People throughout history have had to endure some pretty tough circumstances. I’ve written here many times about the horrible reality of slavery. It has tarnished our country’s past. And many other places around the world. People abusing other people in the worst way. And there seems there may be no forgiveness for this sin, as it continues to stain our culture today.
Most of us are familiar with the circumstances in the early goings of the United States. But today, I thought I would visit slavery’s not-so-distant cousin, serfdom.
I bring this up because, on this date, March 3, 1861, Alexander II of Russia signed the Emancipation Manifesto. That manifesto freed serfs and granted them the full rights of free citizens.
As you may have noticed by the date, this was two years before Abraham Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the United States.
That Russian Tsar, Alexander II, moved to abolish its system of peasants and serfdom completely. Many people in Russian knew this reform had to take place. Serfdom had dwindled away in Western Europe hundreds of years before.
Previous Tsars had attempted to free the serfs earlier in the century. But none of them ever succeeded. This was mainly because the conservatives of Russia were deeply opposed to freeing them. Sounds a bit familiar to me. Today, we see this in America. The conservatives wish to keep the ultra-rich in power. Meanwhile, the working poor can barely find a way to buy food to eat.
But back to Russia. Even though Alexander passed this Emancipation Manifesto, the condition of the serfs did not automatically improve. Many of them were still bonded through debts to the government or their previous landlords. They had their freedom, but they didn’t have any land of their own to work and grow. Nonetheless, this was an important part of Russian history.
So that we know. Serfdom was / is a condition in medieval Europe in which a “tenant farmer was bound to a hereditary plot of land and to the will of his landlord.”
A lot of people were serfs back in medieval times.
The majority of them made their way, gained their living, and fed themselves by cultivating a plot of land that was owned by a lord. This is the essential characteristic that makes being a serf different from being a slave. Slaves were bought and sold without reference to a plot of land. On the other hand, serfs provided their own food and clothing from their own work and efforts.
But most of what a serf would grow, be it grain or otherwise, had to be given to his lord. The serf also had to use his lord’s grain mills and no others.
And Alexander II? He brought about a lot of reform in Russia. Not only with the serfs, but he also took on military, judicial, and educational reforms. But many people in power there did not like the changes. As such, political disturbances grew, and revolutionaries started using terrorist attacks in their struggle for power.
After four failed assassination attempts by these people, they finally killed Alexander II on March 1, 1881. A member of the organization “Narodnaya Volya” bombed his carriage while he was traveling through St. Petersburg.
I don’t know much about Russian history, but it appears that Alexander II was a good man and a good tzar. But in our world, the kindest, noblest, truest of people are often killed for their beliefs. They are murdered by those who oppose them.
I can only say this. We should walk this Earth with kindness in our hearts and compassion in our minds. We should step lightly. And we should seek to understand others and our world. We should do this more than our own wish to be understood.
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“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
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“Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.”
― John Steinbeck
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“Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”
― Joseph Fort Newton
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The lords ruled. But Alex changed the scheme.
