Serfdom and Social Control in Russia: Petrovskoe, a Village in Tambov

To the peasant in imperial Russia, dearth and disease were far more potent forces than czar or landlord. Steven L. Hoch recreates life on a serf estate in this groundbreaking social history. Although the legal and economic history of serfdom has received widespread scholarly attention, the social aspects of serf life have been ignored. Hoch fills this gap with his research on the estate of the Gagarin noble family in Petrovskoe.