The following sources are available here:THE GENERAL STATUTE ON THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS (1861)
CONCERNING THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY
FROM THE STATUTES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ZEMSTVO)
FROM THE DECREE ON STATE PEASANTS
ALEXANDER II's SPEECH TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MOSCOW NOBILITY
ALEXANDER II's SPEECH TO THE STATE COUNCIL
REMINISCENCES OF IA. A. SOLOV'EV ON THE EDITORIAL COMMISSIONS
GENERAL IA. I. ROSTOVTSEV ON THE ROLE OF THE EDITING COMMISSIONS
THE COMPLAINT OF THE COMMITTEES OF THE PROVINCIAL NOBILITY
ROSTOVTSEV'S VERSION OF THE PROVINCIAL NOBlLlTY'S COMPLAINTS
STATEMENTS FROM CLERGY ON CHURCH CONDITIONS
THE GENERAL STATUTE ON THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SERFS (1861)
1. The serfdom of peasants settled on estate owners' landed properties, and of household serfs, is abolished forever....
2. Peasants and household serfs who have emerged from serfdom are accorded both the personal and the property rights accompanying the legal status of free village dwellers....
3. Estate owners, retaining the right of ownership to all land belonging to them, accord the peasants . . . the permanent utilization of their homesteads and in addition, in order to provide for their livelihood and the performance of their duties to the government and the estate owner, that amount of fields and other landed resources which is determined according to the principles set forth in the local statutes. 4. In return for the allotment assigned to them ..., the peasants are obliged to discharge to the estate owners, in labor or in money, the obligations defined in the local statutes.
CONCERNING THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY
CHAPTER 11.
46. The administration of the village community is composed of: a. The village assembly. b. The village elder. In addition, those communities that deem it necessary may have: special tax-gatherers; over seers of the granaries, schools, and infirmaries; forest and field wardens; village clerks, and so forth.
47. The "village assembly" is composed of the peasant-householders belonging to the village community and, in addition, all elected village officials.
51. Under the jurisdiction of the village assembly are: a. The election of village officials and the appointment of delegates to the volost' [rural district] assembly.... c. The release of members from the community and the acceptance of new ones.... e. The settlement of family divisions (of property) . f. Matters relating to communal utilization of land belonging to the commune, that is: the redistribution of land, the imposition and removal of work obligations, the final distribution of communal land into permanent plots, and so forth.... k. The apportionment of all fiscal taxes, land, and communal monetary levies, and like wise the land and communal obligations in kind imposed upon the peasants; and the systematic keeping of accounts for the aforesaid taxes and levies.... q. The bestowal of power of attorney for representing the community in legal matters. . .
69. The volost' administration is composed of: a. The volost' assembly. b. The volost' elder with the volost' executive board. c. The volost' peasant court....
71. The volost' assembly is composed of village and volost' officials who hold office through election . . . and of peasants elected from each settlement or hamlet....
78. Under the jurisdiction of the volost' assembly are: a. The election of volost' officials and judges of the volost' courts. b. Decisions on all subjects in general that relate to the economic and public affairs of the entire volost'. c. Measures of public care for the poor; the establishment of volost' schools.... g. The verification of the recruiting lists and the apportionment of recruit obligations.... [pp. 600-602]
FROM THE STATUTES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ZEMSTVO) (1864)
1. For the management of affairs relating to the local economic welfare and needs of each uezd, guberniia and uezd zemstvo institutions are to be formed....
2. The matters that are subject to the jurisdiction of zemstvo institutions . . . are: i. The management of the property, capital, and monetary levies of the zemstvo. ii. The organization and maintenance of buildings belonging to the zemstvo, other equipment, and roads maintained at the expense of the zemstvo.... iv. The management of zemstvo charitable institutions and other measures of care for the poor; methods of eliminating poverty; looking after the building of churches.... vii. Participation, primarily in an economic capacity and within the limits defined by the law, in looking after public education, public health, and prisons.... ix. The execution of the demands that the military and civil administrations place upon the zemstvo.... xiii. The holding of elections for member ship and for other positions in zemstvo institutions, and the allocation of money for the maintenance of these institutions....
6. Zemstvo institutions function independently within the sphere of activity entrusted to them....
9. The guberniia head has the right to suspend the execution of any disposition of the zemstvo institutions that is contrary to the laws, or to the general welfare of the state....
13. The uezd zemstvo institutions are: the uezd zemstvo assembly and the zemstvo executive board.
14. The uezd zemstvo assembly is composed of zemstvo members, elected: (a) by the landed proprietors of the uezd; (b) by the urban communities; and (c) by the village communities. . .
43. The uezd zemstvo assembly is under the chairmanship of the uezd marshal of the nobility....
50. The guberniia zemstvo institutions are: the guberniia zemstvo assembly and the guberniia zemstvo executive board.
53. The guberniia zemstvo assembly. . . is under the chairmanship of the guberniia marshal of the nobility. [pp. 613-14]
FROM THE JUDICIAL REFORM (1864) THE ESTABLISHMENT OF JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS
1. Judicial authority belongs to: Justices of the peace; Sessions of the Justices of the peace; Circuit courts;Judicial tribunals; The Governing Senate, in the capacity of a supreme court of appeal.
2. The judicial authority of the[se] extends to persons of all classes and to all cases, both civil and criminal....
6. Examining magistrates are attached [to the courts] for conducting investigations in cases involving crimes and offenses.
7. For determining the guilt or innocence of the accused in criminal cases, jurors are added to the composition of the court, in instances designated in the statute on criminal procedure.
8. Chief prosecutors, prosecutors, and their assistants are attached to the courts for supervising prosecutions . . .
19. To the post of justice of the peace may be elected those local residents who: first, are at least twenty-five years of age; second, have received a higher or secondary education, or have passed an examination equivalent to it, or have served for not fewer than three years in a post the duties of which could enable them to acquire a practical knowledge of judicial procedure; and third, if in addition they themselves, or their parents or wives, own . . . real estate with a value of not less than fifteen thousand rubles....
24. Election of justices of the peace are held at uezd zemstvo assemblies....
81. Jurors are elected from among all classes of local inhabitants....
202. The posts of chairmen, assistant chair men, and of (other) members of the judiciary . . . may be filled . . . only by persons who have a certificate from a university or other institution of higher education, testifying to the completion of a course in jurisprudence, or who have passed an examination in this science, or who have demonstrated their knowledge of judicial procedure in some official capacity. [pp. 614-16]
FROM THE DECREE ON STATE PEASANTS (1866)
1. The village communities of state peasants retain all the land and landed resources re served to them as allotments and which they are utilizing. In those communities where the land in peasant utilization is not demarcated from the land remaining at the immediate disposal of the treasury, the area of the peasant allotment is determined in proportion to ex isting utilization....
3. State peasants who own, on the basis of this decree, the land reserved to them in accordance with the aforesaid deeds are obliged to make the treasury a yearly payment as de termined by law, which is called the "state obrok tax"; this tax was not to exceed by more than 15 percent the amount the state peasants had been assessed by the government before this time.... [pp. 620-21]
ALEXANDER II's SPEECH TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MOSCOW NOBILITY (MARCH 30, 1856)
I have learned, gentlemen, that rumors have spread among you of my intention to abolish serfdom. To refute any groundless gossip on so important a subject I consider it necessary to inform you that I have no intention of doing so immediately. But, of course, and you your selves realize it, the existing system of serf owning cannot remain unchanged. It is better to begin abolishing serfdom from above than to wait for it to begin to abolish itself from below. I ask you, gentlemen, to think of ways of doing this. Pass on my words to the nobles for consideration. [p. 589]
ALEXANDER II's SPEECH TO THE STATE COUNCIL (1861)
The matter of the liberation of the serfs . . .I consider to be a vital question for Russia, upon which will depend the development of her strength and power. I am sure that all of you, gentlemen, are just as convinced as I am of the benefits and necessity of this measure. I have another conviction, which is that this matter cannot be postponed . . . I repea--and this is my absolute will--that this matter should be finished right away. For four years now it has dragged on and has been arousing various fears and anticipations among both the estate owners and the peasants. Any further delay could be disastrous to the state.... I hope, gentlemen, that on inspection of the drafts presented to the State Council, you will assure yourselves that all that can be done for the protection of the interests of the nobility has been done; if on the other hand you find it necessary in any way to alter or to add to the presented work, then I am ready to receive your comments; but I ask you only not to forget that the basis of the whole work must be the improvement of the life of the peasants--an improvement not in words alone or on paper but in actual fact. [pp. 599 600]
REMINISCENCES OF IA. A. SOLOV'EV ON THE EDITORIAL COMMISSIONS (1870s)
From the moment that the sovereign announced to the Moscow nobility his intention to free the serfs, there began a struggle between the liberal and the conservative elements. The regulator of the preponderance of one or the other of these parties was the will of the sovereign emperor. Only this autocratic power, moved by a deep love for Russia and a passionate desire for her good, could support the numerically small and socially weak progressive party, which otherwise could have been destroyed by the strong and influential representatives of the estate-owners' interests.... Immediately after the publication of the first rescript, a reactionary movement started in the committee itself . . . supported and nourished by the obvious sympathy of the society of the time.... The aims of this group were either to block the reform completely or, if that proved impossible, to free the serfs without land and to receive compensation for having granted them personal freedom. As a means of attaining one of these aims they launched a scare campaign threatening peasant unrest and democratic revolution and also a general economic upheaval in the state. A significant majority of estate owners either did not sympathize at all with the enterprise that had begun or at least objected to giving the serfs land along with their freedom. The provincial opposition movement fed the Petersburg movement, which in turn supported the provincial movement. In Petersburg drawing rooms, at court functions, at parades and inspections of the troops, behind the walls of the State Council and the Senate, and in the offices of the ministers and members of the State Council were heard more or less energetic protests against the intentions of the government. These protests expressed in vigorous terms more or less the same ideaÑthat the emancipation of the serfs was premature; the result of the change, said the numerous enemies of the proposed reform, would be that the estate owners would remain without working hands, the peasants because of their natural indolence would not work even for them selves, the productivity of the state would decrease, causing general inflation, famine, disease, and nationwide misery. At the same time would come insubordination on the part of the peasants, local disorders followed by widespread riotingÑin a word, they predicted another Pugachev rebellion with all its horrors and with the addition of a "deeply plotted" democratic revolution. [pp. 590-91]
GENERAL IA. I. ROSTOVTSEV ON THE ROLE OF THE EDITING COMMISSIONS (1859)
1. The problem before us of eliminating serfdom and improving the welfare of the peasants must be solved with strict fairness and impartiality for both parties, and in such a way as to prevent any grounds at all for hostility between the two classes; in other words, in such a way that Russia may find in the peaceful solution of this problem a true, longterm guarantee against upheaval in the state.
2. Along with individual freedom the peas ants must receive full opportunity to acquire enough land of their own to provide for their everyday needs . . ., for without this the life of the peasants would improve merely in word and not in deed....
7. The land to be redeemed by the peasant should consist of a farmstead and a sufficient allotment of land in a plot that is separate from the remaining land possessed by the owner.
8. For the land they cede, estate owners must be remunerated justly and as far as possible without loss and impoverishment.
9. The peasants' yearly payment of both interest and redemption dues must not exceed the average amount of their present obligations, or else there will be no improvement in their living conditions. [p.593]
THE COMPLAINT OF THE COMMITTEES OF THE PROVINCIAL NOBILITY (1859)
Having distorted in the guberniia committees the deeds of the tsar and the people, and having distorted for so many years the tsar's best thoughts and trampled on his most noble feelings, could the bureaucracy tolerate a situation in which the tsar would hear the voice of his people other than through its own untruthful lips! . . . The deputies who arrived in Saint Petersburg were completely neglected. The minister of internal affairs did not bother to present them to Your Majesty, nor even to the Main Committee. Then they were suddenly sent an un signed invitation to visit the Editorial Commission, and there Adjutant General Rostovtsev issued written instructions signed by Butkov, head clerk of the Main Committee, in which, without any regard for the normal system of announcing imperial commands, Your Majesty's orders were countermanded and the deputies were obliged to answer questions which the Editorial Commission considered necessary. Our grief, Sire, cannot be expressed! More than once in the course of the present matter we have seen the bureaucracy either counter pose one imperial command against another or violate them, but their effrontery had never reached this point before. Throughout the course of this matter the administrative authorities have continually scorned legality and justice; but they did so out in the provinces in the obscurity of office correspondence, whereas now they are doing it in front of the sovereign and Russia, in plain sight of everyone. The records of the Editorial Commission and all its administrative actions are filled with harmful and ruinous ideas; we can see them but we are powerless to expose them. [pp.593-94]
ROSTOVTSEV'S VERSION OF THE PROVINCIAL NOBlLlTY'S COMPLAINTS (1859)
YOUR IMPERIAL MAJESTY!
At our last meeting you expressed a desire to know how our sacred cause was proceeding. With some of the deputies . . . we have not yet reached agreement on details, but we expect to do so more or less. With others of them we have been unable to agree on fundamentals, and there will be no possibility of coming to terms. The main divergence is that the Commissions and certain deputies proceed from different premises. The commissions proceed from state necessity and state law, while the deputies base themselves on civil law and private interests. They are right from their view point, and we from ours. From the standpoint of civil law the entire reform we have undertaken is unjust from beginning to end, since it is a violation of the right to private ownership; but as a state necessity and on the basis of state law, the reform is legitimate, sacred, and essential. A large number of enemies of the reform who are unable to see its urgency accuse the Editorial Commissions both verbally and in writing of a desire to fleece the nobles, and others even call some of the members of the commissions "Reds" and accuse them of wanting to cause anarchy.... The efforts of the commissions have been and are still: First, to save Russia. If eleven million people who have been consoled for two years by the hope of freedom and an improvement in their position are disappointed, they will become despondent and lose their faith in and love for the supreme power; they will attribute the failure of their hopes to the estate owners, and Russia will not be saved.... [pp. 595-96]
STATEMENTS FROM CLERGY ON CHURCH CONDITIONS
A. Letter from Bishop of Vladimir Diocese, 31 October 1863
The villages have both schools which were established by the government and [those established] by the clergy (the so-called "free curriculum" schools). The first have satisfactory support and organization; the latter require better order.
1. The village community in some parishes: has played a role, but virtually everywhere this has amounted to nothing more than providing space. For the most part, the schools are housed in the homes of the clergy, who have taken it upon themselves to educate the [parishioners'] children. In this case, the number of boys studying is always very limited because the homes are cramped and the cleric's family is sometimes large. In general, these unsupported schools encounter considerable difficulty in instruction for lack of educational materials, which the teacher has to acquire himself. In addition, because he receives no compensation for this work, his zeal—at first fervid—is not easily sustained by sheer moral impulses, especially when one knows that elsewhere they are not alone in supporting the education of children. I therefore suggest that the clergy could take a much greater role in the education of the peasants' children: (a) if special buildings, presently lacking, were constructed for the education of pupils; (b) if those who toil to educate children were accorded a reward commensurate with their work; (c) if the acquisition of educational materials were not the teacher's obligation; and, (d) if both the teaching and administration of these schools remained in the clergy's hands, under the supervision of diocesan authorities.
Concern about the support of these schools should be given to the village community, but such that it not be entrusted to [village] clerks and other unreliable people.
In addition, assistance of the government is needed, because the parishioners—who have begun to recognize the value of educating their children for various reasons nevertheless shy away from establishing these schools.
2. Regarding the [state-run] schools, one might only observe that the clergy employed there to teach children could be given greater participation in the management of the schools or greater independence from rural authorities (and generally from all those; who have little understanding for education).
There is no small need, given the proclivities of contemporary literature, to establish the rule that literate people have access to books only after these have been examined by qualified people to determine that these books contain nothing contrary to the laws of the Church and the fatherland.
(from Gregory L. Freeze, From Supplication to Revolution, pp. 136-137)B. Letter from Parish Clergy in Skomorokhovo, April 1863
From [the data on our] income, it is obvious that the material support of our staff—both in money and in kind—is unsatisfactory. The land does not fully reward the labor of the cultivator. The monetary means are not quite sufficient, because they vary according to the parishioners' prosperity and their attitude toward the clergy. Ordinarily, for performing the various Christian rites, our staff receives an amount set by the parishioners themselves; not a single parishioner, no matter how well off he might be, pays more. There are even instances where some parishioners are unwilling to pay the set sum for a rite—not because this amount is large (on the contrary, it does not in the least correspond to current needs), but rather because of their indifference to the needs of the clergy—and sometimes because of antipathy. It would, however, be good if the sum assessed from parishioners for the performance of rites corresponded to the urgent needs of the present day. But that is not the case; the parishioners donate what their fathers and grandfathers paid fifty years ago, when all the living conditions were quite different. Now everything is expensive, from the cost of labor to cultivate [church] land to the most basic necessities. It is also necessary to be decently dressed to support sons at the seminary, and to give daughters a proper upbringing; hence the amount of our annual income hardly corresponds to present-day needs. One cannot expect that parishioners will improve our circumstances on their own, for the common people—given their low level of education—as yet are little able to appreciate the clergy's work and achievements.
For the [economic] improvement of our staff, the following might be done: (a) enlarge our parish by attaching the two hamlets, Khvostovo and Klimkovo, which belong to the parish in the village of Miagkovo; these two hamlets are 7 versts from that church, but only 2 versts from ours; (b) require the parishioners to provide heat- ing fuel from their woods; (c) provide some kind of assistance to the clergy for the cultivation of their land—especially for the priest, fQr nothing so preoccupies his time as economic activities and he could [better] use this [time] for the benefit of his parishioners. Apart from this we see no other means to improve our condition.
[on the clergy's role in public education]
1. The parish in the village of Skhomorokhovo has one free school, established by the local priest, with the permission of diocesan authorities, on 1 February 1860. It is housed, without compensation, in pi the priest's own home; the school has no fixed income; the priest himself provides heating.
2 The priest himself supervises the school and gives instruction to the children. There are constantly ten to twelve pupils, as can be seen from the monthly reports to the ecclesiastical superintendent.
3. The primary shortcoming of our school is the lack of means for a firm existence. All the efforts on behalf of the school rest solely with the priest; there is neither assistance from superior authorities nor support from parishioners.
In order that popular education be succesful, one could do the following: give parish schools the sum now collected from state peasants for township schools. Our parish has five hundred male souls, all of whom are in the state domain; if each soul paid 15 kopecks per year, this would produce 75 rubles a year—a sum that would suffice to support the school, excluding the salary for the teacher (who may be unnecessary if the local priest is the teacher and if the parishioners agree to support him by cultivating his land). In this way they would make it possible for him to be engaged constantly in educating their children. (from Gregory L. Freeze, From Supplication to Revolution, pp. 137-139)
C. Memorandum from St. Petersburg priests on Church Reform, September 1863
[We request] permission for the clergy, under the guidance of diocesan authorities, to convene for periodic assemblies, not only to select superintendents, members of the consistories and similar officials, but also to hold general discussions of our common concerns. These assemblies could be ordinary and extraordinary, at the level of the superintendency, district and diocese. At some, all free ordained clergy could participate; at others, only elected deputies of the clergy. Ordinarily, the diocesan assemblies could be summoned once a year, but the district and superintendency assemblies, two or three times a year.
Until now, unfortunately, our clergy has represented one of the least unified social estates. Given their [geographic] dispersion, naturally they cannot properly embody and be animated by common interests—moral, ecclesiastical and material; nor can they, as they should, act as a unified group, in a concerted and energetic fashion, for the benefit of the Church and faith. The result, among other things, is the fatal apathy that is frequently observed in the clergy even with respect to affairs of direct pertinence to themselves; this frequently paralyzes many useful initiatives and measures taken on their behalf by ecclesiastical and state authorities, as well as by private people. This very disunity inexorably leads the clergy, especially in rural parishes, to stagnation in the matter of their appointment to coarseness in their public and private lives, and to a narrow inter- est in their material needs and calculations. However, there is no need to recite the fatal consequences of clerical disunity; they are obvious to virtually everyone. Nevertheless, one of the most effective measures for overcoming their present disunity (with all its consequences) would be to permit the clergy to hold extraordinary as well '' as regular meetings. Here the ordained clergy could exchange ideas and facts from real life; they could help each other with their advice, experiences and support; they could draw on new inspiration and forces for productive pastoral activity; they could proclaim the clergy's true needs and practical ways to satisfy them; they could organize societies for literary, charitable and other useful undertakings. At the present time, when the government deems it useful to give all social estates in the realm the right of general assemblies to discuss their particular needs and draw members of the social estates closer together, it would only be fair not to deny this right to the clerical estate—the most educated, conservative and at the same time [most] disunited estate. (from Gregory L. Freeze, From Supplication to Revolution, pp. 139-140)BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, these documents come from the superb collection and translation of materials in GeorgeVernadsky et al. (eds), A Source Book for Russian History from Early Times to 1917. Vol. 3 Alexander II to the February Revolution (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1972), pp. 589-621. These selections are reprinted by permission of Yale University Press. Students wishing a more extensive rendering of the reform legislation may wish to consult the Vernadsky source book in the DuPont-Ball Library. (The relevant pages from which the translated texts come are given in brackets at the end of each selection.)