Who Should Own the Land? The Peasants Land Bank and the Politics of Access in the Late Russian Empire
研究了1882年成立的俄罗斯帝国农民土地银行如何从信贷机构转变为帝国治理工具，通过控制土地和信贷获取权，系统性地排斥非正统农民群体，揭示了国家金融机构如何通过日常信贷决策延续多重等级制度。
This essay examines the Peasants Land Bank, a state-run financial institution established in 1882 to accelerate the transfer of land to peasants in the Russian Empire. Initially designed as a credit provider, the Bank gained new powers in the 1890s, when the government granted it unprecedented authority to assemble its own land fund. This shift transformed the institution into a key instrument of imperial governance. By controlling access to land and credit, it privileged the idealized “all-Russian” Orthodox peasantry and systematically excluded groups outside this category, including indigenous groups (such as the Bashkirs), non-Orthodox subjects, individuals of foreign origin as well as women and urban dwellers who technically belonged to the peasant estate. The Bank’s practices of exclusion enable us to examine how a state financial institution, rather than a neutral intermediary, can perpetuate multiple hierarchies through its routine credit decisions.