The lady from "Mumu" is a collective image of the era. And who were they - the real cruel landowners?
Serfdom existed in Russia de facto since the 11th century, but it was officially confirmed by the Cathedral Code of 1649 and abolished only in 1861.
In 1741, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna issued a decree banning serfs from allegiance, thereby indicating that involuntary people are not even included in the rank of members of society. Violence against serfs in Russia in the 18th century was the norm.
The peasants were treated like livestock, they were married for aesthetic reasons (for example, for their height - it is very convenient and beautiful), they were not allowed to remove bad teeth so as not to lose their "presentation" (ads for the sale of serfs were adjacent in the newspaper with notes on the sale of a samovar, bird cherry flour, hounds and sows). You could beat the slave as much as you wanted, the main thing was that the serf did not die within 12 hours. The most important villains of the era - below.
Nikolay Struisky
1749-1796
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Possessions: Ruzayevka estate, lands in Simbirsk, Orenburg and Kazan provinces
Serfs in possession: 2,700
Struisky was the owner of the rich Penza estate Ruzayevka. According to the description in the Russian Biographical Dictionary (RBS), the landowner was known among the people as a tyrant. Every day he dressed up in the style of different eras and peoples. He loved poetry and wrote poetry. On this occasion, he even opened a private printing house on the estate. Memoirists speak of him as an eccentric graphomaniac. "By the name of the stream, but by the verses - the swamp", - Derzhavin ironically.
Ruzayevka estate
But the main entertainment of the landowner was role-playing games, especially criminal ones. Struisky invented a plot for the "crime", chose among his peasants those who would be accused and who would be a witness, arranged interrogations and personally passed a sentence. The punishments, meanwhile, were real. In Struisky's basement there was a collection of instruments of torture, lovingly collected from around the world. There was also a zone with a "live shooting range". The victims ran from wall to wall, uttering the sounds of ducks, while Struysky fired. On account of the "director" and "poet" - the lives of about 200 serfs.
Struisky went unpunished. He died after the news of the death of Catherine II, "fell ill with fever, lost his tongue and closed his eyes forever."
Lev Izmailov
1764-1834
Possessions: estates of the Tula and Ryazan provinces
Number of serfs in possession: about 1000
The cavalry general Lev Dmitrievich Izmailov had two passions: dogs and girls. The landowner had about seven hundred dogs, and they were of the noblest breeds. If Izmailov wanted to get some new wonderful dog, he offered to exchange it for his peasants in any quantity. In the play by A. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" in the following words of Chatsky, it is about Izmailov: "That Nestor of noble villains, surrounded by a crowd of servants; zealous, they during the hours of wine and fight and honor, and his life more than once saved: suddenly he exchanged three greyhounds for them !!! " Izmailovo dogs lived in tsarist conditions: each had a separate room and selected food.
The fact that Izmailov respects dogs above people is proved by his dialogue with the valet, to whom a rich tyrant, in response to the objection “you cannot compare a person with a stupid creature,” pierced his hand with a fork. About his own workers, who slept side by side and ate somehow, and besides, were deprived of the right to start a family, Izmailov used to say: "If I marry all this moth, it will eat me completely."
I. Izhakevich. Serfs are exchanged for dogs
As for Izmailov's second passion, it was quenched by his personal harem, in which there were always exactly 30 girls, the youngest were barely 12. Their living conditions can be compared with a prison: under lock and key and with bars on the windows. Concubines were released only for a walk in the garden or going to the bathhouse. When guests came to Izmailov, he certainly sent the girls to their rooms, and the more important the guest, the younger they were.
Rumors about the atrocities of the landowner reached the emperor himself. In 1802, Alexander I wrote the following to the civil governor of Tula Ivanov: “It has come to my attention that retired Major General Lev Izmailov, leading a dissolute life open to all vices, brings to his lust the most shameful and oppressive sacrifices for the peasants. I instruct you to scout out these rumors without publicity, and convey them to me with certainty. The provincial authorities have been investigating the Izmailov case for many years, but thanks to his connections and wealth, he remained, in fact, unpunished. Only in 1831, according to the Senate report, his estates were taken into custody, and he himself was recognized not to leave his estates.
Otto Gustav Douglas
1687-1771
Possessions: estates of the Revel province
Number of serfs in possession: unknown
It is surprising that foreigners entering the royal service easily adopted the ferocious method of communicating with the serfs, competing with their neighbors in ruthlessness. One of these people was the Russian general-in-chief Otto Gustav Douglas, a Swedish military and Russian statesman, a participant in the Great Northern War, Governor General of Finland and Governor of Revel Province. While in the civil service, he was remembered in history for adhering to the scorched earth tactics, ruining the Finnish lands, and sent to Russia "into slavery", according to various sources, from 200 to 2000 Finnish peasants.
N. A. Kasatkin. “ The serf actress in disgrace, breastfeeding the master's puppy ”
And watching the perverse sadism of "noble liberty", he created his own sadistic handwriting: back fireworks. At first, Douglas did not regretfully beat the peasants with a whip, after which he ordered to sprinkle their backs with gunpowder, in order to then approach the unfortunate with a burning candle and set fire to their wounds.
There was also a murder on his account - though it was kind of unintentional, and not a serf, but a certain captain. For this, he was sentenced by the court to life imprisonment, but, being the favorite of Peter I, he got off with three weeks of work in the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg.
Daria Saltykova (Saltychikha)
1730-1801
Possessions: Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces
Number of serfs in possession: about 600
"A torturer and murderer who inhumanely killed her people to death" - this is the characteristic of Saltykova from the Supreme Decree of 1768. The surname "murderers" can often be found not only in the list of the most cruel landowners, but even among serial killers. Widowed at the age of 26, Saltykova received six hundred souls in her full power in the Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces. Perhaps it was the death of her husband that influenced the lady, who was calm until then, in a completely nightmarish way. The victims of the landowner, according to contemporaries, were from 75 to 138 people.
From the very morning she went to check how the household was being conducted: whether the dresses were washed, the floors were washed, the dishes were clean. It was enough for Saltykova to notice a leaf from an apple tree flying from the window on the floor to start beating the scrubber with the first object that came to hand. When she got tired of hitting, she called the groom for help. She herself sat and, reveling, watched the execution. If the guilty survivor, her half-dead was sent to wash the floors again. Saltykova was inhumanly inventive and merciless: she poured boiling water over the victims, burned their skin with hot tongs, exposed them naked in the cold, or sent them to sit in an ice-hole for an hour.
Illustration of Kurdyumov's work for the encyclopedic publication “ Great Reform ”, which depicts Saltychikha's torture “ as soft as possible ”
There were many complaints about the frantic mistress, but Saltykova had even more connections among officials and influential people. All scammers were sent into exile. But two peasants, Savely Martynov and Ermolai Ilyin, whose wives she killed, still managed to convey the complaint to Empress Catherine II. An investigation was conducted for about six years, after which the landowner was sentenced to life imprisonment in an underground prison without electricity and deprivation of the noble family.
In the original of the decree, Catherine II instead of “she” wrote “he”, hinting that Saltychikha was unworthy to be considered a special merciful sex, and ordered everyone to further name Saltykov with the pronoun “he”.