• Finnish: moukka
• Hungarian: paraszt
• Russian: деревенщина (d'er'ev'énš'ina) , мужлан (mužlán)

• Finnish: talonpoika
• Russian: крестьянин (krest’jánin)

• ttbc Chinese: 農民, 农民 (nóngmín)
• ttbc Dutch: landarbeider, landbouwer
• ttbc French: paysan
• ttbc German: Landarbeiter
• ttbc Greek: αγρότης (agrótis)
• ttbc Italian: cafone , contadino
• ttbc Korean: 소농 (sonong)
• ttbc Portuguese: camponês
• ttbc Scottish Gaelic: tuathanach
• ttbc Spanish: campesino ,montañero ,peón ,

See also

• boor
• churl
• serf

Not to be confused with pheasants. The relative position of Western European peasants was greatly improved after the Black Death unsettled medieval Europe, granting far greater economic and political power to those peasants fortunate enough to survive the cataclysm.

In the wake of this disruption to the established hierarchy, later centuries saw the invention of the original printing presses, widespread literacy and the enormous social and intellectual changes of the Enlightenment.

This evolution of ideas in an environment of relatively widespread literacy laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution, which enabled mechanically and chemically augmented agricultural production while simultaneously increasing the demand for factory workers in cities. These factory workers with their low skill and large numbers quickly came to occupy the same socio-economic stratum as the original medieval peasants.

This was especially pronounced in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until the 18th and 19th centuries. The Tsars then began to notice that the West had made enormous strides they had not, responding by forcing the largely illiterate peasant populations under their control to embark upon a Westernization and industrialization campaign.

Peter the Great initiated a half-successful attempt to force more than 500 years' worth of social change in the space of a few generations. Modernization of agriculture in Eastern Europe and Russia was not achieved until after the October Revolution.

See also

• Feudalism
• Petty nobility
• Folk culture
• Lower class
• Peasant revolt
• Popular revolt in late medieval Europe
• Slavery
• Anti-Rent War

Other terms for peasant

• Aloer
• Campesino
• Churl
• Cotter
• Fellah
• Free tenant
• Hari
• Honbyakushō
• Kulak
• Muzhik
• Pagesos de remença
• Peon
• Proletarian
• Serf
• Villein
• Smerd

Notes and references

Babbitt, Bauer, Philistine, agriculturalist, agriculturist, agrologist, agronomist, arriviste, boor, bounder, bourgeois, bucolic, bumpkin, cad, churl, clod, clodhopper, clown, coffee-planter, collective farm worker, country, country bumpkin, countryman, countrywoman, crofter, cropper, cultivator, dirt farmer, dry farmer, epicier, farm laborer, farmer, farmhand, fellah, galoot, gentleman farmer, granger, groundling, grower, guttersnipe, harvester, harvestman, haymaker, hayseed, hick, hind, hooligan, husbandman, ill-bred fellow, kibbutznik, kolkhoznik, kulak, looby, lout, low fellow, lump, mucker, muzhik, nouveau riche, oaf, parvenu, peasant holder, peon, picker, planter, plowboy, plowman, provincial, raiser, rancher, ranchman, reaper, ribald, rough, roughneck, rowdy, rube, ruffian, rustic, serf, sharecropper, sower, swain, tea-planter, tenant farmer, tiller, tree farmer, truck farmer, upstart, vulgarian, vulgarist, yeoman, yokel