Notes+p.398+-+401

-serfdom gave the gov’t a way to satisfy nobles and control the peasants through nobles -17th and 18th centuries, laws passed to tie the serfs to the land and increased legal rights of the landlords -similar to slavery, could be brought, sold, gambled away, and punished by their masters -different in that they enslaved their own members rather than outsiders as slaves/serfs -serfs were taxed and policed by landlords -Peter the Great encouraged selling whole village as manufacturing labor -Catherine the Great passed a law in 1785 allowing landlords to punish harshly any serfs of major crimes or rebellion -Peasants are not literally slaves but illiterate and quite poor
 * __ Serfdom __**
 * An act in 1649 fixed the hereditary status of the serfs, so they can’t escape their station

-95% of the population remained rural -nobles prevented emergence merchant class incase of any competition -trade not only with economic system worked to support the expanding state and empire -squeezing the serfs to increase production rather than improve agricultural methods -manufacturing lagged behind Western standards
 * __ Dependence __**
 * Population doubled during the 18th century to 36 million

-Russia’s economic and social system led to protest
 * __ Social Unrest __**
 * End of 18th century, groups of Western-oriented aristocrats tried to abolish serfdom such as Radishev
 * Recurring peasant rebellions (peasants were loyal to the tsar, but against landlords for taxing their lands); destroy manorial records, seize land, and sometimes kill landlords and officials
 * Pugachev rebellion of the 1770s was particularly strong; Pugachev was bough to Moscow in a case and put into quarters in a public square

-Greek merchants picked up many Enlightenment ideas from trading with the West around the 18th century -the Czech and Slovak regions operated more fully within the Western cultural orbit -many smaller eastern European nationalities lost political autonomy -decline of Poland was particularly striking
 * __ Russia __****__ and Eastern Europe __**
 * Copernicus, Polish scientist, participated in fundamental discoveries in what became the Scientific Revolution
 * Reformation echoed to the east central Europe such as Hungary
 * Eclipse of Poland highlighted Russian emergence on the European and Eurasian stage