concept
Meshchanin
meshchanin (townsman)
also: мещанин, мещане, meshchane
The urban lower-middle social estate (soslovie) in Imperial Russia -- small tradesmen and artisans, ranked below merchants and nobles in the legal class system.
Reading notes
- The Dependents §1 Мещанин
Zotov is identified from the story's first word as a meshchanin, the urban lower-middle social estate -- a small tradesman or artisan class ranked below merchants. His crony later needles him precisely because a meshchanin homeowner keeping useless animals is, in the social logic of the time, a shameful contradiction ('it would be one thing if I were a simple peasant').
- Office Notations §32 townspeople
Meshchane -- the urban lower-middle social estate (small tradesmen, artisans) in Imperial Russia's legal soslovie system, below merchants and nobles; Shulyabin is accused of moonlighting by drafting their petitions.
- In the Ravine §6 a tradesman
Translates meshchanin, the legal social estate for small-town, non-agricultural townspeople, ranked below the merchant guilds proper.
- At the Manor §24 petty bourgeois
"Мещанин" names a specific legal social estate (soslovie) of the Russian Empire -- urban petty tradesmen and artisans, ranked below the gentry and merchantry -- not a loose class label; Meyer's declaration that he is himself one directly punctures Rashevich's monologue on hereditary "white bone" superiority.