.
The guy loved the beautiful girl, but left her.
Having left the girl, he laughed at her.
Don't laugh at the girl, guy, you're still single.
Single, unmarried, no wife taken.

While working, girls were not supposed to sing - this was the prerogative of only married women. Married women turned in songs to God, the cornfield, the sun, and field spirits asking for help:

Yes, God, take away the thundercloud,
May God save the working field.

Peasant fields (strips) were located nearby. The reapers could see their neighbors working, call to each other, encourage the tired, and reproach the lazy. The songs were interspersed with so-called hooting, that is, screams, exclamations of “Oooh!”, “Hey!”, and hoots and hoots. The hooting was so strong that it could be heard in villages far from the fields. All this polyphonic noise was beautifully called “the singing of the stubble.”
In order for a certain part of the work to be completed by the evening, those lagging behind were urged: “Pull up! Pull up! Pull! Pull your goat!” Each girl tried to press more sheaves, get ahead of her friends, and not fall behind. They laughed at the lazy ones and shouted: “Girl! Kila for you! - and at night they “put a stake” on the strip for careless girls: they stuck a stick into the ground with a bunch of straw or an old bast shoe tied to it. The quality and speed of work determined whether the girl was “hardworking” and whether she would be a good housewife. If the reaper left an uncompressed groove behind her, they said that she “will have a man’s guts”; if the sheaves turned out to be large, then the man will be big; if they are even and beautiful, then he will be rich and hardworking. To make the work go smoothly, the girls said: “The stripe is like a white hare, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo!” (Morozov I.A., Sleptsova I.S.S. 119), and in order not to get tired, they girded themselves with a flagellum from the stems with the words: “Just as mother rye became a year old and was not tired, so my back would not get tired of reaping” ( Maikov L. N. S. 204).
The work ended when the sun was setting and the stubble was covered with dew. It was not allowed to remain in the field after sunset: according to legend, this could prevent the deceased ancestors from “walking through the fields and enjoying the harvest.” Before leaving the underharvested strip, it was supposed to place two handfuls of stems crosswise to protect it from damage. The sickles, having been hidden, were usually left in the field, rather than carried into the house, so as not to cause rain.
After a day of work, the girls again gathered in a flock and all went to rest together, singing about unhappy love:

I sang songs, my chest hurt,
My heart was breaking.
Tears were rolling down my face -
I broke up with my sweetheart.

Hearing loud singing, guys appeared and flirted with the girls, hoping for their favor. The guys' jokes were sometimes quite rude. For example, the guys frightened the girls by unexpectedly attacking them from behind the bushes, or they set up “gags”: they tied up the tops of the grasses that grew on both sides of the path along which the girls walked. In the dark, the girls might not notice the trap and would fall, causing the guys to laugh joyfully.
Then they walked together, and the girls chanted to the brides’ boyfriends:

Our Maryushka was walking through the garden,
We have Vasilievna in green.
Well done Ivan looked at her:
“Here comes my precious, priceless beauty.
Went through the whole village,
I haven’t found a more beautiful Maria.
You, Maryushka, darling,
Surround me joyfully
Please kiss me on the mouth."

They tried to complete the harvest all in one day. If someone did not make it on time, neighbors rushed to his aid. This was caused by a natural desire to help a neighbor, as well as by the fact that unharvested strips interfered with the removal of sheaves from the fields to the threshing floor and grazing of livestock, which were released for the stubble.
The end of hard, suffering work was celebrated very festively. Girls and women sang supper songs in which they praised the field and God:

And thank God
Before new year,
God bless,
They reaped the cornfield,
Strada suffered!
God bless
Until the new year!

On the last day of the harvest, many rituals were performed. Their essence was to thank the field for the harvest, to ask it to bear fruit for next year and take health from the field for yourself and your loved ones. In some villages, girls and women stood in a circle, took sickles, raised them up and asked: “Ugly, Lord! next year, so that the rye will be a wall.” In others, they thanked the sickle for the work, winding stalks of rye on it: “Thank you, grayling, for taking care of me, now I will take care of you, I’ll feed you wheat.”
Almost throughout Russia, the custom of “curling a beard” was widespread, that is, ears of grain specially left unharvested in the field were tied with ribbons or braided, and a piece of bread with salt was placed on the ground under them. The “beard” was tied by the mistress of the house in the presence of all the reapers of the family. Before the ceremony, the girls were allowed to squeeze a few pistils left for Ilya’s beard. If a girl reaped an odd number of ears of grain, this meant that matchmakers would come to her on Pokrov; if it was an odd number, she would have to wait for the matchmakers until the winter meat-eater. After this, the girls left to have fun in their flock, and the women, holding hands, began to dance around the beard, chanting a spell:

We are already weaving, we are weaving our beard
At Gavrila's field,
Curling the beard
At Vasilyevich's and on the wide one,
At Vasilyevich’s, yes, on a wide one.
On the great fields,
On wide stripes,
Yes, to the mountains high,
On the black arable land,
On arable land.

After harvesting all the grain in the village, a collective meal was held with beer, boiled meat, “feast” pies, and scrambled eggs. Girls and boys, after sitting with everyone else, went on a walk and had fun until the morning.

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The work of a real peasant, just like a real artisan, is solitary creativity: in quiet absorption he devotes himself to his occupation. He lives in his creation, just as an artist lives in his; he most likely would not have given it to the market at all. With bitter tears in their eyes, the peasant women take their beloved pawn out of the stall and take her to the slaughterhouse; an old artisan is fighting for his pipe, which a merchant wants to buy from him... The peasant, just like the artisan, stands behind his work, he vouches for it with the honor of the artist.

Under feudalism, the division of peasant labor into necessary and surplus appeared in an open form: during the necessary working time, the peasant ensured the existence of himself and his family. During surplus time, he created a surplus product, which was appropriated free of charge by the feudal lord in the form: eat.

The landowners, deprived of the free labor of the peasants, were forced to rebuild their farms in accordance with the new conditions. However, the transition from the feudal system of farming to the capitalist one could not be carried out immediately, since the old system was only undermined, but not destroyed. Therefore, the landowner economy was based on a combination of two systems - labor and capitalist.

The labor of peasants is used to an even lesser extent in various crafts. The erroneous attitudes that existed at one time led to the fact that handicraft industries gradually fell into decline and were eventually almost completely eliminated. This had a detrimental effect on the financial situation of the village, and socially led to the country losing large quantity products that satisfy the household needs of the population. We also note that we have not fully used labor resources villages, there were great losses of income that these crafts brought when selling products both within the country and abroad.

During the 15th century, while the labor of independent peasants and agricultural workers, engaged in independent work along with hired work at the same time, went to their own benefit, the standard of living of the farmer was as insignificant as the scope of his production.

What conditions should be created to make the peasant’s work easier? There must be machines, and machines can only be used effectively in a cooperative. As a communist, I am interested in people, regardless of what nation they are, what language they speak, what faith they worship, to live well. Working people are the same everywhere. The working people earn bread by the sweat of their brow, and I want the working people to shed less sweat and receive more products from their labor. This is what I am interested in as a person. I am also interested in you achieving the same thing that we have achieved, soviet people, and even more best results, taking advantage of the experience of our peasants.

The theoretical reflection of the economic productivity of the land (along with the labor of the peasants) was the teaching of the French physiocrats (Quesnay, Boisbilguera, Turgot) that only Agriculture has a productive nature, allowing not only to reimburse its costs, but also to obtain a surplus product. In other branches of handicraft and industrial production who do not cultivate the land, supposedly only their costs are reimbursed, nothing more, and therefore no surplus product is created by them.

Similar problems arise in socialism - whether the peasant’s labor on his plot should be taken into account.

This acceleration, which was based on the principle of material stimulation of peasant labor, in the second half of the 20s. began to slow down, but not through the fault of the rural worker.

The transformation of the nobles into a privileged class was accompanied by an expansion of their rights to the personality and labor of the peasant.

Under feudalism, the source of land rent was the surplus (partially necessary) labor of personally dependent peasants.

This means that the landowner's land is cultivated with the same peasant implements, the labor of a ruined, impoverished, enslaved peasant. This is what it is, the culture that the deputy Svyato-polk-Mirsky spoke about and which all the defenders of landowners’ interests talk about. Landowners, of course, have the best livestock, which live better in a master's stable than a peasant in a peasant's hut. The landowner, of course, better harvests, because the landowner committees took care to cut off best lands from the peasants and write them down to the landowners.

Social politics parties, Soviet state is to based on modern technology and science to bring closer and closer the nature of the work of the peasant and the work of the worker, to improve the life of the village, to improve the culture of rural life. All this practically leads to the gradual elimination of socio-economic, cultural and everyday differences between city and countryside, between the working class and the peasantry.

Over time, the monasteries from labor communities, where everyone worked for everyone and everyone spiritually supported each of their brethren, turned into large land owners who used the forced labor of peasants.

The reduction in the sources of recruitment for slaves, as well as the blurring of the lines between them and the peasants, entailed the elimination of the archaic form of exploitation: the labor productivity of a slave per month was lower than the labor productivity of a peasant who cultivated his allotment.