Grinding Mills in the Life of the Russian Peasantry of the Post-Reform Period

Abstract

Grinding mills were a routine attribute of the economic life of the peasantry, being an indispensable stage in the process of making bread. Yet these structures are hardly ever specifically researched by historians and anthropologists. This paper examines the socio-economic role of mills in the life of peasants of the early 20th century in Karelia. The study is based on the analysis of archival statistical data from the agricultural census of 1916 as well as on ethnographical and toponymical materials, which allows for a comprehensive examination of the object. The study has identified the number of mills in Karelia at the beginning of the 20th century. It also analyses the conditions that contributed to the effectiveness of functioning of these peasant farm buildings. It has been found that the mill craft in Karelia was the second (after blacksmithing) small-scale peasant production in terms of its economic benefit. At the same time, this type of economic activity was not the main source of income in those farms where they existed. The miller remained primarily a peasant farmer, but the level of prosperity of his economy was higher than that of other peasants. The sources used for the research have also enabled to trace the negative effects of crises in agriculture in Karelia during World War I on the flour milling business. A special attention in the paper is devoted to the mythological worldview of peasants. The analysis of the corpus of Karelian- and Russian-language toponymic data has confirmed the important role of grinding mills in the setup of the region’s peasant economy.