Emancipation Manifesto
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The emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia, also known as the Edict of Emancipation of Russia, ( – "peasants' reform of 1861") was the first and most important of the liberal reforms enacted during the reign of Emperor
Alexander II of Russia Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Poland and Grand Du ...
. The reform effectively abolished
serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed du ...
throughout the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
. The 1861 Emancipation Manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the
serfs Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed dur ...
on private estates and of the domestic (household) serfs. By this edict more than 23 million people received their liberty.Mee, Arthur; Hammerton, J.A.; Innes, Arthur D.;
Harmsworth History of the World: Volume 7
', 1907, Carmelite House, London; p. 5193.
Serfs gained the full rights of free citizens, including rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property and to own a business. The Manifesto prescribed that peasants would be able to buy the land from the landlords. Household serfs were the least affected: they gained only their freedom and no land. The serfs were emancipated in 1861, a process which took place following a speech given by Tsar Alexander II on 30 March 1856. In
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
, the emancipation took place later, in 1864, and on much better terms for the nobles than in Russia. State-owned serfs (those living on and working Imperial lands) were emancipated in 1866.


Background

Just prior to 1861 Russia had three main categories of peasants: * Those who lived on state lands, many of them under control of the Ministry of State Property. Also included many non-Russians throughout the empire. * Those who lived on crown domains, the
udel Udel may refer to: * a Russian feudal term for an appanage given to a younger son of the tsar or other male member of the imperial family * UDel, an abbreviation for the University of Delaware * UDEL, Democratic Liberation Union (Unión Democrá ...
* Those who lived on private land, the so-called estate peasants. Only those who were owned privately were considered
serfs Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed dur ...
. They comprised an estimated 38% of the population. As well as having obligations to the state, they also were obliged to the landowner, who had great power over their lives. The rural population lived in households (''dvory'', singular ''dvor''), gathered as villages (''derevni''; a ''derevnya'' with a church became a ''selo''), run by a ''
mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...
'' ('commune', or ''
obshchina An (, ; rus, община, p=ɐpˈɕːinə) or (, ; rus, мир, p=mʲir), also officially termed as a rural community (; ) between the 19th and 20th centuries, was a peasant village community (as opposed to an individual farmstead), or a ...
'' in official terms). Imperial Russia had around 20 million ''dvory'', forty percent of them containing six to ten people. The ''mir'' assembly, the ''skhod'' (''sel'skii skhod''), appointed an elder (''
starosta Starosta or starost (Cyrillic: ''старост/а'', Latin: ''capitaneus'', ) is a community elder in some Slavic lands. The Slavic root of "starost" translates as "senior". Since the Middle Ages, it has designated an official in a leadersh ...
'') and a 'clerk' (''pisar'') to deal with any external issues. Although there were many regional differences and customs, peasants within a ''mir'' in central Russia shared land and resources. The strips were periodically redistributed within the villages to produce level economic conditions. The land, however, was not owned by the ''mir''; the land was the legal property of the 100,000 or so landowners (''
pomeshchik In the history of Russia pomeshchiks () were the class of Russian nobility who owned a ''pomestye'' (), i.e., an estate. The term ''pomeshchik'' is commonly translated in English as "landlord". History It terms of land ownership there used to b ...
s'', an equivalent of "
landed gentry The landed gentry, or the gentry (sometimes collectively known as the squirearchy), is a largely historical Irish and British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. It is t ...
") and the inhabitants, as serfs, were typically not allowed to leave the property where they were born. The peasants were duty-bound to make regular payments in labor and goods. It has been estimated that landowners took at least one third of income and production by the first half of the nineteenth century.


Earlier reform moves

The need for urgent reform was well understood in 19th-century Russia. Much support for it emanated from universities, authors and other intellectual circles. Various projects of emancipation reforms were prepared by
Mikhail Speransky Count Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky (; 12 January 1772 – 23 February 1839) was a Russian statesman and reformist during the reign of Alexander I of Russia, to whom he was a close advisor. Honorary member of the Free Economic Society (1801) a ...
, Nikolay Mordvinov, and
Pavel Kiselyov Count Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselyov or Kiseleff (; , Moscow – , Paris) is generally regarded as the most brilliant Russian reformer during Nicholas I's generally conservative reign. Kiselyov was plenipotentiary president ( de facto governor) ...
. However, conservative or reactionary nobility thwarted their efforts. In Western '' guberniyas'' serfdom was abolished early in the century. In
Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
, serfdom had been abolished before it became Russian (by
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
in 1807), but it was largely restored once Russia took over in 1815. Serfdom was abolished in governorates of
Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...
in 1816, in
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in 1817, and in
Livonia Livonia, known in earlier records as Livland, is a historical region on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the Livonians, who lived on the shores of present-day Latvia. By the end of the 13th century, the name was extende ...
in 1819. In 1797,
Paul I of Russia Paul I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination in 1801. Paul remained overshadowed by his mother, Catherine the Great, for most of his life. He adopted the Pauline Laws, laws of succession to the Russian throne—rules ...
decreed that corvee labor was limited to 3 days a week, and never on Sunday, but this law was not enforced. Beginning in 1801,
Alexander I of Russia Alexander I (, ; – ), nicknamed "the Blessed", was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first king of Congress Poland from 1815, and the grand duke of Finland from 1809 to his death in 1825. He ruled Russian Empire, Russia during the chaotic perio ...
appointed a committee to study possible emancipation, but its only effect was to prohibit the sale of serfs without their families. Beginning in 1825,
Nicholas I of Russia Nicholas I, group=pron (Russian language, Russian: Николай I Павлович; – ) was Emperor of Russia, List of rulers of Partitioned Poland#Kings of the Kingdom of Poland, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 18 ...
expressed his desire for emancipation on many occasions, and even improved the lives of serfs on state properties, but did not change the condition of serfs on private estates.


Shaping of the manifesto

The liberal politicians who stood behind the 1861 manifesto—
Nikolay Milyutin Nikolay Alexeyevich Milyutin (; 6 June 1818 – 26 January 1872) was a Russian statesman remembered as the chief architect of the great liberal reforms undertaken during Alexander II's reign, including the emancipation of the serfs and the es ...
, Alexei Strol'man and Yakov Rostovtsev—also recognized that their country was one of a few remaining feudal states in
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. The pitiful display by Russian forces in the
Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...
left the government acutely aware of the empire's weaknesses. Eager to grow and develop industrial and therefore military and political strength, they introduced a number of economic reforms. It was optimistically hoped that after the abolition the ''mir'' would dissolve into individual peasant land owners and the beginnings of a market economy. Alexander II, unlike his father, was willing to deal with this problem. Moving on from a petition from the
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
n provinces, a committee "for ameliorating the condition of the peasants" was founded and the principles of the abolition considered. The main point at issue was whether the serfs should remain dependent on the landlords, or whether they should be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors. The land-owners initially pushed for granting the peasants freedom but not any land. The tsar and his advisers, mindful of 1848 events in Western Europe, were opposed to creating a
proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist ph ...
and the instability this could bring. But giving the peasants freedom ''and'' land seemed to leave the existing land-owners without the large and cheap labour-force they needed to maintain their estates and lifestyles. By 1859 however, a third of their estates and two-thirds of their serfs were mortgaged to the state or noble banks. This was why they had to accept the emancipation. To 'balance' this, the legislation contained three measures to reduce the potential economic self-sufficiency of the peasants. Firstly a transition period of two years was introduced, during which the peasant was obligated as before to the old land-owner. Secondly large parts of common land were passed to the major land-owners as ''otrezki'' ("cut off lands"), making many forests, roads and rivers accessible only for a fee. The third measure was that the serfs must pay the land-owner for their allocation of land in a series of redemption payments, which in turn, were used to compensate the landowners with bonds. The government would advance 75% of the total sum to the land-owner, and then the peasants would repay the government, plus interest, over forty-nine years. The government finally cancelled these redemption payments in 1907.


Emancipation Manifesto

The legal basis of the reform was the
Tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...
's Emancipation Manifesto of , accompanied by the set of legislative acts under the general name ''Regulations Concerning Peasants Leaving Serf Dependence'' ( ''Polozheniya o krestyanakh, vykhodyashchikh iz krepostnoi zavisimosti''). This Manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs on private estates and of the domestic (household) serfs. Serfs were granted the full rights of free citizens, gaining the rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property and to own a business. The Manifesto also permitted peasants to buy the land from the landlords.


Implementation

''Mir'' communities had the power to distribute the land given to newly freed serfs by the Russian government amongst individuals within the community. Due to the community's ownership of the land, as opposed to the individual's, an individual peasant could not sell his portion of the land to go work in a factory in the city. A peasant was required to pay off long-term loans received by the government. The money from these loans was given to the primary landowner. The land allotted to the recently freed serfs did not include the best land in the country, which remained in the hands of the nobility. The implementation of land settlement varied over the vast and diverse territory of the Russian Empire, but typically a peasant had rights to buy out about half of the land he cultivated for himself. If he could not afford to pay it off, he would receive a half of the half, i.e., a quarter of the land, free. It was called pauper's allotment (''bednyatskiy nadel''). Many reform-minded peasants believed the manifesto's conditions were unacceptable: "In many localities the peasants refused to believe that the manifesto was genuine. There were troubles, and troops had to be called in to disperse the angry crowds." The land-owners and nobility were paid in government bonds, with their debts deducted. The bonds soon fell in value. The management skills of the land-owners were generally poor. Some Mir's did not enter the land redemption process at all, remaining as temporarily obligated peasants under their former owners until an 1881 decree made redemption compulsory. In 1883, concerned by rising levels of tax arrears, the government made a 13% cut (varying by commune, as a national average) to payment rates to combat the problem.


Outcomes

Despite newly acquired freedom, the life of a serf remained grim in many aspects. Household serfs benefited the least, gaining their freedom, but no land. Many bureaucrats believed that these reforms would bring about drastic changes that would only affect the "lower stories" of society, strengthening the autocracy. In reality, the reforms forced the monarch to coexist with an independent court, free press, and local governments—all operating differently and more freely than they had in the past. This new form of local government involved in each area an assembly called a ''
zemstvo A zemstvo (, , , ''zemstva'') was an institution of local government set up in consequence of the emancipation reform of 1861 of Imperial Russia by Emperor Alexander II of Russia. Nikolay Milyutin elaborated the idea of the zemstvo, and the fi ...
''. In regards to new localized government, the reforms put in place a system where the landowners were now able to have more of a say within their newly formed "provinces". While this was not the direct intent of the reforms, it was evident that this significantly weakened the idea of the autocracy. Now, the "well-to-do" serfs, along with previously free peoples, were able to purchase land as private property. While early in the reforms the creation of local government had not changed many things about Russian society, the rise in
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
drastically affected not only the social structure of Russia, but the behaviors and activities of the self-government institutions. With new, capitalistic ideals, local government was not responsible for the rules and regulations dictating how the new market would operate. If there was a positive of this movement towards localized government, from the autocracy's point of view; it was (as Petr Valuev put it): the ''zemstvo'' would "provide activity for the considerable portion of the press as well as those malcontents who currently stir up trouble because they have nothing to do".


Effects on the serfs

The serfs of private estates received less land than they needed to survive, which led to civil unrest. The redemption tax was so high that the serfs had to sell all the grain they produced to pay the tax, which left nothing for their survival. Landowners also suffered because many of them were deeply in debt, and the forced selling of their land left them struggling to maintain their lavish lifestyle. In many cases, the newly freed serfs were forced to "rent" their land from wealthy landowners. Furthermore, when the peasants had to work for the same landowners to pay their "labor payments", they often neglected their own fields. Over the next few years, the yields from the peasants' crops remained low, and soon famine struck a large portion of Russia. With little food, and finding themselves in a similar condition as when they were serfs, many peasants started to voice their disdain for the new social system. On one occasion, on 12 April 1861, a local leader murdered a large number of uprising peasants in the village of Bezdna. When the incident was over, the official report counted 70 peasants dead and another 100 wounded. After further investigation, and trial of some members of the uprising, five peasants were found guilty of "agitation" and not uprising. That said, several different instances did take the form of an uprising.


Aftermath

In
Congress Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
and in northern Russia peasants became both free and landless (batraks), with only their labour to sell, while in other areas peasants became the majority land-owners in their province(s). The 1861 Emancipation Manifesto affected only the privately owned serfs. The state-owned serfs were emancipated in 1866 and were given better and larger plots of land. The reforms changed the Russian economy. The individuals who led the reform favored an economic system similar to that in other European countries, which promoted the ideas of capitalism and free trade. The reformers aimed to promote development and to encourage the ownership of private property, free competition, entrepreneurship, and hired labor. This they hoped would bring about an economic system with minimal regulations and tariffs, thus a more "laissez-faire" economy. Soon after the reforms there was a substantial rise in the amount of production of grain for sale. Because of this there was also a rise in the number of hired laborers and in farm machinery. Furthermore, an indicator of the change to the Russian economy post-reform was the huge growth in non-gentry private landownership. While the gentry land-holdings fell from 80% to 50%, the peasant holdings grew from 5% to 20%.


See also

* Free agriculturalist *
Serfdom in Russia In tsarist Russia, the term ''serf'' () meant an unfree peasant who, unlike a slave, historically could be sold only together with the land to which they were "attached". However, this stopped being a requirement by the 19th century, and serfs we ...
*
Government reforms of Alexander II of Russia The government reforms imposed by Tsar Alexander II of Russia, often called the Great Reforms () by historians, were a series of major social, political, legal and governmental reforms in the Russian Empire carried out in the 1860s. By far the m ...
* Reform movement#Russia 1860s *
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 ...
*
Judicial reform of Alexander II The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...
* Bezdna Unrest *
Slave Trade Act Slave Trade Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom and the United States that relates to the slave trade. The "See also" section lists other Slave Acts, laws, and international conventions which developed the conce ...
s *
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished Slavery in the United States, slavery and involuntary servitude, except Penal labor in the United States, as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed ...
* Economy of the Russian Empire#Abolition of serfdom * ''
Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century is a political-social-economic history of Russia written by historian Jerome Blum and published by Princeton University Press in 1961. The work covers the period from Varangia ...
''


References


Further reading

* * * *{{cite book , last1=Purlevskii , first1=Savva Dmitrievich , year=2005 , title=A Life Under Russian Serfdom: Memoirs of Savva Dmitrievich Purlevskii, 1800–68 , jstor=10.7829/j.ctt2jbnnh , others=Gorshkov, Boris B, ed. & trans. , location=Budapest; New York , publisher=
Central European University Press Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
, isbn=978-6155053955 , oclc=57698677


External links


Emancipation Manifesto, in Russian
1861 in the Russian Empire 1861 in law Political movements in the Russian Empire Law of the Russian Empire * Serfdom Reform in Russia 1861 disestablishments in the Russian Empire 19th century in the Russian Empire March 1861 Alexander II of Russia Emancipation