Serfdom and State Power in Imperial Russia

Abstract

The institution of serfdom has been a central and much debated feature of early modern Russian history: it has sometimes been described as Russia's 'peculiar institution', as central to the Russian experience as black slavery has been to the American. 1 It is striking, however, that the rise and dominance of serfdom within Muscovite/Russian society coincided closely in historical terms with the rise to European eminence and power of the Muscovite state and Russian Empire. The subjection of the peasantry to its landlord masters was finally institutionalized in 1649, at a time when for most of the rest of Europe Muscovy was a little-known and peripheral state, in John Milton's words, 'the most northern Region of Europe reputed civil'. 2 When Peter I proclaimed Russia an empire, in 1721, it had displaced Sweden to become the leading state of Northern Europe; one hundred years later Russia was the premier European land power. Its loss of international status after the Crimean War in 1856 helped to precipitate the abolition of serfdom (1861); but the 'Great Reforms' of the 1860s did not enable it to regain the international position achieved after the Napoleonic Wars. Thus the period of history from the mid-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, when serfdom became a securely entrenched legal and economic institution, was also the period in which Russia -the Muscovite state and Russian Empire -became relatively more powerful than at any other time in its history before 1945. This article seeks to examine some of the features of serfdom in Russia, to look briefly at its place in the structure and dynamics of Russian society, and to investigate the relationship between the establishment of serfdom in practice and the success of Russian governments both in domestic affairs and on the international stage.

Household formation, institutions, and economic development: Evidence from imperial Russia

“…Serfs had few formal rights; they were forbidden by law to seek justice in civil courts and had limited recourse against their landlords (Blum, 1961, chap. 21;Bartlett, 2003). Thus even within the broad categories of 'quitrent' and 'corvee' estates, there was significant scope for variation in local practices.…”

Structures of Trust: Britain and Russia Compared

“…It was never fully defined in law: the enactment which came closest to doing so, the Ulozhenie (Law Code) of 1649, never uses the word 'serf ' and confines itself to laying down the penalties for peasant flight. Landlords were free to treat their serfs more or less as they wished, since there were no laws defining how they should do so, and very little state oversight of how they behaved (Bartlett, 2003). In practice, though, most landowners did not grossly abuse their power over their serfs, as they depended on them for their wealth and status.…”

Contract enforcement in Russian serf society, 1750–18601

“…91 91 Although these holdings were formally administered by the state, there seems to have been great scope for variation in local governance. See Bartlett, ‘Serfdom’, pp. 33–4; Moon, Russian peasantry , pp.…”