Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

by Robert K. Massie

The majority of Russian serfs were agricultural peasants, plowing, sowing, and reaping on land cleared from the forests. Depending on the time of year and the master’s whim, they could also be employed as woodcutters, gardeners, carpenters, candle makers, painters, and tanners of leather. Serfs tended cattle or worked at stud farms to breed carriage and riding horses. Serf women lived with constant physical drudgery. Frequently pregnant, they worked without rest in the fields beside their husbands, cooked food, washed clothes, and bore children, thereby creating little serfs to add to the master’s wealth. When these women were free of other duties, they were sent to gather mushrooms and berries in the forests, although they were not permitted to keep—or even to eat—any themselves.