page_title: Serfdom in Russia
section_title: Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Serfdom in Russia / History / Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: The Market Русский: Продажа дворовой девушки на картине художника Николая Неврева «Торг. Сцена из крепостного быта. Из недавнего прошлого» (1866; Москва, Третьяковская галерея).
context_page_description: The term "serf", in the sense of an unfree peasant of the Russian Empire, is the usual translation of krepostnoi krestyanin which meant an unfree person who, unlike a slave, could be sold only with the land he or she was "attached" to. Historic legal documents of the epoch, such as Russkaya Pravda, distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants.
  Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between Russian peasants and nobility in the 17th century. Serfdom most commonly existed in the central and southern areas of the Tsardom of Russia and of the subsequent Russian Empire. Serfdom in the Urals and Siberia generally occurred rarely until, during the reign of Catherine the Great, businesses began to send serfs into those areas in an attempt to harvest their extensive untapped natural resources.‹See TfM›
  Emperor Alexander I wanted to reform the system but moved cautiously. New laws allowed all classes to own land, a privilege previously confined to the nobility. Emperor Alexander II abolished serfdom in the emancipation reform of 1861, a few years later than Austria and other German states.
context_section_description: Peter III created two measures in 1762 that influenced the abolition of serfdom. He ended mandatory military service for nobles with the abolition of compulsory noble state service. This provided a rationale to end serfdom. Second, was the secularization of the church estates, which transferred its peasants and land to state jurisdiction. In 1775 measures were taken by Catherine II to prosecute estate owners for the cruel treatment of serfs. These measures were strengthened in 1817 and the late 1820s. There were even laws that required estate owners to help serfs in time of famine, which included grain to be kept in reserve. These policies failed to aid famines in the early nineteenth century due to estate owner negligence.
  Tsar Alexander I and his advisors quietly discussed the options at length. Obstacles included the failure of abolition in Austria and the political reaction against the French Revolution. Cautiously, he extended the right to own land to most classes of subjects, including state-owned peasants, in 1801 and created a new social category of "free agriculturalist", for peasants voluntarily emancipated by their masters, in 1803. The great majority of serfs were not affected.
  The Russian state also continued to support serfdom due to military conscription. The conscripted serfs dramatically increased the size of the Russian military. With a larger military Russia achieved victory in the Napoleonic Wars and Russo-Persian Wars; this did not change the disparity between Russia and Western Europe, who were experiencing agricultural and industrial revolutions. Compared to Western Europe it was clear that Russia was at an economic disadvantage. European philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment criticized serfdom and compared it to medieval labor practices which were almost non-existent in the rest of continent. Most Russian nobles were not interested in change toward western labor practices that Catherine the Great proposed. Instead they preferred to mortgage serfs for profit. Napoleon did not touch serfdom in Russia. What the reaction of the Russian peasantry would have been if he had lived up to the traditions of the French Revolution, bringing liberty to the serfs, is an intriguing question. In 1820, 20% of all serfs were mortgaged to state credit institutions by their owners. This was increased to 66% in 1859.
  Bourgeois were allowed to own serfs 1721–62 and 1798–1816; this was to encourage industrialisation. In 1804, 48% of Russian factory workers were serfs, 52% in 1825. Landless serfs rose from 4.14% in 1835 to 6.79% in 1858. They received no land in the emancipation. Landlords deliberately increased the number of domestic serfs when they anticipated serfdom's demise. In 1798, Ukrainian landlords were banned from selling serfs apart from land. In 1841, landless nobles were banned also.
caption: The Bargain by Nikolai Nevrev (Sale of a serf girl)
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