If the assassination of Alexander II brought folk Tsarism into sharp focus, the misfortunes of the early 1890s, particularly the cholera epidemic that struck Russia, highlight a complementary issue, namely, the peasant identification of the nobility with the force of evil. The perception of a fundamental opposition between the lords and the people, and of a cultural chasm separating them, is of course a commonplace of the study of Russian history, and one of the most productive analytical categories in the field. An examination of popular thinking during the year of famine and cholera (1891–1892) will show that from the perspective of the people, the antagonism between the groups was even more drastic than educated Russians (and Western historians) have imagined: the opposition was absolute, in the context of the dualism inherent in the traditional worldview, and the conflict between the groups was understood in apocalyptic terms.

POINT OF ENTRY

In his memoir of the year of cholera, Stepan Anikin, a populist politician of peasant background, an astute observer of the people in late Imperial Russia, describes the following scene in the town of Astrakhan':