The Impact of the Baltic Emancipation Reforms on Peasant-Landlord Relations: A Historiographical Survey

Kersti Lust

Journal of Baltic Studies, 2013, vol. 44, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: The aim of the article is to introduce the main lines of argument and interpretation in studies of the Baltic Emancipation Reforms of 1816, 1817 and 1819, identifying common paradigms and setting an agenda for future research. First, we need to use archival evidence to investigate whether the first decades of freedom in all three Baltic provinces, where similar laws were implemented, actually impoverished the peasantry. Second, we must ask what limited the development of agriculture after emancipation: was it the uncertainty attending the end of peasant protections or rather the limits on economic freedom of activity? Third, the claim that new peasant laws ‘correcting’ the mistakes of the Emancipation Laws were needed for the peasant economy to get off the ground is not adequately supported by the case in Kurland, where many changes had already taken place prior to the 1863 law allowing peasants to purchase land.

Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2012.744610

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