Inga V. Maslova

Associate Professor, Doctor of Science (History), Professor of Chair of General and Russian History

Yelabuga Institute of Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University

(Yelabuga, Russia)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2022-4-6-15

Abstract. The article studies the history of the merchants of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries using the new social history methodology, which makes it possible to reveal connections between individual rationality in the activities of individual merchants and the collective identity of entrepreneurship as a whole. The aim of the research is to study the historical plots of the relations between merchants and their employees (based on Stakheevs (Yelabuga merchants’ dynasty) materials), which express entrepreneur’s individual identity. In historical narratives, the actions of entrepreneurs taken under the influence of their internal motives interlace with objective factors of the social environment. A study in the field of new social history made it possible to widen the types of sources used to include photographic documents and material evidence of the era, deposited in the collections of Russian museums. Legislation of the second half of the 19th century clearly delineated the boundaries of the clerks’ work, but merchants often chose an individual trajectory for building business relations with their employees. The social support given to the clerks in the business environment was solely the merchant's own initiative and is an example of individual rationality that goes beyond the business environment's group professional identity. Practices aimed at shaping the firm's corporate culture are evidence of the creative role of merchant subjectivity in the construction of social practices for interaction with its employees. Among the factors that influenced the development of corporate spirit in merchant firms, the author includes methods and rates of wages, the existence of a social security system, career opportunities and a set of team-building activities.
Keywords: New social history, Russian Empire of the 19th – early 20th century, Vyatka province, Yelabuga, merchants, clerks, the Stakheevs.

Full text of the article (PDF)

For citation: Maslova, IV 2022, ‘Communicative Practices оf Merchants and Their Employees: Russian Entrepreneurship in the Second Half of the 19th – early 20th Centuries in Line with the “New Social History”’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 4 (12), pp. 6–15, http://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2022-4-6-15 (in Russ.)

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