Peasant understanding of economic justice in conflict with the current legislation and the “disturbanceˮ on the disputed land of landlord Rklitsky in 1902

Background. As it turns out it’s not an easy task to promote the concept of “Peasant revolution in Russia, 1902–1922” in order it could gain a worthy place in the Rus-sian literature on agrarian history. Meanwhile, this theoretical approach has a great explana-tory power being applied to most important political events in Russia of that historical pe-riod. The purpose of the article is to confirm this ability by analyzing the social conflict that occurred in Tambov province at the initial stage of the Revolution. Materials and methods. The article draws the attention of historians to the works of the researchers which delibe-rately and purposely apply the methodology of Peasant Studies when observing social con-flicts at the initial and subsequent stages of the peasant revolution in Russia. The analysis of the conflict between peasants and landlords recorded in the collection of documents of peasant movement in Russia 1901–1904 is presented in the frames of this methodology: from the point of view of peasants themselves and their traditional understanding of justice and truth. Results. It is argued that the primary cause of the peasant unrest was not the class struggle of peasants against landlords, but the struggle of the communities against the evo-lution of many landlords towards compliance with formal legislation and submission to market laws and regularities. The peasants did not just defend the right to graze their cattle on the land of the landowner or to use the forest which the both parties considered to be theirs. They struggled for preserving the old order, for the primacy of customary law over official law. Conclusions. The reasons for the riots which tended to turn into real terror, at least if we talk about the events of the very beginning of the twentieth century, should be sought in the field of the conflict between “formal” law, written legislation of the post-reform period, and customary law of the peasants, their “moral economy” and “subsistence ethics”.