The story “Khor and Kalinyich” presents a positive narrative on Russian peasants. While peasants in Russian society were treated in a demeaning manner that solidified their lower status, this text humanized them and emphasized their social importance. By interacting with the peasants, the narrator is able to convey how the peasant’s labor is vital to society through agricultural work and assisting their masters. While the narrator is generally appreciative of the peasants, I read the text as somewhat glorifying peasant labor and overlooking their hardships. Khor is described as “always busying himself with something” implying he voluntarily chooses to engage in a constant state of labor, overlooking the impact of the master-peasant power dynamic (33). The narrator also exercises subtle judgements on the peasants. Khor tells the narrator that most of his family cannot read or write (32). While the narrator acknowledges that Khor himself is intelligent, he also calls out his hatred for and prejudices against women, implying that peasants have both high mental capacity but also are in some ways more socially and morally backward than higher classes. The narrator also questions Khor’s decision to stay with his master rather than buying his own freedom (25). This judgement is ignorant of the social and economic limitations of peasants’ status and minimizes the peasants’ dependence on their masters. Overall, the text allows a humanistic lens of the peasants’ lives, regarding them as individuals rather than generalizing and degrading the entire social class. Yet the seemingly open and objective narrator exercises judgements that serve to ignore the daily hardships faced by the peasants and the overtly unequal power dynamic between the peasants and their masters.
3 thoughts on ““Khor and Kalinyich”: the accomplishments and pitfalls of ‘objective’ narration”
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I think that your observation complements Thando’s regarding the narrator’s apathy toward the female serfs. Turgenev inserts several conflict of interest into the narration, the most striking of which being that the narrator is much more privileged than the serfs and that his purpose for visiting Polutykin’s estate is to go hunting. At minimum, that detail explains his begrudging positive characterization of Polutykin; I would go further to question the reliability of the narrator’s descriptions of idyllic circumstances in-universe. It’s fascinating how Turgenev places such limitations on range of expression of his narrator — I am used to fiction serving as a means of circumnavigating real-world barriers to express social criticism (not that such conduct is wholly absent here, but it isn’t fully utilized). I wonder whether Turgenev’s self-restraint serves to balance publishing a salient critique of his peers’ dehumanization of peasants with reaching a wider audience. This is, of course, being optimistic about Turgenev’s own outlook on serfdom and assuming it compares to that of Radishchev and other predecessors.
First off, I’d just like to say that I am pleasantly surprised by the quality of the correspondence that we are able to have on the blog! Evie, I agree that the narrator seems to be aloof when it comes to the negative social and economic implications of serfdom. Zach, I also agree that Turgenev’s use of the narrator serves to subtly critique his peers on their own misconceptions of serfs and women. I’d like to push the conversation even further and include some feedback Professor Gillespie gave me on my blog post. She mentioned that Turgenev is known now to be a protofeminist writer. —–I had to look up up what this meant—– Protofeminism refers to feminism that exists before our modern notion of feminism came to be. Turgenev is using the narrator to display the ridiculous nature of the discrimination and limits placed on woman. I’m not sure if there is a word that explains Turgenev’s progressive views on serfdom, but I feel confident that he is employing similar techniques in the narrator’s haughty comments on serfs as he is in the narrator’s sexist remarks. Wow!!!
Thando, I love what you’ve done here in weaving together all these different perspectives, questions, and comments! Wow is right, and I too am so impressed and thrilled at the quality of these exchanges in our blog!!! 🙂