Russia in the early 1970's

Russia in the early 1970's

This photo from 1970 depicts a religious community in Russia about a little over a century after the end of serfdom. The photo is interesting because it shows the livelihoods of the people in this community and it also shows the people themselves going about their business, in rural living long after serfdom, bringing about the question about whether serfdom had to have happened at all.
In Amanda Bellow’s book, American Slavery and Russian Serfdom in the Post-Emancipation Imagination, it states that “male heads of [peasant] household often worked in factories or shops for a portion of the year and returned to the countryside during the other portion (194).” Such a pattern of work or seasonal work can exist outside of discriminatory labor practices.

Rudnyĭ Altaĭ, verkhov'i︠a︡ reki Uba

Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/2018685491/

1970-1971

Jackson Young

English

Photograph