Crimean War and the Emancipation of Ukrainian Serfs 1856

Meanwhile, in the parts of the Ukrainian territory that it controlled, Russia adopted a different “reform” process to deal with the perceived threat of Ukrainian nationalism. In 1839, the Uniate Church was dissolved and incorporated in the Russian Orthodox matrix.

Ukraine under Russian control had far less freedom of identity than Ukraine had under Austrian rule. Russia strictly censored the press and curtailed civil freedoms, constantly pushing the we are all Russians policy. Cossack officers were russified by giving them the same status as Russian nobles. Under Catherine II, the peasants were forced into the “corvee” system, where they had to work for a landlord in lieu of rent.

That serfdom lasted until after Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War in 1856, although they were only fully emancipated five years later, in 1861. However, they still had to perform all the rural labor functions they had performed before. History teaches that political elites exact benefits from the discounted labor of the poor, as well as cash benefits from taxing them. The Poles, Cossacks, Austrians, and Russian Tsars (and later the Russian Communist Party) all had different political dispensations—but in each of them, the Ukrainian peasants played the same role. Ukraine continued to be a nation of peasants under foreign rule.