1861
Reading of the 1861 Manifesto, painted by Grigoriy Myasoyedov in 1873.Image: Grigoriy Myasoyedov · Public domainworld · Europe
Tsar Alexander II frees Russia’s serfs
On 3 March 1861 (19 February in the Russian calendar of the day) Tsar Alexander II signed the Emancipation Manifesto, together with 17 laws putting it into effect. More than 20 million privately owned serfs gained personal freedom and the right to own property. Defeat in the Crimean War and fear of peasant revolt had pushed the tsar to act. But the terms were hard: former serfs had to pay for the land they received, often over decades, and many stayed poor and tied to their villages.
Source: Presidential Library of Russia: The emancipation reform of 1861 ↗
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