The Emancipation Manifesto
The legal basis of the reform was the Tsar's Emancipation Manifesto of March 3 1861, accompanied by the set of legislative acts under the general name Regulations Concerning Peasants Leaving Serf Dependence (Russian: Положения о крестьянах, выходящих из крепостной зависимости, Polozheniya o krestyanakh, vykhodyashchikh iz krepostnoi zavisimosti).
This Manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs on private estates and of the domestic (household) serfs. 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.
Read more about this topic: Emancipation Reform Of 1861
Famous quotes containing the word emancipation:
“Will women find themselves in the same position they have always been? Or do we see liberation as solving the conditions of women in our society?... If we continue to shy away from this problem we will not be able to solve it after independence. But if we can say that our first priority is the emancipation of women, we will become free as members of an oppressed community.”
—Ruth Mompati (b. 1925)