STUDIA BALTICA SERIE I I:1 E ditor: A nu Mai K õll Cultivating the Rural Citizen Modernity, Agrarianism and Citizenship in Late Tsarist Estonia Johan Eellend Stockholm University ©Johan Eellend, Stockholm 2007 ISSN 1652-7399 ISBN (978-91-89315-75-4) Cover: Erik Hagbard Couchér Printed in Sweden by Intellecta, Stockholm 2007 Distributor: Södertörns högskola, Biblioteket, S-14189 Huddinge Fanny & Maja Contents Acknowledgements.........................................................................................ix 1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 11 Theoretical Framework ...............................................................................................15 2. Agrarianism............................................................................................... 31 A Note on Earlier Studies of Agrarianism...................................................................33 Agrarianism as Ideology .............................................................................................36 The Mechanisms of History ........................................................................................37 The Peasant and the Land .........................................................................................39 Peasant Democracy....................................................................................................42 Organizing Society ......................................................................................................44 3. Writing to the Farmers .............................................................................. 48 Publishing under Censorship......................................................................................49 Sowing the Seeds .......................................................................................................53 Agricultural Instruction Books .....................................................................................57 Newspapers and Journals ..........................................................................................60 Agricultural Journals....................................................................................................62 The Readership...........................................................................................................65 The Publishers.............................................................................................................67 4. The Role of the Farmer............................................................................. 70 The Remains of Serfdom............................................................................................73 The Rising Sun............................................................................................................74 The Modern Farm........................................................................................................75 Modernity Among Others............................................................................................80 5. The Farmer, his Farm and his Family....................................................... 84 The Farmer..................................................................................................................84 Land and Family..........................................................................................................89 Work and Farmhands..................................................................................................92 Visible and Invisible Farm Work .................................................................................94 6. The First Generation of Agricultural Associations .................................. 100 Founding Associations Under Restrictions ............................................................. 100 The Baltic German Associations ............................................................................. 102 The First Generation of Estonian Agricultural Associations ................................... 104 7. The Second Generation of Agricultural Associations ............................. 108 Founding Agricultural Associations ......................................................................... 109 The Founding of Koeru Põllumeeste Selts ............................................................. 111 The Founding of Helme Põllumeeste Selts............................................................. 112 The Founding of Räpia Põllumeeste Slets.............................................................. 113 The founding of Ambla Põllumeeste Selts and Torma Põllumeese Selts ............. 115 Members, Boards and the Procedure of Founding................................................. 116 8. Associations at Work .............................................................................. 123 Promoting the New Agriculture................................................................................ 125 Agricultural Exhibitions............................................................................................. 130 The Associations in the Local Community .............................................................. 142 Building an Own House ........................................................................................... 143 Representing the Framers ....................................................................................... 144 Between Consensus and Conflict............................................................................ 148 9. Revolution in the Villages ....................................................................... 153 The Years of Revolution .......................................................................................... 153 Revolution in the Village .......................................................................................... 157 The Aftermath of 1905 ............................................................................................. 162 10. Uniting the Farmers .............................................................................. 165 The Agricultural Congress of 1899.......................................................................... 166 The Second Estonian agricultural Congress 1905 ................................................. 172 The All-Estonian Congress 1905............................................................................. 177 The Political Spectra after 1905 .............................................................................. 187 11. Building Agrarianism............................................................................. 190 Promoting the Cooperative ...................................................................................... 190 The Cooperative Vision............................................................................................ 192 Breeding a new Society ........................................................................................... 196 The Village Dairy...................................................................................................... 201 The Changing Face of Dairy Production................................................................. 205 The Problems of Practice......................................................................................... 208 Linking the Local Initiatives...................................................................................... 211 12. Conclusions .......................................................................................... 214 List of Figures ............................................................................................. 233 Bibliography ................................................................................................ 234 Appendix Acknowledgements Writhing this book has been a great experience, which has brought me to unknown times and places, made meet new languages and showed me a world of farmers and agriculture I did not know much about. The process has left me indebted to several people. First of all I would like to thank my supervisors David Gaunt and Anu Mai Kõll for their support and commit- ment, and the Baltic Sea Foundation, whose support has made this work possible. For most of my time as a post graduate student I have been at the Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS) which multi disciplinary envi- ronment has been much inspiring. I owe much to my colleges in terms of ideas, discussions and constructive disagreements. As graduate student I have been given the confidence to teach and many are the students with whom I have had inspiring discussions. Through the support from BEEGS I have also been given the possibility of travelling with my ideas, and I am thankful for the comments I have received during conferences in Stockholm, Tallinn, Tartu, Riga, London, Washington, Sofia and Lüneburg. Among my friends and colleges I am especially grateful to Piotr Wawrzeniuk and Fredrik L. Eriksson, who have carefully read my texts and brought me for coffee and always proved willing to spend hours discussing nonsense. A special thought also goes to Sara Rastbäck, for all her inspira- tion. I am also thankful to Ramses Amer, who once brought up the idea of writing a PhD, but then in another subject. During my studies I have also been affiliated to the Institution for History at Stockholm University and the School of Gender, Culture and History and the Institute for Contemporary History at