Structures of Society - 9780875801902

Structures of SocietyImperial Russia's \""People of Various Ranks\""\nAuthor(s): Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cornell University Press, United States\nImprint: Northern Illinois University Press\nISBN-13: 9780875801902, 978-0875801902\nSynopsis\nA category of persons best defined by what they were not, the raznochintsy-\""people of various ranks\"" or \""people of diverse origins\""-inhabited the shifting social territory between nobles and serfs in preindustrial Russia. Neither merchants nor clergy nor military servicemen, they may have been by occupation administrative clerks, teachers, artists, retired soldiers, or street vendors. In official society, they were outsiders. \n In this first major study of the raznochintsy, Wirtschafter draws on a rich array of archival, legal, administrative, and public sources to show how this important but elusive category functioned in Russian society from the time of Peter the Great to the late nineteenth century. Challen.