All Russia is Burning :: essays research papers

Cathy Frierson's All Russia is Burning   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In Cathy Frierson’s All Russia is Burning, Frierson evaluates rural fire as peasant against peasant issue in Imperial Russia. Her research redirects the historian away from usual templates of Soviet and Western scholars. These scholars had only studied these conflagrations in regards to the peasants rebellion against the nobility which ultimately lead to the Bolshevik Revolutions. Here she not only addresses the causes of rural fires, but also the realities with which they were connected. She clearly investigates the haphazard role of the government and the zemstvos (insurance agency) that shed a light in the long tunnel out of road of fire that never seemed to end. Frierson clearly shows that Russia’s economic issues were caused by the peasants themselves and by the lack of government action.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Frierson first explains to the historian the women’s relationship with fire and how women came to be seen as one of the causes of Russia’s backwardness. A peasant woman’s life revolved around fire. She ran the stove and tended to the fire inside all day. Frierson makes it clear that women knew fire well, as it was women’s view that they were in harmony with it. The educated elite saw peasant women differently. â€Å"It was they (women) whose individualistic greed, ignorant superstitions, and female conspiracies undermined the idyllic village† (Frierson 38). Her point though is that they, as many people are, were simply careless. The general idea of women then was not much different from the present in that they were seen as emotional and, in fights, vengeful. In introducing women as such right away, Frierson reveals why women became the object of ridicule and responsibility for rural fire and uses this idea throughout the rest of the book. She continues to use many good examples through out the entirety of the book supporting this case. Women in may cases literally and figuratively fueled the fire. In more cases than not women were found to be the culprit to accidental and arson fires making them a center stone in the study of rural fires. Even though it is plausible that women may have contributed to rural fire, ultimately it was not solely their fault as the educated elite may have thought.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Frierson then discusses religion, which is closely tied to peasant superstitions of fire. In Orthodox Russia, fire was never far from religion. There were festivals for St.