Serfdom Abolished: Russia Modernizes After 200 Years
Tsar Alexander II signed the Emancipation Manifesto on February 19, 1861, freeing roughly 23 million serfs who had been legally bound to the land and their landlords for centuries. The reform was driven by military necessity as much as moral conviction: Russia's humiliating defeat in the Crimean War had exposed the inability of a serf-based economy to compete with industrialized Western powers. The terms were deliberately complicated. Former serfs received personal freedom but had to purchase their land allotments through 'redemption payments' stretched over 49 years, payments that many could never afford. The land they received was often the worst plots, while landlords kept the most productive acreage. The result was a half-emancipation that left millions of peasants in poverty, fueling the rural discontent that would eventually explode in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Alexander himself was assassinated by revolutionaries in 1881.
February 19, 1861
165 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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