The Evolution of the Image of Russian Merchants and Domestic Entrepreneurship in the Writings of Pavel Melnikov (Andrey Pechersky)

The article analyzes the oeuvre of the great Russian writer Pavel Melnikov (Andrei Pechersky) as a source of the history of the Russian economic and social thought of the 19th century and the writer's attitude to the development of the merchant class in the country. An attempt was made to elicit the reasons for Melnikov-Pechersky's negative attitude to the new phenomena in the country's social and economic life. The author infers that Melnikov-Pechersky's writings show an increasing interest in the entrepreneurship of merchants, who primarily sought wealth for themselves and were not eager to establish themselves as leaders as it happened throughout the Western world. Such conclusions are confirmed by the content of Melnikov-Pechersky's short stories, human-interest stories and novels. The writings were not only the epic of the Russian history of the 19th century, but also a shrewd economic research, which revealed the ways the big capital was formed in Povolzhye, analyzed the business situation in the market of Nizhny Novgorod, characterized the relationship between owners and workers, merchants and their representatives. Melnikov-Pechersky's texts described every aspect of the Povolzhye merchants' living, including lifestyle and temper, dwelling and industrial buildings, clothes and food, traditions and customs, dancing, games and folk medicine. Special attention is paid to the treasures of folklore in the works of the writer: songs, fairy tales, legends, proverbs, sayings, and the reflection of bylina verses and lamentations. Thus, Melnikov-Pechersky's works, especially his novels In the Forests and On the Hills, were the spectacular examples of intercommunion between historical studies and the belles-letters that can be used extensively when writing about the different social strata of Povolzhye, primarily about local merchants. The article concludes that the writer was originally sympathetic to the emergence of first entrepreneurs from the grassroots, primarily from the peasant community. The simplicity and the lack of education allowed prospective merchants to preserve the features of the national character, to have traditional androcratic families with longstanding traditions and values, to remain committed to the old faith. From such families, there grew a great number of Russian merchant clans that mostly produced fabric made from linen and further of cotton first in their izbas, then in craftshops, and later in factories where several hundreds or even thousands of people worked. Melnikov-Pechersky depicts Russian entrepreneurship and commerce in the post-reform time as a process that had development prospects and could give positive results for the whole country. In Melnikov-Pechersky's writings, the Russian Raskol is the carrier of the new, essentially bourgeois, relations and has certain achievements in the economic life and in the spiritual and social movement.

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