Change in the Russian Empire

In the mid 19th century, the imperial system of Russia, like that of the Austrian Empire, experienced an unsettling shock that raised questions about its effectiveness and durability.

Crimea became the main theater of the war after it was invaded by the allied powers and the impact of the conflict on neighboring Ukraine was greater than on any other area of the empire. The Ukrainian provinces functioned as the primary source of supplies for the imperial armies and their inhabitants were recruited in large numbers to serve either as frontline troops or border guards, wagoners, and fortification workers. An example of the kinds of strains that began to be felt in Ukraine itself was the so-called Kievan Cossack movement of 1855. When the tsarist government announced in that year the formation of a volunteer militia, Ukrainian peasants, construing it to mean a renewal of Cossackdom that, to their minds, was synonymous with freedom from serf obligations, rushed by the thousands to form “Cossack” units and refused to serve their landlords. The situation became critical in Kiev province, where over 180,000 peasants from more than 400 villages identified themselves as Cossacks and demanded an end to serfdom. With the arrival of troops, order was restored, but the incident clearly revealed one of the internal weaknesses that plagued the empire.

These weaknesses were even more apparent on the Crimean battlefront where, despite the heroic defense of Sevastopol, the Russian troops suffered ultimate defeat. Aside from badly undermining Russian prestige, the defeat demonstrated dramatically how far Russia had fallen behind the modernized, industrializing Western countries. Russian backwardness was evident at every turn: their rifles had only half the range of English and French weapons; their supplies and communications networks were less effective than those of the West Europeans, despite the fact that the latter were thousands of miles from their home bases; the Russian command structure, notable exceptions notwithstanding, proved to be incompetent; and tsarist soldiers, most of whom were serfs, although not lacking in bravery, were wanting in both technical skill and initiative. Crushed by the defeat, Nicholas I died in 1855. His son Alexander II came to the throne fully cognizant of the empire’s desperate need for reform. The emancipation of the serfs

During a speech to the nobles of Moscow in 1855, the new tsar declared: “It is preferable to abolish serfdom from above than to wait until the serfs abolish it from below.”³ Even Nicholas I, the archconservative father of the new tsar, had let it be known that serfdom would have to be dismantled sooner or later. Radical and liberal members of the gentry-intelligentsia had for decades demanded an end to the “hateful institution.” But when Alexander II made his memorable comment, it became clear that he had reached the historic decision to launch a series of reforms aimed primarily at the abolition of serfdom.

As with any historic turning point, the decision to reform sparked a debate among historians about its causes. Some Western scholars are convinced that economic factors were decisive in bringing about the reforms. They argue that the opening of the Black Sea ports and the growing participation of Russia’s landowners in world trade made them aware of the drawbacks of serf labor.

There are also scholars who contend that although economic factors were important, other considerations were equally, if not more, significant. Soviet historians are adamant in insisting that peasant unrest created a “revolutionary situation” that frightened the tsar and nobles into making concessions.⁴ According to their statistics, between 1856 and i860, there were 276 disturbances involving about 160,000 peasants in Ukraine alone. The American historian Alfred Rieber has argued that the desire to modernize the imperial army was primarily responsible for the reforms.⁵ Meanwhile, the Englishman Bernard Pares claimed that it was Russia’s anxiety about falling behind the West.⁶ Other historians prefer to emphasize the role of the liberal intelligentsia, which, by means of moving novels, polemics, and poems (such as Shevchenko’s), made serfdom appear morally reprehensible. There is, however, agreement on one point: the crushing blow of Russian defeat in the Crimean War was the precipitating factor that shocked the imperial establishment into recognizing the need for immediate reform.

Aware of how potentially explosive the emancipation of the serfs could be, Alexander II proceeded carefully.

Although many nobles were less than enthusiastic about emancipation, they realized that it was inevitable. Therefore, from the outset, the key questions were the terms of the reform and the manner in which it would be carried out. To calm their anxieties, the tsarist government made it clear that, first and foremost, the interests of the nobility, still considered to be the chief pillar of the regime, would be safeguarded. As for the emancipation of the serfs, the two aspects that had to be considered were the serfs’ personal status and their relationship to the land. Although it was assumed that serfs would be declared free men, the question arose whether this freedom would be complete or whether it should be limited in some way. The prospect of millions of peasants suddenly set loose to go where they pleased and do what they wished filled many a noble and bureaucrat with consternation. There was also the complex question of landownership. Was the serf to be freed with or without land? And if he was to be freed with land, on what terms would it be granted to him?

Given the differing landholding patterns that prevailed in various parts of the empire, it is no wonder that nobles were divided on the issue of land allotments to the peasantry.

On 19 February 1861, Alexander II issued a manifesto abolishing serfdom. Although a document of epochal significance, it was in effect a clumsy and confusing statement that gave peasants the impression that their long-awaited emancipation would be neither quick nor fully satisfactory.

The act of emancipation did free serfs from the personal authority of their landowners. But, while it transformed former serfs into citizens, it did not entail full equality. Unlike other segments of society, emancipated serfs were still obliged to pay the head tax.

The qualifications and complexities associated with the issue of landownership were even more disheartening to the peasants. Basically, the reform allowed landowners to keep about one-half of their estates for personal use, while the other half was to be redistributed among their former serfs. The crucial stipulation was that peasants would have to pay for their allotments. Because peasants had little or no money, the arrangement was that the government would pay the landlords 80% of the cost of the land they sold in the form of treasury bonds, and the peasants would, in turn, be obligated to repay this amount with interest to the government over a period of forty-nine years. The remaining 20% of the cost of the allotments would be paid directly to the landlord by the peasants, either in cash or, what was more likely, in the form of negotiated labor obligations.

For those who could not shoulder the financial burdens of the settlement, an alternative called a “pauper’s allotment” was provided in the form of an outright grant of a tiny plot, about 2.5 acres in size. Less fortunate were the serfs who worked as servants in the homes of landlords – in Ukraine they numbered about 440,000 – for emancipation brought them freedom, but no land.

In the allocation of land, the reform took regional variations into account. Cultivated land was divided into three categories: black earth, non-black earth, and steppe land. In general, peasant allotments in the latter two categories, which represented land of poorer quality, were larger, while those in black earth regions, such as Ukraine, were smaller.

Generally speaking, peasants emerged from the reforms with less land at their disposal than they had had prior to 1861. In the Russian north, peasants lost about 10% of their former plots. In the Left Bank and in southern Ukraine their holdings were reduced by almost 30%. Thus, whereas the average size of peasant holdings in the empire was about 27 acres per family, in the Left Bank and in southern Ukraine it was only 18 acres per family.

Landlords in Ukraine appear to have fared especially well in the bargain. Through the use of various tactics during the period of negotiation and redistribution of land, they appropriated forests, meadows, and ponds that had previously been considered common property. Invariably, they kept the most fertile areas for themselves and sold inferior land at inflated prices. In the course of redistribution, they often forced peasants to move, thereby imposing additional expense upon the poor. To be sure, these practices were common throughout the empire, but, in Ukraine, where competition for land was keenest, they were especially widespread. As a result, the peasants of the Left Bank and southern Ukraine fared much worse than their Russian neighbors.

The Right Bank was an exception to this rule. Because the government had serious doubts about the loyalty of the Polish nobles in the region (the Polish uprising of 1863 confirmed their misgivings), it sought to win over the Ukrainian peasantry of the region to its side by making allotments that were about 18% larger than those that had been held by the peasants prior to 1861. But what the former serfs gained in allotment size, they lost in the highly inflated prices they had to pay for their lands at this time.

Another particularity of the reforms in Ukraine involved the forms of landownership. In Russia, where over 95% of the peasants lived in communes (obshchiny), deeds to the newly acquired land were held collectively and payment for the land was a communal responsibility. But in Ukraine, communal ownership was rare. Over 85% of the peasants on the Right Bank and almost 70% on the Left Bank worked individual homesteads. Therefore, most Ukrainian peasant families took individual title to their land and personally shouldered the responsibility for the debt on it. This arrangement served to strengthen the already well-developed attachment to private property that distinguished Ukrainian peasants from their Russian counterparts.

We must remember that not all peasants were serfs. Roughly half were state-peasants, of whom there were at least thirty different categories, including about 1 million former Cossacks in Ukraine. They were usually better off than privately owned serfs, for although they paid a higher head tax to the state, which was in effect their landlord, they could leave their villages without permission, had more land at their disposal and there were no petty, exploitative landlords to contend with (but corrupt bureaucrats were a frequent nuisance). The reform of 1861 and the law of 1866, in particular, emancipated the state-peasants more quickly and on terms that were more favorable than those accorded serfs. Along with their freedom, they received larger plots and paid proportionately less for them than did serfs. On the Right Bank, however, the condition of the state-peasants showed very little improvement.

Generally speaking, the peasants, and especially former serfs, were disappointed by the reform. They expected it to bring them immediate and outright ownership of their plots; instead, they found the size of their plots reduced and crushing financial burdens imposed upon them. A wave of unrest rolled through the countryside, but its intensity varied from region to region. On the Left Bank and in southern Ukraine, there were relatively few disturbances. However, on the Right Bank, memories of the haidamak uprisings were still strong; religioethnic as well as socioeconomic differences fueled animosities between the Ukrainian Orthodox peasantry and the Polish Catholic nobility; and minor clashes were widespread. But order was always quickly restored and the peasants resumed their struggle for their daily bread, albeit under markedly different circumstances. Other reforms

The abolition of serfdom entailed other reforms. One aspect of imperial society urgently needing improvement was the local administration. As society changed, and especially after serfs acquired rights of citizenship, demand for local services increased. However, the imperial government had neither the personnel nor the money to meet these demands. Therefore, in 1864, it allowed communities to elect their own representatives on the county and provincial levels to oversee such matters as education, medical care, postal services, road maintenance, food reserves in case of famine, and collection of statistics. To finance these services, the local committees, or zemstva (singular: zemstvo), were given the right to impose local taxes.

In a radical departure from the usual tsarist practice of appointing all government officials, members of the zemstvo were elected from an electorate divided into three separate categories: large landowners, townsmen, and peasants. The impact of voters was proportional to the amount of land they owned. As might be expected, the great majority of zemstvo members were noblemen. In Ukraine, they usually made up over 75% of zemstvo membership, with peasants rarely constituting more than 10%. But although they were not truly representative, the zemstva performed a very important function. Besides helping to raise the general standard of living in the countryside, they introduced local populations to a limited measure of self-government.

In Ukraine, a network of zemstva was established on the Left Bank and in the south. However, because the recent rebellion of Polish nobles, zemstva were not instituted on the Right Bank until 1911. Because they represented local interests, the zemstva tended to be much more sensitive to Ukrainian cultural aspirations than was the imperial bureaucracy. The Poltava zemstva in particular became associated with Ukrainophile tendencies in the latter part of the century, and it served as a training ground for many leaders of the Ukrainian movement.

In even greater need of improvement was the legal system. Much of the problem lay in the Russians’ poorly developed sense of legality. Imperial bureaucrats, who were responsible for many legal decisions, considered justice to be a department of the state and, in their view, courts existed to decide what was in the interests of the state. Individual rights were irrelevant or, at best, of secondary importance. Thus, trials were held in secret, judges were often corrupt, and their frequently arbitrary decisions were based on class distinctions – with harsher punishments meted out to the lower classes and lighter sentences going to the nobles. The legal reform of 1864 improved this situation considerably: it made the judiciary an independent branch of government, free from bureaucratic interference. Henceforth, trials were held openly, with contending sides arguing their respective cases. One of the ramifications of this change was that it gave the impetus for the rise of a new occupational group – the lawyers.

Important changes were also introduced in other areas of imperial society. The educational reforms of the 1860s provided the lower classes with greater access to all levels of education, universities included. They also improved the curricula and granted universities greater autonomy. At the same time, censorship regulations were loosened, although it still remained unclear to what extent one could advocate “subversive” ideas. In 1874, the harsh terms of militairy service were amended to require all classes, not just the lower strata of society, to render military service. The length of service was also reduced from twenty-five years to six and an array of exemptions was made available. Significance of the reforms

Although the “great reforms” did not revolutionize the conditions of life for Ukrainians and other subjects of the Russian Empire, they did introduce basic changes. Western scholars often emphasize the personal freedom that they brought the serfs, the development of the zemstvo led local government, and the new appreciation for legality that they introduced. For their part, Soviet historians believe that the reforms ushered in the epochal transition from feudalism to a bourgeois, capitalist society in Russia. It is clear that the reforms had serious shortcomings, but there is general agreement that the subsequent socioeconomic modernization of the empire would have been impossible without them.

In Ukraine, where the percentage of the population who were serfs was roughly 42%, compared to an imperial average of about 35%, the impact of emancipation was that much greater. As education improved, legal protection became more widespread, and local government more entrenched, national particularities and local interests had a greater opportunity for self-expression. Certainly, various ideologies, including that of Ukrainian nationhood, would now find it easier to reach a broader constituency.

The changes and reforms introduced by the Austrian and Russian Empires in 1848 and in the 1860s, respectively, had important similarities. Although forced upon both empires, particulary on the Austrian, the reforms were nonetheless implemented “from the top” by regimes that still retained political control. Fundamental, but not revolutionary, they left much of the old regimes intact. Yet they clearly hastened the coming of a new era, one in which the masses and their representatives would exert a growing influence on political, socioeconomic, and cultural activity. Thus, in both the Austrian and Russian empires, the changes of the mid 19th century were a giant step toward modernity.

In terms of understanding the impact of this era on the Ukrainians, the differences between the Austrian and Russian reforms were as significant as were the similarities. The revolutionary year of 1848 brought two main issues to the fore among the Ukrainians of the Austrian Empire: the socioeconomic plight of the peasantry and the national aspirations of the clergy-intelligentsia. Of crucial importance was the fact that in Western Ukraine these issues were interrelated, since the Poles who opposed Ukrainian national goals were often the self-same noblemen who exploited the peasants. Thus, for West Ukrainians, nationality was from the outset associated with such bread-and-butter issues as education, local government, and social legislation. In time, this linkage would endow nationhood with a relevance among the peasants that it had already attained among the intelligentsia. Naturally, Habsburg acquiescence in the establishment of a constitutional government that – despite its limitations and imperfections – allowed West Ukrainians to express and defend their national and socioeconomic interests in parliament, also increased peasant involvement. Thus, the socioeconomically disadvantaged West Ukrainians who inhabited the most backward lands of the Austrian Empire were presented with opportunities for political, organizational, and cultural activity that Ukrainians in Russia did not have.

For the Ukrainians of the Russian Empire, the profound changes of the 1860s had little impact on the development of their national movement. The nationality question in Russia could not share the limelight with socioeconomic problems as it did in Austria for a variety of reasons – including the cultural and demographic preponderance of Russians in the empire; the inherent tsarist distrust of pluralism; the tsar’s refusal even to consider a constitution that might create the means for national and regional self-expression; the weakness of communal organizations; and the government’s harsh, repressive policies toward the national movements among the non-Russians of the empire. As a result, the crucial linkage between the peasantry’s socioeconomic condition and the national aspirations of the intelligentsia was absent. This circumstance severely stunted the growth of national consciousness among the Ukrainians of the Russian Empire.