The famine of 1891 - 1892 was one of the most severe agricultural crises to strike Russia during the nineteenth century. In the spring of 1891 a serious drought caused crops to fail along the Volga and in many other grain-producing provinces. The disaster came on the heels of a series of poor harvests, its impact worsened by endemic peasant poverty and low productivity. The population of the affected areas had few reserves of food and faced the prospect of mass starvation.

Beginning in the summer of 1891, the imperial Russian government organized an extensive relief campaign. It disbursed almost 150 million rubles to the stricken provinces, working closely with the zemstvos, institutions of local self-government responsible for aiding victims of food shortages. The ministry of internal affairs established food supply conferences to coordinate government and zemstvo efforts to find and distribute available grain supplies. When massive backlogs of grain shipments snarled the railroads and threatened the timely delivery of food, the government dispatched a special agent to remedy the situation. The heir to the throne, the future Nicholas II, chaired a committee designed to encourage and focus charitable efforts. Many public-spirited Russians - Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Vladimir Korolenko and others - rushed into the countryside on their own initiative, setting up a large network of private soup kitchens and medical aid stations.

The relief campaign was remarkably successful. More than 12 million people received aid, and starvation was largely averted. Mortality for 1892 rose in the sixteen famine provinces - about 400,000 deaths above normal - much of it due to a simultaneous cholera epidemic. But compared to contemporary Indian and later Soviet famines, this loss of life was minimal. Still, the famine aroused public opinion. Many blamed the government's economic policies for causing the disaster, and its relief efforts were often unfairly criticized. Consequently, the famine proved to be an important turning point in Russian history, beginning a new wave of opposition to the tsarist regime.

Bibliography

Robbins, Richard G., Jr. (1975). Famine in Russia, 1891 - 1892: The Imperial Government Responds to a Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press.

Simms, James Y., Jr. (1977). "The Crisis of Russian Agriculture at the End of the Nineteenth Century: A Different View." Slavic Review 36:377 - 398.

Wheatcroft, S.G. (1992). "The 1891 - 92 Famine in Russia: Toward a More Detailed Analysis of its Scale and Demographic Significance." In Economy and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1860 - 1930: Essays for Olga Crisp, eds. Linda Edmondson and Peter Waldron. New York: St. Martin's Press.

—RICHARD G. ROBBINS JR.

Encyclopedia of Russian History. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.