Literary Insights into 1870s Romania and the Agrarian Question






Excerpt from Duiliu Zamfirescu's realist novel Life in the Countryside (Viața la țară)

[Sașa Comăneșteanu gives administrative advice to Matei Damian, a young landowner who recently inherited his mother’s estate]

The most sensible thing to do is to call the people to your house one Sunday and tell them you have decided to take care of your own affairs; that, according to the wish of your late mother, you are writing off all debts, tearing up all contracts and cancelling all deals; that you are going to make new contracts (and, mind you, make them well as things can’t be done today as they used to); that anyone who wants to ask for something or talk to you can always find you ready to talk to them. Then give them something to drink and, if you want, invite fiddlers to play for them…
[…]
After all this, do not get your hopes too high. The peasant is going to drink your wine, dance the hora, fail to pay his debts and, when you call him to work, he is not going to come.

Why? Because this is the state of affairs in our country. The causes are many. Firstly, the way in which the peasant has been treated so far: everybody from all sides have exploited and cheated him as much as they could. The leaseholder (arendaș), be they Greek, Bulgarian or Romanian, is the same everywhere: he only seeks to get rich; take Scatiu, for instance, and many more like him. So the boyar is looked upon by the peasant as his natural enemy. Add to this the natural clash of interests: when our wheat is ripe, his is ripe too and, although he received money to come to harvest on the first call, he goes and harvests his own wheat. Finally, there is the disproportion between land and population: we only have 40 people per square kilometer, while the natural proportion is 70…
[…]
Agriculture is becoming more and more extensive and the population is not growing, so the same number of work hands have to produce twice as much.
[…]
In order to avoid losses and also robbing the peasant, the landowner can only do this: firstly, treat the peasant well; secondly, invest in machinery so he can work with it, when necessary.







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