#peasants

These romantic visions of the peasantry were constantly undone by contact with reality, often with devastating consequences for their bearers. The populists, who invested much of themselves in their conception of the peasants, suffered the most in this respect, since the disintegration of that conception threatened to undermine not only their radical beliefs but also their own self-identity. ↗

— Orlando Figes

#populists #respect

The 'noble savage' whom the Populists had seen in the simple peasant was, as Gorky now concluded, no more than a romantic illusion. And the more he experienced the everyday life of the peasant, the more he denounced them as savage and barbaric. ↗

— Orlando Figes

#romantic

Your Majesty, I took the liberty because I was so desirous of visiting alone with you for a few minutes before the rest of the other peasants arrived. ↗

— Walter Annenberg

#arrived #because #before #desirous #few

Give the peasants neither life nor death. ↗

— Ieyasu Tokugawa

#give #life #neither #nor #peasants

With the advent of spring and beginning of the new harvest season the creators of abundance, our peasants, come out to the fields to sow with good aspirations and hopes. ↗

— Islom Karimov

#advent #aspirations #beginning #come #creators

And it is practically the same in the case of the four or five million poor peasants in France, and also for Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and two of the Scandinavian countries. Everywhere small and medium sized industry prevails. ↗

— Herman Gorter

#belgium #case #countries #everywhere #five

The master and mistress of the house and the rest of the Blood -even the Crux himself- brought our food, poured the wine, did our bidding. The centerpiece was a roasted stag. crowned with gilded antlers and stuffed with songbirds; they had hunted well. We were forbidden to kill the deer that fattened on our coleworts and stole our grain, and the venison tasted all the better for the salt of revenge. ↗

— Sarah Micklem

#feast #peasants #revenge #venison #food

I heard so many stories from Gaomi's peasants that I had an irrepressible urge to write them down. Today, Gaomi's peasants know that they have become famous around the world through my writings, but I think they are a little puzzled by this. ↗

— Mo Yan

#become #down #famous #had #heard

Soldiers and peasants lived together on friendly terms; they knew each other and their everyday routines, and trusted each other; they shook their heads together over the war. ↗

— Ernst Toller

#everyday #friendly #heads #knew #lived

The link between literacy and revolutions is a well-known historical phenomenon. The three great revolutions of modern European history -- the English, the French and the Russian -- all took place in societies where the rate of literacy was approaching 50 per cent. Literacy had a profound effect on the peasant mind and community. It promotes abstract thought and enables the peasant to master new skills and technologies, Which in turn helps him to accept the concept of progress that fuels change in the modern world. ↗

— Orlando Figes

#peasants #revolutionary-wars #change