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Feb 27, 2018 · Serfdom was a form of agricultural servitude that most of Europe had left behind in the medieval period. Russian serfdom developed, as historian William C. Hine writes, during roughly the same time period as American slavery. The Russian Code of 1649 “ firmly embedded serfdom ” as a labor system.
Apr 10, 2014 · Kolchin finally cites the two main differences between American slavery and Russian serfdom: first, American slaves were “aliens,” of a different nationality, race, and religion to their masters, while Russian serfs were almost always the same nationality and had similar customs; and second, American slaves did all of their work for their ...
Russian and American systems of bondage involved the sheer number of people emeshed in serfdom as compared to slavery. Serfdom, as a whole, developed on a much vaster scale than slavery in the United States. By 1858 there were 10.7 million male serfs in Russia out of a total male population of 24 million.
- Why Was It Necessary to End Serfdom?
- Alexander II’s Role
- Betrayal of The Peasants?
- The Significance of Emancipation
- Issues to Debate
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 sociall...
By an odd twist of fate, defeat in the war proved of value to the new Tsar. Although he had been trained for government from an early age, foreign observers had remarked on how diffident and unsure he appeared. The war changed all that. Coming to the throne in 1855 in the middle of the conflict, Alexander II was unable to save Russia from military ...
Impressive though these freedoms first looked, it soon became apparent that they had come at a heavy price for the peasants. It was not they, but the landlords, who were the beneficiaries. This should not surprise us: after, it had been the dvoriane who had drafted the emancipation proposals. The compensation that the landowners received was far in...
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 M...
To what extent did defeat in the Crimean War provide Alexander II with an ideal opportunity to introduce major reforms? In what ways were the Russian peasants better off because of Emancipation, in what ways worse off? Do you accept the view that the Emancipation of the Serfs was symptomatic of the unwillingness of the tsarist system to embrace muc...
The abolition of Russian serfdom in 1861 and American slavery in 1865 transformed both nations as Russian peasants and African Americans gained new rights as subjects and citizens.
This book provides an important reconsideration of post-emancipation assimilation, race, class, and political power. The abolition of Russian serfdom in 1861 and American slavery in 1865 transformed both nations as Russian peasants and African Americans gained new rights as s...
Mar 1, 2022 · In the more than three decades since Peter Kolchin authored his seminal study Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom (1987), a dynamic scholarship has emerged that challenges notions of American exceptionalism by illuminating the important and complex ways that the United States and Russia have mirrored each other despite the ...
