The origins of
serfdom in Russia are traced to
Kievan Rus in the 11th century. Legal documents of the epoch, such as
Russkaya Pravda, distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants. , the term for an unfree
peasant in the
Russian Empire,
krepostnoi krestyanin (крепостной крестьянин), is translated as
serf.
History
The legal code of
Ivan III of Russia,
Sudebnik (1497), strengthened the dependency of peasants, statewise, and
restricted their mobility. The
Russians persistently battled against the successor states of the
Golden Horde, chiefly the
Khanate of Crimea. Annually the Russian population of the borderland suffered from
Tatar invasions and tens of thousands of noblemen protected the southern borderland—a heavy burden for the state—which slowed its social and economic development and expanded the taxation of peasantry.
After the passage of laws which further restricted the peasant's right to free movement, the vast majority of the Russian peasantry was finally bound in full serfdom. Serfs were given estates in the
Sobornoye Ulozhenie (Соборное уложение, "Code of Law") of 1649; and flight was made a criminal offense in 1658. Russian landowners eventually gained almost unlimited ownership over Russian serfs. The landowner could transfer the serf without the land to another landowner while keeping the serf's personal property and family, however the landowner had no right to kill the serf. About 4/5 of Russian peasants were serfs according to the censuses of 1678 and 1719; free (
black) peasants remained only in the North and North-East of the country.
As a whole, serfdom came to Russia much later than in other European countries.
Slavery remained a major institution in
Russia until 1723, when
Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house
serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.
There were numerous rebellions against this bondage, most often in conjunction with
Cossack uprisings, such as the uprisings of
Ivan Bolotnikov (1606–1607),
Stenka Razin (1667–1671),
Kondraty Bulavin (1707–1709), and
Yemelyan Pugachev (1773–1775). While the
Cossack uprisings benefited from disturbances among the peasants, and they in turn received an impetus from Cossack rebellion, none of the Cossack movements were directed against the institution of serfdom itself. Instead, peasants in Cossack-dominated areas became Cossacks, thus escaping from the peasantry rather than directly organizing peasants against the institution. Between the end of the
Pugachev rebellion and the beginning of the 19th century, there were hundreds of outbreaks across Russia, and there was never a time when the peasantry was completely quiescent.
The Polish historian,
Jerzy Czajewski, wrote that the Russian peasants were escaping from Russia to the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in significant enough numbers to become a major concern for the Russian Government sufficient to play a role in its decision to
partition the Commonwealth.
[Jerzy Czajewski, "Zbiegostwo ludności Rosji w granice Rzeczypospolitej" (Russian population exodus into the Rzeczpospolita), Promemoria journal, October 2004 nr. (5/15), ISSN 1509-9091 , , Polish language] Increasingly in the 18th century until the partitions solved this problem, Russian armies raided territories of the Commonwealth, officially to recover the escapees, but in fact kidnapping many locals.
By the mid-19th century, the peasants composed a majority of the population, and according to the census of 1857 the number of private serfs was 23.1 million out of 62.5 million Russians. By comparison, the
United States had approximately 4 million
slaves by 1860, the
British Empire had 776,000 slaves when it
abolished slavery in 1834, and
Brazil had a slave population of roughly 750,000 by the time slavery was abolished in 1888.
The exact numbers, according to official data, were: entire population 60,909,309; peasantry of all classes 49,486,665; state peasants 23,138,191; peasants on the lands of proprietors 23,022,390; peasants of the appanages and other departments 3,326,084. State peasants were considered personally free, but their freedom of movement was restricted.
Russian serfdom depended entirely on the traditional and extensive technology of the peasantry. Yields remained low and stationary throughout most of the nineteenth century. Any increase in income drawn from agriculture was drawn largely through increasing land area and extensive grain raising by means of exploitation of the peasant labor, that is, by burdening the peasant household still further.
In Russian
Baltic provinces (Courland, Estonia, Livonia) serfdom, however, was abolished at the beginning of the 19th century.
In 1861 all serfs were freed in a
major agrarian reform, stimulated by the fear voiced by Tsar
Alexander II that "it is better to liberate the peasants from above" than to wait until they won their freedom by risings "from below." Serfdom was abolished in 1861, but its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to increase revolutionary pressures. In 1864–1871 serfdom was abolished in
Georgia. In
Kalmykia serfdom was only abolished in 1892.
Origins
The origins of
serfdom in
Russia (
крепостничество, or krepostnichestvo) may be traced to the 11th century, however, the most complete form of
feudal exploitation enveloped only certain categories of rural population. In the 12th century, the exploitation of the so-called
zakups on
arable lands (
ролейные (пашенные) закупы, or roleyniye (pashenniye) zakupy) and
corvee smerds (Russian term for corvee is
барщина, or barschina) was the closest to what is now known as serfdom. According to the
Russkaya Pravda, a
princely smerd had limited
property and personal rights. His
escheat was given to the prince and his life was equated with that of the
kholop, meaning his
murder was punishable by 5
grivnas.
In the 13th-15th centuries, feudal dependency applied to a significant number of
peasants, but serfdom as we know it was still not a widespread
phenomenon. In the mid-15th century, the right of certain categories of peasants in some
votchinas to leave their master was limited to a period of one week before and after the so-called
Yuri's Day (November 26). The
Sudebnik of 1497 officially confirmed this time limit as universal for everybody and also established the amount of the "break-away" fee called
pozhiloye (
пожилое). The
Sudebnik of 1550 increased the amount of pozhiloye and introduced an additional
tax called
za povoz (
за повоз , or transportation fee), in case a peasant refused to bring the
harvest from the fields to his master. A temporary (
Заповедные лета, or
Forbidden years) and later an open-ended prohibition for peasants to leave their masters was introduced by the
ukase of 1597, which also defined the so-called
fixed years (
Урочные лета, or urochniye leta), or the 5-year time frame for search of the runaway peasants. In 1607, a new ukase defined
sanctions for hiding and keeping the runaways: the fine had to paid to the state and pozhiloye - to the previous owner of the peasant.
Most of the
dvoryane were content with the long time frame for search of the runaway peasants. The major
landowners of the country, however, together with the dvoryane of the south, were interested in a short-term
persecution due to the fact that many runaways would usually flee to the southern parts of Russia. During the first half of the 17th century the dvoryane sent their collective
petitions (
челобитные, or chelobitniye) to the authorities, asking for the extension of the "fixed years". In 1642, the Russian government established a 10-year limit for search of the runaways and 15-year limit for search for peasants, taken away by their new owners.
The Sobornoye Ulozhenie (
Соборное уложение, or Code of Law) of 1649 introduced an open-ended search for those on the run, meaning that all of the peasants who had fled from their masters after the census of 1626 or 1646–1647 had to be returned. The government would still introduce new time frames and grounds for search of the runaways after 1649, which applied to the peasants who had fled to the outlying districts of the country, such as regions along the border
abatises called
zasechniye linii (
засечные линии) (ukases of 1653 and 1656),
Siberia (ukases of 1671, 1683 and 1700),
Don (1698) etc. The dvoryane constantly demanded that the search for the runaways be sponsored by the government. The
legislation of the second half of the 17th century paid much attention to the means of punishment of the runaways.
See also
