ABSTRACT
Interesting information on the thoughts and sentiments of peasants living under serfdom can be found in the yearly accounts of Count Benkendorf, head of the political police. The peasant serfs, who in the middle of the eighteenth century made up almost half of the peasantry and about forty percent of the entire population of Russia, cannot be accused of growing accustomed to their bondage and of coming to terms with it. By 1863, the peasants who had lived under serfdom were finally free from the landowners, but this freedom was not full freedom either in a legal or an economic sense. The report for 1834 says the thought of freedom is spreading and growing stronger among proprietary serfs. In 1834 there were many examples of serfs disobeying their landlords, and almost all these incidents happened not because of oppression or cruelty, but only because of the serfs’ desire to have the right to be free.
