Merchants - an estate in pre-revolutionary Russia, whose representatives were engaged in trade and entrepreneurship. In the 15th-17th centuries, in contrast to the earlier era, any person who made a trade transaction was called a merchant. The wealthy elite of this class, which consisted of foreign and domestic merchants and was usually engaged in foreign trade, was called guests.

The earliest references to merchants date back to the first half of the 9th century. According to this information, they brought their goods - furs, leather, slaves - to the Greek Black Sea colonies, descended along the Don and Volga to the Caspian Sea and then, by land, reached Baghdad. But most of all, the guests liked to visit Byzantium, with which the princes Oleg and Igor concluded special agreements that protected the interests of their subjects - merchants. The Kyiv merchants did not disregard the western direction either. In the neighboring countries of Europe, iron tubular locks, bronze pectoral crosses, glazed ceramics, made in Russia by skilled artisans, were widely used. During their distant wanderings, the guests discovered and developed new lands, becoming their first settlers. The constant risk of camp life, the threats from the steppe nomads and "dashing people" developed in merchants the skills of experienced travelers and brave warriors. It is no coincidence that among the heroes of Russian folklore there are daring, resilient, experienced guests - Vasily Buslaevich, Sadko, Ivan Gostiny Son.

By the XI-XII centuries. trading people - guests and merchants - gradually separated into a privileged group of the urban population, distinguished by their property status and the support of the princely government, interested in replenishing the treasury. It was at this time that the first merchant societies arose in the largest cities. The charter of the Ivanovo community, a trading corporation founded in Novgorod in the 12th century, has been preserved. She united large wholesalers of wax and owned the monopoly right to weigh and measure certain goods, charging an appropriate fee for this. Its representatives participated in the conclusion of the most important trade agreements and were members of the council of the Novgorod Republic. Merchant corporations arose in other cities of Ancient Russia.

The Mongol invasion dealt a heavy blow to the entire way of the economic life of Russia. Only at the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries. the revival of cities began and there was an increase in the number of merchants in Moscow, Tver, Novgorod, Pskov, Vologda. In the XIV-XV centuries. rich Moscow merchants united in two corporations - Surozh guests (Surozh - the modern city of Sudak, in the Crimea), who traded mainly in silk, and "clothmakers" who bought woolen fabrics in the West. Members of these corporations traded together, financially supported each other, and arranged feasts - fraternities. Moscow merchants, seeking to raise their importance in society and achieve certain privileges, sometimes subsidized large feudal lords. So, with the help of guests, Prince Yuri Dmitrievich Galitsky at the beginning of the 15th century. paid off creditors from the Golden Horde. Merchants provided financial assistance to Vasily II during his exile from Moscow by the Galician prince Dmitry Shemyaka. Many specific princes became debtors of large merchants and usurers. Engaged in lending to well-born persons, Moscow merchants counted on help from the feudal aristocracy and on rapprochement with it. Marriages were made between representatives of merchant families and boyar families, merchants acquired estates. Some representatives of the merchants of the XV-XVI centuries. (including the first famous Moscow architect V. D. Yermolin) actively participated in stone construction.

The formation of the Russian centralized state was often accompanied by the robbery of cities and the liquidation of the autonomy of local merchant corporations, and later their complete disappearance. The Grand Dukes, in order to politically bleed the top of previously independent urban communities, used at the end of the 15th-16th centuries. the practice of "conclusions" - the forced relocation of guests from Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk to Moscow and other cities. As a result of the violent change in the usual socio-economic structure, many wealthy provincial merchant families were unable to restore their former importance. During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, merchants often became victims of oprichnina arbitrariness, their property replenished the treasury and the fortunes of the tsar's closest servants.

With the creation of a unified Russian state, merchants merged with other strata of the urban population into one class of townspeople, who were obliged to perform two main duties in relation to the state - to serve public service and pay taxes. At the end of the XVI century. merchants united (depending on the amount of capital) into three corporations: guests, trading people of the living room and cloth hundreds, who had elected heads and foremen and enjoyed certain rights in trade, but at the same time performed sometimes burdensome duties. The most important privileges of the guests were the right to conduct foreign trade operations and the acquisition of land, exemption from duties, taxes and services that were carried by the "taxable" population. For these benefits, their duties included the fulfillment of financial and economic "state" orders - the dispatch of various positions in the collection of customs and "cup" money, income from salt sales, etc. merchants responded to state services with their property.

With the growth in the number and importance of the population of cities in the XVII century. the government needed to more clearly define the responsibilities of the merchant class and protect the rights of its top. The Trade Charter (1653) replaced many of the previously existing trading fees with a single duty and abolished the privileges and privileges of foreign merchants. The new trade charter (1667) constrained them; he also transferred the management of the affairs of merchants to the Order of the Grand Parish, which saw to it that the excess of taxes levied on merchants was not allowed. Such measures on the part of the state pursued a very definite goal - to replenish the treasury without ruining the tax payers to the end.

Reforms of Peter. I, his long exhausting wars required a colossal amount of money, which the treasury did not have. Then Peter in 1705, 1713, 1717. established taxes of unprecedented magnitude and thereby dealt a blow to many trading dynasties. No less disastrous for the merchants were other undertakings of Peter I, who, for the sake of the empire he was creating, took the most decisive, sometimes economically unjustified measures. Merchants were forced to carry out the tax collection service, which distracted them from their immediate activities, to form trading and industrial companies; they were told which ports to carry what goods for sale, at what prices to sell them to the state. And finally, merchants were forcibly moved from one city to another. Several thousand merchant families were forced to move to the newly founded St. Petersburg, where there was neither extensive trade nor developed infrastructure (means of communication, warehouses, hotels, etc.), which led many of them to ruin.

Under Catherine II, the organization of the merchant class was finally formalized, which remained with some changes until 1917. The entire commercial and industrial class was divided into three guilds, where, depending on the amount of capital, all merchants were assigned: 1st guild - owners of capital over 10 thousand rubles, 2nd - 5-10 thousand rubles, 3rd - 1-5 thousand rubles. At the same time, the merchants of the 1st guild were allowed to conduct foreign trade, have factories and factories, the 2nd guild - internal wholesale and retail trade, the 3rd - only petty trade. Members of all guilds were exempted from paying the poll tax and in-kind recruitment duty, and the 1st and 2nd guilds were exempted from corporal punishment. For this, they were obliged to pay an annual trade tax, and in case of non-payment, expulsion from the guild followed. As a result, an influx from the townspeople and the peasantry began to enter the merchant class. At the end of the XVIII - beginning of the XIX century. famous Russian merchant dynasties arose - the Morozovs, Prokhorovs, Ryabuschinskys, Konovalovs, Tretyakovs, Eliseevs and many others. In 1858, the number of commercial and industrial class reached 239,883 people (men), which amounted to 0.8% of the population of the empire.

After the abolition of serfdom, the merchant class became available to all social strata, the number of guilds was reduced to two. Under Nicholas II, it was allowed to engage in commercial and industrial activities without registering in the guild: merchants received a passport privilege that gave them freedom of movement around the empire. The largest merchant societies with significant financial capital and real estate operated in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Odessa. They were mainly engaged in charity - the maintenance of hospitals, almshouses, hospices, educational institutions, the issuance of benefits to the poor (see Charity and Patronage in Russia).

Modeling of linguocultural types is a new direction in the development of linguoculturology. In this regard, the work devoted to the linguocultural types of Russia and France in the 19th century deserves attention (Dmitrieva, 2007). Here are the main conclusions that

"one. A linguocultural type is a special type of linguocultural concepts, the most important characteristics of which are the typification of a certain person, the significance of this person for linguoculture, the possibility of its actual and fictional existence, its simplified and caricature representation.

2. Regulators of communicative behavior fall into hard, soft and zero prescriptives, the first ones are expressed in prohibitions on certain behavior or in the requirements to behave only in a certain way, the second ones - in the preferred choice of one or another model of behavior, the third ones - in a significant absence of social prescriptions in one from the compared cultures and the right to choose one behavior or another. Hard prescriptives are usually moral in nature, soft prescriptives are moral and utilitarian, zero prescriptives concern utilitarian values. Differences between Russian and French communicative behavior can be traced mostly in soft and zero prescriptives.

3. A linguocultural type has the following structure: 1) a characteristic of the socio-historical conditions within which a certain type is singled out; 2) a perceptual-figurative representation of the type, including his appearance, age, gender, social origin, habitat, speech characteristics, behaviors, activities and leisure activities; 3) conceptual characteristics built on definitions, descriptions, interpretations; 4) value signs - evaluative statements that characterize both the priorities of this type and its assessment by his contemporaries and carriers of today's linguistic culture.

4. The main criteria for identifying linguocultural types are the following features: social class, territorial feature, event feature, ethnocultural uniqueness, transformability. Based on these criteria, among the linguocultural types of Russia and France of the XIX century. “Hussar”, “Cossack”, “Decembrist”, “secular Muscovite”, “secular Parisian”, “bourgeois”, “grisette”, “French dandy” stand out, which are generalized types of personalities belonging to different social classes and embodying different cultural archetypes. For Russian linguoculture, the priority is the image of a hero, embodied in types related to the defense of the Fatherland, for French linguoculture, the image of an ordinary person, embodied in types that manifest themselves in the everyday life of society.

5. Representatives of the dominant social class are represented in more detail in a number of linguistic and cultural types compared to representatives of other classes of society, in Russia in the 19th century. representatives of the nobility are differentiated, in France - representatives of the bourgeoisie. The specification of types reflects the general regularity of the heterogeneous semantic density of concepts, taking into account the position of the dominant group of society.

6. Linguistic and cultural types can have fixed and vague age characteristics. The most typical age for a generalized personality is the period of 30-40 years - the characteristic age of manifestation of the main qualities of a person. For types oriented towards the heroic archetype, age boundaries shift towards youth; for types oriented to the ordinary archetype - towards maturity.

7. Gender characteristics of linguistic and cultural types can be masculine, feminine and neutral, on the one hand, and direct and associative, on the other hand. Among the direct masculine types are "hussar", "Cossack", "Decembrist" and "secular Muscovite" in Russian linguistic culture, "bourgeois" and "secular Parisian" in French linguistic culture. A direct feminine type is represented in French linguistic culture (“grisette”), associative feminine types are represented in Russian linguistic culture (“Decembrist's wife” and “Cossack”), in French linguistic culture - “bourgeois wife”. For the “French fashionista” type, gender is neutral.

8. Linguistic and cultural types oriented towards the heroic archetype receive a positive assessment in society, even if they tend to violate some social norms; while types oriented to everyday behavior receive an ambivalent assessment (from the standpoint of their social group they are evaluated according to moral and utilitarian criteria, from the standpoint of other social groups - according to moral and aesthetic criteria).

9. Russian linguocultural types express the qualities that make up the value basis of the Russian national character: prowess, strength, readiness for self-sacrifice, hospitality, etc.; French linguocultural types express the corresponding dominants of the French national character: rationality, optimism, gallantry, the ability to live, etc.

10. In the minds of modern speakers of Russian and French linguocultures, the comprehension of linguocultural types of the 19th century. characterized by blurring and depletion of conceptual and figurative characteristics and hypertrophy of one of the evaluative features, i.e. transformation of a type into an image” (Dmitrieva, 2007, pp. 3-5).

The regulators of communicative behavior proposed in the work, the criteria for identifying linguocultural types, their archetypal qualities, the specifics of their representation in modern consciousness deserve attention. Let's compare the obtained data with the characteristics of the linguocultural type "Russian merchant".

The merchant class as a definite social group stands out in any society that has reached the stage of developed production and exchange of goods. The etymology of the Russian word "merchant" is transparent - "the one who buys." The corresponding concept in German and English is designated in a similar way (German "Kaufman" - "merchant" from "kaufen" - "buy", English "merchant" - "merchant" from French, dating back to the Latin "mercari" - "buy "). In the pair of words “buy” and “sell”, the former is more significant for describing the entire trading situation, perhaps because most people associate buying with their own action, and selling with the action of another person.

Here are the dictionary definitions that define the names of the concept in question in the explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language.

Merchant- 1. A person who owns a trading enterprise, engaged in private trade on his own behalf; dealer. Hanseatic merchants. Novgorod merchants. 2. In Russia before 1917: one who belonged to the merchant class. Merchant of the second guild. 3. Unfold Buyer. I am not a merchant for this product!/ Trad.-nar. About the groom in the ceremony of matchmaking. 4. Unfold For sailors: merchant ship. Swim on a merchant(BTS). Merchant- a merchant, a townsman, a merchant who sells something. For rotten goods, a blind merchant. Buyer dove. Dirty merchant. Millionth merchant, merchant. First-class merchant, eminent(Dal).

Merchants- 1. In Russia before 1917: a special social stratum, an estate engaged in wholesale and retail trade. Russian merchants. 2. Collect. Merchants (2 characters) Merchants have long settled in Zamoskvorechye. In Russia, the merchant class became isolated from the end of the 16th century, since 1775 it was exempted from the poll tax, belonging to the merchant class was conditioned by registration in one of the three guilds. The first included those who declared a capital of more than 10,000 rubles; to the second - from 1000 rubles; to the third - from 500 r. In 1785, merchants of the first and second guilds were released from corporal punishment. In 1863, the merchant class was divided into two guilds: wholesale trade was assigned to the first, retail trade and factory industry to the second. Belonging to the merchant class was not inherited, however, class rights (except for the right to travel to the court and carry a sword) extended to family members included in the merchant certificate (BTC). Merchants, merchants- estate, state, or brotherhood of merchants (Dal).

Merchant- 1. to Merchant (1 digit) and Merchants. Merchant class. merchant's word(securing a trade deal without a written document). 2. Peculiar to life, customs of merchants; commercial. Merchant range. merchant luxury(tasteless, clumsy). Merchant habits, habits(ostentatious waste) (BTS). merchant, merchant- pertaining to merchants and trade. He drinks tea like a merchant, but pays not like a merchant(Dal).

Kupchik- 1. Razg. Merchant, usually young. young merchant. 2. Iron. A person who is prone to hoarding or is able to benefit from any. relations between people (BTS).

Merchant's wife- 1. Outdated. Merchant's wife. 2. Outdated. A woman, a girl from the merchant class, kind. Wealthy Merchant. 3. Neglect. and iron. A woman prone to acquisitiveness. Turn into a merchant. || About a rude, insensitive woman (BTS). Merchant's wife- the wife of a merchant, a woman registered in the guild, trading (Dal).

The characteristic composition of the concept under consideration is reduced to the following components: 1) a person, 2) conducting trade, 3) owning his goods, 4) belonging to the class of merchants in Tsarist Russia, 5) faithful to his obligations, 6) living for profit, 7) distinguished by bad taste, 8) spending money recklessly, 9) demonstrating no spending limits. These features are divided into descriptive and characterizing. The former include the conduct of trade, possession of goods and class affiliation, the latter - assessments of the behavior of merchants.

In ancient Russia, the conduct of trade was the occupation of the urban population, this was done by the townspeople - the handicraft and trading population living outside the city wall, in the suburbs, suburbs. Not all merchants owned their goods; in this regard, merchants are opposed to sellers and merchants. In addition, merchants not only sold, but also bought goods. In Russian there is a special term for a wealthy foreign merchant - a merchant.

Analysis of the given dictionary definitions testifies to the emotional-evaluative expansion of the original meaning of the main name of the concept, denoting the participant in the auction. It should be noted that in the dictionary of V.I. Dal, definitions are reduced to descriptive features. Characterizing (emotionally-evaluative) signs have positive and negative signs. The positive associative features of the merchant class include loyalty to one's word. Negative signs are presented in a whole set of characteristics of condemned behavior typical of merchants: this is the desire for profit, the unreasonable spending of big money for show, and bad taste. All these characteristics stem from the negative evaluation of excessive wealth and its display. The merchants were accused of bad taste by the aristocracy, especially the impoverished one, of the passion for profit, wastefulness and boasting - and the peasants, and the raznochintsy intelligentsia, and the workers. In modern linguistic consciousness, the concept of “merchant” and the corresponding type have undergone a metamorphosis: many native speakers perceive descriptive characteristics as something archaic and therefore relegated to the background, and associative-evaluative characteristics, mostly negative, come to the fore. The negative assessment of the qualities of the merchant is explained by the sharp rejection of profit in Russian traditional culture. This is the reason for the appearance of such words as "merchant", "merchant".

A merchant is a person engaged in trade and entrepreneurship, his capital serves as proof of his success, and therefore the ability to earn money, to conduct business profitably becomes the meaning of his life for the merchant. A large merchant could not conduct business alone, he was assisted by a whole staff of clerks, i.e. hired servants engaged in trade by proxy of the owner. By origin, the merchant belongs to the common people, i.e. behaves, speaks, dresses as is customary in a peasant or artisan environment. At the same time, the opportunity to earn capital gives the merchant reason to demand special respect for himself. One of these status signs was the polite and respectful appeal to merchants in Russia, “Your degree”. The merchant class united a large class of very heterogeneous individuals, some of them earned their capital in order to increase the wealth of the whole country, they were interested in the development of the empire, the growth of the competitiveness of its goods, merchants often became patrons, actively engaged in charity work, while others thought only of their own benefit and often boasted with their wealth.

The figurative characteristics of the analyzed type are established on the basis of studying the compatibility of words denoting and expressing this concept, and the reactions of informants to the corresponding words.

To identify the figurative characteristics of the type, we consider his appearance, typical behavior, speech and the environment in which he lives. Examples from works of Russian folklore and fiction are analyzed.

A Russian merchant, according to fiction, is a strong, well-fed, healthy middle-aged man, usually with a beard.

In A.N. Ostrovsky’s play “We’ll Settle Our Own People,” the clerk Podkhalyuzin says this to his future wife Lipochka, the daughter of a wealthy merchant and the owner of this clerk:

If you have any doubts about the physiognomy, then, as you please, sir, we will also put on a tailcoat and shave off our beard, or cut it like that, according to fashion, sir, it’s all the same for us (A.N. Ostrovsky).

A merchant's wife is usually a portly, well-groomed woman:

The hostess all day in a light elegant matinee with lace, shining with thirty-year-old merchant beauty and the calm contentment of summer life. (I.A. Bunin).

The image of such a woman (“The Merchant for Tea”) was beautifully created by the Russian artist B.M. Kustodiev.

Excess weight, fullness in the past were associated with satiety and idleness:

Not only the Three Fat Men and their ministers, caught in the palace, cowered and cowered and huddled together in one miserable herd at the sound of this song, but all the dandies in the city, fat shopkeepers, gluttons, merchants, noble ladies, bald generals fled in fear and confusion, as if these were not the words of a song, but shots and fire (Yu. Olesha).

In the same semantic series, the former masters of life appear in the above example - dandies, fat men, noble ladies and bald generals. Let us pay attention to the fact that Yu.K. Olesha brought out two archetypal images in his fairy tale: the positive hero is a slender poor man, the negative hero is a fat rich man.

Typical clothes of a merchant - a fur coat and boots:

- Wait! Come visit me tomorrow and bring your wife: after all, tomorrow is my name day.

- Oh, brother, where do I go? You know yourself: merchants will come to you in boots and fur coats, and I go in bast shoes and in a thin gray coat (Russian folk tales).

From the point of view of a poor peasant, a fur coat and boots are a sign of wealth. But in addition, there were certain class types of clothing:

Frolov stood in the doorway in his wide-brimmed merchant's frock coat, and an expression of contentment spread over his face.<…>But even here Miron was lucky - a man appeared in a canvas duster and a merchant's cap. (I. Bulgarian, G. Seversky).

A frock coat (a long, almost knee-length, double-breasted jacket) and a cap (a headdress with a visor) were perceived as a kind of merchant uniform in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Russia.

The most important characteristic of the behavior of a real merchant is a passion for business:

At the age of forty, Ignat Gordeev himself owned three steamships and a dozen barges. On the Volga, he was respected as a rich and intelligent person, but they gave him the nickname Shaly, because his life did not flow smoothly, along a straight channel, like other people like him, but every now and then, boiling rebelliously, rushed out of the rut, away from profit, the main goal of existence. There were, as it were, three Gordeevs - three souls lived in the body of Ignat. One of them, the most powerful, was only greedy, and when Ignat obeyed her orders, he was just a man, seized with an indomitable passion for work. This passion burned in him day and night, he was completely absorbed by it, and, grabbing hundreds and thousands of rubles everywhere, it seemed he could never get enough of the rustle and ringing of money. He rushed up and down the Volga, strengthening and scattering the nets with which he caught gold: he bought bread from the villages, took it to Rybinsk on his barges; he deceived, sometimes he did not notice it, sometimes he noticed it, triumphantly, openly laughed at the deceived and, in a madness of thirst for money, rose to poetry. But, giving so much strength to this pursuit of the ruble, he was not greedy in the narrow sense of the concept and even, sometimes, showed sincere indifference to his property (M. Gorky).

We see that a person is interested not only in capital as a net result, the dry residue of his work, but in the process of making money. Noteworthy is the difference subtly noticed by the writer between greed in the broad and narrow sense of the word: irresistibility in aspirations and desires is opposed to stinginess. In everyday use, people usually mean stinginess when they talk about greed. The irresistible thirst for active action, the high energy of behavior - this is the most important characteristic of the "Russian merchant" type. This high energy is combined, as noted in the above example, with the lack of ethical standards (a person openly laughs at the deceived). Something similar could be observed in modern Russia in the late 90s of the 20th century, when a young businessman, a “new Russian”, could laugh in the face of a deceived person, usually a less successful businessman: “I threw you!”.

Contempt for ethical standards was often expressed as outrageous, drunken arrogance:

Where should the merchant put his energy? You can’t spend much on the stock exchange, and so he squanders the excess of muscular capital in taverns on revelry, having no idea of ​​​​other, more productive and valuable points for life, points of application of force. He is still a beast, and life has already become a cage for him, and he feels cramped in it with his good health and inclination to a wide scope. Restricted by culture, he is no-no and yes, he will be wide. A merchant's brawl is always a rebellion of a captive beast. Of course - this is bad ... (M. Gorky).

Of course, one cannot reduce the behavior of a merchant to two basic modes of existence - the passionate making of money and spending life in a tavern, but the example given clearly shows the reason for merchant revelry. Examples of this type are very common:

Arriving and completely forgetting about it, I sat alone for a long time and bored in this river tavern, very expensive, by the way, known for its merchant night revels, often in the thousands (I.A. Bunin).

A sad report from Bestuzhev to Petersburg has been preserved: “Russian merchants do not show any respect, they are incessantly drunk, they scold and fight among themselves, which is why the Russian people are not dishonored. , but not only do they not cleanly keep themselves in a dress, but some of them walk in an old Russian dress without a tie, and some also roam the streets with beards "(A. Bushkov).

Merchant sprees were known for their extravagance (a lot of money was spent), fights and abuse. Merchants behaved the same way both at home and abroad. However, in one journalistic work we came across a passage that says that the opinion about rowdy merchants is biased:

In fact, the Wanderers were an oppositional, anti-government movement of the Russian artistic intelligentsia, often devoid of national consciousness and striving to show Russian life one-sidedly, only in dark colors - if a peasant, then necessarily poor and downtrodden, if a merchant, then necessarily fat and drunk, if an official , then necessarily disgusting and miserable (O. Platonov).

The question arises why a drunken merchant evokes disgust among contemporaries, and a drunken hussar - tenderness. Probably, the root of evil must be sought in this case in the fact that the officers were noblemen, they were forgiven for any antics, while the merchants were people of a low class, and society treated them more strictly. Note that in the peasant environment, drunkenness was sharply condemned.

The behavior of the merchant was also distinguished by a certain sweetness towards the buyers:

There was a whole flotilla of Russian merchants from Gostiny Dvor and even the market place, in blue German frock coats. Their appearance and facial expressions were somehow firmer, freer, and were not signified by that sugary helpfulness that is so visible in a Russian merchant when he is in his shop in front of a buyer. Here they did not perform at all, despite the fact that in the same hall there were many of those aristocrats, in front of whom they were ready in another place with their bows to sweep away the dust caused by their own boots. Here they were completely cheeky, touched books and paintings without ceremony, wanting to know the goodness of the goods, and boldly interrupted the price added by the connoisseurs (N.V. Gogol).

The etiquette courtesy of a merchant contains an element of insincerity and is therefore condemned. This example is interesting in that it shows the behavior of Russian merchants in a situation where people behave naturally. We see that merchants show pride and self-respect.

All my capital was thirty rubles in banknotes, and the merchant did not agree to give way cheaper. Finally, I began to beg, asked, asked him, finally begged. He conceded, but only two and a half, and swore that he was making this concession only for my sake, that I was such a good young lady, and that he would never have conceded for anyone else. (F.M. Dostoevsky).

There are rules of bargaining, and the merchant cannot immediately agree to reduce the price, in which case he loses face. This is not about money, in many cases, bargaining participants are playing a kind of game, the meaning of which is to force the partner to give up. That is why the merchant is inferior in price, saying that he is doing a personal favor to the girl.

In the behavior of merchants, many were repelled by capriciousness and tyranny:

At the last concert there was a curious incident. Some merchant broke into my room during the intermission and began to demand that I sell him a shoe from my foot for a thousand rubles. The people came running, they began to push him out. And he threw everyone away (the man turned out to be strong), pulled out a revolver from his pocket (here I almost fainted) and yelled: "If you don't sell it, I'll shoot myself! And sin will fall on your soul!" Naturally, I was scared to death and gave him the shoe for free. Good thing I had another pair with me. And the next morning in the hotel they give me a package, and in it - a thousand. (G. Alekseev).

The habit of self-indulgence was characteristic of many merchants, if we take into account the testimonies of various writers. Apparently, such behavior stemmed from the general attitude of the merchant to go beyond the limits of norms and decency. Most likely, such cases did not occur every day, but they were indicative. Let us pay attention to an important characteristic: the merchant (probably drunk) broke through to the actress, wanting to express his feelings to her, but the only non-standard action he was capable of was to demand her shoe, and for a lot of money. The merchant does not understand the humiliation of this requirement for a woman. And he needs a shoe, apparently, in order to show off to other merchants in a drunken campaign and drink from a shoe, as was sometimes customary.

At the same time, folklore texts show that merchants were characterized by compassion and sympathy for people:

At that time, a merchant was driving by:

- What are you crying about, little girl?

Alyonushka told him about her misfortune. The merchant says to her:

- Marry me. I will dress you in gold and silver, and the kid will live with us.

Alyonushka thought, thought and married a merchant (Russian folk tales).

It is clear that Alyonushka was very beautiful, but the hero of the tale is not Ivan Tsarevich, not a brave hero, but a merchant. Probably, in the collective view, the marriage of a dowry woman with a merchant was the best possible outcome.

Merchants and merchant wives and daughters were characterized by high religiosity:

I heard that in such and such a city lives a rich merchant with his daughter, and that merchant's daughter is so merciful to the poor and crippled! She gives charity to everyone. (Russian folk tales).

Giving alms is usually combined with piety, sincere faith and observance of all church prescriptions. In the behavior of merchants, periods of repentance regularly alternated with periods of revelry, a vivid example of such behavior in a concentrated form is expressed in the proverb “If you don’t sin, you won’t repent.”

The speech of merchants is a stylistically reduced, dialectal version of the spoken language:

Bolshov. (reads aloud). "Announcements from state and different societies: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, from the Orphanage". It's not in our line, we can't buy peasants. "7 and 8 from the Moscow Novelsitet, from the Provincial Boards, from the Orders of Public Charity." Well, this is past. "From the City Council of the Sixth Council". Well, well, isn't there something! (Reads.) "This is an announcement from the Moscow City Duma of six voices: whether anyone would like to take the following quitrent articles into the content." It's none of our business: we have to submit pledges. "The office of the Widow's House invites you here..." Let him invite you, but we won't go. "From the Orphan's Court". They have neither father nor mother. (Looks further.) Hey! Wow, where did it go! Listen, Lazarus! "Such and such a year, September of such and such a day, by the decision of the Commercial Court, the first guild merchant Fedot Seliverstov Pleshkov was declared an insolvent debtor; as a result ..." What is there to interpret! It is known that as a result it happens. Here are Fedot Seliverstich! What was the ace, but flew out the pipe. And what, Lazarus, doesn't he owe us? (A.N. Ostrovsky).

Merchant Bolshov reads the newspaper and comments on what he read. Let's pay attention to the reduced colloquial words "nadot", "well-tko-s", "where", distorted "noversity". The comments testify to the practical acumen and ingenuity of the hero: he perfectly understands the essence of the matter, knows what is hidden behind the clerical turns. The phrase “What was an ace, but flew out the pipe” deserves attention: the phraseological unit “fly into the pipe” - “completely ruined, left without money” is combined with the figurative characteristic “ace” - “important person”.

Merchants address those who are lower in status only with “you” (“you” are boorish, according to Yu.D. Apresyan), expecting to hear only a polite “You” in response:

Wild. What are you doing to me with all sorts of nonsense! Maybe I don't want to talk to you. You should have known first whether I was in the mood to listen to you, fool, or not. What am I to you - even, or something! Look, what an important case you have found! So right with the snout something and climbs to talk.

Kuligin. If I climbed with my business, well, then it would be my fault. And then I am for the common good, your degree. Well, what does ten rubles mean for society! More, sir, is not needed. (A.N. Ostrovsky).

The appeal to "you" is combined with insults and reduced vocabulary. The merchant constantly emphasizes his status as a superior (“What am I to you, even or something?”). The petitioner uses two polite addresses, emphasizing his dependence on the addressee (“Your degree”, “sir”).

In a solemn situation, the merchant speaks in a special style, which combines church-bookish and clerical expressions:

Bolshov. But now let's all go together, and now let's talk a little for now.

Ustinya Naumovna. Why not talk! Here, my golden ones, I heard, as if it was printed in the newspaper, is it true, isn’t it, that another Bonaparte was born, and, as it were, my golden ones ...

Bolshov. Bonaparte Bonaparte, and we most of all hope for the mercy of God; yeah, that's not what we're talking about now.

Ustinya Naumovna. So about what, yakhontovy?

Bolshov. And the fact that our advancing years are advancing, our health is also interrupted every minute, and the creator alone knows what will happen in the future: this is what we decided during our lifetime to give our only daughter in marriage, and in the reasoning of the dowry, we can also hope that she will not shock our capital and origin, but evenly before others.

Ustinya Naumovna. Look, after all, how sweetly he talks, brilliant.

Bolshov. And since now our daughter is here, and for all that, being confident in the honest behavior and sufficiency of our future son-in-law, which is very sensitive for us, in the reasoning of divine blessing, then we appoint him<…>in general vision. (A.N. Ostrovsky).

The family gathers to announce the upcoming marriage of the merchant's daughter. The matchmaker offers to start a small talk on an abstract topic (“they say that a new Bonaparte has been born”), but the merchant immediately turns the conversation into a business channel, defining the purpose of the meeting. The head of the family speaks about himself in the plural (pluralia majestatis), as monarchs usually expressed themselves in documents. Noteworthy is the mention of age and the unpredictability of life. The merchant's speech clearly defines his life priorities: his daughter must meet his capital and class requirements, his son-in-law - honesty and sufficiency (in the latter case, financial status is meant). The matchmaker, feeling the importance of the moment, highly appreciates the level of the merchant's speech (“how sweetly he talks”). At the same time, the hero includes the colloquial words “manenko”, “very much”, “stupefy”. The gradation of references in the speech of the matchmaker is very interesting: “my golden”, “yakhont”, “brilliant”.

The way of life of a merchant is reduced to his constant occupations and the environment in which he lives.

The main occupation of the merchant is trade, purchase and sale of goods. To do this, I had to spend a lot of time traveling and traveling to distant countries:

Once a merchant needed to leave home for a long time on business (Russian folk tales).

Here an honest merchant travels on foreign sides overseas, in kingdoms unseen; he sells his own commodities at exorbitant prices, buys others' commodities at exorbitant prices, he exchanges commodities for commodities and the like, with the addition of silver and gold; The ships are loaded with gold treasury and sent home. ... Here he is going along the road with his faithful servants through loose sands, through dense forests, and, out of nowhere, robbers, Busurman, Turkish and Indian, flew at him, and, seeing the imminent misfortune, the honest merchant abandons his rich caravans with servants his faithful and flees into the dark forests. "Let the fierce beasts tear me to pieces, than to fall into the hands of robbers, filthy ones and live out my life in captivity in captivity" (S.T. Aksakov).

Traveling in those days was fraught with dangers, one could drown on a ship, become the prey of wild animals or robbers. Let us pay attention to the constant epithet "honest merchant" (compare: "good fellow" and "red maiden"). A merchant sells his goods dearly and buys another's goods cheaply, and immediately turns the proceeds into gold and sends it home. This makes it possible to build a good house, maintain servants and lead a luxurious lifestyle:

- Tasty is not tasty, and what is there - not everyone cracks geese with apples, like the merchant Terentyev!

Cattle became curious:

Why can he and you can't? Is he of high birth?

The man explained:

- He has wealth, a large income, and I have a small income. He keeps a servant, he built a house on two floors, - yes, we’ll come to the village, I’ll show you (A. Geiman).

Wealth is the most striking characteristic of a merchant:

And what is a merchant's mansion in terms of its content? Wow! Porcelain and paintings, expensive furniture and icons, gold, precious stones. (V. Soloukhin).

At the same time, bad taste is often noted in the design of merchant mansions:

Podkhalyuzin. Why, sir, Alimpiada Samsonovna, are we going to live in a house like that? We’ll buy it in Karetny Ryad, write it down like this: we’ll draw birds of paradise on the ceilings, sirens, various capidones - they’ll just give money to look.

Velcro. They don't draw capidones these days.

Podkhalyuzin. Well, so we will let the bouquets go. (A.N. Ostrovsky).

Passing through an unspeakably depressing courtyard, we found ourselves in front of a door, above which stuck out a cast-iron visor with scrolls and cupids in the spirit of a merchant. (V. Pelevin).

He walked away and sat down on a marble bench built into the wall of a lavishly and luridly decorated chapel - the tomb of some merchant. (I. Bulgarian, G. Seversky).

Merchants liked to decorate their houses and tombstones with images of chubby cupid angels.

Merchants loved to take a steam bath, and on holidays they baked pies:

Velcro. I won’t go for a merchant, I won’t go for anything, - Is that why I was brought up like that: I studied in French, and on the pianoforte, and dance! No no! Wherever you want, take it, but get the noble one.

Agrafena Kondratievna. So you talk to her.

Fominishna. What did these nobles give you? What is their special taste? Naked on naked, and there is no Christianity at all: he doesn’t go to the bathhouse, he doesn’t bake pies on holidays; and even though you will be married, you will get tired of the sauce with gravy. (A.N. Ostrovsky).

In an effort to resemble the nobility in everything, the merchants hired governesses for their children, and with varying degrees of success, they taught the children to speak French, play the piano and dance modern dances. It is known that in the first half of the 19th century, Russian noblemen spoke French well, and subsequently the level of foreign language proficiency dropped sharply: “I knew many families in which they never read anything in French (and women did not read anything at all - even -Russian) and where the French language was used solely in order to talk in the presence of servants about what it is desirable to hide from them (mainly about servants) ”(Polivanov, 1968, p. 217). Desiring to be like the nobility, the merchants, at the same time, were hostile to the Western manners of the "noble" (French cuisine, sauce and gravy are not to the taste of the merchants). Merchants ironically refer to the impoverished aristocrats, who were becoming more and more (“naked on naked”).

Relations between merchants and the government did not always go smoothly:

Merchants ran to the authorities with complaints. - How much of our wealth is lost in the river! Merchant losses to officials are not sad. Officials will find something to rip off merchants (S. Pisakhov).

And for many more decades, tyrants-governors (written off by Gogol from the most authentic nature) dragged merchants by their beards, extorted bribes and put them under arrest. Until the inglorious fall of the rotten Russian monarchy, merchants and industrialists were removed from government (only after 1905 were two or three prominent bourgeois able to occupy secondary government posts). At the same time, the British monarchs raised their merchants and industrialists to the nobility (A. Bushkov).

The state, represented by officials, extorted bribes from merchants, subjected them to all sorts of humiliations (corporal punishment was abolished only at the end of the 18th century and only for wealthy merchants).

Nevertheless, the merchants were increasingly aware of their role in the development of the country:

By the end of the nineteenth century, the merchant class also grew into the highest cultural stratum. You know, Mamontov with his Private Opera, Morozov, Ryabushinsky with his unique collection of Old Believer icons. National self-consciousness among the Russian merchants was developed by this time very strongly. From the merchant class in twenty or thirty years, scientists, writers, and statesmen would have gone (V. Soloukhin).

Probably, the national self-consciousness of the Russian merchants was due, on the one hand, to the objective characteristics of the development of industrial society in Russia and the key role of the class of financiers and industrialists in this society, and, on the other hand, to the specifics of the noble pro-Western mentality (through the efforts of Peter I, the nobles began to differ sharply from the simple people, both externally and internally, turning into foreigners for many peasants).

Alexey Ivanovich Abrikosov
In his family and social life, Aleksey Ivanovich adhered to the old strict rules, but in his business he was considered one of the most advanced professionals, as they would say now, due to his sensitivity and openness to everything new.

Arseny Andreevich Zakrevsky
By the way, Arseniy Andreyevich Zakrevsky, apparently, should be considered one of the first "greens". Zakrevsky was very concerned about cutting down forests near Moscow. Russian industry, growing at an accelerated pace, demanded more and more fuel for cars.

Bakhrushins are Orthodox Christians
It was an amazingly monolithic, morally stable family, whose whole life was subordinated to one thing: to work in such a way as to benefit the Fatherland, increasing their capital not for themselves personally, but for the glory of Russia.

The gastronomic wonder of the Eliseevs
The Gastronom store on Tverskaya Street in Moscow was especially popular with residents of the capital. The same store was on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. For three quarters of a century, these shops held the undisputed leadership among other trading enterprises of the same profile in terms of the assortment and quality of goods.

The deeds and customs of the Ural merchants

The post-revolutionary fate of the Ural entrepreneurs is not much different from the fate of their colleagues from other regions of Russia. Some of them were destroyed during the Civil War, others emigrated to China and Japan, and later dispersed around the world. Those who remained in Russia took a sip of grief: part of the descendants of merchant families were subjected to repression, many were shot.

Demidovs
The work of Nikita Demidovich Demidov on the organization of the mining business in Tula and the Urals made it possible to lay the foundations of a huge industrial empire.

Mazurin dynasty
The founder of the Mazurin family came from Serpukhov merchants who moved to Moscow at the end of the 18th century. His son, Alexei Alekseevich Mazurin (1771-1834), inherited the cotton manufactory. Abilities, intelligence and means allowed him to take the post of Moscow mayor, first in the reign of Paul 1, and then under Alexander 1.

Egorievsk and Bardygins
The Bardygins… Yegorievsk always remembered them. Ask any Yegorievsk about the Bardygins, and he will talk about them with love and respect. Until now, Nikifor Mikhailovich Bardygin is considered the father of the city. But, probably, confusion will occur in the story of a simple city dweller: father and son - Nikifor Mikhailovich and Mikhail Nikiforovich - will merge into one person, which he will simply call Bardygin.

Sytin Ivan Dmitrievich
ID Sytin's book publishing as an example of the successful combination of educational and entrepreneurial activities in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Merchant dynasty of Lyamins
In 1859, Ivan Artemyevich founded the partnership of the Pokrovskaya manufactory, located in Yakhroma, Dmitrovsky district, Moscow province, on the basis of the Andreevsky weaving factory acquired by him, and turns it into one of the largest paper spinning and weaving production in Russia.

Lepyoshkins, the oldest merchant dynasty in Moscow
One of the oldest and most famous among Moscow entrepreneurs was the Lepeshkin dynasty. The Lepeshkins appeared in Moscow in 1813, when, having survived the Patriotic War of 1812, the city began to restore its industry and trade after a devastating fire.

Margarita Morozova - public figure, patron of sciences and arts
Her mother was Margarita Ottovna, nee Levenshtein (1852-1929), a hereditary honorary citizen, the owner of a sewing workshop for ladies' dresses. Father - Kirill Nikolaevich Mamontov (1848-1879), a merchant of the 2nd guild, traded dishes on Basmannaya Street in Moscow.

Nikolai Mironov - patron of Russian art
N. Mironov belonged to that category of merchants, whose representatives showed an active desire to increase the cultural wealth of Russia. These include, in addition to the patrons of art mentioned above, also the Morozovs, Mamontovs, Tretyakovs and many others.

Petr Ivanovich Rychkov - "organizer" of the Orenburg Territory
The son of a Vologda merchant who almost went bankrupt due to a series of unsuccessful transactions, P. I. Rychkov, according to the submission of I. K. Kirilov sent to the Senate, was determined for his “fair knowledge” in accounting and German as an accountant of the Orenburg expedition that was just being created.

Russian merchants - builders of Russia

The names of the Stroganovs, Dezhnevs, Khabarovs, Demidovs, Shelikhovs, Baranovs and many others stand as milestones in the expansion and strengthening of Russia. The merchant Kozma Minin entered Russian history forever as the savior of Russia from foreign occupation. Numerous monasteries, churches, schools, shelters for the elderly, art galleries, etc., were created and supported to a large extent by merchants.

Tikhon Bolshakov - collector of ancient Russian literature
T. Bolshakov was born in 1794 in the city of Borovsk, Kaluga province, in the family of an Old Believer. In 1806, as a twelve-year-old boy, he was brought to Moscow to his uncle, whom he first helped in trade, and then opened his own leather goods shop and achieved great success in commercial activities.

Tryndins: 120 years of work for the benefit of Russia
The founder of the Tryndins' optical company in Moscow is Sergey Semyonovich Tryndin, an Old Believer peasant who came to Moscow from the Vladimir province. He began working at Moscow University as a mechanic. After some time, he founded his optical workshop in Moscow.

Russian merchants have always been special. Merchants and industrialists were recognized as the wealthiest class in the Russian Empire. They were brave, talented, generous and inventive people, patrons and connoisseurs of art.

Bakhrushins

They come from the merchants of the city of Zaraisk, Ryazan province, where their family can be traced through scribe books until 1722. By profession, the Bakhrushins were “prasols”: they drove cattle from the Volga region to big cities in a herd. Cattle sometimes died along the way, skinned, taken to the city and sold to tanneries - this is how the history of their own business began.

Alexei Fedorovich Bakhrushin moved to Moscow from Zaraysk in the thirties of the nineteenth century. The family moved in carts, with all the belongings, and the youngest son Alexander, the future honorary citizen of the city of Moscow, was carried in a laundry basket. Alexey Fedorovich - became the first Moscow merchant Bakhrushin (he has been included in the Moscow merchant class since 1835).

Alexander Alekseevich Bakhrushin, the same honorary citizen of Moscow, was the father of the famous city figure Vladimir Alexandrovich, the collectors Sergei and Alexei Alexandrovich, and the grandfather of Professor Sergei Vladimirovich.

Speaking of collectors, this well-known passion for “gathering” was a hallmark of the Bakhrushins family. The collections of Alexei Petrovich and Alexei Alexandrovich are especially worth noting. The first collected Russian antiquities and, mainly, books. According to his spiritual will, he left the library to the Rumyantsev Museum, and porcelain and antiques to the Historical Museum, where there were two halls named after him. They said about him that he was terribly stingy, because "he goes every Sunday to Sukharevka and bargains like a Jew." But it is hardly possible to judge him for this, because every collector knows that the most pleasant thing is to find yourself a truly valuable thing, the merits of which others did not suspect.

The second, Alexei Alexandrovich, was a great lover of the theatre, chaired the Theater Society for a long time and was very popular in theatrical circles. Therefore, the Theater Museum became the world's only richest collection of everything that had anything to do with the theater.

Both in Moscow and in Zaraysk they were honorary citizens of the city - a very rare honor. During my stay in the City Duma there were only two honorary citizens of the city of Moscow: D. A. Bakhrushin and Prince V. M. Golitsyn, the former mayor.

Quote: "One of the largest and richest firms in Moscow is considered the Trading House of the Bakhrushin brothers. They have leather and cloth business. The owners are still young people with higher education, well-known philanthropists who donate hundreds of thousands. They conduct their business, although on new beginnings - that is, using the latest words of science, but according to old Moscow customs. For example, their offices and reception rooms make one wish for a lot. " "New time".

Mammoth

The Mamontov clan originates from the Zvenigorod merchant Ivan Mamontov, about whom practically nothing is known, except perhaps the year of birth - 1730, and the fact that he had a son, Fedor Ivanovich (1760). Most likely, Ivan Mamontov was engaged in farming and made a good fortune for himself, so that his sons were already rich people. One can guess about his charitable activities: a monument on his grave in Zvenigorod was erected by grateful residents for the services rendered to him in 1812.

Fedor Ivanovich had three sons - Ivan, Mikhail and Nikolai. Mikhail, apparently, was not married, in any case, he did not leave offspring. The other two brothers were the ancestors of two branches of the respectable and numerous Mammoth family.

Quote: “The brothers Ivan and Nikolai Fedorovich Mamontov came to Moscow rich people. Nikolai Fedorovich bought a large and beautiful house with a vast garden on Razgulay. By this time he had a large family.” ("P. M. Tretyakov". A. Botkin).

The Mammoth youth, the children of Ivan Fedorovich and Nikolai Fedorovich, were well educated and gifted in various ways. The natural musicality of Savva Mamontov stood out especially, which played a big role in his adult life.

Savva Ivanovich will nominate Chaliapin; make popular Mussorgsky, rejected by many connoisseurs; will create in his theater a huge success for Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko. He will be not only a philanthropist, but an adviser: the artists received valuable instructions from him on issues of make-up, gesture, costume and even singing.

One of the remarkable undertakings in the field of Russian folk art is closely connected with the name of Savva Ivanovich: the famous Abramtsevo. In new hands, it was revived and soon became one of the most cultural corners of Russia.

Quote: "The Mammoths became famous in a wide variety of fields: both in the field of industry, and, perhaps, especially in the field of art. The Mammoth family was very large, and the representatives of the second generation were no longer as rich as their parents, and in the third the fragmentation of funds went even further. The origin of their wealth was a farmer's trade, which brought them closer to the notorious Kokorev. Therefore, when they appeared in Moscow, they immediately entered the rich merchant environment. " ("Dark Kingdom", N. Ostrovsky).

The founder of this one of the oldest trading companies in Moscow was Vasily Petrovich Shchukin, a native of the city of Borovsk, Kaluga province. In the late seventies of the 18th century, Vasily Petrovich established a trade in manufactured goods in Moscow and continued it for fifty years. His son, Ivan Vasilyevich, founded the Trading House "I. V. Schukin with his sons "The sons are Nikolai, Peter, Sergey and Dmitry Ivanovichi.
The trading house conducted extensive trade: goods were sent to all corners of Central Russia, as well as to Siberia, the Caucasus, the Urals, Central Asia and Persia. In recent years, the Trading House began to sell not only chintz, scarves, underwear, clothing and paper fabrics, but also woolen, silk and linen products.

The Shchukin brothers are known as great connoisseurs of art. Nikolai Ivanovich was a lover of antiquity: in his collection there were many old manuscripts, lace, and various fabrics. For the collected items on Malaya Gruzinskaya, he built a beautiful building in the Russian style. According to his will, his entire collection, together with the house, became the property of the Historical Museum.

Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin occupies a special place among Russian nugget collectors. It can be said that all French painting of the beginning of the current century: Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse, some of their predecessors, Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Degas - was in the Shchukin collection.

Ridicule, rejection, misunderstanding by the society of the works of this or that master - did not have the slightest meaning for him. Often Shchukin bought paintings for a penny, not out of his stinginess and not out of a desire to oppress the artist, - simply because they were not for sale and there was not even a price for them.

Ryabushinsky

In 1802, Mikhail Yakovlev “arrived” to the Moscow merchants from the settlement of the Rebushinskaya Pafnutyevo-Borovsky Monastery in the Kaluga province. He traded in the Canvas Row of Gostiny Dvor. But he went bankrupt during the Patriotic War of 1812, like many merchants. His revival as an entrepreneur was facilitated by the transition to the “split”. In 1820, the founder of the business joined the community of the Rogozhsky cemetery - the Moscow stronghold of the Old Believers of the "priestly sense", to which the richest merchant families of the capital belonged.

Mikhail Yakovlevich takes the surname Rebushinsky (that's how it was written then) in honor of his native settlement and joins the merchant class. He now trades in "paper goods", starts several weaving factories in Moscow and the Kaluga province, and leaves the children a capital of more than 2 million rubles. So the stern and devout Old Believer, who wore a common people's caftan and worked as a "master" at his manufactories, laid the foundation for the future prosperity of the family.

Quote: "I was always struck by one feature - perhaps a characteristic feature of the whole family - this is internal family discipline. Not only in banking, but also in public affairs, everyone was assigned their own place according to the established rank, and in the first place was the elder brother, with whom others were considered and in a certain sense obeyed him. ("Memoirs", P. Buryshkin).

The Ryabushinskys were famous collectors: icons, paintings, art objects, porcelain, furniture... It is not surprising that Nikolai Ryabushinsky, "the dissolute Nikolasha" (1877-1951), chose the world of art as his life's career. An extravagant lover of living "on a grand scale" entered the history of Russian art as the editor-publisher of the luxurious literary and artistic almanac "Golden Fleece", published in 1906-1909. Almanac under the flag of "pure art" managed to gather the best forces of the Russian "Silver Age": A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Bryusov, among the "seekers of the Golden Fleece" were the artists M. Dobuzhinsky, P. Kuznetsov, E. Lansere and many other. A. Benois, who collaborated in the magazine, assessed its publisher as "a most curious figure, not mediocre, at least special."

Demidovs

The ancestor of the dynasty of merchants Demidovs - Nikita Demidovich Antufiev, better known by the surname Demidov (1656-1725) was a Tula blacksmith and advanced under Peter I, having received vast lands in the Urals for the construction of metallurgical plants. Nikita Demidovich had three sons: Akinfiy, Gregory and Nikita, among whom he distributed all his wealth.

In the famous Altai mines, which owed their discovery to Akinfiy Demidov, in 1736, the richest ore in terms of gold and silver content, native silver and horn silver ore, were found.

His eldest son Prokopy Akinfievich paid little attention to the management of his factories, which, in addition to his intervention, brought in huge income. He lived in Moscow, and surprised the townspeople with his eccentricities and costly undertakings. Prokopy Demidov also spent a lot on charity: 20,000 rubles for the establishment of a hospital for poor puerperas at the St. Petersburg Orphanage, 20,000 rubles for Moscow University on scholarships for the poorest students, 5,000 rubles for the main public school in Moscow.

Tretyakovs

They came from an old but not rich merchant family. Elisey Martynovich Tretyakov, the great-grandfather of Sergei and Pavel Mikhailovich, arrived in Moscow in 1774 from Maloyaroslavets as a seventy-year-old man with his wife and two sons, Zakhar and Osip. In Maloyaroslavets, the merchant family of the Tretyakovs existed since 1646.
The history of the Tretyakov family essentially boils down to the biography of two brothers, Pavel and Sergei Mikhailovich. During their lifetime, they were united by true kindred love and friendship. After their death, they will forever be remembered as the creators of the gallery named after the brothers Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov.

Both brothers continued their father's business, first trading, then industrial. They were linen workers, and flax in Russia has always been revered as a native Russian product. Slavophile economists (like Kokorev) have always praised flax and contrasted it with foreign American cotton.

This family was never considered one of the richest, although their commercial and industrial affairs were always successful. Pavel Mikhailovich spent a lot of money on creating his famous gallery and collecting a collection, sometimes to the detriment of the well-being of his own family.

Quote: "With a guide and a map in hand, zealously and carefully, he reviewed almost all European museums, moving from one large capital to another, from one small Italian, Dutch and German town to another. And he became a real, deep and subtle connoisseur painting". ("Russian antiquity").

Soltadenkovs

They come from the peasants of the village of Prokunino, Kolomna district, Moscow province. The ancestor of the Soldatenkov family, Yegor Vasilyevich, has been in the Moscow merchant class since 1797. But this family became famous only in the middle of the 19th century, thanks to Kuzma Terentyevich.

He rented a shop in the old Gostiny Dvor, traded in paper yarn, and was engaged in a discount. Subsequently, he became a major shareholder in a number of manufactories, banks and insurance companies.

Kuzma Soldatenkov had a large library and a valuable collection of paintings, which he bequeathed to the Moscow Rumyantsev Museum. This collection is one of the earliest in terms of its compilation and the most remarkable in terms of its excellent and long existence.

But Soldatenkov's main contribution to Russian culture is considered publishing. His closest collaborator in this area was Mitrofan Shchepkin, a well-known city figure in Moscow. Under the leadership of Shchepkin, many issues devoted to the classics of economic science were published, for which special translations were made. This series of publications, called "Shchepkinskaya Library", was a valuable guide for students, but already in my time - the beginning of this century - many books have become a bibliographic rarity.

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The merchant class is a social stratum engaged in trade, an intermediary between production and the market. In historical sources, two terms “merchant” (a city dweller engaged in trade) and “guest” (merchant connected with trade operations with other cities and countries) were used to designate merchants in Ancient Russia. From the 13th century the third term "merchant" appears.

The first mention of merchants in Kievan Rus dates back to the 10th century. In the XI-XII centuries. they constituted a special social group of the urban population, engaged in usury along with trade, enjoyed the support of princely power. In the XII century. the first merchant corporations arose in the largest economic centers. The growth of the merchant class was interrupted by the Mongol-Tatar invasion and resumed in North-Eastern Russia at the turn of the 13th-14th centuries. The development of cities and the numerical growth of the merchant class led to the emergence of the richest and most influential groups of visiting merchants in Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Vologda, and other cities.

However, the unification of Russian lands around Moscow was accompanied by the liquidation of tax and other autonomy of local merchant corporations, and later their destruction. During the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible (1533-1584), many representatives of the merchant class were physically exterminated. Merchants, along with artisans and small merchants of the cities, were united into one class of townspeople. Since the 17th century large merchants began to combine trade with entrepreneurship in the salt-mining, distilling (until the 50s of the 18th century), leather and other industries, and from the 18th century. in metallurgy, textile, paper, glass, etc., i.e. the process of formation of the Russian national bourgeoisie began. The development of trade outside the city led to the emergence of a layer of peasant merchants.

In order to expand the social support of the autocracy (in the cities, as well as in fiscal (tax collection) interests, the government in 1775 decided to create a privileged guild (guild - association) merchant class.

The new class organization of the merchant class included the bourgeoisie of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian cities, large and medium-sized merchants, representatives of the emerging banking and remaining usurious capital. The rest of the merchant class, which consisted of artisans, commodity producers, small merchants, formed the class of petty bourgeois, i.e. a taxable estate of former townspeople: artisans, homeowners, merchants, united at their place of residence in communities with some self-government rights. The organization of the guild merchants, finally formalized by the Charter to the nobility and the Charter to the cities (1785), existed without changes until 1861.

With the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the merchant class became an integral part of the bourgeoisie. In the 60s. 19th century the conditions for the existence of a closed merchant class in the cities were also undermined, although in Russia until 1917 numerous class privileges (including those of the merchant class) were preserved. Since 1863, access to the merchant class was open to people from all other classes. To do this, it was necessary to pay all the duties to the former class (applied to the lower classes), to pay the guild dues annually (from the 1st guild - 500 rubles, from the 2nd - 150 rubles, the 3rd guild was liquidated) and other types of fishing tax. Many peasants moved into the merchant class, and the class stratum of peasant merchants disappeared, merging with the guild merchant class. In the merchant class, the peasants were attracted by such rights as exemption from corporal punishment, the opportunity to be classified as honorary citizens, etc. In the 20th century. in terms of numbers, the merchant class became an insignificant part of the Russian bourgeoisie. The final liquidation of the merchant class as an estate was carried out in Soviet Russia.