Society
See also: History of Russian culture, Russian literature, Russian opera, Technology in the Russian Empire, and Cinema of the Russian EmpireIt was a rural society spread over vast spaces; in 1913, 80% of the people were peasants. Soviet historiography proclaimed that the Russian Empire of the 19th century was characterized by systemic crisis, which impoverished the workers and peasants and culminated in the revolutions of the early 20th century. Recent research by Russian scholars disputes this interpretation. Mironov assesses the effects of the reforms of latter 19th-century especially in terms of the 1861 emancipation of the serfs, agricultural output trends, various standard of living indicators, and taxation of peasants. He argues that they brought about measurable improvements in social welfare. More generally, he finds that the well-being of the Russian people declined during the most of the 18th century, but increased slowly from the end of the 18th century to 1914.
Read more about this topic: Empire Of Russia
Famous quotes containing the word society:
“The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“To overturn orthodoxy is no easier in science than in philosophy, religion, economics, or any of the other disciplines through which we try to comprehend the world and the society in which we live.”
—Ruth Hubbard (b. 1924)
“One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating. This is not because they are callous or personally inhuman: it is because they live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)