Family

When I was a child, my grandmother liked to tell me stories about our family. Some stories were fun, interesting, some of them were scary. Unfortunately, she didn’t know more - our ancestors did not like to talk about themselves, because they lived in hard times, when terrible things happened like wars, revolutions, slavery, serfdom and Stalin’s repressions. Most of what happened then cannot be found in records, then and now, because of literacy, censorship and propaganda.

The history of slavery in Russia starts approximately in the 12th century. It was an important institution, but in 1723, Peter I ended it. The Tsar ordered that all house slaves would become house serfs. But in practice serfs were still not free and had no choice. They were born into their social classes and could not change them. The serfs were tied to the land they worked; they were the property of a landlord. The landlord owned the serfs and could sell them any time, not only within Russia, but even abroad. He had the power to decide who could get married to whom, and he also could separate kids from their parents. Officially the landlord could do with his serfs whatever he wanted, but he was not allowed to kill them intentionally. But he could be a despot and accidentally kill some of his serfs and still be unpunished. So the serfs could not complain to anyone. They were dependant on their landlord because they rented his land and needed to pay for it. At the same time their labour was unpaid.

According to my grandmother, in the family history of her mother, there were serfs too. They were very poor and worked hard, but fortunately they had a good landlord who treated them well. My great-grandfather's family were prosperous serfs. Later, when they were no longer serfs, they bought their own land and built a mill there

Only in 1861, the serfdom in Russia was abolished after the serfs began to riot. The serfs had expected their freedom and land, but in fact, they had to pay money to landlords to redeem it. So the only option for them was to take a lifetime loan from the government.

To be honest, I can’t imagine what my ancestors went through and how they felt. Unfortunately, even today many people are not free. I hope that people will come together to right that wrong. Every human being on our planet has the duty to make the world a safer place for every human being to live in.