“Well, everything, the bourgeois swamp sucked in!” - says the heroine of the famous film. In her words sheer sarcasm and contempt. The tradesman is a representative of the estate that existed before 1917. Hardworking, law-abiding person, respecting family values. Why did this word acquire a negative connotation?
Etymology
"Petty bourgeois" is a word of foreign origin. Translated from Polish - a resident of the city. The term came into Russian speech in the seventeenth century. During the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, everything Polish was in fashion. "Petty bourgeois" is a concept firmly established in troubled times not only in colloquial speech, but also in political and legal terminology.
City people
In the seventeenth century, a person who was extremely unprotected in a legal and moral sense was a tradesman. It was forbidden to him to lay his own yard. This he was called the "black city man." And it was him mercilessly flogged at the stable for the slightest offense. However, there were still peasants. But this is a separate conversation.
If a Russian nobleman in the seventeenth century was asked to find a synonym for the word "bourgeois", he would not have hesitated to utter the offensive expression "black urban people." There was another option, more harmonious - "Posad".
The existence of a tradesman in Russia was poisoned by fees and duties. Some city dwellers were so depressed by this state of affairs that they left their craft and went to the village, where they entered the slaves.
In the Petrine era, two guilds were allocated in the philistine estate. The first included bankers, merchants, doctors, pharmacists, jewelers. The second includes artisans, tavern owners and representatives of other, less revered, professions.
Under Catherine II
The meaning of the word "tradesman" was defined by the empress in one of the documents. Catherine II called this category of Russian residents the middle class. They belonged neither to the farmers, nor to the nobles. In addition, a more detailed classification of philistines was created. In general, their life under Catherine became tolerable. They even began to be called "the right urban inhabitants."
Original bourgeois societies were created and existed for more than two hundred years. Members of such associations had certain duties and privileges.
In the new time
The middle class has a long history. Its sunset refers to the beginning of the twentieth century, when the word "intelligentsia" appeared in the Russian language. More precisely, this term arose much earlier. But people who belonged to this category appeared at the beginning of the 20th century.
Intellectuals disliked the bourgeoisie, calling them “laymen,” “owners.” In these words, it would seem, there is nothing wrong. However, Soviet power arrived in time with its utopian idea of universal happiness. The tradesman did not fit into her ideology. A word that once evoked reverence became almost a curse.
"Tradesman in the nobility"
An analogue of the Russian tradesman in Europe is the bourgeois. The representative of this class was also a kind of intermediate link between the lower class and the aristocracy. But if he was not in a hurry to write himself down among the peasants, then he strove to join the nobles. Moliere wrote a comedy on this subject.
The hero of the French playwright tries in every possible way to become like an aristocrat. However, ignorance and stupid imitation destroys him. The author calls the disguised tradesman "a crow in peacock feathers."
Moliere's comedy is not social in nature. In this dramatic work, primarily, human vices are ridiculed. But in the fact that the word "tradesman" acquired a negative connotation, the hero of the famous comedy played a significant role.
In modern times
What is meant by the term "philistines" today? The definition of such a word can be given as follows: people of low spiritual culture, concerned about the acquisition of things, deprived of a sense of social responsibility.
Today philistinism is also called bad taste in colloquial speech. This understanding of the term arose in connection with the generally accepted opinion that many representatives of this estate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had the opportunity to acquire luxury goods, but did not know how to do it correctly. “Correct” in this context means in accordance with aristocratic taste.
Philistinism in the 21st Century
Synonyms for the word "tradesman" can serve as the literary term "philistine." This word has a contemptuous connotation. Philistine is the opposite of romance. This is a layman who is not interested in aesthetic values.
Returning to the negative, almost abusive word "tradesman", it should be said that its main meaning in the modern sense is the preference of spiritual values. The term is applied to those who are not interested in literature and art. To those for whom the meaning of life is to purchase real estate, clothing. The tradesman is a mercenary man who invariably pursues his base goals.
However, according to this terminology, in modern society, the most common type of personality is precisely the one that should be designated with this word.