“Here is my village...” (About V.P. Kozlov’s new book)

The work is a detailed review pertaining to the 2019 RSUH publication of the book by V. P. Kozlov, the RSUH Professor Emeritus. The work is devoted to the history of the Russian village, and especially the Russian peasantry, in Central Russia at the end of the ХVIth-beginning of the 20th century. The review examines the source base of Kozlov’s research, the method of data analysis used by him, and the structure of the work. The present article focuses on the method pioneered by V. P. Kozlov; this method of expert estimations according to 10 indicators reveals the position of the peasantry in different periods of its history; the author points out positive and controversial aspects of this method in determining the progress and the regress in the history of the Russian countryside. The present review particularly emphasizes the importance of the statistical materials involved in Kozlov’s research, which allow us to trace the dynamics of the peasant population, peasant households, the number of peasants in them, the amount of the livestock and the inanimate objects of different groups of the peasantry, the processes of stratification and abandonment in the peasant environment of the Epifan County over the three centuries. It is emphasized that Kozlov’s work is not only an important historical, local history and genealogical study, but also a major contribution to the research of the Russian village in general.

V.P. Kozlov, peasantry, village, landowners, Gorki village, Epifan fortress, Epifan County, Tula province, barshchyna, obrok, 1861 reform, Stolypin village reform, 1812 Patriotic War. Crimean War, Ivanovo shipping channel, serfdom

1. Kozlov, V.P. (2019), “To go down in history…” The peasant lineage and the settlement in the Tula province in the 16th–20th centuries, Part 1. The end of the 16th century – 1917, RSUH, Moscow, Russia.