- Apr 12, 2021
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The story of Feodor Vassily needs to be taken with a massive pinch of salt. Not did suspiciously few of his children die in childhood for an 18th century peasant, but a Russian 18th century peasant had every incentive to lie their head off to any passing aristocrat due to the nature of serfdom in Russia. There were apparently hundreds of villages in the empire with no men between the ages of 14 and 45, not because they had been dragged off to the army, but because the villagers had conspired with the priests, taxmen, census takers every other local non aristo authority to fake the ages of every man eligible to be conscriptedWhile I don't question your knowledge, I just remembered a story of an 18 century Russian peasant who had 87 children (from two consecutive wifes AFAIR). From the first wife he had 69 children, among them 16 pairs of twins, 7 triplets and 4 quadruplets. See Feodor Vassilyev for reference. That's the largest number of children ever born from a single woman.