November 4, 2015
Serfdom and Splendor:
The World of the Russian Country Estate
Priscilla Roosevelt
Fellow of the Institute for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies,
George Washington University
Serfdom and Splendor:
The World of the Russian Country Estate
Priscilla Roosevelt
Fellow of the Institute for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies,
George Washington University
Priscilla Roosvelt, Speaker Landon Jones, Introducer
Minutes of the Eighth Meeting of the 74th Year
President Owen Leach called to order the eighth meeting of the Old Guard of Princeton’s 74th year, with 129 attendees. Charles Clark provided the invocation. Deborah Poritz read her minutes of the Oct. 28 meeting.
Jack Wallace introduced Tom Harvey, Bill Sweeney introduced Dale Shannon, Greg Dobbs introduced his wife, Mary Dobbs, and Colin Hill introduced Andrew and Anna Littour.
President Leach asked for a moment of silence in memory of the passing of Bill Stoltzfus and the news that the Vice President of the Old Guard, Charles Rojer, was in a home hospice with incurable stomach cancer.
SERFDOM AND SPLENDOR: THE WORLD OF THE RUSSSIAN COUNTRY ESTATE
Landon Jones introduced Prof. Priscilla Roosevelt, author of the magisterial “Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History,” published by Yale, in whose honor I am wearing my Yale tie. Roosevelt, degreed at Harvard and Columbia, became fascinated by the social and cultural history of Russian estates while writing her doctoral dissertation. This passion has resulted in her becoming perhaps the leading authority on those aspects of Russia’s history.
Like “War and Peace” and “Doctor Zhivago,” Professor Roosevelt’s lecture captured the breadth and scope of a vanished way of life. Her presentation provided glimpses of the astounding scholarship that earned her a nice letter from George Kennan, the diplomat and historian.
Roosevelt introduced the age of “serfdom and splendor” with a rapid tour of a few famous estates that still exist. These were a far cry from Hyde Park, where King George VI and Queen Mary were quartered in a tiny guestroom that would be considered servants’ quarters in England, or Mount Vernon, where guests were served boarding house dinners.
The scale of Russian serfdom was staggering. A few estate owners had over 100,000 serfs to fulfill their caprices, and there were 30 million privately owned serfs compared with four million slaves in the American South. The golden age of estate building began with Catherine the Great in the 18th century. Owners sought to emulate lavish French and, later, English styles, but on steroids, because of their apparently limitless wealth. The top nobles often got their wealth from imperial concessions on Russia’s natural resources and from massive grants of land and serfs from the czars. (Sound familiar, Czar Putin?) They had regiments of serf artists and artisans who were apprenticed locally or even occasionally sent abroad to master their crafts.
Russia was a hierarchical society. On the estate the local autocrat was the sole source of law. The Westernized elite in their manor houses were surrounded by traditional Russian peasant villages. Yet renowned artists such as Pushkin and Tolstoy learned to appreciate native culture by living on their own estates.
Roosevelt employed stunning visuals to illustrate estate opulence. She began with Count Sheremetev’s Kuskovo, which Catherine the Great visited six times. Its lavish reception rooms advertised his wealth and the skills of his serf artists. The separate kitchen wing, one of a number of amazing outbuildings, would be a lordly mansion elsewhere. The conservatory operated throughout the harsh Russian winters, delivering fruits and vegetables to guests while birds fluttered about. The grotto and Italian palace were used for entertaining, while the hermitage allowed the count to be alone with intimate guests, food and drink arriving invisibly via dumbwaiters.
Noblesse oblige encouraged lavish entertainments, to which people “appropriately dressed” were invited. Many festive days ended with eye-popping fireworks. The count’s serf theater was famous: the performances outdid those of the Imperial Theater in Moscow. There were at least 800 serf theaters on estates throughout Russia, as well as numerous serf harems.
In 1861, Czar Alexander II emancipated Russia's serfs. Now anyone with money could own an estate, and nobles who could not manage without serfs sold their properties in droves. But significantly, most new owners were well aware of the prestigious traditions of earlier estate life and tried to maintain them during the next half century.
World War I, the 1917 revolution and Russia’s civil war finally doomed Russia’s estates. Houses were pillaged and destroyed, the owners displaced or murdered and the archives and libraries burned. Some estate buildings escaped by becoming government facilities. More recently there has been a concerted effort, in which Roosevelt has been in the forefront, to restore some vestiges of those magnificent estates. Meanwhile, if you crave a Russian faux mansion, there is a new 20,000-squar-foot Moscow edifice available for $13.9 million.
Respectfully submitted,
Keith Wheelock
Jack Wallace introduced Tom Harvey, Bill Sweeney introduced Dale Shannon, Greg Dobbs introduced his wife, Mary Dobbs, and Colin Hill introduced Andrew and Anna Littour.
President Leach asked for a moment of silence in memory of the passing of Bill Stoltzfus and the news that the Vice President of the Old Guard, Charles Rojer, was in a home hospice with incurable stomach cancer.
SERFDOM AND SPLENDOR: THE WORLD OF THE RUSSSIAN COUNTRY ESTATE
Landon Jones introduced Prof. Priscilla Roosevelt, author of the magisterial “Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History,” published by Yale, in whose honor I am wearing my Yale tie. Roosevelt, degreed at Harvard and Columbia, became fascinated by the social and cultural history of Russian estates while writing her doctoral dissertation. This passion has resulted in her becoming perhaps the leading authority on those aspects of Russia’s history.
Like “War and Peace” and “Doctor Zhivago,” Professor Roosevelt’s lecture captured the breadth and scope of a vanished way of life. Her presentation provided glimpses of the astounding scholarship that earned her a nice letter from George Kennan, the diplomat and historian.
Roosevelt introduced the age of “serfdom and splendor” with a rapid tour of a few famous estates that still exist. These were a far cry from Hyde Park, where King George VI and Queen Mary were quartered in a tiny guestroom that would be considered servants’ quarters in England, or Mount Vernon, where guests were served boarding house dinners.
The scale of Russian serfdom was staggering. A few estate owners had over 100,000 serfs to fulfill their caprices, and there were 30 million privately owned serfs compared with four million slaves in the American South. The golden age of estate building began with Catherine the Great in the 18th century. Owners sought to emulate lavish French and, later, English styles, but on steroids, because of their apparently limitless wealth. The top nobles often got their wealth from imperial concessions on Russia’s natural resources and from massive grants of land and serfs from the czars. (Sound familiar, Czar Putin?) They had regiments of serf artists and artisans who were apprenticed locally or even occasionally sent abroad to master their crafts.
Russia was a hierarchical society. On the estate the local autocrat was the sole source of law. The Westernized elite in their manor houses were surrounded by traditional Russian peasant villages. Yet renowned artists such as Pushkin and Tolstoy learned to appreciate native culture by living on their own estates.
Roosevelt employed stunning visuals to illustrate estate opulence. She began with Count Sheremetev’s Kuskovo, which Catherine the Great visited six times. Its lavish reception rooms advertised his wealth and the skills of his serf artists. The separate kitchen wing, one of a number of amazing outbuildings, would be a lordly mansion elsewhere. The conservatory operated throughout the harsh Russian winters, delivering fruits and vegetables to guests while birds fluttered about. The grotto and Italian palace were used for entertaining, while the hermitage allowed the count to be alone with intimate guests, food and drink arriving invisibly via dumbwaiters.
Noblesse oblige encouraged lavish entertainments, to which people “appropriately dressed” were invited. Many festive days ended with eye-popping fireworks. The count’s serf theater was famous: the performances outdid those of the Imperial Theater in Moscow. There were at least 800 serf theaters on estates throughout Russia, as well as numerous serf harems.
In 1861, Czar Alexander II emancipated Russia's serfs. Now anyone with money could own an estate, and nobles who could not manage without serfs sold their properties in droves. But significantly, most new owners were well aware of the prestigious traditions of earlier estate life and tried to maintain them during the next half century.
World War I, the 1917 revolution and Russia’s civil war finally doomed Russia’s estates. Houses were pillaged and destroyed, the owners displaced or murdered and the archives and libraries burned. Some estate buildings escaped by becoming government facilities. More recently there has been a concerted effort, in which Roosevelt has been in the forefront, to restore some vestiges of those magnificent estates. Meanwhile, if you crave a Russian faux mansion, there is a new 20,000-squar-foot Moscow edifice available for $13.9 million.
Respectfully submitted,
Keith Wheelock