The Past

PUBLISHED IN LONDON AND NEW YORK

Boris Anan'ich,
Academician,Russian Academy of Sciences

         One more serious study has been added to the literature on pre-Revolutionary St. Petersburg. "From Peasant to Petersburger" belongs to the pen of the American historian,Evel Economakis. His book was published in London by Macmillan and in New York by St. Martin's Press. The work is based on a variety of published statistical sources and archival materials in St. Petersburg, Pskov, Novgorod, and Tver. One of the first to do so, Economakis studied a great number of workers registered in large enterprises in St. Petersburg. This permitted him to determine their geographical origin and social estate. Economakis shows that peasants from certain provinces, including such northwestern ones as Pskov and Novgorod, very rapidly assimilated to the tempo of city life and became permanent inhabitants of St. Petersburg.
         Why did the processes of urbanization in the capital among peasants from northwestern provinces run deeper and more intensely than among peasants from central Russian provinces? Why did migrants from Novgorod and Pskov provinces find work in the city's industrial enterprises, whereas those from Iaroslavl province worked mainly as traders? Why did peasants from northwestern provinces settle in St. Petersburg, marry, and raise their children here? These and many other questions are answered in Economakis's book.
         The Russian capital attracted different kinds of migrants who found work in different sectors of the economy. People came to St. Petersburg from different sending areas with different economic characteristics and for different reasons. To varying degrees, different kinds of migrants severed ties to the land and village, stayed on in the city, became urbanized, married and raised children. St. Petersburg's factory workers were as different in their social profiles and the paths they followed to the city from the capital's traders or restaurant-workers as the typical immigrant in Germany was from the typical immigrant in France.
         Economakis's book is a valuable and well-documented study of our city's history. It sheds much light on the nature of the ties between northwestern provinces and St. Petersburg on the urbanization of peasants and their influence upon the features and fate of the city.
        

The Past

COORDINATED CLOSE COLLABORATION

Irina Bobovich,
Professor,
Doctor of Economics

Taisia Kitanina,
Professor,
Doctor of Historical Sciences

         Prior to the events of the 1st World war St. Petersburg, which was the capital, was the largest city of Russia in terms of population. In 1912, 1900 thousand people were living here while the population of Moscow was 300 thousand less. The capital was the largest industrial center of the country: heavy engineering was responsible for 2/5 of all Russian industrial output in 1913. The rapidly developing industrial sectors, including mechanical engineering and shipbuilding, power-production and metal processing and modern paper and textile industries, among others, were among the leading industries in St. Petersburg in terms of their rates of growth and cost of production.
         Being the largest administrative center of the state, St. Petersburg was multi-functional. It was linked to the periphery by a thousand administrative and economic threads. Its spacious consumer market stimulated the inflow of goods and enforced economic links.
         St. Petersburg's economic contacts originated from its industrial development and were dual in nature. On the one hand, the capital's economic complex required a constant inflow of metol, fuel, and raw materials for the textile, paper, leather, fur and other industries. These were mainly supplied from the southern regions of European Russia and from Siberia. St. Petersburg sent the ready products of its highly developed processing industries to these areas. By the early 20th century, the capital's economic links were well established. The traditional directions of its main cargo streams were also determined.
         Another economic link was provided by the consumer goods that satisfied the high demand of the population of St. Petersburg. The Northwest occupied an important position here.
         Throughout the second half of the 19th century, events similar to those occurring in a number of other regions of Russia also took place in this region. Many industrial centers were being established, new trade markets were appearing and old ones were being relocated. Consequently, the flow of industrial and agricultural cargo also changed direction. The process of industry and trade consolidation helped to merge numerous small markets scattered across the vast territory.The mass influx of goods by the new railway lines pushed horse transportation away from the market and dramatically reduced the intensity of transportation by water.
         Imports were just as important in satisfying the needs of St. Petersburg as were domestic sources.
         At the time, the port of St. Petersburg was the largest one on the Baltic foreign trade route. The capital received and shipped many goods through its gates. In 1912, the cargo turnover of the port amounted to 113 million poods of export and 227 million poods of import. St. Petersburg imported (and transited) various industrial products, machines, tools, hard coal and coke, fertilizers, chemical substances, raw cotton, tobacco products, food, colonial goods, spices and confectionery. It exported wheat, butter, eggs, sugar, flags, leather, timber and ores. Contemporary records tell us that St. Petersburg consumed huge amounts of goods: up to one third of all imports via the European border and one sixth of all goods imported via internal waterways.