The re-emerging peasantry in Russia.'Peasants-against-their-own will', 'Summertime peasants'and 'Peasant-farmers'

Abstract \nThis paper aims at conceptualising the re-emerging Russian peasantry by looking at objective characteristics (land use, production mode, and market relations) and subjective ones (peasant identity, land attachment, and cross-generational transfer of peasant culture) of the contemporary rural population, involved in individualized agricultural production. We argue that the post-Soviet transition in Russia is causing a re-emergence of the peasantry, albeit in a very fragmented manner. Three types of ‘peasants’ are being distinguished: (1) ‘peasants-against-their-own-will’, who were part of the former collective and state farms, continuing their production on subsidiary household plots; (2) ‘summertime peasants’ of urban origin, who produce on their dachas plots in the weekend and holidays; and (3) subsistence-oriented ‘peasant-farmers’. We conclude that land attachment of the post-Soviet peasantry has still a strong collective component, while peasant identity is weakly developed, as well as cross-generational transfer of peasant values. The re-peasantisation is therefore only partial, with fragmented communities, and a near-absence of social capital, which is necessary to defend rural and peasant communities in the long run.