Rural Development and Land Use

Ecosystem Health and Sustainable 3 Agriculture

Editor: Ingrid Karlsson and Lars Rydén

CSDCentre for sustainable development Uppsala. The Rural Society

From Traditional to Modern Rural Society 7

Diana Mincyte New York University, New York, USA

Baltic Pre-history attracting wildlife and people. Archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence suggests that the peoples arrived The First Settlers first from the south-west and north-east. These peoples People have inhabited the Baltic Sea watershed area for lived nomadic lives and depended on hunting, fishing and almost 100,000 years, but it was only after the melting collecting roots, herbs, berries, seeds and mushrooms. of the inland ice during the last glacial period (ca 70,000 During the 6th millennium BC, the climate was warm BC to ca 12,000 BC) that agriculture was introduced and enough to cover southern parts of the region, with forests permanent settlements were built. Traces of the oldest of temperate broadleaved trees breeding deer and moose permanent human habitation in the southern part of the and providing a source of survival for the group of tribes region date back to around 12,000 BC, while the first belonging to the Kongemose culture living in the area. agricultural settlers moved in and significant agricultural They continued to develop fishing and seal hunting tech- production emerged around 4,000-3,500 BC. Starting niques they inherited from their predecessors. Culturally with this period, agriculture has played a central role in and socially, these tribes lived the same lifestyle as others the social, political and economic life of the region with in northern areas of the globe, including Northern Eurasia the notable exception of its most northerly regions, where and America. Archaeological data suggest that these so- indigenous populations continue a semi-nomadic life- cieties were patriarchal, but not as strict and gender dis- style up to this day. There are four major stages in the de- criminatory as they became in settler groups. Numerous velopment of rural societies in the Baltic basin: 1) Early imported objects found in the graves testify to connec- history, 2) Feudalism and mediaeval state formation, 3) tions with the European mainland. Industrialisation, and 4) Modern rural societies. The first settlements emerged in areas constituting today’s Denmark, Northern Germany, Poland and Southern Neolithic Times to Bronze Age Sweden. The process of settling first started with the During pre-historic times, the geography of the region establishment of fishing settlements near the water and looked very different, as most of the region was covered then spread to include inland agricultural communities. with ice and water and the Baltic Sea formed an enclosed These cultures included not only groups with advanced freshwater lake. As the ice drew back, during the late agricultural culture, but also those using primitive tools. Palaeolithic period, reindeer-hunting camps started to ap- Archeological sources show that they built fortified set- pear at the edge of the ice. There was a little forest with tlements and started making copper tools, jewelry, and occasional arctic white birch and rowan patches, but as the arms. The processes of settling and the advancement of climate became warmer the area became covered by taiga, agricultural technologies in the Baltic region also led to

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the development of politically much more centralised and hierarchical social systems in villages. With the surplus production of food that was enabled by farming and animal husbandry, during the 4th millennium BC local socio-economic systems were slowly trans- formed into broader trading economies, and labour was diversified. The sedentary lifestyle and food surpluses also led to an increase in population density and much later, in the first millennium AD, to the first major urban settlements in the region. Life in the Neolithic and Bronze age villages meant being constant- ly preoccupied with food procure- ment. At that time food preservation techniques were limited and households, which included ex- Figure 7.1. Iron age village at Lejre in Denmark with log canoes and a thatch roof building. This is one of several reconstructed villages to be found in the Baltic Sea region, such as Eketorp in Öland tended family members, subsisted in southern Sweden and Hedeby in northern Germany. Photo: Kristian Mollenborg. on growing domesticated plants and animals and on the collection of wild plant foods and hunting. The groups living along hausted of nutrients and allowed to be re-taken by brush. the coastline and inland in today’s Denmark learned to use Using crude plows and stone sickles to cultivate grains, domesticated dogs, goats, swine, and oxen. It is impor- and with the development of milling techniques, their di- tant to note that all the domesticated animals came from ets were enriched with wheat, barley, and millet. They the Middle East and Asia with the exception of reindeer, stored their grain in pots and made it into heavy bread which were domesticated by the Sami people. Animals baked without yeast. lived in the same built structures as humans. During the In these early times people dressed mostly in skins, but Neolithic period people learned to milk goats and cows, they also slowly acquired skills in handling textiles and and milk played an important part in rural economies. started using woven fabrics made out of flax. Their fish- Milk was used as a protein source for drinking, but also as ing nets were also made of flax. sour curd that resembled the present day cottage cheese. The Neolithic houses were very simple. Most of the Since people did not keep hens, their diets did not include dwellings at that time continued to be built using wood, eggs. In addition to domesticated food sources, they also bone, fur, leaves, grasses, and only later brick. Made of hunted deer, bison and wild boar. Cats were not domesti- these materials, the huts had clay floors. There is no ar- cated, but mice and rats had not yet adapted themselves chaeological evidence of stools or tables or beds. In their to live in human habitats. households they used pots and woven baskets for keep- The agricultural tools were wooden and weak, making ing grains, dairy, and other foodstuff and often kept them it difficult to work the land. The early farmers practised hanging by the ropes from the ceiling. The children and slash-and-burn cultivation, which required them to move young adults took the cows and goats out to graze, and around often after the plots they had cultivated were ex- brought them in at night.

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The most common settlements in the region consisted that agriculture became the primary occupation and the of 20-30 relatively independent, self-sustaining house- key source of their food. At first, the land was cultivat- holds with approximately several hundred inhabitants. ed collectively by clearing brush and forests. By the 5th Collections of these settlements later led to the forma- Century, the Baltic, Slavic and Ugro-Finn tribes started tion of more hierarchical social systems known as tribes. using metal tools and draft animals, and the customs of Villages, integrated units that were based on cultural inheritance were formed. bonds and economic interdependence, were not estab- During the Iron Age, around 4th to the 1st Century BC, lished until the Iron Age. The household was the centre people in the south-western part of the region began ex- of social organisation and agricultural production. Within tracting iron from the ore and peat-bogs. At that time the the household, labour was distributed according to age climate in the region became significantly cooler and and gender. It was arguably during this period that the di- wetter, limiting agriculture and leading to southward mi- vision between the public and the private spheres was es- grations and a significant decline in local cultures that tablished, separating the feminine-domestic domain from lasted at least until 500 BC. Starting from the 2nd Century the public life that involved males. However, Neolithic BC, the Roman Empire exerted its influence on local cul- societies worshipped goddesses and were involved in tures and lifestyles, especially among the elite. While its cults celebrating female gods. borders encompassed only the most south-westerly parts In these Neolithic societies there was little occupa- of the Baltic basin, peoples living in this territory main- tional specialisation, meaning that every household pro- tained active trade routes and relations with the Romans, duced tools and procured food using their own resources as attested by finds of Roman coins and records showing and skills. Only later, with the improving technologies that some of the Danish warrior aristocracy served in the and increasing agricultural surplus, did specialisations Roman Army. such as pottery making or metalwork start to take shape. Through their interactions with the Roman Empire Simultaneously, complex systems of proprietorship and and in response to increasing competition for land and inheritance emerged, laying the foundations for more in- resources, the tribes living in the Baltic areas started tegrated systems of exchange and trading, as well as the forming more coherent and larger political entities that emergence of slavery. encompassed several tribes and that later emerged as me- It should be noted that the so-called Neolithisation of diaeval states. the region was neither linear nor homogeneous. For in- stance, the people of contemporary Sweden’s northern parts retained an essentially Mesolithic lifestyle into the 1st millennium BC. Furthermore, due to major population migrations during the Neolithic period, groups of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and vastly different lifestyles lived next to each other. For example, the proto-Sami groups continued to lead a nomadic lifestyle, while the groups that were descendants of Indo-European migrants settled down and practised agriculture.

Iron Age In the eastern and south-eastern parts of the Baltic watershed, the processes of settling occurred somewhat later. While the first traces of human activity in the territory of today’s three Baltic States and Russia go back to around Figure 7.2. Reenactment of iron age farmers tilling the land with a 10,000 BC, it was not until the 1st and 2nd Century AD wooden ard (plow) in Lejre, Denmark. © Lejre experimental Centre.

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Social Conditions During Early Middle of the farmers who subsided on their small land plots and Ages who were the primary source of hired labour in the village. At the bottom of the social structure were slaves, The Vikings who performed the most difficult tasks and who built the Starting in the 5th Century and through 1050 AD, Norse wealth of the owner’s family and the village. Most of the cultures in the south-western regions of the Baltic water- slaves were acquired as war prisoners or bought from shed region lived through the Vendel and Viking periods other villages. Not surprisingly, many slaves were of dif- that made them famous for long distance seafaring, trad- ferent ethnic or cultural background. The descendants of ing, exploring, raiding and the colonisation of coastal ar- slaves were also born into slavery and they could only be eas of Europe, North Africa and even the Middle East and freed by their owners. In addition to the slaves who were North America. These groups developed a complicated acquired through warfare, free farmers too could fall in social structure including tribal, kinship and merit-based their social standing and be enslaved if they failed to repay relations. While the majority of population in the Nordic their debt or as punishment for a crime. region were involved in agriculture and local fishing, long-distance seafaring significantly affected the Baltic Free Farmers region and its societies through commercial and techno- The households of free farmers remained relatively large, logical exchanges. 20-30 individuals. While the data suggest that Baltic so- During the Vendel and Viking periods, rural settle- cieties were organised around patriarchy, scholars argue ments continued to grow in numbers and population that this was not as clearly pronounced in terms of eco- density, with the wealth being increasingly concentrated nomic exploitation, limited decision-making and exclu- in the hands of the most powerful families. These settle- sionary property laws as in the rest of Western Europe. ments also became integrated into large political unions Noble women were allowed to manage their property and that included vast territories. Instead of self-sufficient make economic decisions. Unlike in Western Europe, no- egalitarian households living as relatively independent ble women were buried in graves as rich and well deco- units, the archaeological data reveal the emergence of hi- rated as those of their male counterparts. erarchical villages with magnificent buildings erected in The most powerful households in the village – such the centre by the most prominent families and a number as free farmers (about 10-20% of rural population) and of huts built around the perimeter of the village and in- chieftains (about 2-5% of rural population) – owned up habited by poor farmers. During this period, the first mil- to 30 slaves and also hired help, but they were also part itary fortresses, court buildings and royal palaces were of the commons and shared pastures with the rest of the built by the noblemen. village community. Considering that the most valued In this period, four to five social classes could be iden- property at the time was land, they possessed the best tified in Baltic rural societies. The highest class consisted land and the most advanced tools to work it. They partici- of the noblemen, who were born to the most prominent pated in the local and global markets that were enabled families such as ancestral kings and patriarchal chieftains. through Viking explorations, and they paid in silver and In the densely populated areas of the South and South- gold coins. Despite clear boundaries among social class- West Baltics, the tribal chief constituted an independent es, upward mobility was possible and it was achieved class from the kings, who were their superiors and to whom through marriage. In some cases the position of the most they paid their tribute. The royal-noblemen class was far prominent leader of the village was not inherited, and the removed from the rest of society and had a cross-regional chieftain had to prove himself in order to be elected and culture of its own that it shared with West European ar- establish legitimacy among the village community. In the istocracies. The next class down consisted of powerful case of free farmers, land was owned by all the members farmers or ‘middle class’, landowners who were preoc- of the family including sons and unmarried daughters. A cupied with building their wealth and political influence. dowry was given to daughters upon their marriage and The third class comprised former slaves and the poorest most of it was paid in gold, not land.

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Figure 7.3. 15th century fresco from Rinkaby church by Albertus Pictor, Sweden portraing Adam (Old Testament, the Bible) plowing. Photo: Lennart Karlsson. National historical museum of Sweden in Stockholm.

During the Viking period, homes became larger and rary Denmark. Similarly, groups living along the coast building techniques improved. Instead of clay and mortar, of contemporary Sweden sold herring, while the Baltic the homes of the free farmers were built using wood and tribes traded amber, resin, wax, honey, furs and wood. bricks. In addition, the animals were moved away from human homes into sheds. Herds of livestock increased to The Role of Women 80-100 animals, especially in the territories of contempo- By the end of the Iron Age, labour and life in the village rary Denmark and Southern Sweden. The advancement were organised around gender relations. During the early of agricultural technology allowed farmers to switch from Middle Ages, women were increasingly pushed into the the Celtic land use system that was implemented in 200- domestic sphere and were often deprived of the right to 300 AD to an infield-outfield system. Infields consisted own land or property. While the law statutes of the Duchy of enclosed meadows and cultivated lands, while the out- of Lithuania allowed elite women to inherit and manage er parts of land, or outfields, were used as pastures. Stone property, women from lower social strata did not have any walls separated the domains and allowed better control such rights. The average age of marriage for women in over livestock. The village during this period consisted of the 13th and 14th Century was 16 and they bore an average 5-7 settlements covering about 5 square kilometres. of 7-8 children. It was not uncommon for the children to The diet of the rural population also improved due to be born out of wedlock before church marriage until well the advancement of food preservation techniques includ- into the 17th Century and the only form of contraception ing drying, smoking, curing and fermenting, as well as used in villages was wet-nursing lasting up to 4-5 years. freezing in the northernmost areas. Milk continued to be Starting the 15th Century, a major shift took place in Baltic the most important component in the local diet, while families as the child-bearing age increased and the age dif- cattle and pigs were the most important livestock. Most ference between husband and wife started to decrease. By farms also had sheep which not only provided the house- the 17th Century the average age at marriage for women holds with milk, but also with wool used for clothing and in Denmark’s rural areas reached 28 years and for men it even sails. With the development of trading routes, oxen was 31 years, while women had 4-5 children in their lives. became a valuable commodity in the south of contempo- This suggests that women in villages entered marriage as

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more mature individuals and as a result, they had more local belief systems, world views, rituals, lifestyles, diets legitimacy and power in making strategic decisions com- and architecture. Christianisation started with the bap- pared with their predecessors in the Middle Ages. tism of the Danish king Harold Bluetooth in the 960s and Households of free farmers in the Middle Ages consist- swept through the region, reaching the Grand Duchy of ed of family members and slaves. As slaves were gradu- Lithuania first in 1250 and then in 1385 when the coun- ally replaced by hired servants and their numbers in the try was irreversibly Christianised. This new religion had household decreased and the childbirth rate started to drop, many advantages for the kings, as it brought support from the average rural household in western parts of the region the Holy Roman Empire and political legitimacy in the consisted of only 6-8 persons. The size of household for eyes of other European powers. It also allowed the king the poor farmers and freed serfs was even smaller, about to dismiss many of his opponents who adhered to the 4 people. This was because there were rarely any relatives old mythology. The Church brought a stable administra- or older generation living together with the family and tion that rulers could use to exercise some control over young children were sent out to work on the estates. their subjects. Even though it took several generations to denounce pagan beliefs after royal families adopted Christianity, by the end of the 15th Century most of the region was fully Christianised. Middle Ages During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church and local rulers became close allies. Thousands of church State Formation and Christianisation buildings sprang up and the economy flourished with the It was during the early mediaeval period that the groups of emergence of the Hanseatic League, an alliance of 70 tribes living in the Baltic Sea region formed the first uni- trading ports that maintained a trade monopoly along the fied states with established and coherent polities. While Baltic coast from the 13th to the 17th Century. Sea trad- the boundaries of these early political units changed sig- ing spread new agricultural technologies including met- nificantly in the course of the next millennium, the states als from Germany and new agricultural techniques from in the region maintained their cultural and political identi- Denmark. Even though many farmers resisted the intro- ty throughout the Middle Ages and into the early Modern duction of metal tools due to their religious beliefs and era. These political units approximately corresponded to saw them as violating pagan deities, agricultural tech- the Modern countries of Sweden, Germany, Denmark, nologies spread rapidly and enabled the cultivation of Poland, Prussia, Lithuania-Belarus, Russia and the Czech new lands, which was essential for sustaining the swell- Republic. For the rural populations, the establishment ing population in the mediaeval Baltics. of unified political units brought new systems of social A major interruption in this period of economic pros- and political control, as well as increased conflicts over perity and growth was the Black Death, which reached the use of land and natural resources. With the develop- the region in the 1350s, killing about one-third of the ment of the distinct political states, rural societies in the population and bringing famine and despair. During the Baltic region continued to diversify and develop distinct years of Black Death the Church, the rulers and nobil- cultural and social systems. The foundation of the hier- ity reduced their taxation, enabling larger farms to better archical administrative systems in the early Middle Ages sustain themselves. Smaller and poorer farms that could unmade the relatively homogeneous Iron Age cultures hardly pay rents during the years of prosperity ended up of Northern Europe and led to the emergence of strong losing everything. After slaughtering all the animals and place-based identities and idiosyncratic cultures. letting their land fallow, these farms depended fully on In addition to the development of new political and ad- the labour of weakened family members to subside. Not ministrative unions that connected villages into integrat- surprisingly, these small farms were unable to recover ed administrative networks and spun the web of supervi- even after the plague passed. Due to the Black Death, the sion and control over them, the Middle Ages also brought number of free, tax-paying farmers was significantly re- Christianity into the region, fundamentally transforming duced and large areas of land were acquired by the rul-

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ing elites and the Church, along with families of destitute gained the right to purchase clear title to their lands and peasants. These processes led to a strengthening of the became relatively independent economic subjects in the feudal system in the region. globalising economy. Russia followed an altogether different trajectory of ru- Feudalism ral development. The structure of Russian agriculture was Nevertheless, feudalism in the Baltic territories was dif- founded on the peasant commune (mir), an institution dat- ferent from in the rest of Europe. Unlike Western and ing back to Kievan Rus’ in the 10th and 11th Century AD. A Central Europe, where manorial estates were the most typical community consisted of peasants who pooled their prevalent form of agricultural establishment and where labour and resources, but also practised a form of local peasants were considered the private property of the land- self-government. They made decisions on land use, crop lord, mediaeval rural societies in the Baltic region were rotation and labour allocation and settled disputes in the dominated by medium and small-scale farmers who were village assembly, which was usually presided over by also relatively free in terms of participating in economic the village elder. In the 15th and 16th Century, such sys- activities outside of their lord’s estate. In addition, peas- tems were increasingly transferred to the hands of lords ants in most of the Baltic region were not subject to their appointed by Russian tsars and these communes were landlord’s jurisdictional power. In the case of medium- thereby turned into exploitative manorial estates and the size alluvial farms, the farmers were not only legally free, peasants into the private property of the lords. This rural but also owned their land and estates. Rather than pay- system in Russia survived until the 20th century. ing a lord, these farmers were taxed by the Crown and required to furnish a knight and mounted horse in times of war. Such ‘soft’ feudalism was mostly found in Denmark, 18th to 20th Centuries Central Sweden, Lithuania and Poland, while more traditional feudalist societies with highly hierarchical 18th Century – Shifting Farms and exploitative lord-vassal relations were prevalent The period from the mid-18th to the mid-19th Century in Russia, Prussia and the territories of contemporary saw the rapid modernisation of agriculture in the Western Czech Republic. During the Renaissance and pre- Baltics. At the beginning of this period houses and barns Modern era, 16th to early 18th Century, regional differ- belonging to several families were still standing close to- ences were exacerbated due to the changing political gether in a village and the cultivated area was split up landscape. The Polish-Lithuanian state was significantly into several small lots, the result of centuries of inherit- weakened by internal quarrels and an unstable economy, ance and marriages. By the mid-19th Century, however, and at the end of the 18th Century it was split among farms were redeveloped and moved far apart, with each Russia, Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The farm having a few large fields around it. The old village territories that were included into the Russian Empire was split up and the farming land redistributed among the experienced the loss of the mid-level alluvial farmers, families. Introduced by the state authorities, these agrar- who were turned into serfs. In Sweden, Denmark and ian land reforms were enforced with military power. In Prussia, on the other hand, such mid-level free farm- addition, pasture that used to belong to the villagers col- ers flourished as they were the beneficiaries of the eco- lectively was divided into individual lots and cultivated. nomic growth fuelled by the Hanseatic League. The Such a transformation was enabled by the introduc- spread of the Reformation as a counter movement to the tion of new agricultural technologies as well as by the Catholic Church removed the burden of taxation from liberalisation of markets and the emergence of capital- peasant shoulders and also brought ideological justifica- ist economies. After Jethro Tull developed seeding and tion for their independence. In Sweden, the 18th Century weeding technologies at the turn of the 18th Century, his brought a transition from absolutism to a parliamentary inventions spread throughout the region enabling larger form of government and rapid industrialisation. Farmers fields to be worked with fewer hands. With the imple-

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Figure 7.4. Before the 18th Century Sweden was a country of villages. Farmers lived close to each other in settlements, while their fields were inter-mixed as a way of compensating each other for the good and less productive portions of the land. Despite of its advantages, it was a less productive system than individual-based farms because tilling, sowing and harvesting required a lot of coordination on the part of the farmers and new technologies and techniques were difficult to implement. In the 18th Century authorities introduced a reform designed to improve agricultural productivity. The new law required that the number of fields in each farm was decreased and larger fields were formed. The above map represents farms in the Orleka village in west Sweden in 1645 before the reforms were implemented. Each of the six farms is marked with different colours, showing to the distribution of the land around the village. Note how small the patches of the land are, and how widely dispersed each farm is. Given the complexity of the rural landholding structure before the reform, it is not surprising that it often led to conflicts among farmers and affected rural communities, especially when individual farmers moved out from the village closer to their newly formed fields. But is should also be noted that the reform brought an extensive expansion of agricultural land and the incorporation of previ- ously unused land. The reform was particularly successful in the fertile plains of southern Sweden, while in the regions where more diverse soil productivity patterns, as it was in the north, it stalled. Today’s rural landscape in Sweden, with individual farms sited separately from the village in the landscape, is very much a consequence of the 18th Century land reforms. Source: Friden-Fröjered-Korsberga hembygdsförening.

mentation of selective breeding, the livestock reared Social Conditions and Class Structure on Swedish, Prussian and especially Danish farms was Life on the smallholder farms in the early Industrial pure-bred and much more productive than just a century era usually consisted of four stages: 1) childhood, earlier. Furthermore, the use of root vegetables in fallow 2) hired labour, 3) establishing a household/starting fields allowed the land to be used more efficiently and a family, and 4) living into the old age as part of the provided an important source of fodder to support more children’s households. Most of the children stayed at livestock throughout the year. As a result of these devel- home until Confirmation at about 14-16 years. By the opments agricultural outputs grew, as did the wealth and mid-18th Century children received at least some for- influence of farm owners, who invested in buying land mal elementary education, including lessons in reading and building the first truly modern agricultural farms. and writing. Quite often their first teachers were their Despite the improvements in farming technologies, the mothers, suggesting that literacy in rural populations in life of smaller farmers remained monotonous and physi- the Baltics was distributed evenly between the sexes. cally taxing. They continued to live on their farms grow- Unfortunately, the poorest of the farmers had to let their ing their own food and selling their labour for money. For children start working at a much younger age, depriving them, meat was a luxury they could only eat in late au- them of their education. After spending 10 to 20 years tumn, when they slaughtered their animals because they working as hired help on larger estates, the young got did not have enough fodder for the winter. They lived married and established a new household on a piece of mainly on cereal-based porridge, potatoes, bread, butter land that was partly or wholly inherited from their par- and water. ents and relatives.

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Figure 7.5. Harvest time 1909 near the Marinski Canal, close to Lake Onega, Russia. Photo: Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky. Source: Library of Congress.

Estate owners, on the other hand, were shielded from of agriculture in the Western states of the Baltic region the economic and environmental pressures that shaped the was that the numbers of the rural proletariat skyrocketed lives of poorer farming populations. First, with better nu- and wealth was increasingly concentrated in the hands trition and hired help they were able to have more children of the wealthiest farmers, leading to the stratification of whose mortality rates were considerably lower and most rural societies. Some of the landless succeed in finding of whom grew into adulthood. Second, their children re- jobs in the rapidly growing towns, where the developing ceived a better education and were prepared for the jobs industries needed more workers. However, many were that the Industrial Revolution brought, such as the govern- forced to stay on the farms of their relatives as permanent ment and academic positions that were usually held by the labourers unable to form their own households. nobles in earlier centuries. The aristocracy became less A different set of challenges was faced by the peasants exclusive and social mobility increased, enabling the de- on the eastern coast of the Baltics, in the Russian Empire, scendants of the rural elites to enter their ranks. who continued to live in serfdom. Despite rebellions and Overall, the concentration of farming land in the hands significant social unrest in the first half of the 1860s, of the larger farmers and the increase in population in they continued to endure exploitation, disparagement and the region and Europe more generally meant that there physical abuse from their lords. were a lot of people who did not own any land at all. In In the mid-19th Century, facing increasing pressures addition to the poor farmers who were hardly able to hold from abroad and criticism from the Russian intelligentsia, onto their land, a class of rural proletariat without prop- Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom. Although officially erty started forming. A consequence of the modernisation emancipated from serfdom, the peasants’ life changed

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very little. The overwhelming majority remained impov- erished and continued to rent land and homes from their former landlords well into the 20th Century. The agricultural reforms including Stolypin’s reform of 1906 that sought to develop a capitalist agricultural system ‘from above’ by banning collective land working systems, im- posing private land ownership laws, and supporting the development of large-scale industrial farms. However this failed and most farms continued to function as manorial estates. Even though these reforms laid the groundwork for a market-based agricultural system for Russian peasants, they failed to be implemented on the wider scale, leaving most of Russia’s peasants living in an essentially feudal society. Figure 7.6. Fuel-powered agriculture represented by this Fordson tractor produced by Henry Ford between 1916-1928. The Fordson Model F was the first small, mass-produced and affordable tractor in the world. Modernisation of Rural Societies In Ford signed an export contract with the Soviet Union for which In the 19th Century agriculture in the Western Baltic region soon became the most important customer of the company. In 1924, the ”Red Putilovite” factory in Leningrad started the production of flourished. New technologies such as drainage, fertilisers Fordson-Putilovets tractors. These inexpensive and robust tractors and steel plows significantly reshaped the landscape and became an important enticement for peasants towards collectivisa- rural lifestyles. Simultaneously, the development of steam- tion and were often to be seen on propaganda posters and paintings. Photo: Unknown. Probably 1930s in Hälsingland, Sweden. Source: ships, the construction of railroad and road networks, the Sockenbilder. introduction of the electric telegraph and especially the liberalisation of the economy enabled the estates not only to sell their products in market towns, but also to enter Empire, such as Poland, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and the global marketplace. With these developments the pre- Latvia. Despite the fact that national liberation move- dominantly agricultural economy shifted from village to ments relied on the ideals of agrarian nationalism, most private farm-based agriculture, as farms continued to con- of the members of these movements came from elite solidate and settlements became spread out even further backgrounds and urban environments and had little to do than before. However, as in the previous century, these with the daily lives and identities of rural inhabitants. In developments did not bring economic or social improve- the context of national revival, rural societies continued ments for the growing rural proletariat. By the turn of the to live as highly hierarchical systems organised around 20th Century, a mass exodus to the United States took place the ownership of land and resources, gender and age. as Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns More broadly, the Industrial Revolution brought posi- and Russians left their villages and became cheap labour tive changes to the Western Baltic countries, significantly for American factories, mines, farms and cities. increasing their GDP and building wealth for their indi- The 19th Century was also marked by the spread of na- vidual citizens. The introduction of taxation, voting re- tionalism, an idea that common language, history and cul- forms and the installation of national military service led ture constitute strong invisible bonds among groups who to the establishment of Sweden, Denmark and Prussia as live in the same territory. In the Baltic region nationalism advanced nation states and avant-garde industrial econ- was built on rural nationalism, which regarded peasantry omies in the world. In addition, with the 1917 Russian as the true steward of authentic national culture. In early Revolution the Russian Empire crumbled, leading to the forms of its inception Baltic nationalism was tied to lib- foundation of the independent nation states of Poland, eration movements and called for constitutional reforms Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. that would grant more rights to individuals as well as the In these newly formed countries, extensive agricul- liberation of nations occupied by Prussia and the Russian tural reforms were implemented that were designed to

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modernise and industrialise agriculture. In just two dec- ades between 1917 and the beginning of World War II in 1939, these nations built agrarian economies by re- distributing the land and giving it to the landless, supporting individual farmers financially and politically, and liberalising market economies. These reforms led to the further dissolution of the villages and the consolidation of individual farmers estates . Just as in the Western Baltics in the 19th Century, many of these estates did not succeed and mass migrations to cities and the US occurred. The largest and most advanced estates flourished throughout the 1920s and 1930s, while small and medium-sized farms started to get stronger only on the eve of the World War II.

The Russian Revolution – Collectivisation For Russia, the Revolution brought a very different form of modern agriculture. Instead of individual farmers op- erating as relatively independent economic units, the new system was based on socialist ideals of collective ownership of land and resources. At first, the Bolsheviks viewed collectivisation as a natural process during which Russian peasants would pool their land and resources together to create large, efficient cooperatives. Due to persistent food shortages and misconceived ideas about peasants as enemies of the proletariat who were prone to retain their bourgeois inclinations, collectivisation was accompanied Figure 7.7. Soviet propaganda poster by V.S. Korableva. “Come comrade by public humiliation, violence, mass arrests and depor- and join our Kolkhoz!”. Source: Sovietart. tations. After having signed the agreement, the peasants were forced to hand over their land and livestock to the kolkhoz and work as agricultural labourers with little pay Ukraine, killing 5-6 million people. Even during the years in kind. Those who refused to sign were taxed heavily of famine, Stalin continued to export grain abroad and and persecuted for evading the taxes. Even after joining deliberately suppressed news of the famine to the out- collective farms, they were often considered enemies of side world, thus preventing foreign aid from reaching the the people or kulaks, who had to be liquidated as a class. starving peasants. The modernisation of agriculture in the Even though peasants resisted by destroying their own Soviet Union bore a high human cost. property and livestock, the government continued to take extreme measures to requisition grain from the peasants, sometimes even taking their seed grain. The results of collectivisation were devastating. One Leaving Traditional Rural Society Behind estimate suggests that between the summer of 1929 and March 1930, the government confiscated land and prop- At the end of the 19th Century in the western Baltic re- erty from some 7 million peasants and the number of gu- gion agriculture reached its peak. At least 85 % of the lag inmates increased from 28,000 to 2 million. Starting workforce was busy in the agricultural sector. Large state in 1932, a widespread famine swept through Russia and programs were initiated to stimulate the increase of farm-

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granaries, sugar mills, industrial livestock feedlots, meat processing facilities, and heavy machinery, replaced local barns and horse drawn plows and carriages. Rural livelihoods changed, too, as people became more mobile and, leaving farming behind, often found jobs and started commuting or relocating to urban centers. In the backdrop of these major agrarian changes, it is easy for us to idealize and romanticize simple rural lifestyles, as they appear in the nostalgic images of the “traditional countryside.” We should remember though that living in these “traditional” rural societies meant hardship, that relying on local cycles of nutrient turno- ver translated into shortage and even famine, that herding cows in the wooded meadows, driving horse-drawn carriages, or feeding pigs household leftovers required enor- Figure 7.8. Image of grain harvesting using combines. Photo: Ingrid Karlsson mous amount of backbreaking labor, skill, knowledge, effort, and determination. Given these issues, it is hopeful to see signs of new land. In the east the peak was later but the same dynamics developments in Baltic rural societies that seek to bal- were present. Living standards in the countryside were ance the vision of traditional lifestyles with post-indus- still poor as compared to today’s standards, particularly trial realities, particularly in efforts to preserve local rural in Tsarist and socialist Russia, as it was for almost every- livelihoods, culinary and agricultural skills, and diverse one at this time. rural landscapes. Various initiatives have been set up and Since the turn of the 20th Century, the area of arable funded by the European Union and the national govern- land in the Baltic watershed regions has been in decline, as ments across the region that include the maintenance of less valuable land was reforested or set aside for pastures. wooded meadows with their uniquely rich biodiversity, With industrialisation, agricultural landscapes changed restoration of local breeds of domesticated animals such significantly through the increasing domination of mo- as cows, goats and even hens, and perhaps most impor- noculture production, consolidation of small-scale farms tantly, the restoration of summer houses and dachas by into larger units, and the growth of rural infrastructures the new inhabitants who are willing to come back to the such as roads, trains, and communication lines. Modern countryside, even if for vacations

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