Bezsmertna Y.

Servants in the households of Poltava residents in the 60-70-th XVIII century

Section: Regional aspects of historical demography

Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of households in Poltava, in which the General description ofthe Left Bank of Ukraine in 1765-1769 recorded the residence of servants. Despite the recent popularityof urban studies, some aspects of the life of a large regimental center, such as the functioning of a large layer of domestic staff among middle-class households, were only a matter of interest to some researchers. But this is not enough for a clear understanding of the place of domestic service in the early life of a modern city. It is necessary to answer the question about the prevalence of services, the number of employees employed in different types of households, the place of employees in the house, and this is far from a complete list. The main source from which it was possible to make the appropriate calculations was a census book of the city of Poltava, created in 1765-1766 during the description of Rumyantsev. The document was published in 2012, which greatly simplifies access to all historical information. On the basis of the census, the number of different types of households whose owners hired domestic servants were counted. The number of employees in households of owners, tenants, relatives, etc. is also calculated. Particular attention deserves a question about the place of residence of servants in the yard, because often with the numerical family of the host, there was a significant staff of servants. Given the large number of people living together and small-sized buildings, one can assume that some employees had their own carbon fiber, where they worked, or in utility rooms. So the author tried to analyze whether the number of employees in the house depends on the availability of rooms for servants or their absence.

Keywords: Rumyantsev description, household, servant, servant’s room

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/kraieznavstvo2019.03.080     Citation

• Bezsmertna Y., jbezsmertna@gmail.com) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4182-5490

Cite:
Bezsmertna Y. (2019). Servants in the households of Poltava residents in the 60-70-th XVIII century. Local Lore Studies, ( 3) 80-92. (In Ukrainian). doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/kraieznavstvo2019.03.080

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