Emancipation of the Serfs

• when was it issued

  19th February 1861
• Serfs were granted their personal freedom

  Over a period of two years
• Freedoms granted to the freed peasants

  • Freedom to own land
  • Freedom to marry without interference
  • Freedom to use the law courts
• Houses and plots around those houses

  Granted to the freed peasants, which they had previously worked
• Edict confirmed the landlords' legal ownership of the land on their estates

  1. Provided (from 1863 onwards) for the purchase of some of that land by the peasants

  2. Maximum and minimum prices were laid down based upon the productivity of the land in different regions

  3. Precise details were to be negotiated between peasant and landlord
• Government was to compensate landlords for land transferred to the peasantry

  Paying them the purchase price in the form of government bonds
• Government charged the peasants 'redemption dues'

  In the form of regular repayments over a period of 49 years
• The same terms applied to state peasants, although in their case the period of transition to freedom was five years
• Domestic serfs who had not previously worked the land did not receive land under the terms of the Edict
• Crimean War revealed how Russia was backwards and undeveloped in comparison to other countries
• resulted in reduced political role for the nobility at local level so Zemstvas were created
• members of local government now had to be elected
• approximately 15% of peasants remained 'temporarily obligated' to their landlords until 1881 when redemption was made compulsory