THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES

NAME : CHANDA REGINA

COMPUTER NUMBER : 18053192

COURSE CODE : HIS 4410

LECTURER : ASSIGNMENT ONE

DUE DATE : 28TH MARCH, 2022

CELL NUMBERS : 0979652500

EMAIL : reginachanda21@gmail.com

QUESTION Critically examine the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and its impact on Russian

society up to 1881.
From the mid-nineteenth century the pace of change in Russia rapidly accelerated. The decade
following the Crimean warrior saw the most dramatic social and institutional upheaval that the
empire had ever undergone. Central to the so-called ‘Great Reforms’ of the period was the abolition
of serfdom. The statute of 1861 set the 23 million serfs owned by private landlords free from
personal bondage. The fundamental relationship upon which the economic, social and politic
structure of the empire had been based was to be dismantled. Hence, emancipation reform of 1861
was the single most important event in 19th-century Russian history; it was the beginning of the end
of the landed aristocracy’s monopoly of power. Serfdom was abolished in 1861, but its abolition
was achieved on terms not always favorable to the peasants and increased revolutionary pressures.
Through emancipation, serfs gained the full rights of free citizens, including the right to marry
without having to gain consent, own property, and own a business. The serfs from private estates
were given less land than they needed to survive, which led to civil unrest. This essay will critically
examine the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and its impact on Russian society up to 1881.

One of the earliest reform that took place in Russia was the emancipation reform. As history
reveals, this took place during the era of Alexander II. Many serfs were set free as these serfs were
badly treated before 1861. Many revolts had occurred in the early days, especially with those
against the autocratic government. Civil wars occurred due to the fact that the serfs were not given
enough land and did not enjoy their rights. In 1861 serfdom, the system, which tied the Russian
peasants irrevocably to their landlords, was abolished at the Tsar’s imperial command. 1 The
serfdom that had operated in Russia since the middle of the seventeenth century was technically not
slavery. The landowner did not own the serf but relationship between lord and serf was based on
land. It was because the serfs lived on his land that the serf was bound to the lord.2

Some Russian leaders like Ivan Grozny or Ivan IV had great influence in Russian politics. Such
leaders brought about changes about how landlords and peasants related. Forced labour became
common among the serfs. A series of political upheavals throughout Russia occurred. The revolts
were essentially democratic in nature, with the aim of removing the autocracy and creating
independent national states.3 The vast majority of Russian peasants held their land in communal
ownership within a community, which acted as a village government and a cooperative. Arable land
was divided in sections based on soil quality and distance from the village. Each household had the
1
Lynch Michael, The Emancipation of the Serfs 1861 (London: London University Press, 2016), 78.
2
Michael, The Emancipation of the Serfs 1861, 80.
3
David Moon, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia, 1762-1907 (Harlow, England: Longman, 2001), 56.
1
right to claim one or more strips from each section depending on the number of adults in the
household.4

The emancipation of the serfs began with the leadership of Alexander II who ruled Russia from
March 2, 1855, until his assassination in 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke
of Finland. His most significant reform as emperor was emancipation of Russia’s serfs in 1861, for
which he is known as Alexander the Liberator. This is the reason why scholars view Emancipation
Reform of 1861 in Russia as the first and most important of liberal reforms effected during the reign
(1855-1881) of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The reform effectively abolished serfdom throughout
the Russian Empire.5

It is of great value to mention that the 1861 Emancipation Manifesto declared the liberation of the
serfs on private estates and of the domestic (household) serfs. Statistic shows that about 23 million
people were at liberty. This made serfs to gain the full rights of free citizens that involve the 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, gaining only their freedom and no land. Such rights made the serfs to be happy and
consider Alexander II as the liberty.6

Not all places received liberty at the same time as in Georgia the emancipation took place later in
1864 and on much better terms for the nobles than in Russia. The serfs were emancipated in 1861,
following a speech given by Tsar Alexander II on March 30, 1856. State-owned serfs, those living
on Imperial lands, were emancipated in 1866. The liberal politicians who stood behind the 1861
manifesto recognized that their country was one of a few remaining feudal states in Europe. The
pitiful display by Russian forces in the Crimean War left the government acutely aware of the
empire’s backwardness.7.

Debate occurred in Russia as the main issue was whether the serfs should remain dependent on the
landlords or be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors. The land owners
initially pushed for granting the peasants freedom but not land. The tsar and his advisers, mindful of
1848 revolutions in Western Europe, were opposed to creating a proletariat and the instability this
4
Moon, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia, 1762-1907, 57.
5
Moon, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia, 1762-1907, 58.
6
Easley Roxanne, The Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia: Peace Arbitrators and the Development of Civil Society
(London: Routledge, 2009), 61.
7
Michael, The Emancipation of the Serfs 1861, 82.
2
could bring. But giving the peasants freedom and land left existing land owners without the large
and cheap labor 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, so they had
no choice but to accept the emancipation.8

In order to balance this, the legislation contained three measures to reduce the potential economic
self-sufficiency of the peasants. First, a transition period of two years was introduced, during which
the peasant was obligated as before to the land owner. Second, large parts of common land were
passed to the major land owners as cut off lands making many forests, roads, and rivers accessible
only for a fee. The serfs also had to pay the land owner for their allocation of land in a series of
redemption payments, which in turn were used to compensate the land owners with bonds. Three-
quarters of the total sum would be advanced by the government to the land owner and then the
peasants would repay the money plus interest to the government over 49 years. These redemption
payments were finally canceled in 1907.9

A 1907 painting by Boris Kustodiev depicting Russian serfs listening to the proclamation of the
Emancipation Manifesto in 1861. A few dozen peasants stand around a porch with a nobleman
reading from a piece of paper, in front of a yellow house. Although the emancipation reform was
commemorated by the construction of the enormous Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Moscow and
history books give Alexander II the name of Alexander the Liberator, its results were far from ideal.
Household serfs were the worst affected as they gained only their freedom and no land. Many of the
more enlightened bureaucrats had an understanding that the freeing of the serfs would bring about
drastic changes in both Russian society and government.10

In every event, not everything is beneficial and in the case of the serfs, private estates were given
less land that what they thought could be. High tax rates were created to punish the serfs. Land
owners also suffered because many of them were deeply in debt, and the forced selling of their land
left them struggling to maintain their lavish lifestyles. In many cases, the newly freed serfs were
forced to “rent” their land from wealthy landowners.11

8
Roxanne, The Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia: Peace arbitrators and the development of civil society, 68.
9
Nafziger Steven, Russian Serfdom, Emancipation, and Land Inequality (London: Routledge, 2013), 45.
10
Boris Mironov, “When and Why was the Russian Peasantry Emancipated?” Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal
Bondage. Ed. M.L. Bush (London: Longman, 1996), 330.
11
Mironov, “When and Why was the Russian Peasantry Emancipated?” 331.
3
Furthermore, when the peasants had to work for the same landowners to pay their labor payments,
their own fields were often neglected. 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 in a similar
condition as when they were serfs, many peasants started to voice their disdain for the social
system. Further, there was the transformation of the economy in Russia after the emancipation act.
Many liberators were interested in building the economy and promote capitalism as well as free
trade. Development was highly pronounced and encouraged as people owned their private business.
More Russians believed in laissez-faire as they were improving their economy.12

In a number of respects serfdom was not dissimilar to the feudalism that had operated in many parts
of pre-modern Europe. However, long before the 19th century, the feudal system had been
abandoned in Western Europe as it moved into the commercial and industrial age. Imperial Russia
underwent no such transition. It remained economically and socially backward. Nearly all Russians
acknowledged this. Some, known as slavophiles, rejoiced, claiming that holy Russia was a unique
God-inspired nation that had nothing to learn from the corrupt nations to the west. But many
Russians, of all ranks and classes, had come to accept that reform of some kind was unavoidable if
their nation was to progress.13

It became convenient to use serfdom to explain all Russia’s current weaknesses: it was responsible
for military incompetence, food shortages, over population, civil disorder, and industrial
backwardness. These were oversimplified explanations but they’re some truth in all of them:
serfdom was symptomatic of the underlying difficulties that held Russia back from progress. It was,
therefore, a particularly easy target for the intelligentsia, those intellectuals who in their writings
argued for the liberalizing of Russian society, beginning with the emancipation of the exploited
peasants.14

Emancipation proved the first in a series of measures that Alexander produced as a part of a
programme that included legal and administrative reform and the extension of press and university
freedoms. But behind all these reforms lay an ulterior motive. Alexander II was not being liberal for
its own sake. According to official records kept by the Ministry of the Interior (equivalent to the

12
J Michael, To What Extent Do You Consider the Emancipation of Serfs 1861 to Be a Key Turning Point in the
Development of Russian Government and Society Till 2000? (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018), 32.
13
Mironov, “When and Why was the Russian Peasantry Emancipated?” 332.
14
Edgar Melton,“Serfdom, Emancipation, and Off-Farm Labour Mobility in Tsarist Russia,” Economic History of
Developing Regions, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2012), 10.
4
Home Office in Britain) there had been 712 peasant uprisings in Russia between 1826 and 1854. By
granting some of the measures that the intelligentsia had called for, while in fact tightening control
over the peasants, Alexander intended to lessen the social and political threat to the established
system that those figures frighteningly represented. Above all, he hoped that an emancipated
peasantry, thankful for the gifts that a bountiful tsar had given them, would provide physically fitter
and morally worthier recruits for Russia’s armies, the symbol and guarantee of Russia’s greatness as
a nation.15

There is a sense in which the details of Emancipation were less significant than the fact of the
reform itself. Whatever its shortcomings, emancipation was the prelude to the most sustained
programme of reform that imperial Russia had yet experienced (see the Timeline). There is also the
irony that such a sweeping move could not have been introduced except by a ruler with absolute
powers; it could not have been done in a democracy. The only comparable social change of such
magnitude was President Lincoln’s freeing of the Negro slaves in 1865.16

Yet when that achievement has been duly noted and credited, hindsight suggests that emancipation
was essentially a failure. It raised expectations and dashed them. Russia gave promise of entering a
new dawn but then retreated into darkness. This tends to suggest that Alexander II and his
government deliberately set out to betray the peasants. This was certainly the argument used by
radical critics of the regime. It is important to consider, however, that land reform always takes time
to work. It can never be a quick fix. Alexander’s prime motive in introducing emancipation was
undoubtedly the desire to produce results that were beneficial to his regime. But this is not to
suggest that he was insincere in his wish to elevate the condition of the peasants.17

The fact is that Alexander II suffered from the besetting dilemma that afflicted all the reforming
tsars from Peter the Great onwards, how to achieve reform without damaging the interests of the
privileged classes that made up imperial Russia. It was a question that was never satisfactorily
answered because it was never properly faced. Whenever their plans did not work out or became
difficult to achieve, the Romanovs abandoned reform and resorted to coercion and repression.18
15
Melton, “Serfdom, Emancipation, and Off-Farm Labour Mobility in Tsarist Russia,” 12.
16
Carol Leonard, “The Distribution of Land and Agricultural Output in Non-Blackearth Russia on the Eve of
Emancipation,” Research in Economic History Supplement, Vol.4, No.1 (1989), 358.
17
Leonard, “The Distribution of Land and Agricultural Output in Non-Blackearth Russia on the Eve of Emancipation,”
559.
18
Leonard, “The Distribution of Land and Agricultural Output in Non-Blackearth Russia on the Eve of Emancipation,”
560.
5
Emancipation was intended to give Russia economic and social stability and thus prepare the way
for its industrial and commercial growth. But it ended in failure. It both frightened the privileged
classes and disappointed the progressives. It went too far for those slavophiles in the court who
wanted Russia to cling to its old ways and avoid the corruption that came with western modernity. It
did not go far enough for those progressives who believed that a major social transformation was
needed in Russia.19

There is a larger historical perspective. It is suggested by many historians that, for at least a century
before its collapse in the Revolution of 1917, imperial Russia had been in institutional crisis; the
tsarist system had been unable to find workable solutions to the problems that faced it. If it was to
modernize itself, that is to say if it was to develop its agriculture and industry to the point where it
could sustain its growing population and compete on equal terms with its European and Asian
neighbors and international competitors, it would need to modify its existing institutions. This it
proved unable or unwilling to do.20

Immediate impact of the Emancipation Edict of 1861 are as follows. The immediate impact of the
statute was much less dramatic than this longer-term picture might suggest, not least because of the
economic terms and administrative arrangements under which the peasants were set free. These
terms preserved, if in milder form, many of the obstacles to economic growth and social change
characteristic of the pre-reform era. The principle of the statute was that the serfs would be
emancipated with their household plots and an allotment of land, but that they should pay for this
land. The amount of land made available to them to purchase should be approximately equivalent to
the allotments they had been allowed to till for their own subsistence under serfdom. The
government would compensate the nobility immediately and the peasantry would repay the
government would compensate the nobility immediately and the peasantry would repay the
government with redemption dues spread over a period of forty-nine years.21

As was to be expected, the reaction to the emancipation manifesto was mixed. Many of the
emancipated serfs were confused about the complex new statutes and disbelieving or disappointed
when told they would have to make payments (for half a century) for land they received. Many
peasants believed that the fault with evil officials and nobles who were frustrating the tsar’s real

19
Welford John, The Emancipation of Russia’s Serfs in 1861 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 68.
20
John, The Emancipation of Russia’s Serfs in 1861, 70.
21
Benjamin Eklof, Russia's Great Reforms, 1855-1881 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), 98.
6
intentions. They thought that as soon as he overcame these troublemakers, new, more favorable,
legislation would be forthcoming. Before the year was over, nobles reported more than 1000
disturbances, most of which required to quell. In the summer of 1861, alexander felt it necessary to
admonish a delegation of peasants.22

The economic impact on the peasantry of the settlement and the powers entrusted to the post-
emancipation commune is the phasing out of traditional dues removed the spectre of increased
production being creamed off by the landlord, while peasant security was increased by the
opportunity to buy the land. Peasants on crown lands and state peasants, liberated by the statutes of
1863 and 1866 on broadly similar terms to those of private serfs, were able to buy rather more land
on better terms.23

In conclusion, many historians argue that the Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861, to be a key turning
point within Russian history. It drastically altered Russia’s economic, political and social
stipulation. One could propose the argument that this event lead to the fall of communism in 1990,
further more suggesting the extent to which this event affected Russia. Hence this is ‘perhaps the
most defining moment in Russian history, with its impact being seen many years after the event
itself’. Although historians identify short term effects of this event, the significance to which this
event developed Russian government and society up to the 21st century has been so tremendous that
they cannot be disregarded the emancipation of the Serfs in 1861 had significant positive impacts.
The main objective of emancipation was to improve the social conditions of the peasants and to
establish a development strategy in the Russian economy. Emancipation contributed to these
processes in a very significant manner, while at the same time alienating landowners and reformists.
In any case, there are significant benefits that were to be gained from emancipation from economic
and material standpoints. Emancipation paved the way for more efficient agricultural activities and
the creation of available labor for the industrialization of Russia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aaron, B. Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War. Citizenship, Identity, and the Creation of
the Soviet State, 1914–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

22
B. Aaron, Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War. Citizenship, Identity, and the Creation of the Soviet State,
1914–1922 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 145.
23
Eklof, Russia's Great Reforms, 1855-1881, 100.
7
Eklof, Benjamin. Russia's Great Reforms, 1855-1881. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,
1994.

John, Welford. The Emancipation of Russia’s Serfs in 1861. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2021.

Leonard, Carol. “The Distribution of Land and Agricultural Output in Non-Blackearth Russia on the
Eve of Emancipation.” Research in Economic History Supplement Vol.4, No.1 (1989), 353-368.

Melton, Edgar. “Serfdom, Emancipation, and Off-Farm Labour Mobility in Tsarist Russia.”
Economic History of Developing Regions. Vol. 27, No. 1 (2012), 1-37.

Michael, J. To What Extent Do You Consider the Emancipation of Serfs 1861 to Be a Key Turning
Point in the Development of Russian Government and Society Till 2000? Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2018.

Michael, Lynch. The Emancipation of the Serfs 1861. London: London University Press, 2016.

Mironov, Boris. “When and Why was the Russian Peasantry Emancipated?” Serfdom and
Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. Ed. M.L. Bush. London: Longman, 1996. 323-347.

Moon, David. The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia, 1762-1907. Harlow, England: Longman,
2001.

Roxanne, Easley. The Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia: Peace arbitrators and the development
of civil society. Abingdon, Oxon. Routledge, 2009.

Steven, Nafziger. Russian Serfdom, Emancipation, and Land Inequality: .London: Routledge, 2013.