The existence of serfdom is one of the most shameful phenomena in the history of Russia. At present, more and more often one can hear statements that the serfs lived very well, or that the existence of serfdom had a favorable effect on the development of the economy. Whatever these opinions sound for the sake of, they, to put it mildly, do not reflect the true essence of the phenomenon - absolute lack of rights. Someone will object that enough rights were assigned to the serfs by law. But in reality they were not fulfilled. The landowner freely disposed of the lives of the people who belonged to him. These peasants were sold, given, lost at cards, separating loved ones. The child could be torn away from the mother, the husband from the wife. There were regions in the Russian Empire where the serfs had a particularly hard time. These regions include the B altic States. The abolition of serfdom in the B altics took placein the reign of Emperor Alexander I. How everything happened, you will learn in the process of reading the article. The year of the abolition of serfdom in the B altic States was 1819. But we'll start from the beginning.
Development of the B altic region
There was no Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia on the B altic lands at the beginning of the 20th century. Courland, Estland and Livonia provinces were located there. Estonia and Livonia were captured by the troops of Peter I during the Northern War, and Russia managed to get Courland in 1795, after the next partition of Poland.
The inclusion of these regions in the Russian Empire had a lot of positive consequences for them in terms of economic development. First of all, a wide Russian sales market has opened up for local suppliers. Russia also benefited from the annexation of these lands. The presence of port cities made it possible to quickly establish sales of products of Russian merchants.
Local landowners also did not lag behind Russian ones in exports. So, the first place in the sale of goods abroad was occupied by St. Petersburg, and the second - by Riga. The main focus of the B altic landowners was on the sale of grain. It was a very profitable source of income. As a result, the desire to increase these incomes led to the expansion of land used for plowing and an increase in the time allotted for corvée.
Urban settlements in these places until the middle of the XIX century. hardly developed. They were of no use to the local landowners. It would be more accurate to say that they developed one-sidedly. Just like shopping malls. But the developmentindustry lagged far behind. This was due to the very slow growth of the urban population. This is understandable. Well, which of the feudal lords would agree to release the gratuitous labor force. Therefore, the total number of local citizens did not exceed 10% of the total population.
Manufactory production was created by the landowners themselves in their possessions. They also did business on their own. That is, the classes of industrialists and merchants in the B altic States did not develop, and this affected the general movement of the economy forward.
The estate feature of the B altic territories was that the nobles, who made up only 1% of the population, were Germans, as well as the clergy and a few bourgeois. The indigenous population (Latvians and Estonians), contemptuously referred to as "non-Germans", were almost completely disenfranchised. Even living in cities, people could only count on work as servants and laborers.
Therefore, we can say that the local peasantry was doubly unlucky. Along with serfdom, they had to experience national oppression.
Features of the local corvée. Increasing oppression
Corvee in local lands has traditionally been divided into ordinary and extraordinary. Under the ordinary peasant, he had to work on the lands of the landowner with his equipment and a horse for a set number of days. The employee had to show up by a certain date. And if the interval between these terms was small, then the peasant had to stay in the landowners' lands for the wholethis time period. And all because the traditional peasant households in the B altic States are farms, and the distances between them are very decent. So the peasant would simply not have time to turn back and forth. And while he was in the master's lands, his arable land stood uncultivated. Plus, with this type of corvée, it was supposed to send from each farm for a period from the end of April to the end of September one more worker in addition, already without a horse.
Extraordinary corvée has received the greatest development in the B altic States. Peasants with such a duty were obliged to work on the master's fields during seasonal agricultural work. This type was also divided into auxiliary corvée and general driving. Under the second option, the landowner was obliged to feed the peasants throughout the time they worked in his fields. And at the same time, he had the right to drive the entire able-bodied population to work. Needless to say, most of the landowners did not comply with the law and did not feed anyone.
Extraordinary corvée was especially detrimental to peasant farms. Indeed, at a time when it was necessary to hastily plow, sow and harvest, there was simply no one left on the farms. In addition to working in the fields, the peasants were obliged to transport the master's goods on their carts to remote areas for sale and to supply women from each yard to care for the master's cattle.
Early 19th century characterized for the agrarian development of the B altic States by the development of farm work. Laborers - landless peasants who appeared as a result of the seizure of peasant landownerslands. Left without their own farm, they were forced to work for more prosperous peasants. Both of these layers treated each other with a certain amount of hostility. But they were united by a common hatred of the landlords.
Class unrest in the B altics
The B altics met the beginning of the 19th century in the conditions of aggravated class contradictions. Mass peasant uprisings, escapes of serfs became a frequent occurrence. The need for change became more and more obvious. The ideas of the abolition of serfdom with the subsequent transition to free-lance work began to sound more and more often from the lips of representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia. It became obvious to many that the strengthening of feudal oppression would inevitably lead to a large-scale peasant uprising.
Fearing a repetition of the revolutionary events in France and Poland, the tsarist government finally decided to turn its attention to the situation in the B altic states. Under his pressure, the noble assembly in Livonia was forced to raise the peasant question and legislate to secure the right of the peasants to dispose of their own movable property. The B altic landowners did not want to hear about any other concessions.
The discontent of the peasants grew. They were actively supported in the claims of the city lower classes. In 1802, a decree was issued, according to which the peasants were allowed not to send natural products for fodder deliveries. This was done because of the famine that began in the region as a result of crop failure in the previous two years. The peasants who werethe decree was read out, they decided that the good Russian tsar now completely frees them from work on corvée and quitrent, and the local authorities simply hide the full text of the decree from them. The local landlords, having decided to compensate for the losses, decided to increase the worked out corvée.
Wolmar Uprising
Some events contributed to the beginning of the abolition of serfdom in the B altic States (1804). In September 1802, peasant unrest engulfed peasant farms in the area of the city of Valmiera (Wolmar). First, the laborers rebelled, refusing to go out on corvée. The authorities tried to suppress the rebellion by the forces of the local military unit. But it failed. Peasants, having heard about the uprising, hastened from all distant places to take part in it. The number of rebels increased every day. The uprising was led by Gorhard Johanson, who, despite his peasant origin, was well acquainted with the work of German human rights activists and educators.
On October 7, several instigators of the uprising were arrested. Then the rest decided to release them with the use of weapons. The rebels in the amount of 3 thousand people concentrated in the Kauguri estate. From weapons they had agricultural equipment (scythes, pitchforks), some hunting rifles and clubs.
On October 10, a large military unit approached Kauguri. Artillery opened fire on the rebels. The peasants were dispersed, and the survivors were arrested. The leaders were exiled to Siberia, although they were originally going to be executed. And all because during the investigation it was revealed that the local landowners managed to distortthe text of the decree on the abolition of the tax. The abolition of serfdom in the B altic states under Alexander I had its own peculiarities. This will be discussed further.
Emperor Alexander I
The Russian throne during these years was occupied by Alexander I - a man who spent his whole life in throwing between the ideas of liberalism and absolutism. His tutor Laharpe, a Swiss politician, instilled in Alexander a negative attitude towards serfdom from childhood. Therefore, the idea of reforming Russian society occupied the mind of the young emperor when, at the age of 24, in 1801 he ascended the throne. In 1803, he signed a decree "On free cultivators", according to which the landowner could release the serf for a ransom, giving him land. Thus began the abolition of serfdom in the B altic states under Alexander 1.
At the same time, Alexander flirted with the nobility, fearing to infringe on their rights. The memories of how high-ranking aristocratic conspirators de alt with his objectionable father Paul I were very strong in him. This also fully applied to the B altic landowners. However, after the uprising of 1802 and the unrest that followed it in 1803, the emperor had to pay close attention to the B altic states.
The consequences of unrest. Decree of Alexander I
After the French Revolution, the Russian ruling circles were very afraid of a war with France. Fears deepened when Napoleon came to power. It is clear that in a war, no one wants to have a large-scale center of resistance within the country. And given thatSince the B altic provinces were border regions, the Russian government had double concerns.
In 1803, by order of the emperor, a commission was established to develop a plan to improve the life of the B altic peasants. The result of their work was the Regulation "On the Livonian Peasants", adopted by Alexander in 1804. Then it was extended to Estonia.
What did the abolition of serfdom in the B altic states under Alexander 1 (year 1804) provide for? From now on, according to the law, local peasants were attached to the land, and not, as before, to the landowner. Those peasants who owned land allotments became their owners with the right to inherit. Volost courts were created everywhere, consisting of three members each. One was appointed by the landowner, one was chosen by the peasant landowners, and one more by the farm laborers. The court monitored the serviceability of serving the corvée and paying dues by the peasants, and also without its decision, the landowner no longer had the right to corporally punish the peasants. That was the end of the good, because the situation increased the size of the corvée.
Consequences of agrarian reforms
In fact, the Regulation on the so-called abolition of serfdom in the B altics (date - 1804) brought disappointment to all sections of society. The landowners considered it an infringement on their ancestral rights, the laborers, who did not get any benefits from the document, were ready to continue their struggle. 1805 was marked for Estonia by new peasant uprisings. Governmentagain had to resort to troops with artillery. But if it was possible to deal with the peasants with the help of the army, then the emperor could not stop the discontent of the landlords.
To appease both of them, the government in 1809 developed "Additional Articles" to the Regulations. Now the landowners themselves could set the size of the corvée. And they were also granted the right to evict any householder from his yard and take away peasant land plots. The reason for this could be the assertion that the former owner was careless about housekeeping or there was simply a personal need for the landowner.
And in order to prevent subsequent performances of farm laborers, they reduced their work time on corvee to 12 hours a day and set the amount of payment for the work done. It became impossible to attract laborers to work at night without a good reason, and if this happened, then every hour of night work was regarded as an hour and a half of daytime.
Post-war changes in the B altics
On the eve of the war with Napoleon, among the Estonian landowners, the idea of the admissibility of freeing the peasants from serfdom began to sound more and more often. True, the peasants had to acquire freedom, but leave all the land to the landowner. This idea pleased the emperor very much. He instructed local noble assemblies to develop it. But the Patriotic War intervened.
When the hostilities were over, the Estonian noble assembly resumed work on a new bill. By the following year, the bill was completed. According to this document, the peasantsfreedom was granted. Absolutely free. But all the land became the property of the landowner. In addition, the latter was assigned the right to exercise police functions in his lands, i.e. he could easily arrest his former peasants and subject them to corporal punishment.
How was the abolition of serfdom in the B altics (1816-1819)? You will learn about this briefly below. In 1816, the bill was submitted to the tsar for signature, and the royal resolution was received. The law came into force in 1817 on the lands of the Estland province. The next year, the nobles of Livonia began to discuss a similar bill. In 1819 the new law was approved by the emperor. And in 1820 he began to operate in the Livland province.
The year and date of the abolition of serfdom in the B altics are now known to you. But what was the initial result? Implementation of the law on the ground took place with great difficulty. Well, which of the peasants will rejoice when he is deprived of land. Fearing mass peasant uprisings, the landowners liberated the serfs in parts, and not all at once. The implementation of the bill dragged on until 1832. Fearing that the landless liberated peasants would massively leave their homes in search of a better life, they were limited in their ability to move. The first three years after gaining freedom, peasants could move only within the boundaries of their parish, then - the county. And only in 1832 they were allowed to travel throughout the entire province, and they were not allowed to travel outside of it.
Main provisions of bills for the emancipation of peasants
When serfdom was abolished in the B altics, serfs were no longer considered property, and were declared free people. The peasants lost all rights to the land. Now all the land was declared the property of the landlords. In principle, the peasants were given the right to buy land and real estate. To implement this right, already under Nicholas I, the Peasant Bank was established, from which it was possible to take a loan to buy land. However, a small percentage of those released were able to exercise this right.
When serfdom was abolished in the B altic States, instead of the lost land, the peasants received the right to rent it. But even here everything was at the mercy of the landowners. The terms of the land lease were not regulated by law. Most landowners made them simply bonded. And the peasants had no choice but to agree to such a lease. In fact, it turned out that the dependence of the peasants on the landowners remained at the same level.
In addition, no lease terms were originally agreed. It turned out that in a year the owner of the land could easily conclude an agreement on the plot with another peasant. This fact began to slow down the development of agriculture in the region. No one really tried hard on the rented land, knowing that tomorrow it could be lost.
Peasants automatically became members of volost communities. The communities were completely controlled by the local landowner. The law secured the right to organize a peasant court. But then again, he couldonly under the leadership of the noble assembly. The landlord retained the right to punish the guilty, in his opinion, the peasants.
Consequences of the "liberation" of the B altic peasants
Now you know in what year serfdom was abolished in the B altics. But to all of the above, it is worth adding that only the B altic landowners benefited from the implementation of the emancipation law. And that is only for a while. It would seem that the law created the prerequisites for the subsequent development of capitalism: a lot of free people appeared, deprived of the rights to the means of production. However, personal freedom turned out to be a mere sham.
When serfdom was abolished in the B altic states, peasants could move to the city only with the permission of the landowners. Those, in turn, gave such permissions very rarely. There was no talk of any freelance work. The peasants were forced to work out the same corvée under the contract. And if we add to this the short-term lease agreements, then the decline of the B altic peasant farms by the middle of the 19th century becomes clear.
