1989, ISBN: 029997068X

[EAN: 9780299970680], Neubuch, [PU: University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin], Hardcover. Although millions of Russians lived as serfs until the middle of the nineteenth century, little i… More...

[EAN: 9780299970680], Neubuch, [PU: University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin], Hardcover. Although millions of Russians lived as serfs until the middle of the nineteenth century, little is known about their lives. Identifying and documenting the conditions of Russian serfs has proven difficult because the Russian state discouraged literacy among the serfs and censored public expressions of dissent. To date scholars have identified only twenty known Russian serf narratives. Four Russian Serf Narratives contains four of these accounts and is the first translated collection of autobiographies by serfs. Scholar and translator John MacKay brings to light for an English-language audience a diverse sampling of Russian serf narratives, ranging from an autobiographical poem to stories of adventure and escape. Autobiography (1785) recounts a highly educated serf s attempt to escape to Europe, where he hoped to study architecture. The long testimonial poem News About Russia (ca. 1849) laments the conditions under which the author and his fellow serfs lived. In The Story of My Life and Wanderings (1881) a serf tradesman tells of his attempt to simultaneously escape serfdom and captivity from Chechen mountaineers. The fragmentary Notes of a Serf Woman (1911) testifies to the harshness of peasant life with extraordinary acuity and descriptive power. These accounts offer readers a glimpse, from the point of view of the serfs themselves, into the realities of one of the largest systems of unfree labor in history. The volume also allows comparison with slave narratives produced in the United States and elsewhere, adding an important dimension to knowledge of the institution of slavery and the experience of enslavement in modern times." Joachim von Elbe s compelling autobiographical account spans most of the twentieth century. Born in 1902 in Hamm, Germany, he attended the Gymnasium in Neuwied-on-the-Rhine. A student of history and law at the universities of Hamburg, Kiel, and Berlin, he graduated to become research associate at the Institute for Foreign Public Law and International Law in Berlin. Under Hitler, having been classified a Mongrel of the Second Degree because of his non-Aryan grandmother, he was dismissed from the public service and subsequently emigrated to the United States where he studied law at Yale University. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1941 and was drafted into the army in 1942. He became part of the American military government in Berlin, was on the legal staff of the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, and eventually became the legal advisor at the American embassy in Bonn. He participated in the reconstruction of the German legal order after the collapse of the Third Reich and was involved in the negotiations of the treaties which form the basis of Germany's readmission to the community of free nations and membership in the Western Alliance. After retirement in 1986 he became justice at the Supreme Restitution Court in Munich." Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability., Books<