Villein (serfdom) and Violence. Literary and Memorial Histories from the 19th century

Abstract

This article presents a model of villein-inflicted violence on the basis of 19th century realist novels and the peasant memory of the experience of serfdom. This article brings two disparate bodies of literature together in order to bring to light continuities in the relationship of work and violence across serfdom and capitalism in 19th century Poland. First, the article examines a number of realist novels which do not directly address serfdom amongst its central themes and thus, the representation of villein (serfdom) violence has to be sought at the borders of the world inhabited by the work’s protagonists, usually from the perspective of privileged classes. As such, the problem of serfdom is visible only indirectly, in the form of short fragments of well-known novels. At the same time, these works assume the obviousness of violence against peasants. This article offers an analysis of Polish realist tradition of fiction writing in order to demonstrate how the very social standing of protagonists is maintained at the expense of the people doing physical labor. Second, the article examines descriptions of this violence in the memoirs of peasants, and further offers an analysis of two such examples of the suppression of peasant revolt through physical violence. Deprived of all hope and agency, victims were left only to submit to the coercion of work in total resignation. Bringing these two bodies of literature together reveals the nexus of work and violence which, instead of disappearing with the abolition of villein (serfdom), emerged in the form of new capitalist relationships defined by inequalities between the capitalist and the proletarian.