Muzhiks: The Story of the Russian Peasantry

Евгений Сарычев

Rahmah Meligy

For we are slaves but not admitted to be so. For I am denied the privilege of decision. For people dominate me with pleasure and my identity of expression is denied. For we work as slaves, but we are not slaves, we are Muzhiks, the majority that is drenched in the poison of misery in the Russian Empire.

The inquiry of one’s passion is denied, all talent subsided. For our human souls are trapped, and only our strength in labour expressed. For men have passions, but only the privileged pursue them. The development of a passion is a luxury, that even amongst the wealthiest can’t afford. For money has been the tyrant of all minds, unfortunately, it has become a necessity to survive. For money has caged me into the labour I perform, for if I succumb this torment, money will abandon me, and to the grave my body shall go, for I have passed from starvation indeed. And for the wealthy, their fortune of fate is not too high indeed. For the money has been the tyrant of all minds, where money ventures off to, they will crawl towards wealth with mindless desperation. For the addiction of wealth is too great of a disease, one might sell their soul for the material object of currency.

And so the talents of humanity are deemed unfavourable, for they were expected not to please the dictator, money. And so talent is denied more reasons, that not. Class has denied the expression of our souls and our great treasury of talent. Humanity has dissolved all the utterance of expression on our tongues, and therefore we have become the equivalent of the machine. My declaration of my desire of becoming a writer had been disdained by my loved one and deemed as peasantry by the wealthy of the late nineteenth century.

For talent is a mastery of art granted since birth. Talent is untrained and holds all the refusal towards being tamed. That is the underlying power our veins poses, but the Muzhik’s work is a fate that cannot be crossed, a menial tedious task that terminates civilization in the nation. For if a nation denies the authority of talent in such a majority of citizens, it, therefore, diminishes the nation’s sophistication. It is because passion drives the most pre-eminent of work.

The Muzhiks of late nineteenth-century Russia have been denied the necessity of choice. The choice for talent is just one of many. For broken relationships are bound, for they abide by the likelihood of the tyrant, money. My mother had the fate of marrying the vilest of men. For her soul had been tormented without remorse by the actions of the man who accounts to be one of the most disgraceful of men. She’s seen days of horror and countless nights of suffering, and yet, she refused to leave him. For years I have hated that quality in my mother, why not leave if all you foresee is pain? But my mind has aged and now I can fathom the loathsome decision my mother has made. She had to stay, for life was non-existent outside the boundaries of his wages. Her life had depended on the wages he had obtained through labour, and without the money, food would vanish and her body would deteriorate and decay. For money has become the tyrant of all minds, unfortunately, it has become a necessity to survive.

Rahmah Meligy is a young aspiring author currently working on her first book. She has not been previously published before. She works as a parttime librarian. She has her own website, The Notable Lifestyle, where she writes articles criticising books. She is an avid reader, her favorite books would be Fahrenheit 451 and Anna Karenina.