Village Communities - Russia

Russia

Attention however, should be called more particularly to the parallel phenomena in the social history of the Russians, where the conditions seem to stand out in specially strong contrast with those prevailing among the mountain Slays of the Balkans and of the Alps. In the enormous extent of Russia we have to reckon with widely different geographical and racial areas, among other, with the Steppe settlements of the so-called Little Russians in the Ukraine and the forest settlements of the Great Russians in the north. In spite of great divergencies the economic history of all these branches of Slavonic stock gravitates towards one main type, viz, towards rural unions of kinsmen, on the basis of enlarged households. In. the south the typical village settlement is the big court or hamlet consisting of some four to eight related families holding together; in the north it is the big oven, a hamlet of somewhat smaller size in which three to five families are closely united for purposes of common husbandry.

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