Given in St. Petersburg, on the nineteenth day of February in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one from the birth of Christ, and the seventh of Our reign.
Alexander.[f]
EFFECTS OF THE NEW CONDITIONS
Let us now turn our attention to the epoch in which this law was published. As regards the effect of the new law on the mind of the population, it was soon evidenced, that the cultivated classes, burdened as they were with sacrifices for the work of reform, expressed their joy and satisfaction at this great acquisition, far more readily than the peasants, whom it immediately concerned. The disaffected portion of the Russian nobility was and remained decidedly in the minority, especially under the first impression of the great and decided step that had been taken, and no one ventured to manifest disapproval. Public opinion had declared itself too decidedly in favour of the government for any one to venture on opposition. On the contrary, the number was by no means unimportant, of those among the nobles and officials, who exceeded even the demands of the government, and who could not suppress their vexation, that their desire that the lands possessed by the community should be gratuitously transferred into their property, had been disregarded. Although these voices were not distinctly audible until a later period, still from the first they had influence, because they could reckon on the sympathies of the freed portion of the population. Moreover a great part of the nobles, at that time, looked for a rich compensation for the sacrifice they had made; they hoped to be able to excite public opinion in favour of the embryo demand for the restoration of a constitution, and by its assistance to reach the desired goal. Thus the disaffected feelings of the hitherto ruling classes were veiled, and maintained in one balance, by hopes of the future; at the most a small band of stubborn adherents to the system of Nicholas grumbled at the liberalism come into fashion, could not conceal their vexation at the loss of their revenues, and used every effort to recover their lost influence in the court circles.
The Russian peasant received the important tidings of the breaking of his fetters with profound silence; and some time elapsed before he had made up his mind what position to assume with regard to it. Partly, the habitual want of freedom had become too inveterate, and was too deeply rooted, to be at once cast aside; and partly, the attention of the people was too eagerly directed to the still pending agricultural arrangements with the proprietors, for the publication of the emancipation edict to make at once any evident impression. The effect of the emancipation act was felt most strongly and evidently in the two capitals of the empire; here there were thousands of serfs living (as merchants, second-hand dealers, artisans, drivers, servants, etc.) who had been obliged to purchase with high obroc-payments the right of seeking their gain, and were always in danger of being recalled by the will of their masters and constrained to return to the old position of dependence. To these, the advantages of the newly established arrangement of things were manifest, and the fruits of it could at once be enjoyed; the emancipation law limited the duration of their dependence to merely two years, and fixed an unimportant obroc-sum for this transition period. From these town-serfs, therefore, proceeded the first exhibitions of thankfulness and joy, the first ovations to the “liberating czar.” But here also the weak, womanish character of the Slavonic race did not belie itself; there was no idea of passionate outbursts. The St. Petersburg descriptions of those momentous February days tell most characteristically of intoxicated bands of bearded cab-drivers and artisans, who reeled through the streets, humming as they went “Volyushka, Volyushka,” (literally, “beloved freedom”). Truly effective, however, was the shout of rejoicing, with which the masses of the people received the emperor when he quitted the winter-palace, on the 19th of February, in order to be present at the reading of the emancipation-ukase in the Kazan church; and subsequently, the addresses sent to the emperor by the drivers and lower class of citizens in the two capitals, who had been freed from serfdom.
Although this law had been published throughout the whole empire on the same day in all churches, and the peace-mediators (mirovuye-Posredniki) had at once proceeded to regulate the agricultural questions, the first more important manifestations in the country did not occur until two months later, in the end of April, 1861. These were manifestations of dissatisfaction and disappointment, which appeared east of the Volga, and had the districts of Kazan and Nijni-Novgorod for their principal centre. In all probability they were revolutionary agitators from the higher and more cultivated classes who first scattered the seeds of discontent. The people were persuaded that the true emancipation-ukase of the czar had been craftily intercepted by the nobles and officials; that the will of the czar was to consign to the peasants, without compensation or hindrance, the land they had hitherto cultivated. These doctrines fell on a soil all the more ready, as the services yielded to the masters were in the eyes of the people of a purely personal nature, and were no equivalents for the lands conceded to the communities. “We belong to the proprietors, but the common land belongs to us,” was the creed of the peasant; hence the feeling was, that the abolition of personal servitude was synonymous with the establishment of free property. In the Kazan district, matters soon reached a pitch of open refusal to obedience; and when the magistrates interfered, they amounted to attempts at resistance. Popular discontent assumed at once a genuinely national stamp; it found a leader in a new Pugatchev, the peasant Anton Petrov, who personated the czar (who had fled from St. Petersburg, pursued by the boyars); and within a short time he had gathered round him 10,000 men. After vain attempts to bring back the infatuated men by gentle means to obedience, military power was obliged to be employed. Some battalions, led by Count Apraxin, marched through the insurgent country, and took the ringleader prisoner; and after Petrov had fallen into their hands, and had been immediately shot, order was again so completely established, that in May nothing further was thought of this episode. The peasants returned to their obedience, and everywhere the arrangements of the peace-arbitrator were complied with. Yet the idea of the perfect freedom hoped for, was not yet wholly forgotten; the Volga districts remained for some time longer the scene of revolutionary experiments, which excited the people with the hope of a “new freedom” still to be expected and held fast to the old idea of a gratuitous division of the soil. Under the title Zemliyä i Volyä (Land and Freedom), there appeared from time to time secretly published pamphlets, which endeavoured to give the agrarian question a revolutionary colouring, and which were numerously circulated, in the eastern districts especially. These manifestations of a propaganda, secretly inflaming the public mind, we shall meet with again in other places, and under other forms.
In general, the completion of the arrangement between peasant and lord was unexpectedly quick, and favourable in its course. Little as it can be asserted, that the Russian peasant subsequently made a just use of his newborn liberty, or that agricultural progress exhibited any favourable influence from it; still it is evident, that the peasant population manifested in the arrangement good-will, a just insight into the state of affairs, and great tractableness; and that this matter was justly conceived and handled by those entrusted with it. The execution of the law of the 19th of February, 1861, was not placed in the hands of ordinary magistrates, but was consigned to officials, who were selected ad hoc from the number of landed proprietors, and were furnished with extensive authority. It was a happy idea, and one of decided and lasting importance, that these peace mediators, or arbitrators, as they were called, were not reckoned in the service of the state, and were not fettered to the orders of the bureaucratic hierarchy. For the first time in Russia, men of the most different calling, and social position, stood side by side with equal right to join hands for the execution of a patriotic work, which promised neither title, rank, nor advancement. Generals in command, and mere lieutenants, councillors of the state, and simple titular councillors, once the choice of their fellow-citizens and class-equals fell on them, demanded leave of absence from service, in order to undertake, according to the law, the demarcation between the estates of the nobles and the lands of the community within definite districts, and to induce both parties to agree; it was only where this result could not be attained, that the strict orders of the regulations were enforced, and the co-operation of higher authority was appealed to.[h]
ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT (1863 A.D.)
[1863 A.D.]
The first reform that followed on the abolition of the law of serfdom, which had been an unsurmountable obstacle to any improvement and reform in the political organisation of the state, was the abolition of the cruel and shameful corporal punishments which were formerly allotted for crimes.