Suchergebnisse

Gab es für das russische Dorf am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts eine Zukunft jenseits von Kollektivierung, Hunger und Gewalt? Anhand einer Gruppe einflussreicher Agrarexperten untersucht diese Studie das Wechselverhältnis von Wissenschaft, Öffentlichkeit und Politik im späten Zarenreich und der frühen Sowjetunion. Sie beleuchtet, wann und unter welchen Bedingungen es den Experten gelang, ihre Vision einer bäuerlichen Agrarmodernisierung zum Leitbild staatlicher Agrarpolitik zu machen, und warum sie letztlich scheiterten. Die Arbeit belegt die Heterogenität moderner Programmatik in Russland und trägt dazu bei, das Verhältnis von Expertise und Ideologie im 20. Jahrhundert zu verstehen.

Der russische Agrarökonom Aleksandr Čajanov hat schon oft das wissenschaftliche Interesse auf sich gezogen: Ökonomen und Anthropologen nutzten sein Modell der bäuerlichen Familienwirtschaft, um Bauernwirtschaften in Entwicklungsländern zu verstehen. Historiker verbanden Čajanov mit der Möglichkeit einer Alternative zur gewaltsamen Kollektivierung der russischen Landwirtschaft. Der Beitrag will geschichtswissenschaft- lichen Ansprüchen an eine ökonomische Theoriegeschichte gerecht werden und verfolgt die verschiedenen Traditionslinien, welche Čajanovs Wahrnehmung der russischen Land- wirtschaft prägten. Stationen der Untersuchung sind die Etablierung einer populistischen Wirtschaftslehre im späten 19. Jahrhundert, die "Entdeckung" der Bauernwirtschaft durch die Zemstvo-Statistiker, die russische Rezeption der deutschen Historischen Schule sowie Čajanovs Rückgriff auf den in Österreich entwickelten Grenznutzenansatz zur Modellierung mikroökonomischer Entscheidungsabläufe. Der Beitrag verweist darüber hinaus auf die politische Dimension des Čajanovschen Modells und macht einen Vorschlag zur Einordnung Čajanovs in die Geschichte des europäischen Agrarismus.

PUBLISHED ; This article argues for the integration of environmental perspectives into historical studies of territorialization. Using the case of the Western Expedition for the Drainage of Marshlands in Polesia (1873-1902), it shows that the transformation of the environment was one of many means by which the government of the Russian Empire sought to integrate the imperial territory and to develop regions that were considered backward. Three factors shaped these territorialization efforts in Polesia: firstly, the desire to foster economic development in rural areas; secondly, the role of the state as landowner; and, thirdly, a widespread consensus regarding the economic uselessness of wetlands. The canal network built by the Western Expedition improved conditions for commercial forestry in Polesia and connected the region to important transport routes. Yet, canal construction and river straightening measures were contested, as they subordinated existing land and water use practices to the interests of the central government. The example of the Western Expedition demonstrates that the concept of the ?ecosystem engineer? can help to analytically grasp the ecological dimension of imperial rule. At the same time, the case is symptomatic of a new paradigm in the relationship between state and nature in modern Russia: Environmental change was not a side effect of the state?s territorialization efforts, but an actively applied means of spatial consolidation.

PUBLISHED ; The recognition of family farms and agricultural cooperatives as catalysts for agricultural recovery during the perestroika years went along with the rediscovery of the world-famous theoretician of the peasant farm Aleksandr V. Chaianov. The economist?s rehabilitation resulted from the changing conventions of public discourse towards the end of the Soviet era. Yet, Chaianov?s return needs to be linked also with the official image of the rural economy in the preceding decade when in academic and political debates on private subsidiary farms the socialist village took on new contours. Household farming which had previously been condemned as either a ?petty-bourgeois? mode of production or an indicator of the incomplete transition to socialism, was accepted as a component of socialist agriculture. Mirroring a new understanding of socialism, this paradigm shift was an important precondition for the broad public response to Chaianov?s rehabilitation. In the end, the turn towards family farming and co-operation remained an intellectual and political phenomenon with barely any impact on the agrarian order itself. The economic legacy of the Soviet era and local power constellations prevented a fundamental change of the rural order in favor of household-based agriculture.

An die russische Agrarreform der 1990er Jahre knüpfte sich die Erwartung, dass entsprechend der Erfahrung in westlichen Staaten landwirtschaftliche Familienbetriebe (Fermer-Betriebe) an die Stelle der staatlichen Großbetriebe treten und einen Aufschwung in der russischen Landwirtschaft auslösen würden. Entgegen dieser Erwartungen ist der russische Fermer-Sektor bis heute verhältnismäßig schwach entwickelt, während die Landwirtschaft als eines der wichtigsten Problemfelder der russischen Innenpolitik gilt. Im vorliegenden Discussion Paper werden die für die Entstehung des Fermer-Sektors relevanten Aspekte der russischen Agrarreform nachvollzogen sowie auf der Grundlage russischer Statistiken die gegenwärtige Lage der russischen Landwirtschaft analysiert. Im Discussion Paper werden weiterhin die in der russischen Debatte angeführten Argumente für die Überlegenheit von Fermer-Betrieben und verschiedene Erklärungsansätze für die eher unbedeutende Rolle des russischen Fermer-Sektors vorgestellt. ; The reform of Russian agriculture at the beginning of the 1990s was accompanied by high expectations towards the rapid establishment of private family farms. These farms were assumed to replace inefficient state farms and enhance the competitiveness of Russian agriculture. Despite these expectations, family farming is still a small sector in Russia, while agriculture remains one of the most critical problems in Russian politics. This discussion paper provides an overview of the relevant stages of agricultural reform during the 1990s. Based on Russian statistics, it provides an insight into the current state of Russian agriculture, which is characterised by the coexistence of the former kolkhozes and small household farms pursuing subsistence farming. Because the discussions on the intended fermerization of Russian agriculture have highly been ideologized, the paper provides some of the key arguments for family farming, which have been stressed in Russian discussions. The article concludes with several explanations for the modest growth of Russian family farming, including some approaches from social sciences, which should complement purely economic approaches.

PUBLISHED ; In August 1953, the Soviet writer Tikhon Semushkin was sent by Pravda to the countryside to report on the current state of the kolkhoz village. In this article, we use Semushkin?s unpublished travel diaries to study elite perceptions of the countryside and patterns of identity construction in the period of the interregnum between Stalin?s death and the confirmation of Nikita S. Khrushchev as head of the Communist Party. We analyse how in 1953 Soviet citizens reconsidered their place within Soviet society and how the writer acted as a chronicler and participant in this process. Semushkin?s notes prove that regardless of the revolutionary imperative of the Soviet project, the mental framework defining the rural population?s place within a broader social context and ideas about peasant backwardness survived through the political turning points of the early 20th century. However, while narrative conventions from the late Imperial period lived on in depictions of the countryside, the end of Stalinism also induced a gradual reassessment of rural-urban relations. In showing how Stalin?s death shattered established certainties of social belonging and patterns of thinking about the village, we argue that the interregnum was not only a political episode, but also a period of individual and collective searching for orientation at all levels of Soviet society.