KonstantinKryzhitsky HutorVMalorossii 1884

A khutor ( rus, хутор, p=ˈxutər) or khutir ( uk, хутiр, pl. , ''khutory'') is a type of rural locality in some countries of

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

; in the past the term mostly referred to a single-

homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept t ...

settlement.Khutor
from the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

Khutor
from the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary The term can be translated as "

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

". They existed in Cossack-settled lands that encompassed today's

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, Kuban, and the lower

Don River The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...

basin while in Kuban and Don region the word ''khutor'' was also used to describe new settlements (irrespective of the number of homesteads) which had detached themselves from

stanitsa A stanitsa ( rus, станица, p=stɐˈnʲitsə; uk, станиця, stanytsya) is a village inside a Cossack host ( uk, військо, viys’ko; russian: казачье войско, kazach’ye voysko, sometimes translated as "Cossack Ar ...

s. In some Cossack communities, these types of settlements were referred to as ''posyolok'' (russian: посёлок, link=no) or ''selyshche'' ( uk, селище, link=no). In

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

the term "" (''vyselki'', literally, "those who moved away") was also used. Khutor remains the official designation of many Russian villages in these regions. During the

Stolypin reform The Stolypin agrarian reforms were a series of changes to Imperial Russia's agricultural sector instituted during the tenure of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. Most, if not all, of these reforms were based on recommendations from a committee known ...

s in the Russian empire,

Peter Stolypin Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin ( rus, Пётр Арка́дьевич Столы́пин, p=pʲɵtr ɐrˈkadʲjɪvʲɪtɕ stɐˈlɨpʲɪn; – ) was a Russian politician and statesman. He served as the third prime minister and the interior minist ...

envisaged rich

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasant ...

s "privatising" their share of the community ('' obshchina'' (russian: община, link=no) or ''tovarystvo'' ( uk, товариство, link=no)) lands, leaving the obshchinas, and settling in khutors on their now individually owned land. A less radical concept was that of an ''otrub'' (отруб) or ''vidrub'': a section of formerly ''obshchina'' land, whose owner has left the ''obshchina'' but still continued to live in the village and to "commute" to his land.Otrub
from the

By 1910 the share of khutors and otrubs among all rural households in the European part of Russia was estimated at 10.5%. These were practically eliminated during the

collectivisation in the USSR The Soviet Union introduced the collectivization (russian: Коллективизация) of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 during the ascension of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. Th ...

Linguistic origin

The origin of the word is not entirely clear. Borrowing from Hungarian is assumed. határ "border, border", to which the Slavs are reduced. határ "border, edge", Serbo-Croatian. khȁtȃr "land belonging to the village", Ukrainian hotar.Хутір
// Етимологічний словник української мови : в 7 т. / редкол.: О. С. Мельничук (гол. ред.) та ін. — Київ: Наукова думка, 2012. — Т. 6: У — Я. — С. 224. — ISBN 978-966-00-0197-8. According to Max Fassmer, the word entered the East Slavic languages from Old Upper German.

In literature

Nikolai Gogol's first major work is called ''

Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka ''Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka'' (russian: «Вечера на хуторе близ Диканьки») is a collection of short stories by Nikolai Gogol, written in 1829–1832. They appeared in various magazines and were published in book f ...

'', where "farm" is a translation of "khutor" (russian: Вечера на хуторе близ Диканьки, link=no, ''Vechera na khutore bliz Dikanki'').

References

{{Reflist Economic history of Russia Economic history of Ukraine Social history of Ukraine Rural geography Human habitats Types of administrative division Russian-language designations of territorial entities

Linguistic origin

In literature

See also

References