Cattle pasturing as a traditional form of forest use and conflicts between peasants and forestry administration in the long nineteenth century (The case of białowieza primeval forest)

The article deals with one of the key resource for peasants of Eastern Europe in general, and for Russia in particular, woodland pasturing. Relying on the new archival material, we demonstrate that peasant communities, in the spirit of James Scott, consistently sabotaged state efforts to ban grazing in the forest. The state, over the long 19th century, strengthened control over many aspects of the economic life of the village, which gradually made the conflicts of the peasants with the state forest administration more acute. We apply case study approach to investigate the relations between peasants and local and metropolitan administration in the Białowieza Primeval Forest. A unique feature of the Białowieza Primeval Forest’s history is the perseverance and efficiency of protection helped a lot with finding so rare sources on this topic. Our research reveals the motivation in the struggle for control over forest resources between the peasants and the administration as experts of “rational” forestry. Throughout the long 19th century the peasants used all means of resistance available to them: petitions to the authorities at all levels, direct and hidden sabotage of administrative orders, bribes to forestry personnel, as well as direct violations of orders. These conflicts, which lasted for many decades, demonstrate that peasant communities only partially followed the rules introduced by the state administration, which tried to change the principles of forestry management, making forests more profitable and “rational” from the point of view of the experts of the time. The administration spent significant resources on the control of woodland pasturing, but achieved very modest results, both in terms of reducing the number of livestock in the forest and in the sense of receiving compensation for damage made by animals The most important changes occurred in the second half of the 19 – early 20th centuries and were associated with more consistent and strict control over the traditional forest recourses, especially in the last Appanage period (1889-1915). If we consider the reaction of the administration to peasant petitions on woodland pastures, we would see sympathy and positive reaction at the middle (provincial) and at the highest (ministerial) levels. Obviously, this tolerance was connected with both the shortage of pasture and fodder, and with the general paternalistic sentiments of the Russian government. The administration tried not so much to increase the income from woodland pasturing as to “accustom” the peasants to the idea that the forests were not public, but rather private, state or appanage property