Jyrki Paaskoski: Noble Land-Holding and Serfdom in 'Old Finland'. Summary

Jyrki Paaskoski: Vanhan Suomen lahjoitusmaat 1710-1826

Bibliotheca Historica n:o 24
ISBN: 951-710-063-9 (painettu versio)
ISSN: 1238-3503
Hinta: 120 markkaa.
320 sivua, karttoja.

Noble Land-Holding and Serfdom in 'Old Finland'

Summary

The landed estates of the Russian nobility in the province of Vyborg came into existence during the Great Northern War in the 1710s, when Tsar Peter I granted peasant villages to his close associates. The nobility was ordered to serve the state and in recompense Peter gave them estates in different parts of Russia, notably in the provinces of Ingria, Vyborg and Kexholm, which Russia had conquered from Sweden.

The Russian province (guberniia) of Vyborg was formed under the terms of the peace treaties of Nystad (1721) and Åbo (1743), when Russia moved its border to the River Kymi (Kimis or Kiumen). The area received guberniia status in 1744 when the Swedish provinces of Vyborg, Kexholm and Kymmenegård were united as the Guberniia of Vyborg. During the war against Sweden in 1808-9 Russians started to call the area by the name of 'Old Finland', in order to distinguish it from the rest of Finland, so-called 'New Finland', conquered in 1808. The concept of 'Old Finland' disappeared in 1811 when it was united with the Grand Duchy of Finland.

The main question of this thesis is whether the estate peasants of 'Old Finland' were serfs or not. Generally, the concept of a serf can be defined in several different ways. According to the most common and widely accepted definition serfs did not have the right to move from their farms and their taxes were set by their lords. Serfs did not have any juridical rights and they were under the rule of their masters who had the right to punish them.

It is important to analyze in practice the limits of noble land-holding in 'Old Finland'. The rights of inheriting, buying, selling and mortgaging the farms and peasants has been analyzed in order to compare the peasant's practical and juridical situation in 'Old Finland', the Russian Empire, the East Elbian German Principalities, Denmark and Sweden. The same comparative method has been used in the analysis of peasant taxes and their right to move from their farms.

In Finnish historiography the landed estates of 'Old Finland' have been studied from the peasant point of view. Noble land-holding has been examined in detail through the years of russification in Finland, 1899-1905 and 1908-17, especially in the works of J.-R. Danielson-Kalmari, professor of history at the University of Helsinki at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. According to him the peasants were fighting for their rights in the same way as the Finns during the years of russification.

From pomest'e to votchina

Noble land tenure in 'Old Finland' in the eighteenth century was governed principally by Peter I's decree on noble inheritance, which largely equated pomest'e with votchina tenure. The noble's rights to receive estates were defined in special letters or diplomas (zhalovannaia gramota) granted by Peter I and his successors. All the possessions were connected to state service, but most of them were taken back after the death of the noble owner. For example, the well-known vice-president of the College of Admiralty, Vice-Admiral Kornelii Ivanovich Kreis (Cruys, Krjujs, Kreic) received an estate containing 131 peasant households in the parish of Kurkijoki in Kexholm province in 1715. After his death, his widow was given special permission to hold it until her death, and after that it was returned to the Crown. The vice-president of the College of War, General Adam Adamovich Weide, was granted 188 peasant households in the parish of Rautu in Kexholm province after the edict of 1714. After his death the estate reverted to the Crown.

Perhaps the clearest illustration is the case of the diplomat and first president of the College of Justice, Andrei Artamonovich Matveev. In 1716 he received 132 peasant households in the parish of Valkeala, situated later on the Swedish side of the border agreed under the 1721 Nystad treaty. After that Matveev was granted a new estate of 83 peasant households in the parish of Pyhäjärvi in Kexholm province. After his death in 1728 this estate was returned to the Crown, but two years later it was granted to his son, Lieutenant-Captain Fedor Andreevich Matveev. After the latter's death in March 1734 Pyhäjärvi was returned to the Crown and granted to Count Petr Semenovich Saltykov in May 1734.

There are many cases where the spirit of the edict of 1714 was broken. Tenure of almost all the estates in the provinces of Vyborg and Kexholm must be explained in terms of pomest'e. The definitions of tenure in these zhalovannye gramoty used the concept vladenie to describe the rights of ownership. The term 'vladenie' can be translated as 'disposition', indicating the right to do what you like with something, to dispose of it. But vladenie on these noble estates had the same meaning as the seventeenth-century pomest'e - they were not hereditary and were not connected to compulsory state service. The landlord's rights were restricted to the enjoyment of peasant taxes and peasants were not to be bound to the land by definite limitations.

During the 1730s and 1740s there was a clear change in the concept of land ownership (zemlevladenie) as defined in the zhalovannye gramoty. According to Konstantin Nevolin, from the 1730s the ownership of an estate was defined by the concept of 'vladenie', supplemented by the adjectives 'eternal and hereditary' (vechnoe i potomstvennoe). For instance, in 1734 by grant of Anna Ioannovna, Count Petr Semenovich Saltykov received the former estate of Fedor Matveev, altogether seventeen villages, in 'eternal and hereditary possession' (vechnoe i potomstvennoe vladenie). According to his diploma Saltykov received ' for his disposition all the lands and cultivated fields as well as the peasants living on the estate and those who have run away'. In 1744 Empress Elisabeth granted from her own appanage (udel, Tafelgut) the parishes of Kurkijoki, Parikkala (Koitsanlahti) and Jaakkima situated in the province of Kexholm to her favourite, later Chancellor and General, Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov. According to the terms of his gramota, he received the parishes in 'eternal and hereditary possession'. After Vorontsov's gramota all the land grants given to the nobility from the guberniia of Vyborg were described in the same way. Finally, the new edition was confirmed in an edict issued in July 1765, which described all the new noble estates granted from the gubernii of Reval, Riga and Vyborg as 'eternal and hereditary possessions'.

Although the gramoty in the 1730s and 1740s gave landowners permission to sell their Karelian estates, they did not do so. But immediately after the edict of 1765 sales and purchases of noble landed estates began in the province of Vyborg. According to my interpretation, the beginning of land sales can be explained by the concept of property rights (pravo sobstvennosti), which came into general use from the 1760s. The concept of 'sobstvennost' or property in actions in the sense of civil law were possible. If the ownership was complete (polnoe) the landlord had the right to control his estate (pravo vladeniia) and to benefit from its natural resources, such as metals and forests (pravo pol'zovaniia). It included owners' rights in matters of inheritance, bequest, sale and purchase (pravo rasporiazheniia).

One of the first sales of noble landed estates took place in the parish of Sakkola, which was the family estate of the Musin-Pushkins. In 1740 the Sakkola estate at Petäjärvi was granted to the president of the College of Commerce, Count Platon Ivanovich Musin-Pushkin, who was the favourite of Anna Ioannovna. In the same year the empress granted to him more than 14,200 serfs in different parts of Russia. During the reign of Elisabeth, Platon Musin-Pushkin was banished to the monastery of Solovki and his property was returned to the Crown. In 1762 the Sakkola estate was granted to his son Lieutenant Ivan Platonovich Musin-Pushkin, and his uncle, the president of the College of Mines Appollos Epafroditovich Musin-Pushkin, who decided to sell it to Councillor of State Joachim (Jefim) von Sievers for 18,000 roubles. His son, the well-known governor of Novgorod Jakob Johann von Sievers, sold it to the banker Johann (Ivan Jur'evich) von Freedericksz for 35.000 roubles in 1775. The essential point is that the new owner got the same rights of tenure as the former owner had in his gramota.

Mortgages of serfs

An important landmark in noble landownership occurred in 1786 with the foundation of the State Loans Bank (Gosudarstvennyi Zaemnyi Bank). Noble Russian landowners could mortgage their serfs to the bank, which paid 40 roubles per serf. The purpose of the mortgage was to obtain cheap loans to develop agriculture as advocated by physiocratism and the Free Economic Society. From the 1770s the pomeshchiki of 'Old Finland' were already eagerly investing in new stone cowsheds and vodka-distilleries, draining marshlands and founding sawmills. Even before the mortgage edict the governor of Vyborg, Nikolai Nikolaevich Engelhardt, had requested special loans from Catherine II to help to develop agriculture on the estates of nobility.

The pomeshchiki sent their applications to the civil court (palata grazhdanskogo suda) of Vyborg, as the edict clearly ordered, to confirm their ownership of their peasants. The first application was made in September 1786, when pomeshchiki of Kivennapa parish in the province of Vyborg General Fieldmarshal Count Ivan Petrovich Saltykov and his wife Dar'ia Petrovna Saltykova (neé Chernysheva) applied for permission to mortgage their peasants. After them most of the province's pomeshchiki applied to mortgage their peasants. The vice-president of the Admiralty College, Count Ivan Grigoreevich Chernyshev, lord of the parish of Muolaa in the province of Kexholm, and brigadier of Preobrazhensky Guard Andrei Ivanovich von Freedericksz, lord of the estate of Taubila in Pyhäjärvi parish in Kexholm province, are among the best known.

The court's response surprised all the applicants. It did not give permission to any pomeshchiki to mortgage their peasants to the State Loans Bank. The court based its resolution on two arguments. Firstly, in its statement of November 1786 it was argued that peasants owned by their noble masters were not serfs but 'free persons' (vol'nye cheloveki) who could not be mortgaged for loans. Secondly, the argument was more practically related to the statutes of the Bank. The revenue department (kazennaia palata) of the province of Vyborg agreed with the court's decision and argued that peasants living on the noble estates were not serfs, because they were free to move from their farms whenever they wanted to. And of course the Bank considered that it must have a reliable basic collateral of bonded peasants - serfs - for the loan.

The pomeshchiki appealed to the Senate, but the Senate agreed with the court. According to the decision of the Senate's third department, the peasants of the province were 'free' (vol'nye) because the tsars had affirmed in the peace treaty of Nystad (1721) and Åbo (1743) Swedish laws (the Law of King Christopher of Bavaria and the Swedish Law of 1734), which did not accept serfdom. And the Bank's argument was accepted, too. The Senate argued that the Bank could not grant or accept the peasants as collateral if the peasants had the right to move away from their farms.

The prohibition of mortgages secured by estate peasants had two consequences. Firstly, the sales of noble estates increased in the 1790s and by the beginning of the nineteenth century almost all the largest estates had changed owners, because the nobility estimated that their estates were not productive enough. For instance, the Shuvalovs, Saltykovs and Chernyshevs sold their estates to business-orientated commercial counsellors Aleksander Vasil'evich Ol'khin and Mikhail Mikhailovich Blandov, both from St. Petersburg. These new owners had clearly bought the estates for economic reasons: they tried to produce foodstuff and firewood for the markets of St. Petersburg. Secondly, the refusal of a mortgage led to controversies on the estates when the pomeshchiki tried to increase taxes on those estates which the owners decided not to sell.

The Estate Peasants' and Local Courts' Idea of Land-Holding

Besides arguments based on the concept of zemlevladenie and the mortgaging of estate peasants, there is a third argument illustrating the restrictions on noble land-holding in eighteenth-century 'Old Finland'. As well as considering the opinions of the nobility and officials, it is important to analyze how the estate peasants themselves viewed the problem of landholding. This approach also provides the opportunity to test how the local courts representing the tsar and the government understood the limitations on noble land-holding and the rights of the estate peasants. In the last chapter I argued that land-holding was limited by the local courts, which based their decisions on the Swedish laws. But how did the courts act when two estate peasants quarrelled over the boundaries between their farms or fields, for instance? This kind of lawsuit was impossible, in practice and even in principle, between Russian serfs, who did not even have the possibility to complain against their masters.

One notes from the records of the lower and upper courts of 'Old Finland' that there were many cases of estate peasants going to court over the control of their farms. The most typical cases were those in which two estate peasants (usually brothers or near relatives), were fighting over the inheritance of a farm. But it was also common for two estate peasants to quarrel about the boundaries between their farms. And there are cases where two or even more landed estate villages fought as communities over the borders between their fields, common forestries or pastures.

These cases, in which two or more villages were involved, were the most complicated. For instance, peasants in two different villages from the estate of Valkjärvi in the district of Vyborg owned by the vice-president of the Admiralty, Count Ivan Grigor´evich Chernyshev, complained about the boundaries between their villages to the civil court of Vyborg in 1794. In a case on the same estate in 1786 a total of seven villages and the estate office (kontora) were in dispute over possession of a small piece of land. It was even possible for village communities from two different estates to be summoned to appear before the court over cases of disputed possession of plots or boundaries between villages. In April 1795 the estate peasants of Countess Natal´ia Petrovna Golitsyna (neé Chernysheva) from the parish of Valkjärvi and those of Count Ivan Grigor´evich Chernyshev from the parish of Muolaa quarelled over the ownership of a piece of land situated between their estates. Even peasants from estate and crown lands could have disputes about boundaries or a piece of land. For instance, in 1755-6 the church peasants of Valamo monastery in the parish of Sakkola were fighting against the crown peasants from Räisälä parish over boundaries.

It is very obvious that the estate peasants had the same juridical rights to complain to the lower and upper courts as the nobility. The peasants knew their rights very well and dared to use them. It is also clear that the pomeshchiki of 'Old Finland' realized that the guberniia of Vyborg differed from other parts of the Empire. The courts did not ask for the opinions of the pomeshchiki in cases of disputes of land ownership or boundaries between estate peasants. The Swedish tradition of the rights of the peasantry to resolve matters of private law was still observed in eighteenth-century 'Old Finland' and the crown officials in local and central government and even pomeshchiki themselves were very aware of the rights of the estate peasants. The formulations of the zhalovannye gramoty did not include the same practices as they did in other parts of the Empire.

The Taxation of Estate Peasants

The tax burdens of the estate peasants differed from those on noble estates in Russia. The most important difference between 'Old Finland' and the heart of Russia was the controlling power of the revenue department and local courts in fixing the terms of taxation. In 1728 an edict was issued which based taxation of the provinces of Vyborg and Kexholm on the Swedish model. The edict also affected the landed estates. Three years earlier the same kind of taxation reform had been initiated in Estonia and Livonia. This taxation was basedon local laws and traditions, in other words taxation reform in 'Old Finland' was not an oddity in the conquered provinces.

During the Great Northern War both the Swedish and Russian troops had marched on the Karelian isthmus from all directions. Peasant households were ruined and the population decreased sharply, which meant that the capacity of the peasants declined. The new taxation system was implemented with the support of the leaders of local peasant communities, who sent a group of peasants to work with the Revision Committee, which was headed by the assessor of the College of State Revenues, Anton Johan von Saltza (1683-1753). As a result of the work of the Revision Committee, the burdens on peasant households decreased in comparison with the period of Swedish rule in the seventeenth century.

The new taxes also affected noble landed estates. The nobility were not allowed to decide the taxes of their peasants, but had to follow the directives of the Revision Committee. It produced a large amount of material bound in a special 'Revision book'. In addition, noble landholders were ordered to return one third of the total amount of the collected taxes to the revenue department in Vyborg. Supervised by the local authorities, the 'Revision book' became an important document, which prevented the nobility from increasing the burdens on the landed peasantry until the 1770s.

During the last part of the eighteenth century the population of 'Old Finland' increased sharply. Peasant farms desolated during the 1710s were repopulated and new fields were cleared. One solution, especially on the Karelian isthmus, was the division of the peasant farm between brothers into smaller entities. Slowly, this led to prosperous times for the peasant economy because neither the Crown nor the nobility could raise taxes without a new revision. This practice irritated the nobility, whose own economy was dependant upon peasant taxes. Occasionally, the nobility tried to increase barshchina and obrok of their peasants, but the latter complained to the local courts, which systematically ordered nobles to follow the provisions of the 1728 Revision Committee. On some estates the landholders tried to force their peasants to pay higher taxes. For instance, the peasants on the estate of Fieldmarshal Aleksandr Borisovich Buturlin in the province of Kexholm had some minor fights (but not revolts) with the estate office at the beginning of the 1760s. Buturlin argued without any success that he and his office could decide the taxes and that the lower courts had nothing to do with the taxation of his peasants.

In 1765 a new tax revision was carried out in connection with the general survey (general'noe mezhevanie) that had just started in the whole Empire. Officials in central government felt that the project advanced too slowly in 'Old Finland' and the Committee was disbanded first in 1788 and secondly in 1802. Both the peasants and the nobility opposed the new Committee and did not give any support to its work asThe most important difference between 'Old Finland' and the heart of Russia was the controlling power of the revenue department and local courts in fixing the terms of taxation. In 1728 an edict was issued which based taxation of the provinces of Vyborg and Kexholm on the Swedish model. The edict also affected the landed estates. Three years earlier the same kind of taxation reform had been initiated in Estonia and Livonia. This taxation was basedon local laws and traditions, in other words taxation reform in 'Old Finland' was not an oddity in the conquered provinces.

Noble Land Rights in 'Old Finland'

There are two changes in the history of noble land-holding in eighteenth-century 'Old Finland' which need to be explained. The first relates to the birth and growth of noble landowning, and the second to the restrictions of noble rights over their peasants. The last explanation is connected to the question of the factual freedom of the peasantry of 'Old Finland'. The birth and growth of tenure can be explained by a conceptual approach. The change from limited tenure (defined in the gramoty by the term vladenie) to full ownership (defined as vechnoe i potomstvennoe vladenie) of the landed estates was typical of the area east of the river Elbe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. This development was not unique to Russia. The same process was going on in Austria, Poland and the East Elbian German Principalities. This change can be illustrated by the shift between Grundherrschaft and Gutsherrschaft . Until the sixteenth century the nobility had rights over the ground ('Herrschaft über Grund und Boden'), and peasants living on the ground were enserfed, but not under very strict rules. Under the eighteenth centuryGutsherrschaft peasants were fastened to the soil with many detailed limitations.

In Europe, Gutsherrschaft came into existence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The same devolpment was started in Russia under Tsar Peter I, who needed the support of the nobility to modernize the Russian state. Peter and his successors gave the nobility broad rights over their land and peasantry in return for this support. In the end, the state even gave part of its local governmental powers to the nobility, such as the monopoly over justice and policing and the right to collect the poll tax. The provincial reform of 1775 and the great Charter to the Nobility of 1785 are reflections of this process. The Russian state voluntarily left the countryside to the nobility. The serfdom which had already begun in the sixteenth century and even earlier was strengthened even more in the eighteenth.

As the mortgage resolution and lawsuits between peasants clearly showed the nobility of 'Old Finland' did not have full ownership over the peasants on their estates even though their zhalovannaye gramoty indicated it. 'Eternal and hereditary possession' meant that the landowners' rights were vested in land, buildings, inventories and so on of the estates, rather than in peasants and even their farms. And the factual position of the estate peasantry of 'Old Finland' also differed from that of the enserfed Russian peasants. They had the right to complain to the lower courts and even to the civil court over their master's offences over taxation guaranteed by the Revision Committee of 1728. They even had the right to conclude agreements on taxes and to complain about the breaking of agreements. The most important feature of the estate peasantry of 'Old Finland' was that they had the de facto right to move from estate land to the crown's land and vice-versa, which is clearly documented in the church books (metricheskie knigi) in the sections on marriages, for instance.

An explanation for these restrictions on noble tenure is far more complicated. In 'Old Finland' Swedish traditions were strong even if the peace treaty of Nystadt(1721) only granted the region freedom of religion. After the peace of Åbo (1743) Russia acquired an area which retained all the social, political and cultural practices and traditions from the Swedish era. Kymmengård province had used the modern law of Sweden since 1734, and its economic, social and cultural position increased still more the difference between the Empire and the province of Vyborg. 'Old Finland' acquired a separate status not completly defined in the peace treaties, as was the case in Estonia and Livonia.

The landed estates equated with the Swedish seventeenth century donations, which were close to the Russian pomest'es granted for the nobleman's work for his state. All the problems created during the last part of the eighteenth century were connected to a controversial interpretation of the limits of noble land-holding. The peasants and the local courts and even the Senate interpreted that noble land-holding was clearly limited by the Swedish laws and traditions, but the Russian nobility evidently understood them as votchiny. According to the concept of votchina the noblemen had full ownership over their landed estates.

The question of landowning stayed unclear until 1825 when Tsar Aleksander I founded a special Noble Land-Holding Committee to solve the whole problem. In his secret letter to the Governor-General of the Grand Duchy of Finland, Arseni Andrejevich Zakrevski, he ordered that the nobility of the former 'Old Finland' would have full ownership over their estates including the peasant farms. The peasants would keep their personal freedom, i.e. they were not enserfed.

The Swedish traditions and customs of 'Old Finland' were so strong that noble tenure never worked on the same level as defined in the zhalovannye gramoty. It is very obvious that all the participants, the nobility, the estate peasantry and the officials in the local and central government clearly understood 'Old Finland's' exceptional position among the other gubernii of the Empire. Eighteenth century Russia was a multicultural and multinational Empire which included many different historic and legal traditions. So also the estate peasants of the different parts of the Empire did not have equal rights and obligations, as the case of 'Old Finland' shows.

Back/Paluu