top of page
This site was designed with the
.com
website builder. Create your website today.Start Now
nesting dolls_edited.jpg

Russia, 1900

  • The government’s policy of Russification (forbidding the use of local languages and the suppression of religious customs) created a great deal of resentment

  • Most people were members of the Russian Orthodox Church

    • In 1721, the Orthodox Church became a government department called the Holy Synod

    • Completely under the control of the government, the Orthodox Church played an important role in the various Russification efforts

  • In 1900, it was estimated that there were 1.8 million members of the nobility in Russia

  • Around 85% of the Russian people lived in the countryside and earned their living from agriculture​

IRINA. It must be so fulfilling to be a worker who gets up at dawn to mine or build or teach… you don’t even need to be a person. I’d be an ox or a horse, as long as I can work and go to sleep knowing that I’ve done something.

    • Russian peasants had been serfs until the Emancipation Act of 1861. The nobility owned the best land and the vast majority of peasants lived in extreme poverty

  • In the 1890s, Minister of Finance Sergei White encouraged the expansion of the Trans-Siberian Railway and organized the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway

  • With the increased focus on industrial development, there were around 2.3 million industrial workers in Russia

  • Conditions in Russian factories were well below those in other places in Europe. They worked an 11 hour day (10 on Saturday)

    • Conditions were extremely harsh and little concern was shown for workers’ health and safety

  • Trade unions were illegal in Russia and industrial workers found it difficult to improve their standard of living​

  • Strikes were also prohibited and when they took place the Russian army was likely to be called in to deal with workers

  • In 1897, at the time of the first modern census in Russia, there were 104,000 people with any sort of university education - less than 0.1% of the population and mostly the sons of nobility or military officials

  • The number of people with any high school education was 1,072,977 - less than 1% of the population almost half were the children of nobles and officials

  • Only 27% of the school aged children had any education at all

  • Persistent neglect of education could no longer be explained by sheer backwardness and lack of funds. The Russian Empire of 1900 could have afforded a modern school system, albeit rudimentary, if its rulers had considered it a top priority

MASHA. What good are three languages when you're living around people who can barely speak one? It isn't even a luxury, it's like having a sixth finger. Sometimes, I think we just know too much.

bottom of page