The evolution of the urban handicraft industry in the context of the modernization processes of the second half of the XIX century

The paper demonstrates the specifics of Russian modernization, which is not based on the evolution of traditional economic forms, but largely through the revolutionary introduction of economic organization, which anticipates the logic of gradual successive development, and leads to the archaization of evolutionary directions of economic growth. The author proves that over a period of almost half a century, during which there has been an active liberalization of the public economy, which should facilitate economic diversification and the development of commercial and industrial activities in towns, the share of crafts in the majority of them, which had an agrarian economic orientation, has decreased. Consequently, the policy of forced industrialization interrupted the natural commodification of urban handicraft industry and the emergence of large-scale manufacturing and factory production on its basis. The modernization of urban handicrafts culminated in the formation of a “niche” of small-scale manual labor, driven by the social demand for limited and exclusive production.