UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE HST2 HISTORICAL TRIPOS Part II Monday 30 May 2016 9 to 12 pm Paper 3 (K) Special Historical Subject FIN DE SIÈCLE RUSSIA, 1891-1917 Answer questions 1, 2, and one other question. Write your number not your name on the cover sheet of each Section booklet. STATIONERY REQUIREMENTS 20 Page Answer Book x 1 Rough Work Pad You may not start to read the questions printed on the subsequent pages of this question paper until instructed that you may do so by the Invigilator Page 1 of 5 --- -
1 Comment on three of the following: (a) 'Blue Monday' is a custom in most subcontracting shops that manufacture men's clothes. The whole workshop gets drunk, and work comes to a standstill. The apprentices do nothing but hang around. Many of the workers live in the workshop, so the boys are constantly exposed to all sorts of conversations and scenes. In one shop employing five workers and three boys, 'Blue Monday' was a regular ritual. Even the owner himself is prone to alcoholic binges. In these kind of situations, young girls are in danger of being abused by the owner or his sons. One subcontracting shop making streetwear for women employed twenty-six workers: eight tailors, six seamstresses, eight girls, and four boys. The workshop had separate but adjoining rooms, one for women and the other for men. On Mondays, the men would drink. Most of them were only half-dressed. Among the women there were prostitutes, and they openly discussed their adventures in front of the girls. Relations between men and women were extremely lax. When a woman walked past, the men would often embrace her and make provocations. [E. A. OLIUNINA, The Tailoring Trade in Moscow, 1914] (b) 'And afterward comes discord, financial difficulties, disputes between the two parties, and the couple separate. In the good old days that seldom happened. Is it not so?' asked the lawyer of the two merchants, evidently trying to drag them into the conversation. Just then the train started, and the old man, without answering, took off his cap, and crossed himself three times while muttering a prayer. When he had finished, he clapped his cap far down on his head, and said: 'Yes, sir, that happened in former times also, but not as often. In the present day it is bound to happen more frequently. People have become too learned.' The lawyer made some reply to the old man, but the train, ever increasing its speed, made such a clatter upon the rails that I could no longer hear distinctly. As I was interested in what the old man was saying, I drew nearer. 'But what harm is there in education?' asked the lady, with a smile that was scarcely perceptible. 'Would it be better to marry as in the old days, when the bride and bridegroom did not even see each other before marriage?' she continued, answering, as is the habit of our ladies, not the words that her