Help with "Three Sisters"

[Ralph Cleminson]

>
> > 4. What is the precise meaning of meschane and what does that term
> infer?
> Petty bourgeoisie.
> Contempt, pity, regret, envy, disbelief ...

Not entirely.  Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russia had a very
rigid class system and everyone was officially a member of a particular
class (except for a few awkward individuals who didn't qualify for any
of them, and for whom categories such as raznoèincy and poèetnye
graždane had to be invented).  The mešèane were townsfolk (literally:
the word is a borrowing from Polish).  They were a "lower" class
without political rights and subject to corporal punishment, but at least
not tied to the land, and consisted mostly of artisans, small
shopkeepers and the like.  A mešèanin who amassed sufficient capital
could move up into the kupeèestvo; and, similarly, a kupec who lost
his wealth could be degraded to the mešèanstvo.

They were naturally subject to the usual vices of their social milieu,
and certainly had these ascribed to them by those who considered
themselves their social or intellectual superiors, so that in modern
Russian "mešèanstvo" means more or less a "small-town mentality"
and lack of aesthetic sensibility, but one should beware of assuming
that this was a primary meaning at a period when the class was still a
legal reality.


R.M.Cleminson,
Professor of Slavonic Studies,
University of Portsmouth,
Park Building,
King Henry I Street,
Portsmouth PO1 2DZ
tel. +44 23 92 846143, fax: +44 23 92 846040

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