Gentlemen of the Chikhachevs. The world of local nobility in Nikolaev Russia

Our ideas about how the Russian nobles of the 19th century lived are largely formed by reading the classics of fiction - from I. S. Turgenev to M.E. Saltykov -Shchedrin. Micro -chistorical examination by K. Antonova Pikering allows you to find out about the daily life of the nobles from the firsthand. Based on unique archival materials, the book is recreated in the book and the worldview of the provincial medium -sized family of the second quarter of the 19th century. The focus is the family of a resident of the Vladimir province, the philanthropist and philanthropist Andrei Chikhachev. The documents of his archive are filled with worries about the economy and children, anxieties about the crop, health, litigation with neighbors and relations with serfs. Analyzing these materials, the author reveals ideas about the authorities and personality, society and faith, enlightenment and romanticism, describes the circle of communication of the Chikhachevs and shows how the concepts and key ideas of the era spread and took root in the conditions of the Russian province. In particular, the "male" and "female" gender roles inherent in the ideology of home life in the 19th century could change places (the father of the family was engaged in raising children, the mother managed finances and peasants), and conservative and liberal ideas are peacefully coexisted in the minds of the landowners of the middle arms. Katherine Pikering Antonov is a specialist in Russian history, a teacher of the Kuins College of the city University of New York (Queens College, Cuny)