Stealing as total evil: reality and myth

The purpose of the article is to focus on a stereotype of the total character of stealing and to detect causes for exaggeration of the scope of this crime according to the data of peasant culture of the middle of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Stealing was always considered as one of the main evils of the Russian society. However, the question as to whether this stereotype is true has been never purposefully researched. Scientific novelty of the research arises from the lack of studies on mythologizing of stealing in the context of Cultural Anthropology. Ehe author of the article comes to a conclusion that the “total” abundance of stealing in the post-reform period, to a certain extent, is a reflection of objective reality; however, first of all it is а common mythologema, actualization of which is connected with the process of modernization carried out in the country, which was so painful for many people.