By the end of the 19th century, the number of serfs in Russia reached a quarter of a million people. They were called serfs or privately owned peasants, assigned to the landowners or the church. Serfdom legally established the right of ownership of people to the landowners.
Legislative restrictions
The category was formed at the end of the 16th century and, depending on the form of fulfillment of the service, divided the peasants into courtyards, dues and corvee. Privately owned peasants were forbidden to leave the fixed allotments. Those who dared to flee were returned to the landowner. Serfdom was hereditary: children born in such families became the property of the master. The ownership of the land belonged to the landowner, the peasants did not have the right to sell or buy the allotment.
Development of serfdom
Until the end of the 15th century, peasants could change their master. The Sudebnik of 1497, published during the reign of Ivan III, limited the right of peasants to move. Serfs, unable to escape from the master inSt. George's Day, they could take this step in certain years - "reserved summers". At the end of the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible by decree deprived them of this opportunity. During the reign of Boris Godunov, the successor of Ivan the Terrible, in 1590 the right to transfer the peasants was canceled.
Fyodor the Blessed, the last representative of the Moscow branch of the Rurikovich, for the landowners introduced the right to search for and return fugitive peasants for a five-year period (“lesson summers”). In the period from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century, a number of decrees extended the term to 15 years. In 1649, during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, the Zemsky Sobor adopted the code of laws "Cathedral Code". The new legislation abolished the "lesson summer" and announced an indefinite investigation.
The "tax reform" of Peter I finally attached the peasants to the land. From the middle of the 18th century, landowners received the right to exile peasants to Siberia, to hard labor, to give them as recruits. The prohibition to file petitions against the landowners to the emperor untied their hands.
Impunity of landlords
The serfs depended on the landlord, he disposed of them from birth to death. The status of privately owned peasants and the right of property granted by law to the owner led to unbearable living conditions. Landlords' impunity is rooted in the statutory prohibition against complaining to the ruler.
In Russia in the 16th-19th centuries, corruption flourished, petitions were not given a go. Peasants who dared to complain had a hard time: the landowners immediately found out about it. The only case of punishment of the landowner was the case of D. N. S altykova. Catherine II, having learned about the atrocities of the "s altychikha", brought the case to court. landownerstripped of his noble rank and imprisoned for life in a monastery prison.
Abolition of serfdom
An attempt to abolish serfdom was made by Alexander I, issuing in 1803 the "Decree on free ploughmen". The decree allowed the release of peasants on the condition of redemption of the land allotment. The execution of the decree came up against the unwillingness of the landowners to part with their property. For almost half a century of the reign of Alexander I, only 0.5% of privately owned peasants received freedom.
The Crimean War (1853-1856) required the strengthening of the Russian armed forces. The government called in the militia. Russia's losses exceeded the losses of the enemy countries (Ottoman Empire, England, France and Sardinia).
Privately owned peasants who went through the war expected gratitude from the Emperor in the form of the abolition of serfdom. That did not happen. A wave of peasant uprisings swept through Russia. The events of the 19th century forced the tsarist government to consider the abolition of serfdom. The reform that abolished the private ownership of peasants was carried out by Alexander II in 1861
