Worlds in Conflict: Patriarchal Authority, Discipline and the Russian School, 1861–1914

Abstract

Grigory Soroka was a serf, one of millions in pre-reform Russia. What set him apart was perhaps not his artistic talent, for many peasants revealed their individual expressive gifts in carved decoration, ceramics, toy-making and other crafts.¹ Soroka was unusual in that he received instruction from Aleksei Venetsianov, a retired bureaucrat, small-property owner and renowned painter. Soroka, despite his refined talents, remained unfree, for his owner (N. P.Miliukov), unheeding of Venetsianov’s pleas, refused to manumit his ‘serf artist’. When the emancipation came, then, Soroka led his villagers in drawing up a petition protesting the terms which Miliukov sought to impose. The petition, addressed to the Tsar, was returned to the provincial office dealing with peasant affairs, and shown to Miliukov who, enraged, then drew up his own complaint against the peasants. Soroka was summoned to the volost’ offices, arrested and held for three days, then sentenced to a flogging for ‘obstreperous behaviour and for spreading false rumors’. On 10 April 1864 Grigory Soroka was seen wandering distractedly about the village, and the next day his wife found his body hanging from the rafters in a cold storage building.²

This article is reprinted by permission of the editors of Slavic Review, vol. 50, no. 4, Winter 1991, pp. 792–806.