Russian Peasants

ETHNONYM: Great Russians

Kinship

The largest kin group was the patrilineal extended family. Descent was reckoned in the male line. Kinship terminology followed the standard European pattern, except that affinal kin were denoted by different terms, depending on the gender of the speaker. Kinship relations outside the nuclear family remain important even today, in terms of mutual assistance, the distribution of goods, and the pattern of rural migration.

Bibliography

Anokhina, L. A., V. Iu. Krupianskaia, and M. N. Shmeleva (1973). "On the Study of the Russian Peasantry." Translated by Stephen P. Dunn and Ethel Dunn. Current Anthropology 14:143-157.

Chizhikova, L. N. (1966). "Dwellings of the Russians." Soviet Anthropology and Archeology 5:32-55.

Dunn, S. P., and E. Dunn (1967). The Peasants of Central Russia. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Corrected ed., with new introductory material and new reading list. 1988. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press.

Hubbs, J. (1988). Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Ivanits, L. (1989). Russian Folk Belief. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.

Pushkareva, L. A., and M. N. Shmeleva (1974). "The Contemporary Russian Peasant Wedding." Introduction to Soviet Ethnography 1:343-362.

STEPHEN P. DUNN AND ETHEL DUNN