Prior to the year 1900, Russia was experiencing a degree of inefficiency pertaining to both economy and politics. By the time Tsar Alexander II assumed the throne in 1855, Russia was embroiled in the Crimean War (which it suffered an embarrassing defeat only a year later), there were land and food shortages, and dissent was growing among the masses. The institution of serfdom had been in place since its the enactment of the Ulozhenie in 1649. Many of Russia's internal struggles were considered, by many, to have roots in serfdom. In 1856, Alexander declared that "the existing condition of owning souls cannot remain unchanged. It is better to begin to destroy serfdom from above than wiat until that time when it begins to destroy itself from below." Although Alexander II liberated the serfs from being tied to the land, the serfs were still largely downtrodden due to the taxes imposed on them as a means reimbursing the boyar class. This bait and switch aided in peasant resentment towards the tsar. Prior to serf emancipation, the peasants believed that the boyar class was entirely responsible for their suffering and that the tsar was unable to save them. The move to burden the peasants with heavy taxation in favor of the boyar class fueled a revolutionary atmosphere at the turn of the 20th century.
This is a painting by Boris Kustodiev (1907) depicting muzhiks listening to the proclamation of the Emancipation Manifesto of 1861
Citations
- http://www.historytoday.com/michael-lynch/emancipation-russian-serfs-1861-charter-freedom-or-act-betrayal
No comments:
Post a Comment