Esther M. Lederberg
Russian Art

The writer Nikolai Nekrasov describes the people found in St. Petersburg. He wrote about this in "Petersburg: The Physiology of a City". However, a visual record of 18th and 19th century Russia provided by Russian artists makes Nekrasov's people more real. The art is not limited to city life. Serfs, the rare freed serfs, and others left the country estates, either legally or otherwise and flocked to cities (with or without internal passports). Some city dwellers left the cities and returned, legally or otherwise (with or without internal passports) back to country estates. Thus city life and the life in the countryside was in continual flux. It is notable that artist Alexei Venetsianov employed linear perspective, as linear perspective was mostly unknown in Russia during the 19th century, unknown even to the Yusupov (<<Юсупов>>) family ¹, related by marriage to the Romanovs (<<Романов>>). Let us look at some of this art.

Nikolai Nekrasov was a progressive thinker. He bought the magazine "Sovremennick" (founded by Pushkin) and printed the works of writers Goncharov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Grigorovich, Druzhinin, Ostrovsky. Nekrasov worked with Belinsky, who highly admired the art of Schedrovsky: his views of everyday people. The writing of Charles Dickens was first translated and published in Russia in "Sovremennick". These thinkers realized that the system of serfs had run its course and was now historically counterproductive towards building a modern Russia.

It is to be noted that Nicolai Milyutin was very close to Ivan Turgenev, and was very close to and worked with Mikhail Saltikov (Shchedrin) and Nicolai Turgenev (a Decembrist) as pioneers in Russian reform. Milyutin, it might be recalled, advised Tsar Alexander II that a major reason why Russia lost the Crimean War was a lack of industrial development due to the backwardness of a society based upon serfdom and a parasitic nobility, telling the Tsar that it was either reform or revolution. "Sovremennick" might be viewed as a propaganda arm of the Tsar Alexander II's government along with the writings of Shchedrin, Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, etc. in bringing about the freeing of the serfs in 1861. Alas, the reforms were not put in place rapidly enough; the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 were necessary.

Artists

Dictionary of Terms (abbreviated)

Tseloval'nik (целовальник)

During the times of Ivan the Terrible (1530 – 1584), local self-governing bodies existed called the Zemsky hut (Земская иэба). It was composed of a Zemzky elder (clerk mayor), the Zemsky sexton (chanter) and the Tselovalnik: only men that paid taxes and were not serfs, elected for a year or two. The purpose of the Zemsky hut was to collect money from the local population (tax farming). As time passed, additional officers were added such as bailiffs and tax and customs officials. The duties of these additional officers was to find and punish criminals, and people feared the Zemsky hut. The honesty of the members of the Zemsky hut was beyond doubt as the officials, including the Tselovalnik (<<Целовальник>>) means a "sworn man". Technically, the word tselovalnik is derived from the contraction of "krestny tselovalnik meaning "the one who kissed the cross" (swore an oath, terminated by kissing the cross).

After the Polish–Muscovite War and the invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1605–1618), the function of the Zemsky hut evolved: not only was it required to collect taxes, and punish people, but people could now be deprived of property if debts were not paid in a timely fashion. Also, the duties of the Tselovalnik expanded, they became involved in the business of the Kabak (Tsar's taverns): Kabatsky Tselovalniki were overseeing tax collection of wine ("razpoy"), beer, and vodka, but were allowed to sell nuts, berries, pies and pancakes at the Kabak door, to "pituhi" (drinkers). Drinks were served with a measuring ladel and records of payment kept. Tsar Mikhail Romanov ordered that no one could establish a korchma (kabak) near a state kabak. The duties of the Tselovalnik now expanded to include enforcing that no korchma were near the Tsar's kabak. To increase kabak profits, skomorokhi (buffoons), gambling, and prostitution were encouraged in the tsar's kabak.

During the 19th century the Russian state exercised a monopoly on alcohol, and vodka sellers in taverns were called tselovalniks as they swore an oath not to dilute vodka supplied by the Russian state distilleries. As previously stated, these tselovalniks were feared, thus took advantage of ordinary people, thus the tselovalnik cooper above (see the art of Schedrovsky) while he may be thought to be "licensed" to guarantee his workmanship, but the other coopers look away in anger as the tselovalnik acts immorally. A cooper makes barrels and these barrels hold a stated volume. If the barrels don't meet standards it would be like diluting what is held in them. Similarly, if one were to purchase a horse, if the horse had a disease or was lame or was in some way defective, the horse dealer responsible for the sale, the tselovalnik would be liable. As time passed, the tselovalnik usually referred to the innkeeper in the Kabak: the Tsar's tavern. Often these innkeepers were Jews. Is this not "odd"? Did Jewish "Tselovalniki" kiss the cross (swear an oath on the Russian Orthodox Bible)? Who would believe a Jew taking such an oath? No, the Jewish tselovalniki simply bribed corrupt officials to buy the "title", they swore no oath on the Russian Orthodox Bible.

Is there evidence that tchinovniki (governmental officials with a rank (tchin, or чин) could be bribed? A tchinovnik could easily be bribed. How do we know this? The well known writer Mikhail Saltykov (Nikolai Shchedrin), or Михайл Салтыков (Николай Щедрин) author of "Tchinovnicks: Sketches of Provincial Life" tells us so. See especially chapter II. Shchedrin describes Tchinovnicks using bribery, extortion, blackmail, infinite delays (Shchedrin even mentions Dickens' "Jarndyce v. Jarndyce" in chapter I), secret proceedings, etc. In the chapter "Times of Yore", Tchinovnicks use torture, violence, even death. (Click for additional information). Thus Jews were thought of as predatory, or at best, as predatory agents of the Tsar.