Landowners of the Nizhny Novgorod province of the 19th century. The history of the Lobis family, landowners of the Ardatov district of the Nizhny Novgorod province

The life of our region in the past was determined, of course, not only by the cities and monasteries located on its territory. As in other places, in the districts closest to Sarov there were noble estates, life in which, apparently, was not much different from the life of landowners in other Russian provinces, known to us from Russian XIX literature century. This impression is confirmed by P. Melnikov-Pechersky: “... it is always fun in Ardatov, especially in winter, when several district landowners come here, after long trips from village to village for guests. These trips, one might say, are the only ones of their kind: the landowner, bored with living at home, orders two or three horses to be harnessed, and with all the children and household members, people and horses, he goes to his neighbor. He feasts there for a day or two, and if his conscience doesn’t dawn on him, then even for a week. Having settled here, he goes to another neighbor who lived from his village, about fifty miles away, then he goes further and further, and when he has been everywhere, he returns home. Not repaying such a visit is considered the greatest crime: even though you are sick, go ahead - that’s the way it is. However, they say that now such trips are not as frequent as they were before; The landowners have settled down at home and, thank God, they even forget about hunting with dogs.”

Of course, an adjustment for scale is necessary: ​​the richest court nobles had their estates near the capitals, but in our area everything was more modest and provincial. But among the inhabitants of our region there were also people known in Russia.

The history of the nobility who owned lands in Ardatovsky district is still waiting for its researcher. The names are impressive: princes Gagarins (village of Kuzhendeevo), Durnovo (Sakony), Bludovs (Gari), princes Volkonsky (Kruglovo), princes Shakhovsky (Kichanzino), counts Zakrevsky (Kremenki), counts Lansky (Mechasovo), princes Obolensky and many others. Which of the counts and princes lived on the territory of the county, and which only owned property, remains to be found out. Below we will talk about what we already know.

A.N. Karamzin

The Bolshoi Makatelyom estate in the Pervomaisky district is located approximately 55 km from Sarov. It belonged to Alexander Nikolaevich Karamzin, the son of the historian and writer Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826). The history of this estate is as follows.

In 1797, the villages of Bolshoy and Maly Makatelyom in the Ardatovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod province were given to Prince A.I. Vyazemsky (father of Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, Pushkin’s friend and poet). Vyazemsky inherited this estate to his illegitimate daughter Ekaterina Andreevna Kolyvanova (1780-1851), who in 1804 became the wife of N.M. Karamzin. This was his second marriage.

N.M. Karamzin was never on this estate; after his death, Ekaterina Andreevna disposed of the Makatelemami, then she transferred the estate to the ownership of her son Alexander.

Alexander Nikolaevich Karamzin was born on December 31, 1815 (old style) in Moscow. Having received a good education at home, he supplemented it with studies at the Faculty of Law of the University of Dorpat. In his youth, he tried his hand at literature: he wrote poetry. Despite his recognized abilities, Alexander Karamzin never became a real writer. His only major work, the story in verse “Boris Ulin”, published in 1839, was sharply criticized by V.G. Belinsky. Nevertheless, great value for him had acquaintances with A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, V.A. Zhukovsky.

Since 1833, Alexander Karamzin - on military service, which he left in 1841 with the rank of lieutenant. After some time, he settled in the family estate - Bolshoi Makatelyom.

After the death of Nikolai Mikhailovich, his family was in need of money, and the Karamzins’ well-being mainly depended on income from the estate. “I won’t tire of telling you to save your money; there are so many of them leaving; but we don’t have too many of them, things are bad with income, because things are bad in Makatelemy,” wrote Ekaterina Andreevna to her eldest son Andrei in 1836.

The topic of money also occupied Alexander Nikolaevich. Here is an excerpt from his letter to Andrei Karamzin, written in 1837. “In general, I have long noticed that money is a tempting little thing, but at the same time it is also vile, very vile, worldly vanity, everything is perishable, and the moment when I become a legislator, my first law will be so that no one dares to demand money like a thing disgusting to God and a diabolical invention, but he would simply give everything away for free, especially horses, oats, hay, straw, gloves, boots, oysters and coachman’s clothes. After the camp, I certainly ask for a 28-day vacation and go to the village in order to instill in the peasants that their first virtue, duty to heaven and earth and the direct path to heaven at the end of life is to send as much money as possible to their masters and even more than possible. If they listen to me, then I am master; if not, then unfortunately I am lost. The last case is more plausible. However, in comparison with eternity, this is all nothing!

To better make ends meet, the Karamzins started a cheese-making production on the estate and achieved success, if not economic, then gastronomic: “Mrs. Karamzina’s cheese” received a large silver medal at an agricultural and craft exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod in 1849.

In 1850, Alexander Nikolaevich married Natalia Vasilievna Obolenskaya. Karamzin received some funds as a dowry, and together with his wife they decided to continue trying to do business. In 1852, Karamzin filed a petition for permission to build a metallurgical plant with one blast furnace on land that belonged to him. Attached to the petition was a plan of the proposed plant and a piece of local iron ore weighing 20 pounds. Permission was received and construction began. The location for the plant was chosen on the banks of the Umoch River in the middle of an area of ​​explored ore deposits.

In the construction of the plant, Alexander Nikolaevich was greatly assisted by his brother Andrey, who lived for some time in the Urals and was married to the widow of the factory owner P.N. Demidova. Andrei sent specialists to help his brother, and also purchased from him the first batch of cast iron, which the plant produced in 1853. The plant was named Tashinsky, after the home name of Karamzin’s wife Natalia - Tasha. This was the beginning of the city of Pervomaisk, which bore the old name Tashino until 1951. This was not the only toponymic experience of A.N. Karamzin. Since the plant was built in a deserted place, he moved some of his peasants to new villages closer to him. The new villages were named Nikolaevka (in honor of their father), Ekaterinivka (in honor of their mother), Tsyganovka (they say in memory of their beloved dog).

Things went well at the Tashino plant. By 1863, in addition to the blast furnace, five more puddling and welding furnaces were in operation - for processing cast iron into iron. The production of various cast iron products was mastered. In addition, in 1863 Karamzin founded a distillery on his estate.

The Karamzin estate was built near Bolshoi Makatelyom in a place called Rogozhka. They say that peasants used to soak bast for matting in the ravines there, hence the name. A park was laid out next to the house (now it occupies an area of ​​30 ha, experts count 42 species of trees and 70 different types of shrubs in it). Ponds were made on the territory of the estate, which have survived to this day.

But the main thing is that the income from Karamzin’s entrepreneurial activities was also spent for the benefit local residents, a hospital was built in Rogozhka with his funds. After the war with Turkey, Makatelem peasants who suffered in the war were placed there, and there was also a shelter for orphans and cripples. To this day, in the vicinity of Rogozhka, stories about Karamzin as a kind and caring gentleman are passed down from generation to generation. In the 1870s, Karamzin transferred the hospital to the Nizhny Novgorod provincial zemstvo government, but until Soviet times it retained its name “Karamzinskaya”. Until his death in 1888, Alexander Nikolaevich was a trustee of the hospital. However, he also held other elected positions, including being the leader of the nobility of the Ardatov district. At the same time, Karamzin’s interests did not extend beyond the affairs of the district. “I have withdrawn completely from the world; I only know my district and my factory,” he wrote in 1880 to I.S. Aksakov.

N.V. also died in 1892. Obolenskaya-Karamzina. The landowner Varvara Petrovna Shcherbakova took care of the hospital and almshouse. The hospital, like the manor's house, was wooden, and in 1893 it burned down. In 1895, a stone building was built to replace the one that burned down, in which the hospital is still located. Funds for construction were provided by Shcherbakova and Countess Ekaterina Petrovna Kleinmichel (née Demidova), A.N.’s step-niece. Karamzin.

Karamzin Hospital

Princes Shakhaev

Very little is known about the Shakhaev landowners. But it is necessary to mention them, if only because from them the only surviving monument of estate architecture on the territory of the Diveyevo district remains - the landowner’s house in Osinovka (15 km from Sarov).

The land “on the Aspen ravine” was granted to Murza Ivakai Shakhaev in 1653, since then the Russified Shakhaev family settled in the nearby Sarov district. The Shakhaev princes were among the first benefactors of the Sarov Desert; Prince Fyodor Shakhaev was buried in the monastery near its cathedrals in 1755. The house in question was apparently built in the middle of the 19th century. The memoirs of the writer Boris Sadovsky about the last owner of this house, Prince Nikolai Sergeevich Shakhaev, have been preserved.

He was “a hospitable man and a womanizer, of immense thickness, sociable and cheerful. “The dead mother” (as he called his mother), in addition to the estate, refused her son a small jar of money. The prince began to revel and play.<…>He had a stud farm and rode in a Russian harness with bells and bells, sometimes on a troika of bays, sometimes on a troika of whites. Lunch at Shakhaev's was served Russian: fatty cabbage soup with buckwheat porridge, fattened geese and piglets. An old chateau-ikem was stored in the wine cellar. The owner went into the cellar himself and did not give the key to anyone.

The prince called his mistresses “coupons.” He married off the first one and began looking for another. I was not shy in my search. - “Come to me, most respected one: what a little thing I got for myself, with a voice.” After dinner: “Well, darling, sing for us.” And I listened with pleasure to her shrill singing. She then left him, and the prince, already ruined, built her a house in Temnikov and gave her five thousand in money. When Shakhaev became completely poor, she, dying, refused him this money in her will. Recently, the prince lived as a zemstvo chief on Vyksa with a third “coupon”. It was a very young “little thing”, and also with a “voice”. She buried him.

The prince occupied half of the Osinovsky house downstairs; the “coupon” lived in the other half. The uninhabited, boarded-up roof was all painted with bosquet. Above the top is a maid's room, turned into a mezzanine. The lower rooms were cluttered with old furniture and many wall and dining room clocks. In the huge closet there is a warehouse of all kinds of things, even from the “deceased mother”. There were family documents and scrolls in the closet; Shakhaev didn’t have any books.”

In the hagiographic literature about Seraphim of Sarov, a certain princess E.S. appears. Shakhaev, she met with the monk, while living not far from the monastery. Perhaps this was the aforementioned “dead mother.”

At the end of his cheerful life, apparently unable to support him, N.S. Shakhaev transferred his house to the Ardat district zemstvo. A medical center was set up there, which was later converted into a hospital, which existed in this building for almost a century. In 1976, the hospital was transferred to the regional center, and former house The Shakhaevs were transferred to workshops. The building was not used for some time in the 1990s and is now a nursing home.

Princes Shakhovsky

Two people who bore this beautiful ancient surname left a bright mark in the history of the neighboring Ardatovsky district. The first of them is Nikolai Grigorievich Shakhovskoy (1754-1824), considered the founder of the Nizhny Novgorod theater. Generally speaking, at the end of the 18th century there were several theaters in the province, but they were all maintained by rich landowners on their estates, for example, the Batashevs in Vyksa, the Gruzinsky princes in Lyskovo. N.G. also held the serf theater. Shakhovskoy in the village of Yusupov, Ardatovsky district (50 km from Sarov). In 1798, the prince brought his theater to Nizhny for the first time. At first, performances were given in Shakhovsky’s own house, then in the hall of the noble assembly. Since 1811, the theater gave performances in a building specially built for it. During the Nizhny Novgorod Makaryevskaya Fair, a temporary pavilion was put together there and performances were also played. They staged both dramatic performances and musical ones - operas and ballets.

Yusupovo. Church

Our other famous fellow countryman is Prince Fyodor Petrovich Shakhovsky (apparently, Nikolai Grigorievich and Fyodor Petrovich Shakhovsky were not closely related). He was born on March 2, 1796 on his parents’ estate in the Pskov province. From the age of 16, Fyodor Petrovich was in military service, and being a very young youth by today’s standards, he took part in the foreign campaign of Russian troops in the war against Napoleon. Shakhovskoy served in St. Petersburg, where he joined one of the Decembrist societies - the Union of Salvation, organized in 1816. Among his friends and acquaintances are the Decembrists Muravyovs, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Muravyov-Apostles, Pestel, Yakushkin and many others. In 1818, Shakhovskoy asked to be transferred to Moscow - closer to his bride, and this request was granted. And soon the wedding took place. Shakhovsky's wife was Princess Natalia Dmitrievna Shcherbatova (1795-1884), as her dowry he received the village of Orekhovets, Ardatovsky district (52 km from Sarov). They say that Natalia Dmitrievna was courted by many; Ivan Yakushkin was even going to commit suicide because of her, and A.S. Griboyedov, having failed to achieve reciprocity, made her the prototype of Sofia Famusova in the comedy “Woe from Wit.”

In Moscow, Shakhovskaya becomes a member of another secret free-thinking society - the Union of Welfare. Soon, however, Fyodor Petrovich began to move away from the activities of secret societies. The reason was a complicated financial situation, which required closer attention to one’s own affairs. Shakhovskoy, with the rank of major, retires and, together with his wife, moves to live permanently in Orekhovets. “Upon arrival in the village,” he later recalled, “we found the peasants in great poverty and, wanting to alleviate them, we invested significant capital, using part of it to improve their arable farming and economic establishments.” And indeed, Shakhovskoy reduced corvée on his estate, provided the peasants with better land and helped them acquire more advanced agricultural tools. The results were immediate: the incomes of both the peasants themselves and their master soon increased. Shakhovsky's indignant neighbors - the landowners of Ardatovsky district - wrote a denunciation against him to the Minister of Internal Affairs.

The prince was widely educated person and tried to keep up with the latest literature and science in the Nizhny Novgorod outback. The catalog of his Orekhovets library, compiled by himself, contained the titles of 1026 books in Russian, French, English, German, Italian and Latin.

Despite the fact that Shakhovskoy lived quietly and was more preoccupied with affairs on his own estate than with events in the capitals, secret surveillance was established over him, which intensified after the uprising on Senate Square on December 14, 1825. And on March 1, 1826, Fyodor Petrovich was arrested and taken from Orekhovets to Nizhny Novgorod. Almost immediately he was transported to St. Petersburg, where the investigation was carried out for several months. In May of the same year, Shakhovskoy was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where by that time many of those involved in the uprising and suspects were already languishing. The investigation revealed that Shakhovsky had previously belonged to secret societies, and in July the sentence was announced: lifelong exile to Siberia. In August, to commemorate the accession to the throne of Nicholas I, the lifelong exile was replaced by a twenty-year exile. Shakhovskoy was already on his way at that time.

Orekhovets. Church

The city of Turukhansk was chosen as his place of exile. The wife could not go to Siberia with her husband; she was pregnant, with her five-year-old son Dmitry in her arms, and children were not allowed to be taken into exile. The provincial town of the Yenisei province, Turukhansk, at that time was a very modest settlement with a population of only about a hundred people. But even there, Prince Shakhovskoy tried to lead an active lifestyle, helping the local population. A police official reported about him to the governor: “I have the honor to report that Shakhovsky’s outward debauchery has not been noticed about the morality, that he has acquired a special favor from the residents of Turukhansk, as well as from those living from Turukhansk up the Yenisei, through lending them money, with a promise to improve their condition through growing potatoes and other garden vegetables, proclaiming to them the cheapness of bread and other things necessary for peasant life.” To such a report, an interesting answer was received from the governor: “If he grows potatoes and other various vegetables, which were not previously available in Turukhansk, and distributes and sells them to residents, then this cannot do any harm other than good.” In addition to these studies, the exiled prince studied pedagogy, botany and pharmacology, applying the acquired knowledge in practice. He corresponded with the director of the St. Petersburg botanical garden and even asked to send him a microscope.

A. M. Podurets (Sarov)

HISTORY OF THE LOBISE FAMILY, LANDSCAPE OWNERS OF ARDATOVSKY DISTRICT, NIZHNY NOVGOROD PROVINCE

The house in the village of Kavlei is probably the only landowner’s house preserved in the rural areas of the Ardatovsky district Nizhny Novgorod region, and that’s the only reason it deserves attention. But, as always in such cases, having begun to understand a private piece of local history, the researcher discovers curious stories and interesting characters with which our past is so rich.

I first saw this house in 1999 thanks to two local historians: Sarovsky - Vladimir Mikhailovich Gankin and Ardatovsky - Alexander Vladimirovich Bazaev. The building immediately made an impression - it is very uncharacteristic of our modern collective farm landscape. The house does not even stand on the edge of the village, but as if at a distance, on a hill, which is the edge of a mighty forest, in which hides the hidden ancient Mordovian sanctuary - Granova Stone, which deserves a separate story. Expanses of forests open to the south, lying beyond the Kanerga River, uninhabited for many kilometers. Nearby one can discern the contours of ponds that once cascaded down to the river. In general, the location of the estate corresponds to the classical principles characteristic of similar buildings of the 18th-19th centuries.

Now a few words about the village itself. Kavlei stands on both banks of the river of the same name, which is sometimes called Kavleika, near its confluence with the Kanerga. The name is of Mordovian (Erzyan) origin and is composed of two bases: kev– ‘stone’ and lei– ‘stream’, ‘river’. L.L. Trube translated the name as “rocky stream” and expressed the opinion that the name only indicates the nature of the area1. N.V. Morokhin explains the origin of this name differently. In his opinion, the river got its name from the ancient Mordovian sanctuary located near it 2, with which, it seems to me, we must agree. The sanctuary, which we once again briefly mention, is a clearing in the center of which there is a large boulder. In the past, apparently this place played a significant role in the spiritual life of the Mordovian population, and this position is recorded in toponymy.

The house in Kavlei would probably have remained a beautiful mystery for us if it had not turned out that Nikolai Vasilyevich Artyomov (1919-1995), a local historian who did a lot to study the history of Ardatov, Arzamas and their environs, was interested in its history 3 . His unpublished materials, now stored in the funds of the historical association “Sarov Hermitage,” contain notes relating to the history of both the house itself and the people who lived in it. In addition, among the collection of boundary maps collected by Artyomov, there were two dozen sheets dating back to Cauleus of the 19th century. We will explain this abundance of cartographic material a little later.

The oldest of these maps was drawn in 1817 and is a copy of the 1815 map (Fig. 1). According to it, the estate then belonged to the young sons of the “lieutenant who later was major general” Fyodor Ivanovich Remer - Alexander and Nikolai. According to this plan, 2,621 acres of land were assigned to them. The village at that time consisted of two streets (the right bank and the left bank relative to the Kavlei River). There is no manor house on the plan.

All we know about General F.I. Remer is that he died on August 29, 1805 - this is the date that appears on a cast-iron tombstone discovered in a devastated cemetery in Ardatov and now lying at the entrance to the local history museum.

In 1831, according to N.V. Artyomov, the titular councilor Akim (Joakim) Danilovich Lobis was already listed as the owner of the Kavlei estate. He owns 203 serfs and 6 household peasants.

Residents of Ardatovsky district have always been interested in the origin of the unusual surname of their neighbors. The writer Boris Sadovskoy in his “Notes” mentioned many noble families of the district at the end of the 19th century, including the Kavlei Lobis4. With his light hand, a version began to circulate that the head of this family once had the Russian surname Lobysov, but according to the fashion of that time, he Germanized it. It seems to us that Lobis is a natural surname after all. Why? One of Akim Danilovich’s daughters was named Adelaide. Why would a Russian person name a child with a name that is not included in the Orthodox calendar? Subsequently, Adelaide was baptized, and she became a completely Orthodox Claudia.

In 1858, when A.D. Lobis was no longer alive, his widow Elizaveta Andreevna became famous for the fact that the provincial noble assembly received a complaint against her from the peasants of the village about unfair oppression. The leader of the nobility of Ardatovsky district confirmed the validity of the complaint. According to him, the peasants of the village of Kavlei were “reduced to a pitiful state.” The landowner took the best land closest to the village for the master's crops, giving the peasants worse and more distant land. Of the 77 households, the peasants had horses in only 49. The residents of Kavlei did not have enough of their own bread, and they were forced to buy it starting in November. For her cruel and unfair attitude towards the peasants, E. A. Lobis even earned the nickname “Ardatovskaya Saltychikha” 5.

The fact that the Kavlei peasants, apparently, were not very lucky with the landowners, is recorded in the memories of village residents that exist almost to our time, passed down from generation to generation. Stories about a cruel master (or mistress) and about peasant protests were recorded both by N.V. Artyomov in the 1960s and at a later time6.

In 1860, apparently after the death of the mistress, the Kavlei estate, by “amicable agreement,” was divided equally among all the heirs. The Lobises had six heirs - three sons (Victor, Arkady and Apollo) and three daughters. By the time of the partition, two daughters were already married: Varvara to Lieutenant M. Loginov, Claudia to the provincial secretary, Prince P. Zvenigorodsky. The third daughter Elizaveta married later - to staff captain M. Palilov.

The division of the estate was a complex surveying and geometric task. Each of the heirs was to receive equally forests, arable lands and meadows; in addition, these lands were to be adjacent to the corresponding peasant households involved in their cultivation. It was relatively simple with the peasants: each received 31 male souls and from 31 to 35 female souls, the number of households in the share was from 8 to 11 - depending on the presence of male souls in them. But with the land it was more difficult, and in order not to offend anyone, the entire dacha of the village was divided into 16 parts of a rather complex shape, and these parts were already distributed among the heirs in their entirety. Accordingly, after 1860, the map of the Kavlei dacha no longer consisted of one (as under F.I. Remer), but of 16 separate maps. Hence the abundance of cartographic material in N.V. Artyomov’s collection. The Kavlei land began to be divided into even smaller plots in post-reform times: the owners kept part of the land for themselves, and transferred part to temporarily obliged peasants. Boundary maps of this time are also in Artyomov’s archive; judging by them, the process of demarcation with the peasants went on from the second half of the 1860s to the beginning of the 1880s.

In addition to the actual cartographic information, 19th-century boundary maps also contain information about the owners, sometimes about previous owners, as well as about neighboring landowners. For our research, these maps turned out to be a valuable written source; the genealogy of the Lobis given here is almost entirely compiled on the basis of the information contained on the maps.

Unfortunately, it turned out that complete set We don't have 16 cards. But availability general map land before the division (1817) and the experience of folding cardboard mosaics (puzzles) resulted in a general scheme for the division of land in 1860. We also did not have a map of the land plot on which the house stands, but the analysis of the division of the estate described above revealed that this plot of land went to Viktor Ioakimovich Lobis.

There is no exact date for the construction of the manor house in Kavleia in the documents we have. Some recent documents compiled by contemporary village residents and administration officials give the building a construction date ranging from the 1750s to the 1810s. Apparently, the manor's house is younger. There is no mention of the house in the documents for the division of the estate in 1860. In addition, Kavlei in these documents is called a village, that is, by definition, a populated area in which there is neither a church nor a landowner's house. In a document of 1866, Kavlei was first called a “village,” this definition means a settlement with a manor house. The name “Kavlei village” is then repeated on boundary plans dating back to 1868, 1881 and 1882. Therefore, the construction of the house can presumably be dated back to 1860-1866.

An argument against such a dating may be that the construction of a large manor house is an expensive undertaking, which was easier to carry out before the division of the estate than after it. Thus, it should be recognized that the dating of the construction of the house requires further clarification.

In 1908, a three-class school was opened in Kavlei, the initiator of its creation was the daughter of V. A. Lobis, Nadezhda Viktorovna Lobis. She donated the family estate for a school, but she herself bought a small house in the village and moved there, being at the same time a teacher at this very school. The villagers kept the memory of this woman for a long time. It was said that she worked as a school teacher until the 1920s. Nadezhda Viktorovna’s brother, Mikhail Viktorovich Lobis, was a zemstvo doctor at the end of the 19th century. In addition to Kavlei, the Lobises also owned an estate in the village of Chetvertovo in the same Ardatovsky district; in the 1890s, the son of Apollo Ioakimovich Ivan lived there (the remains of a 19th-century garden were preserved in Chetvertovo 7 ). But the entire expanded family called Kavlei “our Mesopotamia,” implying by this, apparently, that the roots of their family were in Kavlei 8.

Now a descendant of the owners of this wonderful house lives in Nizhny Novgorod. Dmitry Aleksandrovich Lobis, a civil engineer, is the great-grandson of Viktor Ioakimovich Lobis and, what is most valuable to us, he managed to preserve a piece of his family’s history - several old photographs depicting his ancestors, as well as the Kavlei manor house - as it was on turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Over the course of a hundred years, the house has, of course, changed. Balconies, columns and other decorative elements disappeared, the facades became simpler, losing their former grace. Also lost were outbuildings or outbuildings, which, judging by the map from the Mende atlas 9, formed a regular symmetrical rectangle (Fig. 2).

Undoubtedly, the Lobis house has survived to this day only because it housed a school. In the mid-1990s, the school in Kavlei closed and the house began to deteriorate. Now its condition gives rise to serious concerns, the house is used as a residential building, and there is no proper care for it as a monument. And I really want this building to be preserved for as long as possible and serve as a visual evidence of the history of our region.

The author thanks Marina Alekseevna Lipyanina, who helped him understand the intricacies of dividing the estate, and Tatyana Pavlovna Vinogradova, who introduced him to Dmitry Alexandrovich and Inna Leonidovna Lobis.

1 Trube L. How they arose geographical names Gorky region. - Gorky, 1962.

2 Morokhin N.V. Nizhny Novgorod toponymic dictionary. - Nizhny Novgorod, 1997; aka. Our rivers, cities and villages. - Nizhny Novgorod, 2007.

3 Podurets A.M. The fate of a local historian // Provincial anecdote. - Shuya, 2004. - Issue. 4. - P. 123; Famous people Ardatov region of the XVI-XXI centuries. - Ardatov-Arzamas, 2002. - P. 13.

4 Sadovskoy B. Notes // Russian archive. - M., 1991. - Issue. 1. - P. 124.

5 Famous people of the Ardatov region of the 16th-21st centuries. - P. 126.

6 Ardatov region: past and present. - Nizhny Novgorod, 2000. - P. 321-322.

7 Baulina V. Gardens and parks of the Gorky region. - Gorky, 1981. - pp. 70-72.

8 Sadovskaya B.. Decree. op.

9 A commission led by A.I. Mende worked on compiling topographic maps Russia in the 1840-1860s. We do not know the exact dating of this map.

In the period from 1714 to 1719, by decree of Peter I, a regional reform was carried out, within the framework of which new separate entities were identified. On the basis of this decree, the Nizhny Novgorod province was removed from the Kazan province and made an independent unit with its center in Nizhny Novgorod.

Stages of formation

Administrative division in 1708 led to the annexation of Nizhny Novgorod to the Kazan province. Six years later, its northwestern part was separated into a separate independent Nizhny Novgorod province. Just three years after its formation, it was again annexed to Kazan. It received final independence on May 29, 1719. During the period from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, various crafts actively developed here. The effective plowing of new lands, the establishment of a social division of labor, and the development of a commodity-money economy brought the province to a new level.

Local crafts

Most of the residents were involved in the production of potash. This chemical was then used in soap making, glass and paint production, and in the manufacture of gunpowder. Arzamas district was the center of its production. The villages of the Nizhny Novgorod province were also famous for their skilled blacksmiths and carpenters. The inhabitants of Balakhna mainly worked on shipbuilding and were engaged in salt production. The villages of the Nizhny Novgorod province included several villages. For example, the village of Bogorodskoye included nine villages at once, each of which was famous for its noble tanners. Industry was also actively developing in the region. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a large anchor plant was built on the territory of the Gorodets volost. In the middle of this century, the iron and cast iron factories of Demidov began their work. The main industrial center was Nizhny Novgorod. Here they were engaged in rope production, shipbuilding, metalworking, leather dressing, brewing, malt production, brick and steel production and much more. The province was also famous for its good merchants, who carried out deliveries to various cities and even reached Siberia.

Composition of counties before the 1917 revolution

In 1779, the government decided to create the Nizhny Novgorod governorate, which would include thirteen districts. In 1796, the governorship ceased to exist, and the Nizhny Novgorod province was formed. This change led to the abolition of the Knyagininsky, Makaryevsky, Sergachsky, Pochinkovsky and Pyansk-Perevozsky districts. Eight years later, the first three were restored. As a result, at the time of the 1917 revolution, the Nizhny Novgorod province consisted of eleven districts. The largest of them was Nizhny Novgorod district with a population of 90,053 people. Arzamas and Balakhninsky districts were also among the top three with a population of 10,592 and 5,120 people, respectively. Next came Gorbatovsky, Sergachsky, Vasilsursky, Semenovsky and Ardatovsky districts. The smallest districts were Knyagininsky, Lukoyanovsky and Makaryevsky districts.

Post-revolutionary life of Nizhny Novgorod residents

After a year, the Nizhny Novgorod province was enriched with new districts. Counties were not only added, but also partially renamed. 1918 is the date of renaming Gorbatovsky district to Pavlovsky. At the same time, Voskresensky district was formed. Two years later, as a result of the renaming of Makarievsky, Lyskovsky district appeared. 1921 led to the formation of three more - Vyskunsky, Pochinkovsky and Sormovsky. Also this year, Balakhninsky district began to be called Gorodetsky. A year later, the Nizhny Novgorod province took under its wing two districts and 6 Kostroma volosts, almost the entire Kurmysh district, as well as four volosts that previously belonged to Tambov. Such large-scale territorial changes led to the creation of the Kanavinsky working district. The emergence of new counties contributed to the abolition of old ones and their annexation and merger with larger ones. This is how Pochinkovsky, Kurmyshsky, Knyagininsky, Voskresensky, Vasilsursky, Varnavinsky and Artdatovsky districts went down in history. Krasnobakovsky district appeared this year. In 1924, four volosts became part of the Mari Autonomous Region. The North Dvina province expanded by one volost, which separated from Nizhny Novgorod. As for the formation of new subjects, they became the Rastyapinsky and Balakhninsky working districts. Also in 1924, Somovsky district was transformed into a working district. As a result of post-revolutionary changes, in 1926 the Nizhny Novgorod province included eleven counties and four districts.

Nowhere in Russian Empire there was no more developed handicraft industry than in the Nizhny Novgorod lands. In pre-revolutionary times, there were a huge number of publications describing this activity. The three-volume book “Nizhny Novgorod Province on Research of the Provincial Zemstvo” is considered the most striking and significant for history. His second volume thoroughly describes all the intricacies of the handicraft industry in this part of Russia. It is not only the content of the book that attracts attention, but also its execution. Turning the pages, the reader encounters a huge number of unique illustrations. They depict most of the production, from the initial burning of coal to the most complex creations of skilled blacksmiths.

Memo to a contemporary

Today, almost every contemporary is trying to collect the maximum amount of information about his origin. The genealogical book of the Nizhny Novgorod province helps to find out whether a person born in the current Nizhny Novgorod region belongs to the noble class, or whether his ancestors were simple artisans. You can find out this online through the “Unified Genealogy Center”, or contact your local archive. Genealogical books describe employees of various structures. From here you can find out what position the ancestor held: a doctor or a postman, a judge, or maybe a forester. The data on the site is presented for 1847, 1855, 1864 and 1891. You can also look for information about your origin in address books and calendars.

Sociology knows all kinds of divisions of people into groups. But despite any classification of humanity according to individual criteria, workers and employers have coexisted at all times, like love and separation. And the relationship between them, it happened, was far from love and ended in separation.

From everywhere you can hear the groans of the working population about the despotism and “brutalism” of employers. Considering that the next anniversary of the abolition of serfdom is approaching (at the beginning of March according to the new style), the conversation about oppressive employers and oppressed workers thirsting for freedom seems to us quite relevant. Moreover, if we take into account the lifelong and hereditary attachment of an employee to his employer that existed before 1861.

Economic potential of the nobility

The “powers that be” have always had some economic advantages. Now the elite rules banks, enterprises, manages securities, and has already gotten into education. A century and a half ago, the criteria for elitism were somewhat different. On the eve of the abolition of serfdom, the elite was considered the nobility, whose fortune was measured by the number of lands and serfs. The latter, not having technical innovations, cultivated the master's land with their own hands, using plows, sickles and scythes, invented in their grandfather's times. It would be nice if all this was supplemented by a position granted for public service, as well as one’s own house in the provincial city or capital. The Nizhny Novgorod nobility was not much different from the nobility of other provinces. However, special mention should be made about the sources of wealth.

The myth of social consciousness

It is generally accepted that a boss (ruler, master) is always rich, in contrast to the people he oppresses. This is precisely the opinion that has developed about the ruling class of feudal Russia, largely formed through the efforts of some historians and poets. Many representatives of the older generation remember the poetic lines about a malnourished poor man and a gentleman feeding his hunting dogs to his fill. Of course, there have always been rich landowners. But there were, although it is difficult for some citizens to imagine, poor landowners. By the time of the abolition of serfdom in the Nizhny Novgorod province, there were 1,515 landowner estates. Of these, only in 546 estates the number of serfs was 100 or more people (including courtyard servants). Consequently, in the remaining 969 estates there were less than 100 serfs and servants each. To be fair, it should be noted that they counted men. With women, the number of the subject population for each master naturally increased. But serf women did not pay monetary taxes and were used by landowners for land work and other natural duties. As for the main taxpayers - men, their number did not always coincide with the number of “taxpayers” (who paid taxes). Peasants could get sick or be incapacitated due to injuries. Syphilis, smallpox, and diseases of internal organs, according to zemstvo statistics, decimated the peasant population of the Nizhny Novgorod province. And the gentlemen remained gentlemen. Sometimes they were liberal with their slaves, but most often they tried to extract the possible or maximum possible benefit from “baptized property” (the journalistic name for serfs in the 19th century). However, a man without land and other work is just labor without application. So what material resources did the landowners of the Nizhny Novgorod province have at their disposal on the eve of the abolition of serfdom? If you ask the question: were there any born rich among the Nizhny Novgorod aristocrats, then the answer will be positive. Yes, there were lucky people who did not have to think about increasing their fortunes, since they had long been increased by their ancestors.

The Colonel's Legacy

Colonel Sergei Vasilyevich Zybin had lands and people in 5 of the 11 districts of the province. On the eve of the abolition of serfdom, there were 2,719 male souls and more than twenty villages and hamlets in his name. And this is not counting the wealth in other provinces. However, Sergei Vasilyevich was not considered the richest landowner in the province.

The quiet daughter of a non-holy father

Another thing is Anna Georgievna Tolstaya, who had much more people and land. In the Nizhny Novgorod province alone, she owned 15 villages (3051 male souls) in Nizhny Novgorod district, the village of Katunki and 70 villages (1589 male souls) in Balakhninsky district. To this it is worth adding the village of Bolshoye Murashkino in Knyagininsky district (547 male souls), as well as the village of Lyskovo and numerous villages in Makarevsky district (1821 male souls). However, she was fat because of her husband, and it was not wealth that captivated Anna Georgievna’s soul. Being a Gruzinskaya as a girl, she was the natural daughter of the famous leader of the Nizhny Novgorod nobility, Prince Gruzinsky, famous for his despotism and love of criminal adventures. The father turned out to be a real disaster for the province. Harboring fugitives, publishing false passports, organizing robbery attacks on merchant ships... This is an incomplete list of the deeds of the elusive provincial leader of the nobility. But the unbridled father gave birth to a modest, God-fearing daughter. She avoided secular society. The marriage with Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy was childless and resembled most of all a platonic relationship. Anna Georgievna spent huge amounts of money on charity. The clergy were welcome guests in her house. So, contrary to the famous saying, the apple fell far from the tree.

Kozlov clan, Karataev possessions

The simple and widespread surname Kozlov(a) in Russia, as documents show, is not always a sign of mediocrity and may even indicate noble origin and wealth. Praskovya Andreevna Kozlova inherited from her father (Andrei Bogdanovich Priklonsky) lands, manufacturing and factory enterprises, and her fortune could compete with the richest noble families of the Nizhny Novgorod province. In Nizhny Novgorod and Gorbatov districts, at least 17 villages and hamlets were in her ownership. But the Kozlov landowners were strong not only in their wealth, but also in their clan unity, as well as their participation in the public life of the province and their merits in public service. Among the landowners of the Nizhny Novgorod district we notice Alexander Pavlovich, Vladimir Pavlovich, Stepan Pavlovich, Mikhail Pavlovich and Alexey Pavlovich Kozlov (the latter is the husband of Praskovya Andreevna). The father of the Kozlov brothers was Pavel Fedorovich Kozlov, an active state councilor. His wife held the position of maid of honor under the Empress. Each of the brothers had villages and a certain number of serf souls. At the same time, Mikhail Pavlovich Kozlov was a peace mediator during the peasant reform (a mediator in relations between landowners and peasants), and was repeatedly elected as a member of the zemstvo district assembly.

Many tales begin with three brothers. And in the Nizhny Novgorod province lived the Karataev brothers: Ivan, Gennady and Alexander Yakovlevich. If the land holdings of the Kozlovs were concentrated mainly in one district, then the material wealth of the Karataevs, like a wave scattered into drops, was scattered throughout the Nizhny Novgorod province. In official inventories of landowners' estates, upon careful examination, these brothers are constantly mentioned. And if Ivan Yakovlevich gravitated towards some property isolation, then Gennady and Alexander Yakovlevich often appear as co-owners of landowners' estates. Modest at first glance, the Karataevs here and there were owners of small estates. In Makaryevsky district they owned 8 villages (782 male souls); in Lukoyanovsky district, the Yakovlevichs owned the village of Gulyaevo (318 male souls). To this we should add three settlements in Vasilsursky district (240 souls) and another village in Gorbatovsky district (119 souls). We should not forget about the isolated estate of Ivan Yakovlevich in the Nizhny Novgorod district (village, hamlet and 255 souls). This is how a vivid idea of ​​the famous Russian proverb is formed: “From the forest to the pine tree” (“From the world by thread”).

At the master's factory

Some illustrious gentlemen did not at all seek to bury themselves in the problems of centuries-old land ownership, but walked, as they say, along the path of industrial progress, relying on the exploitation of the labor of those same serfs. In Ardatovsky district, 1,460 peasants worked at the mining plant of the Shipovs. According to official documents, no other duties were provided for peasant souls. Moreover, the Shipovs decided to pay the labor of factory peasants in cash, like the labor of civilian workers. The serf worked at the factory 25 days a month, receiving for his labor from 20 to 60 kopecks per day. Women and children were recruited to work at the enterprise, whose work was paid more modestly (from 10 to 15 kopecks per day).

A certain consolation for the factory poor was the free use of meadows and firewood from the master's forest, which grew in abundance on the Shipov estates. However, some bar-breeders believed that peasants should not relax among firewood and meadows. There was a cloth factory on the estate of Mrs. Zakrevskaya. Serf workers not only produced factory products, but also brought firewood, and also had to clean the master's fields. For overtime work, Lady Zakrevskaya paid extra from her generosity.

Stingy gentlemen

Yet wealthy landowners were a minority among their fellow classmates. And if Sergei Vasilyevich Sheremetyev, offended by the governor’s fair (!) justice, could calm down in Paris, admiring the flow of the Seine, then many landowners of our province saw only hay in front of them. To this view were added landscapes of one’s own and peasant’s arable land. The dull rural monotony was enlivened by hunting fun and living in the provincial town. In such cases, the distinguished gentlemen had a very meager arsenal of means of production. However, people always want to eat, especially since the Nizhny Novgorod landowners were drawn into the inexorably approaching market relations.

Well, where, one might ask, should one look for funds if there are neither factories nor the rich heritage of ancestors? Many landowners of our province used to maintain a decent life the entire property complex at their disposal: arable land, meadows, forests (if there were any) and the working hands of serf men and women. It’s good when there are thousands of acres of forest. The least enterprising landowners relied on fixed monetary dues (per capita or taxes) or profitable forest tithes, handing over all their arable land to peasant cultivation. Many of them even allowed peasants into the forests.

However, with the abolition of serfdom, the entrance to the master's forest was closed to the peasant, as happened in Makaryevsky district. The quality of the earthen soil was poor. So the men wandered around in search of suitable work. More inventive, but equally unenterprising gentlemen pressed the peasants with all the means at their disposal. The serfs carried firewood from the forest to the master's yard, repaired the master's mills, cut the master's hay and worked on the master's arable land. In such cases, women were driven out into the field to help them. At the same time, the landowners squeezed the same monetary dues from their subjects. And the most tight-fisted gentlemen also collected tribute in kind: canvas, linen products and even food. And I also had to work on my site...

That's how things are! What hasn't been written about here yet? Oh yes, about the bloody lady (this is a film where a lot of things are distorted and mutilated). But more about this some other time.

serf province Arzamas trade

In the Nizhny Novgorod province, rumors about freedom appeared among the serfs long before their liberation, and already from 1812 they increasingly began to reach the local authorities. In the same year, rumors appeared among the courtyard people of the landowners living in Nizhny Novgorod that “the French would soon free them from dependence on the landowners and that the master’s peasants would not pay them rent.” Such conversations took place openly in public taverns.

In 1842, when a decree was published on obligated peasants, granting landowners the right to allocate plots of land to their serfs for the use of established duties and to enter into agreements with them by mutual agreement, several cases of misunderstandings between serfs and landowners occurred in the Arzamas, Vasilievsky and Semyonovsky districts; in many places the peasants ceased to obey their masters, being convinced that the landowners were obliged to enter into contracts with them. In some places the serfs directly stated that a decree had been issued to take them free; They even said that they would charge 25 rubles for freedom. from the heart.

Often the matter was not limited to rumors; Greedy for any rumors about “liberty,” the serf peasant environment quickly turned rumors into convictions. Huge districts, engulfed as if by an epidemic, were worried, and the most energetic of the serfs irrepressibly strove for the light that flashed in the darkness; but the deceptive light turned out to be a will-o'-the-wisp and they perished.

At the end of 1857, the government's views on the peasant question, expressed regarding the decision of the nobles of the Kovno, Vilna and Grodno provinces to free the landowner peasants from serfdom, became known. The circular about this from the Minister of Internal Affairs dated November 24, 1857, received by the Nizhny Novgorod governor Alexander Nikolaevich Muravyov, produced, as the governor reported to the minister, some general bewilderment. On December 30, the Highest Rescript was received in Nizhny Novgorod, given on December 24 to the Nizhny Novgorod military governor, on the opening of a provincial committee in Nizhny Novgorod to draw up a draft regulation on the organization and improvement of the life of the landowner peasants of the Nizhny Novgorod province. The news of the upcoming “improvement of the life of the landowner peasants” quickly spread throughout all the provincial corners of the province. Everyone understood it as news of freedom, and of course the serfs greeted it without “bewilderment”: they had been waiting for it for a long time, and soon many of the serfs, under the influence of this news, began to doubt the landowner’s right to use their labor. So, for example, already at the end of December 1857, the peasants of the village of Shargoley, Gorbatovsky district, the estate of Prince Cherkassy, ​​forbade their mayor to send the collected rent to the master, being convinced that soon everyone would receive freedom and their money would be lost. Such convictions of the peasants in the upcoming resolution of the issue were not created suddenly, but have long been cherished and not only by the landowners, but by all peasants in general; they persisted in their environment, expressed themselves quite often in different places and sometimes in a rather positive form. For example, one specific peasant, Zheleznov, from the village of Dubovka, Ardatovsky district, passing through the mixed-local village of Seryakushami, the same district, said to the peasants who were transporting manure to the field: “It’s in vain that you carry manure; in eight days you will be free, and the earth will all be mixed up.” ; A letter about this has already been received from St. Petersburg from the leader of the nobility Karamzin.”

At the beginning of 1858, the serfs of the landowner Salov, the village of Puzyrikha, Knyaginensky district, refused to pay the landowner a quitrent and responded to the mayor’s demand with rudeness that they were now free. The bailiff, having arrived in the village, read the sovereign's rescript addressed to the Nizhny Novgorod governor to the peasants and explained to them that they must continue to be in complete obedience to the landowner. The peasants were convinced by the bailiff’s arguments and said that they still did not know about their real situation, and according to rumors among the people, they considered themselves free, therefore they believed that they should not pay quitrent.

“The spirit of the people in the district is extremely bad and unfavorable to tranquility: in many estates there are constant riots and disobedience to the authorities, so much so that I myself have to travel almost constantly, and only thanks to my influence on the peasants is order and tranquility restored. But cases of disobedience are becoming more frequent and this influence is finally beginning to wane. There were examples that after my departure from the estate, where order had been established, riots began again. The reasons for all this are clear, - it is further said in relation to the leader, - serf relations were in fact already collapsing, although this law does not yet exist; and so, from the uncertain relationship between the two classes, the principle of freedom entered into a struggle with outdated serfdom. And with such uncertainty continuing, who knows what dimensions this struggle might take.”

In a very short time, the word riot became so commonplace in the lexicon of the district and provincial administration that it lost its characteristic sharpness, completely, so to speak, ran out of steam, and people began to treat it completely indifferently, without any criticism. In many estates, unrest arose not so much under the influence of the serfs being excited by the thought of freedom, but rather due to the unfair and sometimes cruel treatment of them by their masters and especially the managing burgomasters, and the talk about freedom only increased the discontent of the serfs and provoked them to protest. For example, the serfs of the landowner Pashkov in the Sergach district refused to pay the quitrent and obey the steward. His peasants, as the governor reported to the Minister of Internal Affairs, were driven by harsh and unfair treatment to the point that they were afraid, among two or three people, to openly meet and talk in the villages.

As far as the documents in our hands allowed, we saw what and how impatiently the serf peasants were waiting for the reform; we saw that the hope for broad freedom “with all the land” was not an isolated phenomenon among the peasants. Now let's look at the attitude of the nobility of the Nizhny Novgorod province to the peasant question. For this, we have very interesting materials, consisting of the works of the provincial committee on the arrangement and improvement of the life of the landowner peasants. In this committee, the nobility, through their representatives, very clearly expressed their views on peasant reform.

At the end of December, the Highest Rescript was received addressed to the governor with an expression of pleasure “for new proof of the constant readiness of the Nizhny Novgorod nobility to assist in the fulfillment of the government’s intentions” and permission to open a committee. The committee was opened on the day of accession to the throne, February 19, with a wonderful speech by Muravyov. “The desire for the great and good work being undertaken does not weaken,” he reported, “and foretells its successful continuation and completion.”

The mention of Gorbatov’s nobles is interesting, here are the actual expressions written in some places a little darkly: “Unfortunately, the thoughts and feelings of the noble landowners in our time are too often distorted in public opinion and in the eyes of our beloved sovereign himself. The opinion that we are indifferent to the situation of our peasants and do not sympathize with the reform undertaken to improve their life puts us in that false light in which it is difficult to feel and think. We have always ardently sympathized with the high and good views of our sovereign, which we expressed in our resolution on December 17, 1857. We firmly believe that only our strong and close union with our monarch constitutes a reliable bulwark of peace and happiness in Russia. “But the actions and orders of the persons standing between him and us, but the official propaganda of our bureaucracy, have planted involuntary doubts of mistrust more than once in our hearts.”

By September 30, the draft regulations were completed. At the end of the committee’s work, the provincial leader of the nobility Bolotin, in a letter to the governor, characterized the committee’s activities in the following general terms: “The majority of the committee found it difficult to part with the interests of the past, while the other half, on the contrary, was well acquainted with the unfortunate situation of the Baltic peasants, and did not see without the ownership rights of peasants to land as a strong guarantee in the future for the well-being of our fatherland, constantly protested against the majority and, not sharing their convictions, drew up their own draft regulations.

It was difficult, of course, to expect from the nobility of that era a clear consciousness of the national benefit and to demand that, in the name of state necessity, they renounce their narrow-class interests, when even the government itself did not at that time have a clear and definite view, for example, on ransom and allotting field land to the peasants - one of the most important points of peasant reform. Although at the same time one cannot help but admit that much of the committee’s activities are not at all justified by historical necessity. But with all the more respect we will remember the names of representatives of another part of the nobility who managed to the most important moment history of the Russian people to rise to the height of their position and not weaken in the struggle, often angry and hateful.

Finally, “the great chain broke”... But not suddenly. According to the provisions of February 19, the previous mandatory relations continued to remain with some restrictions between peasants and landowners until the enactment of the statutory charters, for which a two-year period was appointed. Before the expiration of this period, the peasants were obliged to pay quitrent to the owner or to work corvée in the same amount, so that the corvee did not exceed three days per week from taxes, and all previously existing additional fees and tributes in rural production were abolished.

This was not what the serfs expected. They hoped for a complete and simultaneous abolition of all landowners’ rights over them and their responsibilities towards the latter, and many did not believe the new situation, believing that the real will was being hidden from them. Soon after the regulation was made public on February 19, news began to be received about this from the counties. Thus, on April 21, 1861, Lukoyanov’s leader of the nobility wrote to the provincial leader that “almost all the peasants are waiting for something new and positively do not believe the current situation.”

Around the same time, the governor received a report from the Sergach leader, who also wrote that “the peasants sharply display complete distrust of the local authorities, so that, after reading some points of the highest approved regulation, they demanded that the police chief give them a receipt that what has been read, signed jointly with me.”

In other places, the peasants did not understand the position itself and asked not to read it, but to explain it; but there were also police officers, such as Lukoyanovsky, for example, who reported to their superiors that they “didn’t dare to fulfill such requests from the peasants, not having permission or instructions from anyone on this subject.”

It is clear that in such cases the peasants began to turn to literate people from their midst or to “petitioners” for clarification of the situation. The first ones looked for an answer to their cherished dreams of will in the new situation, sought the fulfillment of their desires and often found what they needed - in their own way interpreting the places of the situation that were incomprehensible to them; The “petitioners”, for selfish reasons, tried to maintain misconceptions among the peasants, and were often the cause of unrest among former serfs. The princely leader of the nobility complained, for example, about one such petitioner in the city of Knyaginino, a certain retired clerk Antonsky, to whose apartment the peasants of the landowner estates constantly came in crowds to write requests and interpret the situation, “as a result of which great unrest arose in the estates and the peasants showed disobedience to the local to your bosses."

Cases of disobedience and unrest on landowners' estates soon began to be discovered in different places in the province. On April 12, Gorbatov’s leader of the nobility wrote to the governor that “many of the temporarily obliged peasants installed on the landowners’ lands of Gorbatov’s district are evading the fulfillment of legal duties, both worldly and in relation to the peasants.” At the beginning of June, the Sergach police officer reported that the peasants on Kuznetsov’s estate, the village of Berezovka, were not paying the landowner their dues because, he learned, one of the peasants, Svaykin, had received a letter from the son of a St. Petersburg soldier in which he, according to the peasant , sent, “so as not to pay rent to the masters and not to do work.” Here is this interesting letter “about freedom”: “My dear parents, I notify you on the 5th of March 1961, the Emperor deigned to authorize and declare freedom to all the master’s people. Now, I notify you that you are free. On the 5th of March we read it and announced it. I have the honor to congratulate you on your freedom. And don’t take any taxes for two years - the order is true.” “My dear brother, Fyodor Nikolaevich, I have the honor to announce to you that you have the right to bow to your master: you are now free and I congratulate you on your freedom.”

The Sergach district was especially full of various perplexities among the former serfs. Akhmatov, the leader of the nobility, reported to the governor on May 1 that “the state of affairs in the district is extremely bad and general unrest and disorder are noticeable in almost all villages.” By May 5, the leader received complaints from the following landowners: Stanker, Zybin, Kondratyev, Voronetskaya, Kryuchkov, Bolotin, Pashkov and others. The peasants of these landowners either refused corvée work altogether, or agreed to do it on a smaller scale than was required of them position. Serfs of the landowners Kryukov and Prince. Urusova refused to carry out field work not only on the landowner's land, but also on the land allotted to them for use, not satisfied with the small allotment and the poor quality of the land. In other matters, in all these estates, with the exception of the Kryukov estate, where a military command was introduced to pacify the peasants, the peasants agreed to fulfill their duties in relation to the landowners after a simple suggestion from the police officer. There were, however, also estates where the peasants had no opportunity to fulfill the legal demands of their former owners. This is what turned out to be, for example, on the estate of E.A. Stanker, in the village of Novaya. Its peasants, who accounted for 97 hardships, had only 97 acres of field land for use. The same amount of land, but of better quality, was used by the owner herself. With such a shortage of land, the peasants of Stanker became poorer every year and most of them fell into extreme poverty. The final blow that destroyed the remnants of their well-being was a hail storm in 1861, when all the sown grain was lost. When working time arrived, the peasants, who had long been without bread and had no choice but to go to corvée, went to beg in neighboring villages. Poverty, although not to such an extent, forced the peasants to Urusov to refuse field work for the landowner. The peasants had nothing to sow their fields with.

The landowners did not want to know the difficult situation of their former serfs and demanded that they fulfill all obligations; and meanwhile, they still had an obligation before the introduction of statutory charters, for food and for the contempt of their peasants, defined by Articles 1103, 1104, 1105 (T.9 Code. Zak. Osost.;) but, in other respects, this is an obligation for many the owners of serfs was one dead letter of the law even during the period of the existence of serfdom, and it is not surprising that they did not remember about it after the liberation of the peasants. But there were, for example, cases when landowners complained that their former serfs did not pay underwater duties (the village of Ekaterinovka, Sergach district, unknown landowner).

And they do not want to perform more than three days of corvee, and also to pay all those taxes that were required before (on the Shepilovo estate in the Sergach district); and the Sergach leader Akhmatov, the person who had the direct responsibility to explain and interpret the new situation, who, therefore, could not help but know the content of the situation, even if only as a landowner, reported on these refusals of the peasants to fulfill the legal demands of the landowners as disobedience . The repetition of such unfounded complaints forced the governors to ask the provincial leader to explain to the district leaders, and through them to the landowners and estate managers, so that they did not exaggerate their complaints against the peasants and that “misunderstandings that mostly stem from the peasants’ inaccurate understanding of the highest manifesto cannot be considered a rebellion.” and the provisions and from the failure by the owners themselves and their managing mayors of all the articles that define some of the rights granted to the peasants from the day of the promulgation of the highest manifesto; and this type of case in which misunderstandings occurred due to untimely exacting and unfounded demands cannot be presented as disobedience and disorder.”

The zemstvo police were also inundated with requests from the landowners for the obedience of the peasants, and also often found their requests to be unfounded. Makaryevsky police officer P. Zubov reported, for example, to the governor on March 20, 1861 that “the peasants are ready to obey every legal demand of the patrimonial authorities, but, unfortunately, they are trying to put these latest actions and orders into forms that will inevitably harden the people and make it extreme dissatisfied. Every minute I have to fear that the tense situation will not express itself in some kind of disorder and only because two or three people are sad to part with their former self-government and self-will.” Meanwhile, the peasants “are quiet in their actions and modest in their desires, despite the efforts of the patrimonial leaders to make their disobedience visible at any cost.”

The introduction of statutory charters in the Nizhny Novgorod province also did not come without some difficulties for the peace mediators. In some places, the peasants still continued to believe that they would be given “real freedom” and did not trust the orders of the authorities, and in other places they even resisted them. So, on the estate of Count. Bludov, in the village of Garyakh, Ardatovsky district, the peasants refused the election and authority of six conscientious peasants to be present during the inspection of the charter drawn up by the owner, despite all the convictions of the local mediator. “We are waiting,” the peasants said, “for letters from the king, and whatever the king sends, so it will be; We don’t give faith to the master’s letter and we don’t believe the announced position, but we expect a new one.” - “Another case similar to the one cited was in Vasilsky district, on the estate of Prince Gagarin in the village of Vysokova. The peasants insolently refused to accept the statutory charter from the peace mediator, did not give workers to the land surveyor, and treated the bailiff whom the mediator called to bring the peasants to order and obedience even more rudely.” Peasants of the village of Bogorodsky Gorbatovsky district, the estate of S.V. Sheremetyev, not trusting the composition of the imperious board in drawing up false information for the composition of the statutory charter about the number and type of industrial establishments, sealed all the affairs of the imperious board on February 5, 1863 and put a guard on them, and in the end, elected a new headman.

From the material we studied in this chapter, we can conclude that the abolition of serfdom was perceived differently in different social strata. On the one hand, the majority of the nobles at that time were not ready for the abolition of serfdom, but among the nobles there were those who supported and recognized the need for this reform. The peasants' expectations from this decree were also not justified. Most of them longed for a broad will “with all the land,” but the reform led to the landlessness of the peasants, in some areas this led to an almost complete loss of livelihood, so the peasants are increasingly beginning to develop handicrafts.