Tolstoy's "The Morning of the Landlord" Synopsis and Impressions - A masterful middle chapter that gives an insight into the realities of serfdom at the time and young Tolstoy's real-life experience of failing to manage his farm.
I would like to introduce "The Morning of the Landlord" published by Tolstoy in 1856. I read "Jishu no Asa (The Morning of the Landowner)" in the 1980 4th printing edition of "The Complete Works of Tolstoy 1: Juvenile, Boy, and Youth" published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha.
Let's take a quick look at this work. Reference is made to the book by Takashi FujinumaTolstoy."It is. It is a bit long, but it summarizes the atmosphere of this work very clearly, so we will take a closer look.
In his medium-length novel, "The Morning of the Landlord," published in 56, Tolstoy introduced the young landowner Neflyudov and depicted the failure of his good intentions.
This Nephryudov resembles his brother Dmitry rather more than Tolstoy himself eight years earlier. Unlike Tolstoy, who flunked out of college, was forced to drop out, and returned to the countryside for at least half negative reasons, Nevryudov in this work, like Dmitri, is determined to "devote himself to rural life," feels that "he can be a good landowner," and believes it is "a noble and glorious, and the closest duty, It is the noblest, noblest, and most familiar duty".
But while in reality Dmitry graduated from college, Nevryudov in his work, like Tolstoy in reality, dropped out of college to live for the happiness of the peasants.
On the other hand, as the voice of common sense to this naive nefludov, a kind aunt (similar to Aunt Tachiyati in reality) is counterpointed. The woman says, "You have a wonderful heart. I have never doubted it. But a good temperament is more harmful to us in reality than a bad one.
Nevertheless, Nevryudov did not change his mind and returned to his lands, and even visited the peasants' homes in person to try to help them out of their plight. But instead of sincerity and gratitude, the peasants greeted him with apathy, disloyalty, and egotism. The young landowner's noble resolve is easily frustrated after visiting only three farmers.
The novel "The Morning of the Landlord," which has been published, is a neatly organized tale of two polar opposites: the good intentions of the landowner and the peasants' reluctance to open their hearts to the landowner. In "The Story of the Mouthshea Landlord," a prequel to "The Morning of the Landlord" that was never published, the protagonist, Nevryudov, grows impatient with the unreliable manager and attends a meeting of the peasants himself.
However, the peasants would not speak up in front of their "masters". So, Nevryudov had the peasants submit a memo (only three did), and they followed the memo to the farmhouse.
Then, as if following him, the manager was loitering in the area. In his published works, Tolstoy cut this part out to make his work clearer, but by this time he had already developed an understanding of the intricacies of the real serfdom.
*Lines have been changed as appropriate.
Daisan Bunmeisha, Takashi Fujinuma, "Tolstoy.P107-108
Tolstoy dropped out of Kazan University in 1847 and returned to his hometown of Jasnaya Polyana.
andThe Youth of the Times."As described in the book, he made a detailed list for his own self-realization and began to implement it.
One of these was the management of farmland as described in the current work, "Morning of the Landlord.
However, as the above commentary explains, the young Tolstoy quickly fell behind.
Although Tolstoy believed that he could save the peasants from serfdom with his noble ideals, the reality of serfdom was not something that could be improved so easily.
Since we are here, let us look at how serfdom works. We will continue looking at "Tolstoy" by Takashi Fujinuma.
How serfdom works
Tolstoy, as a good landowner, went to help the peasants, and his brother Dmitry went to his own estate soon after receiving his inheritance to fulfill his "God-ordained duties as a landowner. However, even the Tolstoys, who were born and lived in the countryside, had seen and heard the reality of serfdom, and were better educated than most, did not have a concrete understanding of the actual situation and thought of serfdom in a surprisingly simple way.
Both the discriminator and the discriminated in a discriminatory society see reality distorted through a special prism, and the observer is unaware of the distortion. The serfdom was a complex system, and there was no simple relationship in reality in which the landowners themselves could talk directly with the peasants and help them out of their plight.
As in any country, people were living in Russia long before the public system was established, there was land that did not belong to anyone, and agriculture and other subsistence activities were carried out voluntarily.
However, it is difficult to imagine individuals living freely without any constraints. Especially in a country like Russia, where forests are cleared and cultivated and slash-and-burn agriculture is practiced, it is impossible to do without the joint efforts of a considerable number of people. Naturally, it is necessary to organize into some kind of group. In the past, such a group was a kinship community with the family at its core.
Eventually, a local village community was established that transcended blood ties. This village community had existed in Russia long before serfdom, and even after serfdom was established, it did not disappear, but rather gained importance as an organization on the peasant side of serfdom.
Individual peasants could attend frequent meetings and express their opinions, and it was the role of the starosta (village head, representative of the peasants) to preside over the meetings and organize the peasants' opinions. This was not the patriarch of the past who issued orders with strong authority. He was elected by the peasants and his role was to reflect the will of the peasants.
All negotiations between the landowner and the peasants, such as the distribution of land, allocation of labor, increase or decrease of annual tribute, recruitment of soldiers, and collection of per capita taxes, are all conducted through the starosta. It is safe to say that the landowner does not directly instruct the peasants. The starosta holds a meeting to discuss and decide on various matters.
In such cases, the landowner might call the starosta to make a request, but it was common for the landowner to order his own servant, the manager (sagashiki), to negotiate with the starosta.
The Tolstoy family's level of agricultural management was a "business" with annual sales in the billions of yen and approximately 1,000 employees, so even keeping a daily cash register was too complicated for an amateur. They hired a professional manager, who was either a foreigner or a former farmer, and left the specifics to him.
In other words, the reality is not a simple "landowner-peasant" relationship, but a complex chain of "landowner-manager-roster-roster-individual farmer".
In the case of soldier recruitment and per capita tax, the state or local government comes before the landowner and the connection is "central government - local government - landowner - manager roster leaning - individual farmer".
It is a long chain with three parts: the state part, the landowner part, and the peasant part, with multiple rings within each of them again. In addition, national local governments were limited to prefectures and counties, while smaller townships and villages belonged to the community.
Daisan Bunmeisha, Takashi Fujinuma, "Tolstoy.P104-105
*Lines have been changed as appropriate.
In other words, what we have in reality is not a simple "landowner-peasant" relationship, but a complex chain of "landowner-manager-roster-roster-individual farmer."
We tend to think of serfdom as a system in which wealthy aristocrats used poor peasants like slaves, but the reality was not that simple.
The landowner is only one link in this complex system. When we think of serfdom, we tend to think of cartoonish scenes of landowners lawlessly exploiting peasants and, if they didn't like it, taking the whip themselves and slapping them on the back. This is not to say that such things did not happen, but serfdom is a social institution, so individual brutality (or, conversely, goodness) is not an important factor.
Besides, under serfdom, the landowner was given legal jurisdiction, so as a rule, there is no private execution that would occur in a specific or closed group. Landowners could and could only do what they could within the system of serfdom.
What is the role of the landowner in this system? One of them is to manage the agricultural production carried out by the farmers and to be a conduit connecting them to the state.
In a vast country like Russia, productive activities, especially labor, are diffused, making it difficult to concentrate them as a national force. In Russia, serfdom was established in the early modern period, and the landowners were responsible for protecting their land, keeping an eye on the peasants to prevent them from escaping, and collecting a national tax called per capita tax to be kept in the state treasury. This functioned effectively until the 18th century.
This is very different from Western Europe, where serfdom was a medieval institution that disappeared in the early modern period. In a small country like Japan, where regulations are easy to reach, serfdom did not exist because it was not necessary, as in Russia.
In Russia, serfdom was necessary and effective for a long time, and the landowner played an important role as the link between the state and the peasantry. The role was not dynamic or functional. If you move around like the young Tolstoy or his brother Dmitry, thinking you are the key man, you are a nuisance and you suffer. The landowner was to be in the middle, silently acting as a conduit.
Daisan Bunmeisha, Takashi Fujinuma, "Tolstoy.P105-106
*Lines have been changed as appropriate.
If you go around like the young Tolstoy or his brother Dmitri, thinking you are the key man, you are a nuisance and you suffer. It was the landowner who was in the middle, silently acting as a conduit.
It was precisely this failure to know this that was preached in the current work, "The Morning of the Landlord".
However, there is one question that comes to mind.
If serfdom was so effective for Russian society, why was the decree of emancipation of serfs issued in 1861?
This is also described in "Tolstoy," by Takashi Fujinuma.
However, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the state structure and bureaucracy had already been developed to some extent in Russia, while it became clear that free labor was much more productive (twice as much, in one theory) than the forced labor of serfdom. As a result, the value of the landowner as a pipe diminished or even disappeared.
As is the case in many modern countries, farmers should be able to manage their own production and distribution efficiently and independently, and the central and local governments should manage it as needed and tax it in proportion to their income. The intervention of landowners in the middle is inefficient and costly. Furthermore, modern thought began to point the finger at inequality as an evil, and the domination of the peasantry by the landlords became the target of attack.
Daisan Bunmeisha, Takashi Fujinuma, "Tolstoy.P106
*Lines have been changed as appropriate.
The serf system functioned until the 18th century, but by the mid-19th century it was becoming out of step with the times.
It was during this transitional period toward emancipation of the serfs that Tolstoy returned to his hometown of Jasnaya Polyana and began to manage his farm.
And sure enough, it fails, and for good reason. It was not something that an aristocratic sergeant, who knew nothing about such a very complicated system, could do out of the goodness of his heart.
Tolstoy would carry this failure in his heart for the rest of his life. His longing to become a farmer led him to farm on his own.
This work is also very significant in terms of understanding the origins of the connection between Tolstoy and rural communities.
This work, which relives young Tolstoy's ideals and frustrations, will surely resonate with those of us living in modern Japan, although our circumstances may be different.
I highly recommend this work.
The above is a summary and impression of Tolstoy's "The Morning of the Landlord" - the middle part of the masterpiece that provides insight into the reality of serfdom at the time and young Tolstoy's real-life experience of failing to manage his farmland.
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