the emancipation edict, 1861

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  • the emancipation of the serfs
    • influences on Alex II
      • his tutor, Zhukovsky
      • his earlier travels around the empire
      • the circle of nobles known as the 'Party of St Petersburg Progress'
      • his brother, Grand Duke Konstantin
      • his aunt, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna
      • 'enlightened bureaucrats', such as the Milyutin brothers and other intelligentsia members
    • economic motives to abolish serfdom
      • free peasants
      • greater work incentive
      • grain surplus
      • grain export providing money for landowners / state
      • industry investment in Russia
      • mobile peasantry moving to towns to work in industry
      • greater prosperity
    • social reasons to reform
      • increase in peasant uprisings since 1840s
        • may have encouraged Alex to concede emancipation grant
      • defeat in Crimean War
        • Dmitry Milyutin argued only a 'free' population would provide labour for army
    • early reforms
      • released political prisoners
      • relaxed controls on censorship
      • lessened restrictions on foreign travel and uni entrance
      • cancelled tax debts
      • restored some rights in Poland and catholic church
    • the 1861 emancipation edict
      • serfs granted freedom and land allotment
      • government compensated landlords
        • kept some land but open fields given to mir
      • freed serfs had to pay redemption payments to government over 49 years for land
        • had to be with mir until payments were paid
        • mir distributed allotments, control farming and collect and pay peasant taxes
      • volosts established to supervise mirs
        • ran their own courts from 1863

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