Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1894 — The Russian Peasant. [ARTICLE]

The Russian Peasant.

A writer who has spent many years in Russia thus speaks of the Russian peasant: “Easily satisfied, self-indul-gent, weak, he does not care to rise in the world. So long as he can exist and allow his wife and children to exist, and so long as he can obtain for cash or _ credit vodka enough to keep him going, he is content. He has no idea of any higher civilization, or any sort of home comfort. For the rest he loves his ‘little father,’ the Czar; fears God in a superstitious sort of way, and the Lieshui (wood spirits) and other supernatural objects of his national folk-lore in a very real way; observes the churoh festivals with bibulous piety; attends church at Easter; tolerates his wife, and knows absolutely nothing of the affairs either of this world or of the next. But education is making great strides, and the younger generation is growing up with advantages to which its forefathers were strangers. Light is stealing gradually over the land. Wpuld that it might chase away the drink demon! With the vodka evil reduced to moderate dimensions, there would be a chance even for rural Russia.”