perhaps they were the first who cultivated the virgin soil of Central
and Northern Europe. The Slavi lived in villages, and were organized
in rural communes, electing their chiefs, (_joupan_) or ancients
(_starschina_). As early as the time of Herodotus, the commerce in
grain was very active at the mouth of the Dnieper, and then, as
at the present day, the Slavi imported their wheat to Byzantium
(Constantinople), Greece, and Asia Minor.
The region occupied by the Slavi, from the Volga, along the Don (or
Tanais) and the Danube, was the highway of the various branches of
the Mongolian, Finnic, Uralian, Scythic, or Turanian family, in their
invasions. All these old and classic denominations for the inhabitants
of Asia, north of Baktria and the Himalayan mountains, are now merged
in that of Tartars. So, in remote antiquity, Tartar Scythians, mixed
with Slavi, dwelt on the Tanais, north of the Danube, and very likely
on the plains east of the Dnieper. Other invasions of Asiatic Tartars,
as Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Maghyars, Petschenegues, Polovtzy, Ugri,
Turks and Tartars proper--doubtless early familiarized the primitive
agricultural Slavi with the horrors of war, oppression and enslavement.
And among the slaves which, under the name of Scythians, the Phenicians
and Greeks trafficked in, there were doubtless some of Slavic origin.
It was very late when the Slavic race began to take part in the
European or Western movement. Neither in the remotest times, nor in
the great Western impulse during the early part of the Christian era,
do the Slavi appear as invaders or conquerors on their own account.
For many centuries, the Slavi in their relations with other races
and nations, must rather be considered a passive or recipient than an
expanding or creative race. For these reasons slavery does not seem
to have been indigenous in those parts of the Slavic family which
constituted independent groups, at the time when the race first dawns
upon the horizon of history.
The Emperor Mauritius, in the sixth century, in giving an account of
the defensive warfare of the Slavi, says that when they made prisoners
in war, they kept them as such for a year, and afterward left it to
their own choice either to settle among them or return to their native
country. Thus, at an epoch when perpetual war raged all over the world,
when from time immemorial prisoners of war everywhere formed the bulk
of the slaves for domestic labor and for traffic, the Slavi alone were
humane toward their captives.
The Slavi, however, became diseased by slavery, partly from external
infection--partly from the internal development of events similar
in character to those pointed out in other nations as the origin of
slavery; and having once taken hold of the nation, it worked in a
similar way as in other lands. For here again we see the ever recurring
analogy between the origin, nature, and workings of social and bodily
diseases--the same everywhere, under the equator as around the pole.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Germans, under the Saxon
emperors, carried on a war of conquest, almost of extermination,
against the Slavi, from the Baltic along the Elbe to the Styrian and
Carinthian Alps. The number of war-prisoners and peaceful settlers
carried away and enslaved was immense. Many of them were sold in the
Baltic ports, others in Venice, others again were distributed in the
interior of Germany, and in such vast numbers that from them arose the
general designation of "_slaves_" to all chattels of whatever race;
and such was the origin of the word, which was afterward incorporated
into all the languages of Europe.[20] Subsequently the harshest feudal
tenures regulated the condition of the rural population of Bohemia,
Moravia and Hungary, which did not terminate till the events of
1848-'49 put a final end to villeinage (_robot_) in all these countries.
The Poles and Russians were unaffected by feudalism in any of its
social or constructive developments. Up to the seventh and eighth
centuries, the Poles continued to elect their chiefs from all classes
of the people--merchants and workmen. The prince or chief Leschko was
a merchant; while Piast was a wheelwright, and became the founder
of a long line of kings. But wars created the men of the sword,
or nobility; and then in Poland, as everywhere else, the nobles
began to encroach upon the rights and property of the weak, and to
oppress the agriculturists, the free yeomen (_kmets_, _kmetones_),
and the husbandmen (_gospodarsch_); but neither of these were ever
transformed into chattels. When the Poles became a distinct historical
nation, chattelhood was disappearing from Europe. Their contests
were principally with other Slavic nations and with the Germans;
and no traces are to be found of the enslavement of prisoners of
war. Their heathen neighbors were the Prussians, the Iadzwingi, and
Lithuanians; and captives made among them were used either in public
labors or strictly in domestic service, as were also prisoners of war
in after-times made from the Tartars and Turks. When these prisoners
became Christians, their chattelhood was at an end.
The name for a war-prisoner is _niewolnik_, "one deprived of the
exercise of his will." When the Polish agriculturists were subjugated
by the nobles, and their condition became that of villeins, or
_adscripti glebæ_, they began to be called _kholop_ (a name most likely
borrowed from the Russian), also _poddany_, "subject;" and the rural
relations had the general name of _poddanstwo_, "subjection."
The Biblical narrative of the curse of Noah upon Ham furnished an easy
justification for reducing the people to bondage. Peasant (_kholop_)
and Ham became synonymous in the mouths of the nobles and the clergy,
who generally sprang from the nobility. The oppression of the nobles
was absolute during the domestic wars of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The people resisted, but after various partial but bloody
struggles, the peasantry were subjected. In the royal domains the old
yeomen (_kmetones_) still preserved their lands and some of their
rights, and to the last days of Poland, the peasantry of the domains
never became, either legally or in fact, _adscripti glebæ_. Casimir the
Great, a Polish king of the middle of the fourteenth century, protected
the rights of the peasantry against the oppressions of the nobles, and
advised the peasants to defend themselves with flint and steel. He won
the name of "king of the poor oppressed peasants" (_krol khlopkow_):
perhaps it was the gratitude of the oppressed which conferred this
title upon him, or perhaps it may have been a sneering epithet applied
by the nobles. Goading indeed was the oppression of the nobles, and
crushing in the extreme the servitude of the peasantry; but it never
reached the point of chattelhood, excepting in rare cases of absolute
lawlessness.
The _kmetones_, or free yeomen, and the husbandmen still generally
remained in possession of the lands which were once their immediate
property, but now only as possessors at the pleasure of the
master--paying him a rent or tribute, in kind or labor, and deprived of
the right of changing their domicile. The master could, at pleasure,
elevate the tenant to a freeholder, or emancipate any of his household
servants. The cities did not furnish such a sure refuge for runaways
as did the cities in other parts of Europe. Military service, here as
elsewhere, gave perpetual liberty to the bondman.
The Polish nobility had supreme sway, and were all in all; they
constituted the nation, the legislators and the sovereign--even the
kings being controlled by the nobles and their interests. The nobles
have paid dearly for their tyranny and oppression, as they themselves
now admit that serfdom was the principal cause of the downfall of
Poland.
After the dismemberment of Poland, Friederich Wilhelm III. restored
personal liberty to the peasantry in the parts of the kingdom which
were allotted to Prussia; in the Austrian portion, the condition of
the peasantry was ameliorated and their personal liberty partially
restored by Joseph II.; while that part of Poland which, at the end
of the eighteenth century, was annexed, or rather reannexed, to
Russia--as Lithuania and the Russian provinces--came under the control
of the regulations prevailing in the empire. In Poland proper, all the
peasantry are now free and enjoy full civil rights; and even the soil
tilled by the peasants will soon be fully freed from every kind of
predial servitude attached to its possession: and thus the peasantry
will recover at least a part of the property taken from them by
violence or subterfuge long centuries ago.
The Slavonians in what is now called Russia proper--from Lake Peypus
and the Waldai Heights down to the banks of the Dnieper--lived, from
time immemorial, in villages; these, again, were formed into smaller
or larger districts (_obschtschestwo_, _wolost_), which elected for
themselves their chiefs or heads (_golowa_).
Among the few cities in Russia, the great republican and commercial
emporiums of Novgorod and Pskoff--well known and flourishing at
the dawn of the mediæval epoch--formed the centres of that Slavic
region. No nobility existed then, no slaves, and no bondmen. In 862
the republicans of Novgorod, distracted by domestic feuds and party
dissensions, invited a Scandinavian, Nordman, or Variægue leader,
called Rurick, to take upon himself the government of their republic.
Rurick and his followers extended the Variægue supremacy as far as
the southern region of the Dnieper, and Kieff became the capital of
the Russian empire. At the commencement of this Variægue rule, no
positive change was introduced into the internal organism of society,
or the condition of the population. Rurick and his descendants were
elected or confirmed by the Slavonic people, and he governed the cities
and districts through his companions-in-arms or lieutenants. These,
together with the direct descendants of Rurick, under the various
designations of princes (_kniaz_ and _mouja_), vassals, and warriors,
were the founders of the Russian nobility. This, however, could not be
called feudalism, as these functionaries corresponded somewhat with the
counts and _missi dominici_, or lieutenant-deputies of Charlemagne. The
grand-princes or grand-dukes of Kieff made war upon various tribes,
mostly those of Mongolian or Tartar origin, and swept south of the
Dnieper along the shores of the Black Sea down to the Caucasus; they
repeatedly invaded the Byzantine empire, sometimes reaching even the
suburbs of Constantinople. Then the war-prisoners and captives became
domestic chattels, and chattels were also purchased from neighboring
tribes and imported into Russia.
The name for a chattel, of whatever origin, is _rab_, _raba_, probably
derived from _rabota_, "labor." Such _rabs_ were employed in various
kinds of labor, but principally in clearing the forests and cultivating
the soil for their masters. Through contact with the Byzantine empire
Christianity came into Russia, besides various other usages.
At this epoch, a new form of servitude appeared among the Russians;
perhaps it was borrowed from the old society and civilization, or
perhaps it originated from a new concatenation of circumstances: it was
servitude by mutual agreement or _kabala_, by which one man gave up his
person, labor, and liberty to another. This kind of bondman was called
_kholop_. His servitude was usually contracted for a limited time,
though sometimes for life; but was never inherited. Debts could be paid
by the _kabala_ writ.
The poor freeman could become a _kholop_ by his own choice, or he
could give up his children as _kholops_, as was then the custom among
all nations, heathen and Christian. Such _kabala-kholop_, or servile
person, could not be sold or disposed of in any way, as his servitude
was limited in duration by specified time or by his death. Sometimes
freemen choose servitude in order to escape worse conditions. Early
in the domestic economy of the nation, free tenants are found who
hired lands for a year or more, paying the rent (_obrog_) in money, or
binding themselves to cultivate half of the land for the proprietor and
half for themselves. A subsequent law prohibited any such free tenants
from contracting any work or _kabala_ servitude with the landowners.
The contracts of free tenants were obligatory for a year from St.
George's day (April 17); but otherwise they could change their domicile
or land at pleasure. The laws of the tenth and eleventh centuries
stringently prohibit the infliction of any kind of corporal punishment
on such free tenants. In short, these tenants had full civil liberty
and full civil rights; they could own lands, and could become members
of any rural or urbane community, practice any handicraft, etc.
Probably it was the nobles, the rich, the higher officials, who
first established chattels (_rabs_) on their lands as tillers. From
these originated, beside the _rab_, the _krepostnoi kholop_, "a serf
strengthened or chained to his master," _krepok_ signifying "strong,"
"strengthened," "attached by force"--_krepost_, "stronghold," etc.
According to the laws collected or enacted by Vladimir and Yaroslaw
in the tenth and eleventh centuries, _rab_ and _krepostnoi kholop_
were the descendants of prisoners of war, or of those who were bought
as slaves and imported as such into Russia, and also the descendants
of those who unconditionally married a slave woman; while the public,
grand-ducal slaves or _rabs_ were condemned criminals.
Free tenants on the lands of the nobles, individual freeholders
(_odnodwortsy_), etc., and the numerous rural communities owning
land unconditionally and paying therefrom tribute--rather as public
taxation--to the ducal treasury, constituted the rural population
of Russia. From the time of Yaroslaw to the end of the sixteenth
century, not one-tenth of the population was in the condition of _rab_,
_krepostnoi kholop_, or serfs by writ or _kabala_.
The almost boundless extent of land constituting Russia was as yet
unsurveyed, and no regular limits divided or marked the landed
property. Thus it was easy for the strong to encroach on the lands of
the rural communes, or on the new clearings made by individual freemen;
and such annexations were often practised during the domestic wars
between the numerous dukes, and during the time of Tartar domination.
Iwan the Great (1462-1503) ordered, that whoever held a piece of land
in undisputed possession for three years became its legal owner.
But even the encroachments of the nobles did not transform the free
laborers or tenants into serfs; and when a landlord was oppressive,
whole villages abandoned him and contracted for land on other estates.
Chattels (_rab_, _krepostnoi kholop_) might be emancipated by the free
will of the master; and a captive carried away by the Tartars, or a
prisoner of war if a _kholop_, became free if he succeeded in escaping
from captivity and returning to his country.
In the sixteenth century, all classes of the rural population began to
be called Christians (_krestianin_), the Tartars having bestowed this
denomination on them; and this name is now legally in use. Under Tartar
dominion the rural communities paid tribute per head; and for this
reason their members could not change their domicile without giving
security to the commune. But after the overthrow of the Tartars by Iwan
the Great, they recovered the freedom of circulation.
The primitive grand-dukes of Kief granted appanages to their younger
children, and sometimes a free rural commune constituted such an
appanage. Vladimir, and after him Yaroslaw, divided the empire among
their children; and thus originated the rather independent dukedoms of
Twer, Smolensk, Wiazma, etc. The number of appanaged princes increased;
and when, after a long and bloody struggle, the grand-dukes of Moscow
_mediatized_ all these small dukes, appanages became private property,
and the rural communes were owned by the dukes (_kniazia_), but under
similar conditions of freedom as the communes constituting the public
domains.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Borys Goudenoff--an
ambitious, unscrupulous, but highly-gifted _parvenu_--got control
of the weak-minded Tsar Feodor, ruled during his lifetime, became
regent of the empire after his death, and finally a murderer and
usurper. To ingratiate himself with the nobility and the Bojars, in
1593 he published an edict (_oukase_), by which the free tenants
were henceforth prohibited from changing their masters or their
domicile, and were at once reduced to serfs, _adscripti glebæ_. This
first oppression quickly generated others still more odious, which
stopped not till they ended in all the turpitude of chattelhood---thus
justifying the saying of Lessing: "Let the devil but get hold of one
single hair, and he soon clutches you by the whole queue." So in 1597
a very rigorous oukase was published concerning the restitution of
fugitive serfs, their wives, children and movables. Another oukase,
ordering a census of all domestic servants to be taken, transformed
into serfs even those who, six months before, had entered private
service as absolute freemen. With the exception of the population in
the free communes constituting the tsarian domains, all the other rural
populations were thus transformed into serfs in the brief space of a
few years.
During the seventeenth century, the tsars of the house of Romanoff
confirmed these oukases. However, the serfs were not included in the
sale of an estate, neither was it permitted to transfer them from one
estate to another. There were various specific denominations for the
different forms of servitude, according to the nature of the labor,
the quantity of produce, or the number of days' service levied by the
master.
In 1718, Peter the Great ordered a general census to be taken all over
the empire. The census officials, most probably through thoughtlessness
or caprice, divided the whole rural population into two sections: 1st.
The free peasants belonging to the crown or its domains; and 2dly.
All the rest of the peasantry, the _krestianins_ or serfs living on
private estates, were inscribed as _khrepostnoie kholopy_, that is,
as chattels. The primitive Slavic communal organization thus survived
only on the royal domain, and there it exists till the present day.
The census of Peter having thus fairly inaugurated chattelhood, it
immediately began to develop itself in all its turpitude. The masters
grew more reckless and cruel; they sold chattels separately from the
lands; they brought them singly into market, disregarding all family
ties and social bonds. Estates were no more valued according to the
area of land they contained, but according to the number of their
chattels, who were now called souls (_duschy_). In short, all the worst
features of chattelism, as it exists at the present day in the American
Slave States, immediately followed the publication of this accursed
census.
The rural communes upon the royal domains, however, still preserved
their ancient organization and even comparative freedom; but Peter
the Great, as well as all his successors, rewarded his favorites, or
those rendering public service, with estates or grants of land; and as
such grants were taken from the royal domains, in this way hundreds of
thousands of free peasants were transformed into chattels. Catharine
II. also distributed great numbers of such estates among her favorites,
besides confirming all the privileges of the nobility; and so likewise
did Paul I. Alexander I. desired to exempt the peasants in this
transfer; but Nicholas I. in reality was the first emperor who granted
estates excepting therefrom the resident peasantry; he also published
an oukase that henceforth no rural communes from the domains shall be
granted to private individuals. Paul I., in 1797, reduced the weekly
servitude of the kholop to three days, the other three remaining to
himself.
Alexander I. desired to emancipate the serfs throughout the whole
empire, but only succeeded, and that very partially, in the so-called
German or Baltic provinces--where, moreover, the German nobles and
landowners succeed in impoverishing the peasants even more after
emancipation than they could before. Alexander I. also prohibited the
sale of single peasants, either male or female, separate from their
families; he forbade their sale in the markets; and no one could
purchase or own serfs unless he had at the same time twenty acres of
land for each family. But all these tutelary laws were more or less
evaded during his reign. He permitted the nobles freely to emancipate
their serfs; but very few of them followed the example set by Prince
Alexander Galitzine and a few others, and not more than three hundred
thousand families were thus set free. Nicholas I. also spoke favorably
of emancipation, and even attempted it, but unsuccessfully.
During all this period, military service was a great engine of
emancipation. Enlisted serfs were forever free, together with their
wives and children. But military service lasted for twenty-five or
thirty years, and was often more oppressive than serfdom in the village.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the peasantry now and
then avenged their wrongs by isolated murders of the more oppressive
masters and their families. Partial insurrections even took place, the
most celebrated of which is that of Pugatschoff under Catharine II.,
which swept over the bodies of slain nobles and officials, from the
mountains of Orembourg to the very gates of Moscow.
But the day of justice now dawns upon Russia. The whole Christian world
glorifies the efforts of Alexander II., supported by a considerable
portion of the nobles, to restore freedom and homesteads to the twenty
millions of serfs. The success of the great emancipation movement is
beyond doubt, beyond even the possibility of being stopped, although
the carrying out of such a colossal revolution requires time and meets
with many impediments.
At the example of Russia the tributary nomads of Asiatic Tartary have
emancipated their slaves and abjured further enslavement; and Turkey,
likewise, has inscribed her name upon the grand roll of emancipating
empires.
Thus the whole ancient world shakes off slavery, and attempts to wash
away its ancient and bloody stain; while the New World, or at least a
part of it, still glories in the barbarous abomination.
No special law in Poland decreed the serfdom of the rural population,
nor in Russia their transformation into chattels. Nowhere, indeed, in
the whole history of man has the conception of justice and law been
so degraded as to legislate freemen, or those partially free, out of
their sacred and inherent rights, beforehand. The most bloody records
of humanity have not preserved any such act of legislation, and even
the name of a Nero or a Heliogabalus are free from such a stain. It
was left to the modern worshippers of the blood-reeking slave-demon to
enact such laws; it was left to the highest judicial tribunal of the
United States to brand into the brow of justice, there to remain for
eternities, the infernal Dred Scott decision.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 20: The name of _slave_ in the Slavi language, is derived
either from _slava_, "renown," or from _slowo_, "the verb." It is
supposed that the Slavi called themselves thus as having the gift
of speech, of _the verb_, in contradistinction to those speaking an
unintelligible language, whom they called _niemy_, "mute," wherefrom
_nemets_, "a German."]
XXI.