The Enserfment of the Peasantry

As the nobility’s fortunes rose, those of the peasantry declined. From the point of view of the nobility, the role of the peasant was to provide cheap labor. Because nobles controlled the political system, they were in a position to raise their demands on the peasants almost at will.

To facilitate the exploitation of the peasantry, the nobles systematically deprived them of their traditional forms of self-administration, removing or buying out the village elders with their old “Moldavian” or “German” laws and administering the villages directly, in accordance with Polish laws. This process of noble interference and dominance in village affairs began as early as 1457 when the nobles obtained the right to judge their peasants. Eventually, this circumstance allowed a nobleman to control various aspects of his peasants’ private lives. Some noblemen went so far as to charge their peasants a fee for allowing them to marry. They also forced peasants to use the mills and taverns that they owned and frequently leased to Jews. By the time the Voloky Ustav of 1557 was passed, the peasants’ right to own land was no longer legally recognized.

Faced with steadily worsening conditions, many peasants tried to exercise their traditional right to leave their lord’s land and seek better conditions elsewhere. But even this option was gradually eliminated. Initially, peasants were allowed to leave only at certain times in the year, most commonly at Christmas, and only if they paid an exit fee and found a replacement. In 1496, this right was restricted to only one peasant household in a village per year. Finally, in 1505, the sejm completely forbade peasants to leave their villages without their lord’s permission. Unable to move, deprived of personal rights, exploited at will, the peasant became a serf, little better than a slave of his nobleman landlord. Thus, at a time when the institution of serfdom was dying out in Western Europe, the second edition of serfdom, as Engels called it, reemerged in a particularly oppressive form in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

But the extent of serfdom in Ukraine varied greatly. In the more populated, western regions like Galicia and Volhynia, where Polish influence was strong, it was quite prevalent and severe. However, in the sparsely populated regions like the Carpathian highlands and, especially, the Dnieper River basin, where labor was scarce and concessions had to be made to peasants, serfdom was practically unknown. Moreover, the Ukrainian peasantry did not give in to serfdom without a struggle. In 1490–92, a series of peasant uprisings, led by a certain Mukha, enveloped Moldavia, Bukovyna, and Galicia. Although the rebels numbered about 10,000 men, they were handicapped by the classical weaknesses of all peasant uprisings: inexperienced leadership, lack of organization, poor military skills, and strictly local concerns. As a result, they were quickly defeated, demonstrating thereby that without the help of a militarily and politically more experienced class, the peasantry alone was incapable of challenging the nobles’ monopoly on power and privilege.

While the inclusion of the Ukrainians in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth exposed them to the invigorating influence of the West, it also laid the foundations for deep-seated problems that would bedevil Ukrainians (and Poles) for centuries. As a result of the grain boom, Ukraine’s economy, like that of Poland proper, became extremely imbalanced and one-dimensional because almost all economic activity focused on agriculture. Meanwhile, towns and industry stagnated. This economic disequilibrium was accompanied by a great and growing social imbalance: the nobility of the Commonwealth gained extraordinary privileges, while the peasantry experienced a drastic decline in its condition. Because power, wealth, and privilege in the Commonwealth were increasingly associated with Polishness, resentment grew among those who would not or could not identify with Polish culture.