In February 1861 Tsar Alexander II issued the statutes abolishing the institution of serfdom in Russia. The procedures set in motion by Alexander II undid the ties that bound together 22 million serfs and 100,000 noble estate owners, and changed the face of Russia. Rather than presenting abolition as an 'event' that happened in February 1861, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia presents the reform as a process. It traces the origins of the abolition of serfdom back to reforms in related areas in 1762 and forward to the culmination of the process in 1907. Written in an engaging and accessible manner, the book shows how the reform process linked the old social, economic and political order of eighteenth-century Russia with the radical transformations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that culminated in revolution in 1917.

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. During the second half of the long nineteenth century, Americans and Russians responded to these societal transformations through a fascinating array of new cultural productions. Analyzing portrayals of African Americans and Russian serfs in oil paintings, advertisements, fiction, poetry, and ephemera housed in American and Russian archives, Amanda Brickell Bellows argues that these widely circulated depictions shaped collective memory of slavery and serfdom, affected the development of national consciousness, and influenced public opinion as peasants and freedpeople strove to exercise their newfound rights. While acknowledging the core differences between chattel slavery and serfdom, as well as the distinctions between each nation's post-emancipation era, Bellows highlights striking similarities between representations of slaves and serfs that were produced by elites in both nations as they sought to uphold a patriarchal vision of society. Russian peasants and African American freedpeople countered simplistic, paternalistic, and racist depictions by producing dignified self-representations of their traditions, communities, and accomplishments. This book provides an important reconsideration of post-emancipation assimilation, race, class, and political power.

In February 1861 Tsar Alexander II issued the statutes abolishing the institution of serfdom in Russia. The procedures set in motion by Alexander II undid the ties that bound together 22 million serfs and 100,000 noble estate owners, and changed the face of Russia. Rather than presenting abolition as an 'event' that happened in February 1861, The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia presents the reform as a process. It traces the origins of the abolition of serfdom back to reforms in related areas in 1762 and forward to the culmination of the process in 1907. Written in an engaging and accessible manner, the book shows how the reform process linked the old social, economic and political order of eighteenth-century Russia with the radical transformations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that culminated in revolution in 1917.

Russian rural history has long been based on a 'Peasant Myth', originating with nineteenth-century Romantics and still accepted by many historians today. In this book, Tracy Dennison shows how Russian society looked from below, and finds nothing like the collective, redistributive and market-averse behaviour often attributed to Russian peasants. On the contrary, the Russian rural population was as integrated into regional and even national markets as many of its west European counterparts. Serfdom was a loose garment that enabled different landlords to shape economic institutions, especially property rights, in widely diverse ways. Highly coercive and backward regimes on some landlords' estates existed side-by-side with surprisingly liberal approximations to a rule of law. This book paints a vivid and colourful picture of the everyday reality of rural Russia before the 1861 abolition of serfdom.

"Gorshkov's introduction provides some basic knowledge about Russian serfdom and draws upon the most recent scholarship. Notes provide references and general information about events, places and people mentioned in the memoirs."--Jacket.

Offering a broad interpretive history of the Russian Empire from the time of serfdom's codification until its abolition following the Crimean War, Wirtschafter considers the institution of serfdom, official social categories, and Russia's development as a country of peasants ruled by nobles, military commanders and civil servants.