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Gustav von Bergmann (1749–1814) was a Lutheran pastor in Livland, one of the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire. Being interested in Enlightenment ideas, he published a string of literary, historical and political works in German and Latvian. In these works, the tension between 'radical' and 'moderate' wings of Baltic Enlightenment becomes visible, and they can serve as an example of intertwined and often conflicting ideas concerning the education of the 'common people' and agrarian reforms within the context of Volksaufklärung (Popular Enlightenment). In the article, an overview of the debates on serfdom and political reforms has been provided by sketching different approaches of Baltic intellectuals and also influences on their ideas from German-speaking countries. Bergmann wrote historical works that emphasised the need of social reforms, but at the same time opposed radical political changes; the shift in his views was influenced by French revolution. His publications in Latvian were in line with Volksaufklärung ideas and corresponded to the concept of gradual transformations by preparing peasants for freedom through the means of education. Belletristic fiction in almanacs, sermons, and translation of German bestseller Noth- und Hülfsbüchlein (1788) served this purpose along with the practical work such as smallpox inoculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: After the Black Death, serfdom disappeared in Western Europe while making a resurgence in Eastern Europe. What explains this difference? I argue that serfdom was against the interests of the sovereign and was only imposed when the nobility, who needed serfdom to maintain their economic and political standing, had leverage to impose their will. The nobility gained this power through financing the state. Using data from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries, I show that serfdom was imposed and strengthened in areas where sovereigns had few other resources to finance the state.

Although the state administration became a largest landowner in the whole Hungarian Kingdom until 1787, state-administrated estates and castles were not in focus of systematic historical research yet. This paper is focussed on acquirement, governing and material culture of the Revište castle and domain during the Habsburg state administration, i.e. from its assumption by the chamber government in 1661 to a loss of commercial and political importance of the state mining enterprising in the second decade of the nineteenth century. The Revište domain situated in the Lower Hungarian mining district (in present-day Central Slovakia) represented a worth material basis for the complex of state mining enterprises in the eighteenth century. Especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, the Revište chamber estate was the most profitable state dominion in large district of the Chief Chamber-County Office (Oberstkammergrafenamt) in Banská Štiavnica. The agrarian production on the Revište dominion was centred on a saturation of material needs of the state mining enterprising, and mainly on breeding the vehicular animals that were used in carter's business as well as in supplying the populous labourers with baking products and beer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Law of Beaumont, established by a charter issued in 1182, was granted over a period of about 150 years for up to 700 villages in present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. It seemingly was to provide incentives to settle or stay in such villages. Based on an analysis of the Latin text (provided with a German translation) the paper questions that the focus of the charter was accurately described in older literature and common handbook entries. In those, the impression is given that the focus was on liberation from serfdom, tax relief and municipal self-government. The paper concludes that a high degree of self-government was indeed an outstanding feature, although it remains unclear whether the citizens originally had the right to elect mayor and jurors. Particularly favourable tax burdens could not be substantiated. There is no mentioning at all of any liberation from serfdom and burdens associated with it. The focus of the charter is on a precise definition of tax burdens and of penalties for crimes and their distribution, and on rules of legal process. Legal certainty in these regards must have been the core of its attractiveness both for citizens and lords and explain its popularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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According to Roman law the same human being, the servus, can be understood as res mancipi or as persona, being part of the different kinds of persons described in Justinian’s Institutiones. But in the third decade of the 18th century, it would be written that »Certissimum ergo iuris axioma est: quicunque nullo statu gaudet, iure Romano non persona, sed res habetur« (Heinecke). How and why did this distinction become so precise, and the boundary between the two concepts so impassable? Underlying this distinction is the joint action of two phenomena: serfdom and slavery in the modern age. Serfs and slaves define the concept of person because they constitute its boundary: on one side of the boundary there are persons, on the other res. Indeed, slavery and serfdom are at the basis of the legal concept of persona, which was transmitted from the ancient regime to 19th-century legal thinking. Comparing the many possible legal conditions between persona and res, legal thought established a moving boundary, located within individuals, making them sometimes the subject, sometimes the object of legal relationships. The mobility of this boundary, its uncertainty, its susceptibility to being the subject of continuous gradations, would be passed down to the concept of legal capacity.

According to Roman law the same human being, the servus, can be understood as res mancipi or as persona, being part of the different kinds of persons described in Justinian's Institutiones. But in the third decade of the 18th century, it would be written that »Certissimum ergo iuris axioma est: quicunque nullo statu gaudet, iure Romano non persona, sed res habetur« (Heinecke). How and why did this distinction become so precise, and the boundary between the two concepts so impassable? Underlying this distinction is the joint action of two phenomena: serfdom and slavery in the modern age. Serfs and slaves define the concept of person because they constitute its boundary: on one side of the boundary there are persons, on the other res. Indeed, slavery and serfdom are at the basis of the legal concept of persona, which was transmitted from the ancient regime to 19th-century legal thinking. Comparing the many possible legal conditions between persona and res, legal thought established a moving boundary, located within individuals, making them sometimes the subject, sometimes the object of legal relationships. The mobility of this boundary, its uncertainty, its susceptibility to being the subject of continuous gradations, would be passed down to the concept of legal capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adscripti glebae is a condition where peasants legally belong to a particular landholding. Its purpose was to maintain a stable labour force at the disposal of the landholder. Peasants who did not abide by this immobility requirement were termed runaways. Runaways have been episodically mentioned in medieval and early modern social history, particularly in demographic history, urban history, and histories of serfdom. Yet they have rarely been the central focus of historical studies. This paper examines the runaway on the background of the particular conditions of serfdom in the provinces of Estland and Livland. The paper describes how serfdom was practiced in these provinces, proceeds to peasant agency by considering the numerous diverse reasons for running away and outlines the reasoning behind the efforts of both nobility and government aimed at maintaining the status quo. The court records of a few extradition cases are highlighted to illustrate aspects of the issue of keeping serfs bound to the land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The article is devoted to the review of the book of Doctor of Historical Sciences Professor Arkady Dolgikh about the history of serfdom. Today, the agrarian theme is one of the most important topics for understanding the historical process that has taken place on the territory of the Russian state since the formation of the Muscovite state in the 15th-16th centuries. and up to the 20th century.Materials and methods. The technique of the article is connected with the analysis of the article from general historical positions. The fundamental importance of the question of serfdom lies in the fact that this phenomenon has dragged on considerably. Obviously, it interfered with the full development of Russia, turning most of its population into a mass, devoid of any interest in the results of their own work, which means that it formed entire generations of people deprived of an active life position with a low level of political culture and education.Results. There is no doubt that the reforms carried out by Peter I, which almost completely subordinated all the estate groups of the country to the interests of the state, needed to be adjusted after the end of the Northern War and the introduction of a new poll tax. The ruling circles of Russia, for the most part, were aware of the importance of this adjustment and the danger of stagnation of the serf regime, but until 1861 no one dared to do this due to various subjective and objective reasons. As a result, literally every year a real ―powder magazine‖ grew and increased in size under the building of the House of Romanov, which not only interfered with the full development of their state, but also doomed it to death.Conclusion. The author of the review comes to the conclusion that the new book on serfdom shows the importance of this problem and once again reminds the reader of this phenomenon as a terrible evil hindering the development of Russia.

This article reassesses the difficulties experienced in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by what was known as the Uniate Church, a Catholic Church of the Byzantine-Slavic rite that had been created through a union with the papacy in 1595/6. Analyzing the twin issues of holiday and fasting reform, the article reveals the extent to which economic concerns of the Enlightenment exacerbated the eighteenth-century crisis of the Union. How many holidays should peasants celebrate? How strictly should they be expected or allowed to fast? Such questions became crucial issues placing pressure on the Uniate Church, particularly in the 1780s. Faced with this pressure, the Church hierarchy was alarmed but rather powerless, caught in what this article conceptualizes as the Uniate dilemma. On the one hand, rivalry with the Orthodox Church meant that Uniate bishops could not really reform holidays and fasting without giving the impression that they cared less about the "purity" of the Eastern rite than their Orthodox counterparts did. On the other hand, leaving the Uniate holiday and fasting calendar unreformed made the Union more vulnerable to Roman Catholic competition, for economic as well as religious reasons. Specifically, more and more noble lords wanted to restructure their estates in line with the agrarian ideals of the Enlightenment, and to produce a healthier, more numerous, more hard-working peasantry in the process. In the Ruthenian parts of the Commonwealth, however, ostensible excesses of Uniate feasting and fasting stood in the way of these goals. Roman Catholic nobles therefore increasingly resorted to denigrating Uniate ritual precepts and to pushing enserfed village populations to observe the Latin rite, which prescribed fewer holidays and fasts. 'These developments put the Union very clearly on the defensive even before the final partitions of Poland-Lithuania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the success of the constitutional revolution, the constitutionalists did extensive propaganda among Maku peasantry in order to end the serfdom and counter the tyranny. These activities were effective and a significant movement was formed in the Maku rural communities against the local khans and landowners. The present article seeks to investigate causes and bases for the movement formation and its consequences, using the press, archival documents, and historical books based on a descriptive-analytical method. The result of this research shows that the unjust lord-serf relations in Maku and the dominance of the Bayat khans over the lives of the peasants, along with the widespread propaganda of the constitutionalists among the peasantry, were the main factors in the formation of this movement. The confiscation of Khans’ properties, the establishment of rural associations, and the expulsion of Iqbal al-Saltaneh from Maku were among the most important consequences of this movement. In addition, although the constitutionalists of Azerbaijan were the instigators of this movement, they did not provide any support for Mako peasants afterward. Consequently, Iqbal al-Saltaneh was able to suppress the Mako peasant movement severely and reestablish serfdom with extensive support from the conservatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this study is the “Great Reforms”, which led to institutional changes in Russia during the reign of Alexander II. A problematic question is posed: how did replacing the obsolete institutions of the Russian Empire with new ones under Alexander II affect the economy? Because of the persisting dichotomy with regard to the results of Alexander II’s reforms, a hypothesis is put forward: in addition to the impact of the new institutions introduced during the period of the “Great Reforms”, the efforts of the transformations were not aimed at the complete elimination of outdated institutions. To test the hypothesis, the main objective of the study is formulated: to reflect the institutional changes in Russia during the reign of Alexander II and their impact on the economy. The theoretical framework of the study includes a number of concepts of domestic and foreign scholars: Douglas North’s concept of institutions, which is exemplified by his works “Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Functioning” [1], “Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance” [2] and “Institutions and Economic Growth: Historical Introduction” [2]; Sergey Yu. Glazyev’s theory of long-term technical and economic development, reflected in the article “Modern Theory of Long Waves in Economic Development” [3] and the book “Russia in the New Technological and World Economic Patterns” [4]. This selection is due to the fact that the provisions of institutionalism and the concept of technological modes give the most complete answer to the problem question of the research. The work used the following set of methods: general scientific methods, such as logical analysis, synthesis, comparison, systematization of the available scientific literature on the topic of research; specific scientific theoretical methods: literature analysis on the selected historical period (the reforms of Alexander II), collection of statistical data (primarily economic indicators), analysis of the transformations in various spheres of social life and their results conducted in the specified historical period. The result of the study was the reflection of institutional changes in the economy of the Russian Empire and the country’s transition to a “new technological mode”.

Simion Bărnuţiu (July 21, 1808 - May 24, 1864) was a Romanian politician and scholar who followed the tradition of the Transylvanian School (Şcoala ardeleană) and the German Rationalism. He is considered to be the ideologist and the political leader of the Romanian Revolution of 1848 in Transylvania. He was mainly preoccupied with philosophy and legal science and had a significant contribution to establishing the principles of political and legal organization for the new Romanian unified state, but also to proposing solutions for the Romanian economic problems.

George Bariţiu (May 24, 1812 - May 2, 1893) was a Romanian politician, journalist and historian who had significant contributions in the field of economic thinking. As a promoter of the idea to assert the Romanian identity, and an activist for the Romanians to enter economic life, Bariţiu advanced a series of economic claims and aspirations. At the core of his analytical pursuit there were fundamental economic issues: competition, ownership, the peasants’ problem, the development of industry and of trade.

The topic of this work is the study of the views of the outstanding Russian researcher-geographer, statistician and active figure of the Peasant reform of 1861 P. P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky on the problems of serfdom in the pre-reform period. The main source for this is his memoirs, recently reprinted. His views on this matter look very relevant today, bearing in mind that many modern publicists and even historians are trying to present serfdom in Russia as a rather humane phenomenon associated with the proper organization of agricultural labor, pay special attention to the help of landlords to peasants in conditions of famine and all kinds of natural disasters, and also believe that peasant the land community gave the "settlers" serious protection against landlord claims regarding the identity of the peasants and the results of their labor. The position of P. P. In this sense, Semenov-Tyan-Shansky is more traditional: he does not hide the existence of abuses of landlord rights, especially in relation to domestic people, but at the same time seeks to show the diversity of such relations in greater Russia, expressing the hope in hindsight that the solution to this age-old problem could only be a solution "from above", justifying thus, the subsequent peasant reform of 1861.

Introduction. The article provides a source analysis of the Law of 16 March 1892. Despite there are works dealing with the reform initiated by the act, there is no analysis of the document as a historical source. Goals. So, the paper attempts such a comprehensive insight into the Law. Materials and methods. The key method employed is that of source studies with due involvement of analysis and synthesis tools. The document is also examined with the use of techniques and approaches inherent to investigations of normative legal acts. Results. It is proper enough to identify the examined source as a law with legal force. Its adoption was determined by a number of socioeconomic and political prerequisites and reasons. The draft law was developed by committees and councils specially established within the Ministry of State Property. The preparatory process lasted for three decades to be attended by officials of most various levels. Furthermore, the nature and essentials of the Law were influenced by the events of 1881. The Law of 16 March 1892 was being implemented for almost three years but consequences of the reform to have intensified socioeconomic and sociopolitical processes in the region had far more significant and lasting effects. Historiography of the reform attests to that there still is an interest in the Law arising from its significance. Conclusions. The source analysis shows the Law of 16 March 1892 be classified as a public legislative act. Its development and adoption are integral to the reform process witnessed by Russia in the 1860s–1870s. The Law contributed to modernization of Kalmyk society and opened a new phase in Kalmyk history, changed lives of thousands of Kalmyk commoners granting them rights of free rural inhabitants. Undoubtedly, its significance as a historical source deserves particular attention and recognition.

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From the seventeenth to the twentieth century, Silesian linen production was closely linked to Atlantic slavery. Initially, Silesian linen was a commodity of varying quality, strategically adapted to either satisfy free consumers in Africa or serve as clothing for enslaved Africans or European colonists in the Americas. To keep their selling prices low, Silesian merchants adopted serfdom to exploit spinners and weavers. Later industrialists in the region relied on impoverished factory workers to manufacture competitive products, like tropical clothing for the colonies. This study contributes to a better understanding of the interconnectedness of the Silesian economy with Atlantic slavery by examining the practices through which Silesian actors shaped local conditions that became springboards for business opportunities related to slavery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As there are hardly any regulations on slavery to be found in early modern German positive law, the impression prevails until today that slave status did not exist in the Old Empire. In such cases, however, Roman law was regularly used as a subsidiary legal source. By studying the plethora of early modern commentaries on the Corpus iuris civilis , which adapted ancient law to contemporary needs, a wholly different picture emerges: Not only did slave status exist as a legal concept and was applied in practice, but by selecting, interpreting, and commenting on it, early modern jurists shaped and reshaped its concrete appearance. Controversies and mainstream positions thus become tangible, as do more profound shifts from religious toward racial alterity as criteria for enslaveability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to show the apogee of Russian serfdom as one of the most significant direct and immediate results of Peter the Great’s transformations. The proprietary (proprietorial) interest of the landed gentry in relation to the local lands and peasants received a previously unthinkable impulse due to Peter’s elevation of the status of estates to patrimonial, as well as the erasure of the legal boundary between serfs and peasants by turning both into “audit souls” during the tax reform. Already in the last years of Peter the Great’s reign, the authorities were inclined to identify the right of landlords to peasants with the right to immovable property in the context of the evolution of serfdom in Russia. The article discusses in detail the practice of distribution by emperors and empresses of lands with peasants into ownership as a reward for special merits. The author analyzed the post-Petrine legislation that expanded the class privileges of the nobility and strengthened their ownership rights in relation to landlords and peasants. Particular attention is paid to the practice of selling landlord peasants without land and with the separation of families. The historical significance of Peter’s and post-Peter’s policies of a sharp strengthening of the ownership (proprietary) rights of nobles to land and peasants in their estates lies primarily in the accumulation of a powerful conflict potential in Russian society for the long term. The “time bomb” laid by Peter I and his immediate successors in the inter-verbal relations of the local nobility and the peasantry dependent on it will explode at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it will give rise to a great peasant revolution in Russia.

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The article analyses the reforms of agrarian relations, which were carried out during the first years of the Duchy of Warsaw, created as a result of the peace treaties of 1807. The legal status of peasants was at that time initially regulated in a general way by the provisions of the Constitution granted by Napoleon Bonaparte on 22 July 1807. These provisions were then made more specific with the promulgation of the Decree of 21 December 1807, which brought about the abolition of serfdom and allowed peasants to move within the territory of the Duchy. According to the Decree, the land was the property of the lord and a peasant leaving the village should return the land to the lord along with the crops, the buildings and the livestock. This meant that after the Decree came into force, there was a possibility of unlimited eviction of peasants, as well as increasing serfdom burdens. It should be noted, however, that due to the considerable depopulation of the country at that time and the emerging difficulties in providing manpower for the manor house, eviction was used relatively rarely. Nevertheless, later on, the reform carried out by this Decree was said to “remove peasant’s boots along with his shackles”. In this article, the author analyses the provisions of this Decree in the context of regulations resulting from the Constitution of the Duchy, Napoleonic Code and the Decree of 23 February 1809 introducing a temporary organisation of rural communes. The reflections on peasant reforms in this period were supplemented by an analysis of the socio-economic situation in the lands forming the Duchy and selected statements that appeared in the relevant literature on the peasant question from the past till the present.

In response to critiques of the 'slavery versus freedom' binary and its limitations, researchers at the international Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS—www.dependency.uni-bonn.de) at the University of Bonn tentatively employ the analytical concept of 'asymmetrical dependency' in their investigations of coercive social relations, such as slavery, debt bondage, and servitude. In this paper, we discuss some basic theoretical assumptions that undergird this analytical concept. In outlining an approach to asymmetrical dependency that is grounded in social and cultural theory, our goal is to provide a framework within which individual researchers can situate their projects and further develop their theoretical understanding of this phenomenon. To this end, we first introduce the analytical concept of asymmetrical dependency and explore its potential in light of the current state of research of slavery studies and related fields. We then conceptualize asymmetrical dependency as a dynamic relational process and employ a chiefly praxeological methodology to identify and describe some fundamental dynamics of these relations. Finally, we argue that the interdisciplinary study of asymmetrical dependency requires a broad practice of comparative analyses. We, therefore, consider several recent critiques of and models for comparison while relating them to the analytical concept of asymmetrical dependency we propose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Early Baltic historiography was rather emotional in its presentation of manor-peasant relations in the Baltic provinces during the first decades under Russian rule. No doubt it was influenced by the case of the so-called Rosen Declaration of 1739, an exceptionally wellknown document in which the Livonian nobility justified their harsh and repressive rights over the local peasantry. The article argues that, without a careful contextualization and detailed examination of materials from the archives of central institutions, it is not possible to critically assess or characterize either Livonian serfdom or the Rosen Declaration. The central St Petersburg institution responsible for overseeing the issue of serfdom in the Baltic province was the Justice College for Livland and Estland Affairs. Its archives have survived mainly in Moscow, partly in Tartu and in Helsinki, but have never received the attention they deserve. They show that, up until the reign of Catherine II, the Russian administration showed little interest in serfdom in its provinces ofLivland and Estland. During the 1 730s and 17 40s the rights of the peasants were discussed several times in the Justice College, although only in the context of a concrete complaint or a case. Compared to Otto Fabian Rosen's statement with other similar explanations sent to the capital, Rosen's view was considered quite routine in St Petersburg. All such statements regarding serfdom made by the Baltic provinces were taken seriously by the Justice College for Livland and Estland Affairs. However, this does not mean that Rosen's memorial had any wider legal consequences. The local nobility saw their power over their peasants as something very absolute; but this was not unique to Livonia, being a quite typical attitude for landlords in the East Elbian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article examines Ivan Petrovich Argunov's 1767 painting of Anna Nikolaevna Kalmykova, one of many Kalmyk children removed from their families by the Russian military and forcibly adopted by elite Russians and Europeans. Both sitter and painter were, in different ways, unfree: Argunov was enserfed by the Sheremetev family and Kalmykova was their ward. Examining the portrait's many visual antecedents and references, this paper argues that Argunov used the intimate, informal styles of Enlightenment portraiture in a way that enmeshed its subject and author in the harsh social hierarchies of the Sheremetev household and imperial society. The relatively loose facture of the painting and its attention to the sitter's liveliness and youth demonstrate Argunov's skill as a modern portraitist. But although Kalmykova dominates the composition of her own portrait (which makes it unlike most other portraits of Kalmyk people in Russia during this period), Argunov makes clear that she is subordinate to her patron and other members of her "adoptive" family. Mapping the power structures of the household that enserfed him, Argunov combined private and ceremonial idioms in a way that said much about Kalmykova's status and his own - a manner of portraiture that could only be copied by other artists from outside the household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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'Kresy' [ borderlands/outskirts ] is a sentimental term used by Poles to denote the lands of today's Western Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. The Polish rule in that region has rarely been discussed in terms of colonialism. In this article, I employ the framework of postcolonial theory within the context of Polish rule in 'Kresy'. The article juxtaposes anthropologist Józef Obrębski's ethnographic writings about Polesia region (a part of 'Kresy' that was polonised in the most extreme manner) with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – a Polish-British author born and raised in 'Kresy', that during his time was subjugated by Russian Empire. The figure of Conrad, whose ambivalent relationship with colonialism was pointed out by many postcolonial scholars starting with Chinua Achebe, becomes a point of departure to think about what Maria Janion describes as 'the paradoxical Polish postcolonial mentality': the ambivalence of being a colonised coloniser. The article is an attempt of contribution to the ongoing debate about identity and dependence in the East Central Europe region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The problem of the correlation of the concept of «property» (or «private property») with the situation in Russia in the pre-reform period is insufficiently studied in historiography. There is no definite opinion about the time of the appearance of this concept in the socio-political life of the Russian Empire, about what was considered movable and immovable property (especially in the countryside) then, especially since about the middle of the XVIII century, how the owner (landowner) peasantry was perceived in legislation and in practice in this context – as movable or immovable property of landowners-nobles, whether the owner peasants themselves at that time had rights to movable or immovable property. To study the problem, the author draws on numerous materials of noble projects for solving the peasant question, published by him in a number of collections of documents, as well as data on legislation, memoirs, etc. At the same time, only a part of them is directly used in the study itself. The materials of pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern Russian historiography, as well as some studies of foreign historians related to this issue, are drawn. As a result of the analysis of sources, literature and materials of his own research, the author first raises questions, offering in some cases certain intermediate solutions, drawing attention to the need for historians to develop a certain consensus on the use of certain concepts in this context, since the materials of legislation and its implementation in the practical life of the prereform time allow for different interpretations. The work is in a certain sense a continuation of the author's research on the main components of serfdom in Russia in the last 1.5 centuries before the peasant reform of 1861.

The article examines the transformations of Peter the Great in the context of the evolution of serfdom in Russia. The author substantiates the thesis that during the Peter’s transformations, the so-called “second edition of serfdom” took place, replacing its original, forced by objective conditions of survival and development of the country, estate-legal grounds. The substitution of the serfdom’s grounds is seen primarily in the rejection by the state of the conditionality principle of noble rights to the estate by compulsory lifelong service in the army, namely, this followed from the extension to estates of the patrimony’s possessory format. The analysis of the decree on single inheritance and its interpretations in historiography allowed us to conclude that the liberation of noble land ownership from the encumbrance of compulsory service created a legal basis for the subsequent “freedom of the nobility”, the rapid expansion of the privileges of the “noble estate” and, mainly, the ownership rights to land and peasants. The tax reform of Peter led to the fact that landlords began to assimilate the view of peasants as serfs, completely dependent on them, especially in the conditions of the responsibility imposed by the state on the owner of the estate for the payment of poll taxes and the supply of recruits.

In the sixteenth century, the Polish nobility created a concept of the noble nation, which excluded the peasants. As modern national identities emerged in the nineteenth century, this concept was extended to include other strata of the population living in the Polish lands. When peasants acquired the national identity, they also acquired the memory of a noble and national past that was not theirs. The article demonstrates this process by examining roadside shrines erected by peasants to celebrate the abolition of serfdom and as a sign of gratitude to the emperors of Russia and Austria for their emancipation. After Poland regained independence, many of these shrines were converted into memorials to Polish national heroes, thus erasing peasant remembrance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how Dmitry Grigorovich invented peasant subjectivity in his novella The Village (1846). The author operationalizes Jacques Rancière's and Georges Didi-Huberman's concept of "the sensible" and their studies of the representation of subaltern people in art and literature to trace how speech, feelings, and thoughts are represented in Grigorovich's narration. Unlike his predecessors in the genre (Karamzin, Pogodin, Polevoi, and others), Grigorovich splits introspections into the heroine's inner world into feelings and thoughts, depicted separately. While the feelings are portrayed as available for "reading" by the narrator, the latter prove to be at best semi-transparent, but mostly opaque. Protagonist Akulina appears in the story almost wordless: serfdom and family violence harden her and lead to a refusal to speak. The heroine's "muteness" and the chain of sufferings reflect what Peter Brooks called the melodramatic mode of representation, which affects and plays with the feelings of readers. All this together explains how Grigorovich managed to create an innovative narrative about peasants and why it is possible to consider his representation a new type of peasant subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with one of the dramatic events in the history of Russia, the suppression of the uprising of landlord Kalantarov's serfs in the village of Malov Kut, Stavropol province, in January 1853. As a result, more than 160 people were killed and died of wounds.How-ever, this incident is not properly reflected in the literature, apparently based on the fact that in the Stavropol province there were mainly state peasants, not serfs. Peasants of the village of Maslov Kut more than half a century fought against merciless exploitation by landlords, their willfulness, for their freedom, being subjected to cruel punishments. In January 1853, there was the largest performance of peasants of landowners of Kalantarovs. It was suppressed with unprecedented cruelty. By order of the civil Governor, General Volotsky, artillery was usedomen and children. It was essentially the execution of serfs in the village of Maslov Kut. At the provincial Assembly of the nobility G. Kalantarov for the third time was elected the first candidate for the leadership of the nobility. The performance of the peasants caused serious concern in the upper levels of state power. The Emperor Nicholas I in connection with the incident did not approve G. Kalantarov for another term as the leader of the provincial nobility. Outraged by the behavior of the participants of the provincial noble Assembly after it became known about the suppression of the uprising in the estate of Kalantarovs, the Emperor announced the Stavropol nobility the highest reprimand, which was an emergency, which was done by the emperors is extremely rare. But the actions of Governor Volotsky authorities considered correct and no one condemned them. The article also discusses the results of the investigation, the trial of the rebels. At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that all attempts to resolve the issue of Maslov Kut peasants before the abolition of serfdom were unsuccessful.

The article considers the activities of the Russian Administration in Abkhazia after the abolition of the principality and, in particular, on the eve of the Lychny uprising of 1866. The first chief of the Sukhumskii voennyi otdel (Sukhum Military Department), as Abkhazia came to be called, Major General P. N. Shatilov's policy in support of the Abkhazian nobility was recognized by the Caucasian Administration as incorrect, therefore he was displaced. The new chief of the Sukhum Department, V. M. Konyar, suggested that the land had to be considered the property of the State, which could dispose of it entirely at its own discretion, and asserted that no one in Abkhazia could be recognized as a landowner. Members of the Editing Commission for the peasant reform had denied the local nobility their claims to the peasants and their lands, but at the same time, they were extremely rude and arrogant to the peasants. Mistrust of the representatives of the new Administration to the Abkhazian population, including the nobility, reluctance to reckon with the peculiarities of the local way of life, arrogance and rudeness of officials became the reasons for massive public protest.

The theme of this article is very relevant, since in the existing literature of the issue there is practically no periodization of the history of serfdom in Russia with the characteristic of its stages after its formal registration for the peasantry in the Cathedral code of 1649.the Novelty of the work follows from some of the principal guidelines of the author regarding hypertrophied highly valued in relation to this issue of individual government decrees. In fact, most often, especially in the post-Petrine period, the transformation of serfdom from the right "on the ground "to the right" on the face "the further, the more increased, especially in the legal sphere, primarily due to the development of a kind of" habit "of landowners to perceive the owner's peasants as"slaves". Marked a turning point in the development of legislation and government policies, starting with the Pavlovsk time, which, however, had little effect on the real situation possessory peasants in the first half of the XIX century The source base of the research is represented by the materials of the Full collection of laws of the Russian Empire (the First and Second collections), Assembly materials, noble projects of the peasant question (published by the author in 11 volumes of collections of documents). The result of this work is the determination of several stages in the development of serfdom in relation to the possessory peasants (mid XVII - beginning of XVIII centuries; the second quarter of XVIII - the end of the XVIII century; the end of XVIII - first half XIX centuries) and the examination of their characteristics in the context of changes, primarily in the private law sphere.

The paper deals with the analysis of the role of ethics in the ideas on landlords’ economy in Russian public thought of 18th - early 19th centuries. The study of writings of N. I. Panin, M. M. Shcherbatov, A. P. Sumarokov, F. O. Tumansky, N. M. Karamzin and some other authors who represented the highest ranks of Russia’s intellectual and administrative elite of the age, allows to specify peculiar theory of economy of the noble’s estate, which emerged by the middle of 18th century. The central point of such theory was the idea of ethical regulator - that is, an ability possessed by the ‘virtuous landlord’ to rule his estate in a manner which enriches both him and his serfs. This approach, in turn, appropriated certain elements of older Muscovite theories of Domostroy, and was stressing the importance of landlord’s personal involvement in the matters of administering the estates. Thus, landlord’s private economy was reshaped as a variation of service in the name of ‘common good’ and, as such, was made a central argument in the defense of nobles’ monopoly in owning serfs. In the literature of 18th century this theory was usually presented by means of figures of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ landlords; typically, ‘good’ landlord was appearing as a masterful owner of village capable of self-restrict and justice. In spite of M. Raeff’s ideas, it was ethical regulator that distinguished this theory of estates’ economy from the cameralist intellectual arsenal that was aimed at unleashing the creative capacities of subjects and became so popular in the 18th century.

This article is devoted to a rather complex problem, the place of the peasant issue in the mindset and specific actions of conservative thinkers, representatives of the ruling noble class of the Russian empire at the end of the XVIII - first quarter of the XIX centuries. It gives the main characteristics of the most conservative trend in historiography and outlines its features in Russia in this period. The paper also touches on some understudied questions in particular the problem of the proportion of attitudes by representatives of conservatism and the so-called «liberalism» and «noble revolutionaries» to peasant emancipation and easing-off serfdom in Russia. To solve it, we use extensive materials of the noblemen projects of this period for solving the peasant issue, published by one of the authors of the article over the past two decades and only partially used in the literature. The authors come to the conclusion about the similarity of views of a noble ideologues of different directions of these three decades, alike in the pre-reform period, in relation to solutions of the peasant issue as the most important problem of social and political life in Russia.