Gift of the luck is not always same for the group

Barge Haulers on the Volga
Ilya Repin
(1870-1873)

Kimmo Huosionmaa

Barge Haulers on the Volga is a portrait, where great Russian artist thinks about work. This portrait raises the question in the people head: who actually does the job? There are many aspects in this portrait, and one of them is, who actually does everything in the state? Who goes to war in if the ruler of the state would want to go to the war?


In the real life is always people, who get more about their jobs than others in that group.  The role of the suffering is always reserved to workers, who don’t, of course, have any education. This portrait might inspire Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels in the Surplus Value Theory, what has transformed in the hands of sociologists to the theory, what has the same name, but different content and message to the people.


In sociology, The Surplus Value Theory means that some workers don’t do anything in their workplace, and the leaders of the state would see different things in the same thing than other people. When high-class aristocrat told other people about the barge haulers, they meant the people, who owned those vessels. When the owners of those vessels told about those barge-haulers, they meant the captains of those vessels.


They didn’t mean the men who pulled the vessels. And this is the very good thing to think even in the modern working life. If we were captains of that vessel, we would do that job even 12 hours per day, but those men who pull this thing would not stand that long. In this picture is a message that even if the persons have the same salary for this work, then another person would get more than others. The superiority official makes light and easy days, but the people who pull this thing has very hard work to do.


In this picture is the good message about the work of the boss. This person might put all work to his henchmen, and then he must not do anything. If the person doesn’t do single work during his workday, this might make those days boring. And that kind of place is actually very light for those persons, who could do even 16 hours working day in their offices. So this is the message of this famous portrait, what is a very good example of the Russian realism from 19th. century.

Sources:

Picture 1:

http://artpaintingartist.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Barge-Haulers-on-the-Volga-by-Ilya-Repin.jpg