Enlightened noblemen who were involved in arts and science - we know a lot about them. But what do we know about the people who provided the carefree life of the aristocrats. Serfs. How did they live and what did the owners do with them? Let's get a look.
The personal dependence of the peasant on the landowner - this is how serfdom can be characterized. In fact, a veiled slavery with some reservations. But no one complied with these small restrictions. Elements of serfdom existed for a very long time, but it was finally formalized by the Cathedral Code of 1649. Since that time, the noble landowners have received almost unlimited power over the peasants. In the future, its provisions only tightened, and the power of the landowners over their people reached full bloom at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 19th century.
Landowners could do almost anything with their peasants. Of course, there were some formal restrictions - for example, the prohibition on murder. However, such cases were almost never dealt with, and the punishment was purely formal. But what unlimited power over a defenseless person can lead to is a strong temptation.
Renowned Tormentors
The most famous was Daria Saltykova. She was simply unlucky that Empress Catherine the Great became aware of her deeds and she decided to arrange a show trial. The crimes uncovered by the investigation are terrifying. Saltykova poured boiling water over people, exposed them naked in the frost, and burned them with hot tongs. Contemporaries talk about 75-140 killed and tortured by the landowner personally. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, but what's interesting is that it was after this process that the peasants were officially forbidden to complain about their owners.
Penza landowner Nikolai Struisky remained unpunished, although his entertainment can overshadow even Saltykova. In the basement of his home, he collected a collection of various instruments of torture and tested them on his peasants. There was also a special territory adapted for a shooting range. The victims ran there from wall to wall and quacked, and Struisky fired. On account of his more than two hundred killed.
The punishments that Princess Alexandra Kozlovskaya applied to her servants were distinguished by pathological cruelty and perversion. She stripped people naked and set dogs on them, forced girls to put their bare breasts on a marble tabletop and whipped this delicate part of the body with her own hands.
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Even reading about this is scary and unpleasant. Probably, we can say that these were isolated cases and the people who did this were simply mentally ill, but the system of serfdom itself allowed them to satisfy their unhealthy passions and the forced laborers had no protection. And the question arises - how did the ordinary average landowners, not sadists by nature, treated their peasants?
Routine
By 1861, there were 23 million serfs in Russia, the total population was slightly more than 60 million. That is, more than a third of the residents were completely powerless. This is not a figure of speech, serfs really did not have any civil rights and were not even considered subjects. Their owner was responsible for everything. In fact, people were property. And they treated them like property. Serfs were sold and exchanged, paying no attention to either families or households. The main thing was the owner's benefit. Couples were calmly torn apart, children were selected and sold, and it was only possible to start a family with the permission of the owner, and with whom he would point out. This did not surprise anyone and very few people outraged. They also used them simply as things - for gaining benefits or satisfying needs.
It was a widespread practice that a peasant girl was selected for a boy from a noble family to get his first sexual experience. Nobody, of course, asked her consent. Many noblemen collected whole harems for themselves, sometimes from very young girls.
Corporal punishment was widely used - flogged with rods, flogged with a whip, beaten with sticks. Yes, most of the nobles did not do it with their own hands, but they gave orders for punishment and thought it was okay to flog it. Peasants, after all, are their property, property, which means you can do whatever you want with them - beat, sell, marry or breed, and much more. There were also caring owners, but they cared about their people, like any zealous person worries about the safety of his property, nothing more. This was the reality.
In conclusion, we can say that the absolute power of man over man can lead and has repeatedly led to dire consequences. Therefore, 1861 is one of the most significant years in the history of Russia. Serfdom was abolished this year.
Christina Rudic