Russia As It Is And Not As It Has Been Represented (1833) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: public affairs in general assembly. About four hundred years ago, when all Russia became subject to the sway of a single sovereign, the Boyars acquired authority over the people. Although the Tsars, in succession, granted territorial possessions to the nobles, they gave them no power over the persons of the cultivators of the lands, until about one hundred years back, when the peasants were attached to the glebe. The Dvoranin, or noble, then became the master of the peasants, who cultivated his lands, but under a contract between them, as the name, in the legislative acts of Krapostnoe or bondsmen, where certain rights and privileges were observed to them, points out. These rights exist at this hour in all their vigour, and the situation of vassals has been greatly ameliorated within the last twenty years. I have dwelt upon this point, to show my readers that slavery does not exist, nor was it ever known, in Russia; and vassalage, the true name of it, is not of very ancient date; nor is it of that extreme servile kind it has been described by those who have purposely spoken only of its abuses, ?insulated examples of tyranny, brutal behaviour, and oppression. To the honor and glory of Russia, it must be declared that slavery, such as exists in the United States of America, the West Indies, and elsewhere, never was known on her foil. The peasants have always enjoyed, and still preserve, unimpaired, their ancient free elective institutions in the government of the villages, and of which they never have been deprived for an instant. My readers must now be convinced that an arbitrary system of slavery never was contemplated, or ever has existed, in Russia. Whatever may have been the abuses which have taken place, arising out chapter{Section 4 of the limited submission of the peop...