By the end of the 19th century, the number of serfs in Russia reached a quarter of a million people. They were called serfs or private property peasants assigned to the landlords or the church. Serfdom legally established the ownership of people by the landowners.
Legal restrictions
The category was formed at the end of the 16th century and, depending on the form of fulfillment of the service, divided the peasants into domestic, obrochny and corvée. Private property peasants were forbidden to leave the assigned plots. Those who dared to flee returned to the landowner. Serfdom was hereditary: children born in such families became the property of the master. The land ownership belonged to the landowner, the peasants did not have the right to sell or purchase the allotment.
The development of serfdom
Until the end of the 15th century, peasants could change their master. The judicial code of 1497, published during the reign of Ivan III, limited the right of transfer of peasants. Serfs, unable to leave the master on St. George's Day, could take this step in certain years - “reserved summers”. At the end of the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible decree deprived them of this opportunity. During the reign of Boris Godunov, the successor of Ivan the Terrible, in 1590 the right to transfer peasants was canceled.
Fyodor the Blessed, the last representative of the Moscow branch of the Rurikovich, introduced the right for the landowners to search and return fugitive peasants for a five-year term (“lesson summers”). In the period from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 17th century, a number of decrees extended the term to 15 years. In 1649, during the reign of Aleksei Mikhailovich, the Zemsky Sobor adopted a code of laws "Cathedral Code". The new legislation abolished the "lesson summer" and announced an unlimited search.
The "tax reform" of Peter I finally attached the peasants to the land. From the middle of the 18th century, landowners gained the right to exile peasants to Siberia, to hard labor, and to give them to recruits. The ban on petitioning the landowners to the emperor untied their hands.
Impunity of the landowners
Serfs depended on the landowner; he disposed of them from birth to death. The status of private property peasants and the right of ownership granted by law to the owner led to unbearable living conditions. The roots of the landowners' impunity lie in the statutory prohibition against complaining to the ruler.
Corruption flourished in Russia in the 16th-19th centuries, they were not allowed to petition. The peasants, who dare to complain, had a hard time: the landowners immediately learned about it. The only case of punishment of the landowner was the case of D. N. Saltykova. Catherine II, learning about the atrocities of the Saltychikha, brought the case to court. The landowner was stripped of his noble rank and imprisoned for life in a monastery.
Abolition of serfdom
An attempt to abolish serfdom was undertaken by Alexander I, issuing in 1803, "Decree on free cultivators." The decree allowed the release of peasants with the condition of redemption of land allotment. The implementation of the decree came up against the unwillingness of the landlords to part with the property. During the almost half-century reign of Alexander I, only 0.5% of privately owned peasants received freedom.
The Crimean War (1853-1856) required the strengthening of the Russian armed forces. The government called on the militia. The losses of Russia exceeded the losses of the opposing countries (Ottoman Empire, England, France and Sardinia).
Private owners of the peasants who went through the war expected gratitude from the Emperor in the form of the abolition of serfdom. That did not happen. A wave of peasant uprisings swept across Russia. The events of the 19th century forced the tsarist government to consider the abolition of serfdom. The reform, which abolished the private ownership of the peasants, was carried out by Alexander II in 1861.