Emancipation of Russian Serfs is Overrated essays

Emancipation of Russian Serfs is Overrated essays In world history, the Emancipation of the Russian Serfs is treated as though it had a huge effect on Russia and a large significance upon the rest of the world. This is not true, the impact of the Emancipation of the Serfs had a small effect on the history of the world. The Emancipation came in 1861 around the same time as Brazil and the United States ended slavery. A major argument of the Emancipation is that the reason for it was to allow economic adjustments within Russia. This may have been thought but it was not necessarily the serfs who created an agricultural subordination to the west. The serfs were simply peasantry who were bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord (dictionary.com). They did the same things that peastantry did, they just owed money to a feudal lord ahead of them. The system was much like earlier European feudalism. The Europeans were never held back by the feudal system they followed. The system of Serfs in Russia was not what affected the Russian subordination to countries such as Great Britain and France. When the Emancipation came the government made sure that the power of the aristocracy was preserved. The government made sure that the aristocracy stayed powerful above the peasants. The Emancipation was also designed to retain the tight grip of the tsarist state. Releasing serfs had a small effect on the Russian government as a whole. When released, the serfs also gained no new political rights; they continued to receive the same rights as during serfdom. Another reason little changed with the Emancipation of the Serfs was the fact that most serfs still had loans to pay off from their land. They had to continue working hard as peasantry until their land could finally be paid off. This was one of the ways the government kept power to the Aristocrats. The conditions in which the serfs continued to live were also poor. They still had very little money. Economically, their posi...