Castes in Russia, or who lived worse than serfs

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the public consciousness, the opinion that no one lived in Russia was worse than serfs. That it was the most disenfranchised stratum of the population in tsarist Russia. It turns out that this is not the case. There were strata of the population that were essentially slaves. Read in the material about slaves, servants and other castes in Russia, whose position the peasants did not envy even the most strict landowners, how people became powerless and what they did.

Servants born of captive slaves

In the 6-11 centuries in Russia there was a social stratum deprived of any privileges. Such people were called servants. If we turn to the works of the historian Froyanov, initially this class was formed from prisoner slaves who were driven from military campaigns. Here it is worth making a division: the slaves who were recruited from the local residents were called slaves. Froyanov also writes that in the 9-10th centuries, servants bought and sold, like an inanimate object. And from the middle of the 11th century, this social stratum gradually merged with the slaves.

There is another opinion belonging to the researcher Sverdlov. He wrote that the servants include a large circle of dependent people associated with the master's possession. Serfs are attributed to personal serfdom on the feudal lords.

A slave whose murder a fine was paid

For the first time, slaves were mentioned in "Russkaya Pravda", it was a collection of legal norms of Kievan Rus. This category of people was attributed to objects of law, but not to subjects. Simply put, they were considered not as people, but as things, and from the point of view of the law, they were the private property of the owner. Since the thing could not commit an offense, the owner took all responsibility for illegal actions. His responsibility included compensation for losses and harm that his slave caused. In this case, it was necessary to compensate in double the amount.

There was one exception - when a slave inflicted a personal offense on a free person. Then the owner could not settle the problem, and the offended had the right to kill the slave in order to whitewash his name. At the same time, the physical destruction of a slave was not equated with a crime. Unless, when it was committed “without guilt,” the owner was entitled not to vira, but to a fine for damage to someone else's property in about the same amount as for the death of cattle. When the slave, in the opinion of society, deserved death, the murderer did not even pay a fine. Many slaves died at the hands of their masters. No investigations were carried out in this case, since the situation was viewed as damage to personal households.

How people were forcibly made slaves, and some were voluntarily sold

How did people become slaves? Most often, people fell into slavery through captivity in the war. Military campaigns in the 12th century were undertaken not only with the aim of expanding territories, but to capture trophies, which included prisoners. Later they became slaves.

Sometimes the troops captured too many slaves, and then people were sold very cheaply, even a goat was more expensive. Having bought slaves at a bargain price, the princes evicted them to sparsely populated lands, so that there slaves were engaged in economic and rural work.

In 1229, the so-called Smolensk treaty with the Germans was drawn up, which indicated that it was possible to become a slave for a committed crime, and a prince for robbery, horse stealing or arson could make both the culprit and his family slaves.

Also, slaves were people who were unable to repay a debt due to drunkenness or inappropriate behavior. Children of slaves at birth received the same low social status.

There were people who went to slaves voluntarily. Some were sold into slavery for minimal money, out of desperation. It happened that parents sold their children, thereby depriving them of their freedom, but giving them a chance not to starve to death and survive. If a man married a servant, he also became powerless. The same thing happened if a person chose the service of a tiun or a housekeeper.

Serf titles: large and lesser, as well as rank-and-file and outcasts

In old Russia, slaves were divided into categories - large and small. The first included slaves, who were allowed to manage the affairs of the masters, as well as people who enjoyed confidence and had the opportunity to support their own slaves (we are talking about elders, treasurers, tiuns, key keepers, clerks). The second group was more numerous, they were laborers.

There were also ryadovichi. This word comes from "row", which means "contract". The person who signed the row and got hired to work for the owner of the land became a ryadovych. The feudal lord gave him money, grain or tools of labor, and in return received from the Ryadovich a promise to be dependent until the debt was repaid. Otherwise, one could get into slaves. Ryadovich could not be beaten, and if this happened, the owner was obliged to pay a fine.

Ryadovich, for the murder of which the five hryvnia was taken, were divided into purchases and delivery. They were allowed to sue the owner and appear as a witness.

According to the legal scholar Dyakonov, the purchase worked for the advance received before work, and the donation for the mercy of the master. Both those and others fell into the category of debtors, but were not disenfranchised slaves. They had some chance to become free.

There is another opinion belonging to the historian Grekov. He claims that the poor were given loans not to help, but to enslave. Very often, the terms of the contract were simply impracticable.

There was another group - the outcasts. These were people who, for some reason, dropped out of the free class, but did not join another. Usually, slaves who managed to get rich and buy freedom, but for some reason decided to remain in the power of the owner, went into the category of outcasts. A small part of the people who left the land of the owner became church people, which is spelled out in the Charter of 1193 of Prince Vsevolod.

You can become "untouchable" for various reasons. In India, for example, there is a special The "third sex" is a caste of untouchables, which is both worshiped and feared.