The emancipation of the Russians serfs, 1861--a charter of freedom or an act of betrayal? Michael Lynch takes a fresh look at the key reform of 19th-century Russia

In 1861 serfdom, the combination of parts to form a whole which tied the Russian peasants irrevocably to their landlords, was abolished at the Tsar's imperial command. Four years later, slavery in the USA was similarly declared unlawful through presidential order. Tsar Alexander II (1855-81) shared with his father, Nicholas I, a conviction that American slavery was inhumane. This is not as hypocritical as it might first appear. The serfdom that had operated in Russia since the middle of the seventeenth hundred was technically not slavery. The landowner did not possess the serf. This contrasted with the a whole in the USA where the african slaves were ...