Czarist and Soviet terminology in English

[Jules Levin]

Another question has arisen in my Genealogy listserv.  Unfortunately I 
do not have access to the
original Russian but am making inferences from the translations provided 
by paid translators of 19th Century
records.   The term "petty bourgeois" is being used to describe 
merchants who could not afford to pay their
annual license fees.  I suspect this is a Soviet era Russian-English 
dictionary translation of a phrase that would
have a more felicitous translation in modern English.  Any thoughts?
Jules Levin
Los Angeles

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