Page 2
In 1804−1805. the first stage of agrarian reform was carried out in the Ostzee region - in Latvia and Estonia. In 1804, the “Regulations on the Livonian Peasants” was published, which was also extended to Estonia. The peasants of the householders were declared lifelong and hereditary holders of their land allotments, for which they had to serve the corvée and dues to the owner of the land, while the size of the corvée and dues increased significantly. The power of the landlord over the peasants was limited. The provision did not apply to landless peasant laborers.
The decree of March 10, 1809 abolished the landowner's right to exile his peasants to Siberia for minor offenses.
Now, with the permission of the landowner, the peasants could trade, take bills, engage in contracts. On the whole, these were strange concessions to bourgeois development that did not encroach on the rights and privileges of the landlords.
In 1818 Alexander I tried to solve the peasant problem. Several projects have been prepared. Alexander I approved the project of A. Arakcheev and Minister of Finance D. Guryev (gradual elimination of serfdom by redeeming landlord peasants from their allotments with the treasury). It did not come to practical implementation of the project. The last liberal act of Alexander I was the provision in 1816−1819. personal freedom to the peasants of the Baltic states (without land).
By 1825, 375 thousand state peasants were in military settlements (1/3 of the Russian army), from which they formed a separate corps under the command of Arakcheev. In the settlements, the peasants simultaneously served and worked under conditions of strict discipline, being subjected to numerous punishments.
On February 19, 1855, Alexander II ascended the throne. His reign (1855−1881) became a period of radical transformations in Russian society, the main of which was the liberation of peasants from serfdom.
The concept of the peasant reform was based on the following ideas: its goal is a revolution in the agrarian system of Russia, the initial stage of which is the liberation of the peasants from personal dependence, the final stage is their transformation into small owners while maintaining a significant part of the landownership.
It was supposed to provide the peasants for use (for duties), and then for ownership (for redemption) of land plots that they used before the abolition of serfdom, the calculation of duties from their pre-reform amounts, and the participation of the state in the process of the redemption operation as a creditor. And although when discussing projects for the abolition of serfdom in the Main Committee and the State Council, amendments were made to them under the onslaught of conservative forces in the interests of the landowners (the allotment fund was reduced by 20%, duties were increased, which increased the cost of redeeming each tithe of land), in official documents the liberal concept of resolving the peasant question was preserved, which consisted in the release of peasants with land on a ransom basis.
On February 19, 1861, Alexander II signed all the legal provisions on the reform and the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom. These documents determined the fate of 23 million serfs. They received personal freedom and civil rights. The peasants for the land allotments allotted to them (until they redeem them) had to serve a labor service or pay money, therefore they were called “temporarily obliged”. The sizes of peasant allotments were determined by various sizes in different agricultural regions (non-chernozem, chernozem, steppe) and ranged from 1 to 12 acres per male (an average of 3.3 acres). For allotments, the peasants had to pay their landowner such an amount of money that, being placed in a bank at 6%, would bring him an annual income equal to the pre-reform dues. According to the law, the peasants had to pay the landowner a lump sum for their allotment about a fifth of the stipulated amount (they could pay it not in money, but by working for the landowner). The rest was paid by the state. But the peasants had to return this amount (with interest) to him in annual payments for 49 years.
Medium tank Pz. V Ausf. D
By 1942, the experience of battles in Russia showed that German tanks were unable to resist the enemy. The new anti-tank guns that appeared in the USSR and improved modifications of some tanks, in particular the T-34 and the heavy KV-1, are superior ...
Tatarsk
Since 1790, the area has been settled on the basis of Senate decrees on the resettlement of peasants in Siberia, as well as after the construction of the Siberian Railway, and especially during the period of the Stolypin reform. At the end of the 18th century, a populated pu...
January 1 - the number of the CPSU (b) amounted to 3872465 members and candidates. E. Vetter, a representative of the Radical Democratic Party, was elected President of Switzerland. January 2-6 - operational-strategic games in the Soviet General Staff according to the plan of conducting ...
Page 1
At the beginning of the XIX century. the tsarist government repeatedly dealt with the peasant issue of the Baltic region. The result of this was several new legal provisions approved by Alexander I. One of them is the peasant regulation of 1802, which recognized the peasant's ownership of movable property, but the so-called "iron inventory" remained the property of the landowner, although the same peasant used it in his work. The landowner himself determined what should be included in this “iron inventory”, and in addition to agricultural implements, he often included cattle, grain, etc. a peasant of a land plot, relocate him to other lands and even sell him. To do this, it was enough to accuse the peasant of bad work in the corvee, of disobedience to the Church, or of unworthy behavior.
In 1804, new laws were passed that forbade the sale of peasant householders and reprisals against them by a domestic court. These laws, to a certain extent, also guaranteed the right to inherit, stipulating it as a condition for the regular payment of duties. The reform of 1804 gave some Estonian peasants a few more opportunities to work on their own farms, but left the beans, domestic servants and other peasant strata in the same position. Such half-hearted measures could not stop the unrest among the peasants. In 1803–1806 in Estonia and Livonia, riots took place in 49 estates, especially in the central districts and in the vicinity of Derpt. Fierce and bloody clashes took place in the Kose-Uusmyisa estate, where the head of the military detachment and non-commissioned officer were killed by farm laborers, several soldiers were seriously wounded. The rebels also suffered losses: they killed six and seriously wounded seven peasants.
Even at the Landtag of the Estland province in 1811, the landlords, under the pressure of peasant unrest and public opinion, began to speak in favor of the liberation of the peasants without land. Alexander I was pleased with their initiative, but the Patriotic War of 1812 prevented the development of appropriate laws, although it did not directly affect this territory. After the end of the war, the Estonian nobility drew up a bill that provided for the peasants to be given personal freedom, but did not allocate them land and left broad police rights to the landowner. Thus, in relation to his peasants, the landowner found himself in the role of a state official who administered the court and reprisal. Alexander I approved the bill on June 8, 1816, and on January 8, 1817, the law came into force in the Estland province.
In the summer of 1818, a discussion of a similar bill began in the Lifland province, and in 1819 it was approved by Alexander I, and from January 1820 it entered into force. The procedure for putting the law into effect locally was very complicated, because the landowners feared unrest as a result of the liberation of the peasants without land. Not all peasants were released at once, but gradually, in parts, at different times for different categories up to 1832. provinces, it was forbidden to move to other provinces.
The rights of the patrimonial police, which were vested in the landowner, gave him power over all persons who lived on the estate. He could arrest and sentence to corporal punishment: men to 15 blows with a stick, women - to 30 blows with a rod (in the Livonian province - to 15), transfer the accused peasant to the highest police and judicial authorities. Thus, the fate of the peasant did not change significantly; they continued to remain completely dependent on the landowner.
The Regulations on the Peasants of the Lifland Governorate of 1819 determined that before the introduction of personal freedom, all the duties of the peasants were determined by the wackenbuchs according to the regulations of 1804, and after the liberation they were established by means of a “free agreement”.
Electoral reforms at the end of the 19th century.
At the end of the XIX century. A number of laws were passed to democratize the electoral right. In 1872, the Liberal government, in an effort to put an end to the very common practice of buying votes, passed a secret ballot law. However, this measure met with little success. An 1883 law that restricted electoral publications...
Causes of the Civil War and intervention. The problem of periodization of war
What led Russia to the war, what are its origins, causes? There are no unequivocal answers to this question, just as there is no consensus on the beginning and end of the war, and hence its periodization. Before moving on to the causes of the war in Russia, let's try to understand the issues of its periodization. Since the answer to this question is essentially a derivative of ...
Cooperation
Against the background of the modest results of the land reform, the data that I saw in P.M. Kolovangin "Ownership of the Russian land", about the development in the same period of cooperation, which after the revolution of 1905-1907. developed powerfully. By the beginning of 1917, it covered from 16-18 to 23-24 million people. Together with the families of coop...
If in Sweden itself AVII c. serfdom did not take shape as a dominant system, the most cruel serfdom reigned in the Swedish Baltic provinces in the same century.
This applies both to Livonia (Vidzeme in Latvian), and to Estland (Northern Estonia) and Ingermanland (Izhora land).
Swedish oppression fell heavily on the shoulders of the local working population, especially the peasantry.
Higher than in Sweden proper, state taxes, constant requisitions of agricultural products and livestock (especially during frequent wars in the area of the Baltic provinces themselves), various transport duties, and most importantly, an increase in corvée and a deterioration in the legal position of the peasantry most clearly characterize this period of Swedish domination. in the Baltic.
The government carefully preserved and maintained the rights and privileges of the local Baltic nobility, which was the ruling class here.
Swedish legislation sanctioned the developing serfdom in the Baltic provinces, formalizing it legally and providing the feudal lords with military and police means to suppress the peasantry, who fought against growing serfdom.
Thus, the law of February 1, 1632 on zemstvo courts sanctioned serfdom in Livonia and approved the police power of the landowner with the right to "house punishment" of disobedient peasants.
Later, by a patent of 1639 and especially (by the Police Charter of 1671), not only the children of serfs, but also all fugitive serfs and free people who settled on the land of the feudal lord were recognized as serfs.
The serf was considered the full property of the landowner, who could alienate his peasants or provide them to the creditor to pay off debts and interest on them. The creditor, at his own discretion, disposed of the serfs, demanding from them corvée and dues.
Falling into the hands of the usurer, the peasants were subjected to increased exploitation. Similar laws were also issued for Estonia.
In 1638-1639. in Livonia, punitive detachments were sent here to suppress peasant unrest.
A new wave of peasant movements dates back to the Russo-Swedish war of the 50s of the 17th century. Spontaneous peasant unrest broke out also in 1668.
The situation of the peasants in the Baltic continued to worsen further, as the state lands were transferred to the nobles in the property in the form of all kinds of gifts and awards.
Peasant land plots in the Baltic States were systematically reduced due to the increase in the lord's plowing caused by the growth of grain exports. Already according to the 1638 census, at least 22% of all peasants were farm laborers who were left without land or had only a small subsidiary plot.
The poorest peasantry, even if they ran their own field farms, were in very difficult conditions, primarily because of the lack of draft animals. Only wealthy peasants had oxen and horses. The poor peasant was often forced to harness himself to the plow with his wife and thus cultivate his miserable plot.
Many peasants did not have cows and kept goats instead. Corvee for a landowner was considered "normalized" by a certain number of days a year; in fact, the landowner could demand additional corvee under the guise of "help", etc.
Corporal punishment was widely used against serfs. Legally, the right of judicial protection was recognized for the serfs, but it was completely hopeless to complain about the landowner, since all the courts and administrative bodies in the region were entirely in the hands of the nobles.
From heavy corvée and growing state taxes, the peasants sought salvation in flight, and the issue of the flight of the peasants and measures to combat it was the subject of constant concern of the landtags (congresses of nobles in the provinces), landrats (elected from the nobility), various zemstvo courts and the governor general.
The peasants fled to Riga, Revel (Tallinn) and other cities, as well as to Poland, Lithuania, Courland and Russia. The Swedish government, in response to the complaints of local barons, repeatedly demanded that these states extradite such defectors.
In the 1980s, the Swedish government also carried out a policy of reduction in the Baltics, and here this measure was carried out more energetically than in Sweden itself. The interests of a significant group of Baltic barons were seriously infringed.
As in Sweden itself, the reduction led to an increase in the number of state peasants. The legal status of the peasants who became state-owned improved. However, in the Baltic provinces, under the conditions of serfdom that had already taken shape, the peasants did not receive personal freedom even on state lands.
At the same time, the reduction and the associated compilation of the land cadastre and new wackenbuchs increased peasant duties and payments (wackenbuch is a list of duties from each peasant household).
The taxation of the peasants by the 1990s, as compared with the 1970s, had increased 2.5 times in Estonia, and even 5 times in Livonia. The state, having returned the crown lands to the treasury, actually did not dispose of them itself, but leased them to the nobles.
Thus, the tenants also exploited the peasants who lived on state estates. In case of refusal to work or careless performance of it, the tenant, either personally or with the help of the local police, could subject the peasants to corporal punishment.
Crushed by taxes, cut off from his economy by heavy corvee, the Baltic peasant by the end of the 17th century. more and more impoverished and fell into the clutches of the usurer. At the same time, the landowners, as well as the tenants of state estates, increasingly hampered the peasant in his right to use communal lands (for logging, grazing, fishing, hunting, etc.).
At the end of the XVII century. The oppression of the Swedish noble state and the local Baltic barons led the peasant economy to a clear disaster.
In 1696-1697. in Livonia and Estonia, as well as in neighboring countries, there were several lean years in a row. The result of crop failure in the Baltic States was famine and a terrible epidemic. In Estonia alone, 75,000 people died during these years.
Numerous unrest of the peasants in 1698 and 1699, their reprisals against some feudal lords and managers, the seizure of bread by the peasants in the landowners' economy, and the mass exodus of serfs caused severe repressions from the government.
New punitive detachments were sent to the villages. The captured leaders of the peasant "riots" were subjected to torture, wheeling and other executions.
In the spring of 1700, in connection with the outbreak of the Northern War, two royal decrees were issued in the interests of the Baltic nobility.
In one of them, taking into account the dissatisfaction of a significant part of the Baltic nobility with the reduction, the king announced the complete cessation of measures related to the reduction, in the other he promised to continue to protect and even "increase" the noble liberties and privileges.
The second decree - a kind of royal manifesto - was solemnly addressed to "the chivalry of the duchies of Estonia, Livonia and Ingermanland."
Both decrees of Charles XII clearly expressed the noble-serf character of the Swedish policy in the Baltics.
Question 1. What do you see as the main causes of the economic crisis in Russia in 1812-1815?
Answer. The reasons:
1) the ban on trade with Great Britain caused more damage to the Russian economy than to the British one;
2) military spending in 1812 reached astronomical sums;
3) the ruin of the western provinces and their subsequent restoration required large funds, for example, residents of the affected cities, and not only Moscow, were paid benefits totaling 15 million rubles;
4) French intelligence brought to Russia a large number of supporting paper rubles specifically to undermine the economy.
Question 2. Which sectors of the economy were in the most difficult situation? What measures did the landlords take to bring their farms out of the crisis?
Answer. Agriculture suffered the most, and the peasant households, which formed the basis of the economy, had the hardest time. Their ruin meant disaster both for their immediate owners and for the economy of the empire as a whole.
Question 3. Under what conditions was the liberation of the peasants in the Baltic States? Why was there no universal abolition of serfdom in Russia?
Answer. The Baltic peasants were freed without land. Accordingly, they had to be hired by the landowners, still perform essentially the same duties, only now the landowner was not obliged to take care of their fate. Such a reform throughout Russia could cause unprecedented peasant unrest: Russian peasants, unlike the Baltic states, considered the land to be the main value at that time, for the sake of owning it they were even ready to endure captivity. And most importantly, conservative circles of the landowners themselves would have opposed such measures, which would have been much more dangerous for the emperor. In the Baltic states, the vast majority of German estate owners themselves initiated such a reform. In the rest of Russia, many nobles were not ready to revise the centuries-old foundations.
Question 4. What was the meaning of the project A. A. Arakcheeva?
Answer. The first project of A.A. Arakcheev actually assumed the personal freedom of peasants without land, but in a disguised form and in stages. It was proposed to gradually redeem the land from the landowners who would agree to this (at that time, many mortgaged their estates to pay off their debts). From the land received, it was proposed to allocate to the peasants allotments so small that they would go to be hired by the landowners, that is, they would do the same as they had to do in the event of will without land.
Question 5. What tasks were to solve the organization of military settlements? Have these goals been achieved?
Answer. The main task was to reduce the cost of maintaining the army. This task was successfully completed: for the period from 1825 to 1850, 45.5 million rubles were saved. However, the creation of military settlements limited the possibility of free development of the economy.
Question 6. Give a general description of the development of Russian industry and trade.
Answer. Industry in Russia mainly fulfilled state orders, therefore its heavy industry flourished. However, light industry also gradually developed. Steam engines were introduced into production, as in all of continental Europe (in the UK, this process took place even earlier, at the end of the 18th century). However, due to the preservation of serfdom, the introduction of new technologies was slow: the low cost of labor of serfs often made it economically unprofitable to spend large sums on new equipment, and subsequently it was not possible to save so much to cover the costs. On the positive side, the number of hired workers in industry grew, albeit slowly. The development of industry demanded better means of communication. Therefore, new canals were built, there were no railways in Russia yet. The main trade continued to be conducted at fairs. This shows how little, despite the development, industry was developed, because for the sale of its products, this form of trade turned out to be sufficient.
