Urban handicrafts in post-reform Russia (second half of the XIX century): a historiographical overview

Russia’s urban handicraft industry of the second half of the XIX century overall and its transformation in the course of domestic industrial modernization remains poorly-studied to date and therefore deserves the close attention of modern historians. The paper provides an overview of works on the historiography of domestic handicrafts in the second half of the XIX century. It proves that there are three distinct periods in the history of scientists' study of the problem of craftsmanship, each of them associated with the scientific discussion of various aspects of the development and modernization of small-scale industry in general and urban handicrafts in particular. Despite disagreements, however, all the authors of the works we have reviewed testify to the active growth of the Russian economy in the post-reform period, which in turn allows us to determine the place and importance of small-scale industrial production in the conditions of the formation of the industrial economic system of pre-revolutionary Russia.