Waiting to Die? Old Age in the Late Imperial Russian Village

Badcock, Sarah

Abstract

What was daily life like for old people in Russian villages at the turn of the twentieth century? Elderly people feature as an integral part of Russian rural family life in literary and in scholarly accounts, and are predominantly framed as able, skilled, omniscient community members. This article suggests that constructions of old age that see the elderly retaining physical prowess and community leadership overlook the lived realities of ageing. As elderly people lost physical and mental capacity, they slipped out of view in the Russian village, desexed, unseen and unremarked. The experience of the frail elderly allows us to explore the values accorded individuals within rural communities, and the extent to which families, communities and legal structures could and did intervene in the private sphere.

Citation

Badcock, S. (2024). Waiting to Die? Old Age in the Late Imperial Russian Village. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2, 181-205. https://doi.org/10.1017/S008044012300021X

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 14, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Sep 18, 2023
• Publication Date: 2024-12
• Deposit Date: Aug 15, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 17, 2023
• Journal: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
• Print ISSN: 0080-4401
• Electronic ISSN: 1474-0648
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 181-205
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S008044012300021X
• Keywords: Russian history; history of ageing; peasant studies; nineteenth century; rural life
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/24405357
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/transactions-of-the-royal-historical-society/article/waiting-to-die-old-age-in-the-late-imperial-russian-village/651DCA77A02FBB6BBB908E7E008F1ED1
• Additional Information: Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal Historical Society; License: This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.; Free to read: This content has been made available to all.