Serfs, slaves, or wage earners? The legal status of labour in Russia from a comparative perspective, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Stanziani
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
The West ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Wage Earners

AbstractComparative analyses of labour in Russia and the West often assume a dividing line between free and forced labour that is universally applicable. The first aim of this article is to show that, in Russia, the historical and institutional definition of serfdom poses a problem. I will therefore explore Russian legislation, and how it was applied, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Contrary to generally accepted arguments, serfdom as such was never clearly introduced institutionally in Russia. I will also discuss the presence of slaves in Russia, and the association between certain forms of servitude (especially for debt) and slavery. The presence of chattel slaves in the empire was related to territorial expansion, and to commercial relations with the Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire. Russian forms of bondage are compared to those in other situations, such as indentured service in the West, debt servitude in India, and Islamic slavery. My conclusion is that, not only in Russia but also around the globe, the prevailing forms of labour were not those familiar to us today, which were not introduced until the early twentieth century. Russia constituted an extreme case in a world in which severe constraints were imposed everywhere on labour and its movement, and the legal status of the wage earner and the peasant was lower than that of the master.

Russia and the Eastern Question

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Bitis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
Book Covers ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
The Military ◽  
European Diplomacy

This book covers one of the most important and persistent problems in nineteenth-century European diplomacy, the Eastern Question. The Eastern Question was essentially shorthand for comprehending the international consequences caused by the gradual and apparently terminal decline of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. This volume examines the military and diplomatic policies of Russia as it struggled with the Ottoman Empire for influence in the Balkans and the Caucasus. The book is based on extensive use of Russian archive sources and it makes a contribution to our understanding of issues such as the development of Russian military thought, the origins and conduct of the 1828–1829 Russo-Turkish War, the origins and conduct of the 1826–1828 Russo-Persian War and the Treaty of Adrianople. The book also considers issues such as the Russian army's use of Balkan irregulars, the reform of the Danubian Principalities (1829 –1834), the ideas of the ‘Russian Party’ and Russian public opinion toward the Eastern Question.

The Safavids

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
The West ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Family ◽  
Imperial Capital ◽  
Architectural Patronage ◽  
Landed Gentry

The Safavids (1501–1722) controlled a land-based empire that comprised the modern-day nation of Iran, with extensions into Iraq, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan. The family of the Safavids originated as Sufi mystical sheikhs based in the region of Azerbaijan but were later imperialized thanks to the dynastic founder, Shah Ismaʿil (r. 1501–1524). The transition from Sufi tariqa to imperial polity was not smooth, and Ismaʿil faced external threats from the Ottoman Empire to the west, as well as internal pressure from his popular base, the Qizilbash tribal Turks who revered their shah as both a Sufi sheikh as well as a manifestation of the millenarian figure Mahdi who was popularly understood as the Muslim agent of the Apocalypse. The success of the Safavids was partly based on their ability to distance their family from such decentralized, tribal elements and seek out those constituencies that could help with regard to establishing and building legitimacy: orthodox Twelver Shiʿite jurists and scholars as well as urban Persian administrators and bureaucrats. It was Ismaʿil and his successor, Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576), who proclaimed and enforced Twelver Shiʿism as the new state doctrine, thus contributing to a stark Sunni-Shiʿite division between themselves and their neighboring rival empires of the Ottomans and the Uzbeks. The apogee of the Safavid Empire took place during the reign of Shah ʿAbbas (r. 1589–1629) who, among other things, transformed Isfahan into a city of international stature with fantastic architectural patronage while at the same time enticing European merchants and traders to trade in textiles, silk, and other manufactured goods. Following the reign of Shah ʿAbbas, the Safavid Empire became less stable and more susceptible to outside elements, namely those Caucasian nobles and landed gentry who had been previously incorporated into the Safavid state as court officials, provincial governors, and ranking military officers. Concurrently, there was a rise in conservative orthodoxy among the Shiʿite religious scholars, and the previous era of open trade and strong international relations began to wane as Christians, Jews, and other minorities became increasingly targeted and persecuted. By the end of the 17th century, the Safavid court was politically isolated from the other provinces, so much so that the imperial capital was easily besieged and conquered in 1722 by an invading conglomerate of Afghan tribes.

The Recuperation of Sovereign Rights by Asian Countries, circa 1870–1945: From Capitulations to Equal Relations, the Dutch Experience

Itinerario ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. A. Bootsma
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Far East ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Dutch Experience

Western expansion in Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth century resulted in two different groups of Asian countries: those which fell victim to European colonialism and those which managed to maintain the basis of their sovereign rights. This contribution will concentrate on the second group, including not only the countries of the so-called Far East but those of the Middle Eastern Ottoman Empire as well. The link between these two otherwise separate worlds is the concept of consular jurisdiction. It originated in the Islamic world and was transplanted by the West to China, Japan and Siam in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth, it became the touchstone in the relations of the Asian countries with the West in their struggle for equality.

scholarly journals The Legal Status of Labour from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century: Russia in a Comparative European Perspective

2009 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Stanziani
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
The West ◽  
State Service ◽  
Labour Contracts

SummarySince at least the eighteenth century, free labour in “the West” has been contrasted with serf labour in Russia and “eastern Europe”. This paper intends to call that view into question and to show that serfdom was never officially institutionalized in Russia, and that the regulations usually invoked to justify that opinion were actually intended not to “bind” the peasantry but to identify noble estate owners, as distinct from nobles in state service or the “bourgeoisie”. However, it is a matter not only of legal definitions. This paper studies how the tsarist administration, nobles, and peasants themselves made use of courts of law in order to contest ownership titles and, on that basis, the obligations and legal status of peasants and workers. Great changes had occurred in their legal status before the official abolition of serfdom in 1861, in outcomes that were rather similar to those which had been recently achieved in the “second serfdom” in Prussia, Lithuania, and Poland. In turn, that means that such labour contracts and institutions were not the opposites of “free labour” contracts and institutions, which placed many more constraints on workers than is usually acknowledged. To prove the point, we compare tsarist regulations with the Master and Servants Acts and indenture in Britain and its Empire and with French regulations on labour, domesticity, and day labourers.

An Examination of Russian Imperialism: Russian Military and Intellectual Descriptions of the Caucasians during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Keziban Acar
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Large Region ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Russian Military

In nineteenth-century Russia, the Caucasus was a large region composed of various territories and ethnic and religious groups. This region included Circassia, Mingrelia, Georgia, a part of Armenia, the ancient Media, Daghestan and the territories of Suanctians, Ossetians, Abkhazians, Karakalpaks and other mountaineer nations. During the nineteenth century, Persia, Russia and the Ottoman Empire wanted to establish their influence and power on the Caucasus. Due to this conflict, these powers, especially Russia with Persia and Russia with the Ottoman Empire, fought with each other.

scholarly journals Ilija Garasanin on Serbia's statehood

Balcanica ◽  
2008 ◽  
pp. 131-174
Author(s):  
Rados Ljusic
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Political Career ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Balkan States ◽  
Constitutional Issue

A subject usually neglected in the historical work on Ilija Garasanin?s role as a statesman has been discussed. Attention has been drawn to the legal status of Serbia at the moment Garasanin entered civil service and how it changed during the thirty years of his political career (1837?67). The first part of the paper looks at his views against the background of three vitally important issues for Serbia?s legal status at the time: the constitutional issue, the issue of hereditary succession and the issue of internal independence. His views on the three issues reflect his understanding of the existing status of the Principality of Serbia. The second part of the paper looks at how he envisaged a future Serbian state. Its largest portion is naturally devoted to the ideas put forth in the Nacertanije (1844), the first programme of nineteenth-century Serbia?s national and foreign policy. It also looks at Garasanin?s attempt, made through the Serbian representative at the Porte in the revolutionary year 1848, to achieve the reorganization of the Ottoman Empire into a dual monarchy with the Serbian United States (or a Serbian vice-kingdom) as a constituent state. Finally, attention has been paid to the creation of a Balkan alliance through agreements concluded by Balkan states.

Contents of Western Sociology of Religion as a Science and Educational Discipline

2002 ◽  
pp. 106-110
Author(s):  
Liudmyla O. Fylypovych
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Society ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Sociology of religion in the West is a field of knowledge with at least 100 years of history. As a science and as a discipline, the sociology of religion has been developing in most Western universities since the late nineteenth century, having established traditions, forming well-known schools, areas related to the names of famous scholars. The total number of researchers of religion abroad has never been counted, but there are more than a thousand different centers, universities, colleges where religion is taught and studied. If we assume that each of them has an average of 10 religious scholars, theologians, then the army of scholars of religion is amazing. Most of them are united in representative associations of researchers of religion, which have a clear sociological color. Among them are the most famous International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR) and the Society for Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR).

The Late-Victorian ‘New Man’ and the Neo-Victorian ‘Neo-Man’

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-121
Author(s):  
Margaret D. Stetz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
New Man ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
The New Woman ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Victorian Age

The New Man was a crucial topic of discussion and a continual preoccupation in late-Victorian feminist writing, precisely because he was more often a wished-for presence than an actual one. Nevertheless, creators of neo-Victorian fiction and film repeatedly project him backwards onto the screen of literary history, representing him as having in fact existed in the Victorian age as a complement to the New Woman. What is at stake in retrospectively situating the New Man – or, as I will call him, the ‘Neo-Man’ – in the nineteenth century, through historical fiction? If one impulse behind fictional returns to the Victorian period is nostalgia, then what explains this nostalgia for The Man Who Never Was? This essay will suggest that neo-Victorian works have a didactic interest in transforming present-day readers, especially men, through depictions of the Neo-Man, which broaden the audience's feminist sympathies, queer its notions of gender relations, and alter its definition of masculinity.

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