150 Years Ago: Czar Alexander II signs the other Emancipation Proclamation

H.I.M. Alexander II Czar Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias

The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia (Russian: Крестьянская реформа 1861 года, lit. "The Peasant Reform of 1861") was the first and most important of liberal reforms effected during the reign of Alexander II of Russia. The reform, together with a related reform in 1861, amounted to the liquidation of serf dependence previously suffered by Russian peasants.

The 1861 Emancipation Manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs on private estates and of the domestic (household) serfs. By this edict more than twenty-three million people received their liberty.[1] Serfs were granted the full rights of free citizens, gaining the rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property and to own a business. The Manifesto prescribed that peasants would be able to buy the land from the landlords. Household serfs were the worst affected as they gained only their freedom and no land.

In Georgia the emancipation was postponed till 1864 and on much better terms for the nobles than in Russia. State owned serfs - the serfs on the imperial properties - were emancipated in 1866[1] and were given better and larger plots of land.

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