Russian Nobility - History

History

Alexander Pushkin neatly summed up the weakness of Russian nobility: European people believe in the aristocracy, some to scorn it, others to have something to hate...In Russia none of this exists. Here one simply does not believe in it. The nobility arose in the 12th and 13th centuries as the lowest part of the feudal military class, which composed the court of a prince or an important boyar. From the 14th century land ownership by nobles increased, and by the 17th century it composed the bulk of feudal lords and constituted the majority of landowners. The nobles were granted estates out of State lands in return for their service to the Czar, for as long as they performed service, or for a lifetime, but by the 18th century these estates turned into their private property. They made up the Landed army (Russian: поместное войско) - the basic military force of Russia. Peter the Great finalized the status of the nobility, while abolishing the boyar title.

Tsarina Anna gave many privileges to the nobility. In 1730 she repealed the primogeniture law of Peter the Great so estates could be subdivided again. In 1736, the age when they had to start service was raised from 15 to 20, service was now for 25 years not life and families with more than one son could keep one to manage the estate.

In 1762 Peter III abolished the compulsory 25-year military or civilian service for nobles. Marc Raeff (Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia) has suggested this was not a noble victory but a sign the state didn't need them as much now that they had plenty of trained officials. Catherine the Great gave away 66,000 serfs 1762-72, 202,000 1773-93 and 100,000 in one day: 18 August 1795. Thus she was able to bind the nobility to her. From 1782, a kind of uniform was introduced for civilian nobles called uniform of civilian service or simply civilian uniform. The uniform prescribed colors that depended on the territory. The uniform was required at the places of service, at the Court, and at other important public places. The privileges of the nobility were fixed and were legally codified in 1785 in the Charter to the Gentry. The Charter introduced an organization of the nobility: every province (guberniya) and district (uyezd) had an Assembly of Nobility. The chair of an Assembly was called Province/District Marshal of Nobility. In 1831 Nicholas I restricted the assembly votes to those with over 100 serfs, leaving 21,916 voters.

By 1805, the various ranks of the nobility had become confused, as is apparent in War and Peace. Here, we see counts who are wealthier and more important than princes. We see many noble families whose wealth has been dissipated, partly through lack of primogeniture and partly through extravagance and poor estate management. We see young noblemen serving in the Army, but we see none who acquire new landed estates that way. (This refers to the era of the Napoleonic Wars. Tolstoy reported some improvement afterwards: some nobles paid more attention to estate management, and some, like Andrey Bolkonsky, freed their serfs even before the tsar did so in 1861.) 62.8% of Russia's nobles were szlachta from the 9 western gubernii in 1858 and still 46.1% in 1897.

Serfs owned by European Russian landlords

Obrok or cash rent was most common in the north while barshchina or labour rent was found mainly in the southern Black Earth Region. In Nicholas I's reign the latter brought three times the income of cash rent though this needed less administration. In 1798, Ukrainian landlords were banned from selling serfs apart from land. In 1841, landless nobles were banned also.

The nobility was too weak to oppose the emancipation of the serfs. In 1858 3 million serfs were held by 1,400 landlords (1.4%) while 2 million by 79,000 (78%). In 1820 a fifth of the serfs were mortgaged, half by 1842. By 1859, a third of noble's estates and two thirds of their serfs were mortgaged to noble banks or the state. The nobility was also weakened by the scattering of their estates, lack of Primogeniture and the high turnover and mobility from estate to estate.

After the peasant reform of 1861 the economic position of the nobility was weakened. The influence of nobility was further reduced by the new law statutes of 1864, under which their right of electing law officers was repealed. The reform of the police in 1862 limited the landowners authority locally, and creation of all-estate Zemstvo local government did away with exclusive influence of nobility in local self-government.

This was despite the fact that the nobles kept nearly all the meadows and forests, had their debts paid by the state while the ex serfs paid 34% over the market price for the shrunken plots they kept. This figure was 90% in the northern regions, 20% in the black earth region but zero in the Polish provinces. In 1857, 6.79% of serfs were domestic, landless servants who stayed landless after 1861. Only Polish and Romanian domestic serfs got land. 90% of the serfs who got larger plots were in the 8 ex Polish provinces where the Tsar wanted to weaken the Szlachta. The other 10% was in Astrakhan and the barren north. In the whole Empire, peasant land declined 4.1%,13.3% outside the ex Polish zone and 23.3% in the 16 black earth provinces. Georgia's serfs suffered the loss of 1/5 of their land in Tiflis province, 1/3 in Kutaisi province. These redemption payments were not abolished till January 1, 1907.

The influx of New World grain caused a slump in grain prices,forcing the peasants to farm more land. At the same time, despite their efficiency, large peasant households split up (from 9.5 to 6.8 persons per household in central Russia, 1861–84). The resulting land hunger increased prices 7 fold and made it easier for nobles to sell or rent land rather than farm it themselves. From 1861 to 1900 40% of noble land was sold to peasants (70% of this went to the Commune and by 1900 two thirds of the nobles' arable land was rented to the peasantry. 1900–1914, over 20% of remaining noble land was sold but only 3% of the 155 estates over 50,000 desiatiny. According to the 1897 census,71% of the top 4 rans of the civil service were nobles. But in the civil service as a whole,noble membership declined from 49.8% in 1755 to 43.7% in the 1850s and 30.7% in 1897. There were 1.2 million nobles, about 1% of the population (8% in Poland,4% in Hungary and 1-1.5% in France). Their military influence waned: in the Crimean War 90% of officers were noble, by 1913 it was 50%. They lived increasingly away from estates: in 1858 only 15-20% of Russian nobles lived in cities, by 1897 it was 47.2%.

By 1904 1/3 noble land was mortgaged to the noble bank. During the 1905 Russian Revolution 3,000 manors were burnt (15% of the total).

After the October Revolution of 1917 all classes of nobility were legally abolished. Many members of the Russian nobility who fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution played a significant role in the White Emigre communities that settled in Europe, in North America, and in other parts of the world. In the 1920s and 1930s, several Russian nobility associations were established outside Russia, including groups in France, Belgium, and the United States. In New York, the Russian Nobility Association in America was founded in 1938. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a growing interest among Russians in the role that the Russian nobility has played in the historical and cultural development of Russia