negro slaves and mužik serfs. Despite his close relationships with Nicholas, Žukovskii was forbidden to print the translation of Schiller's Three Words of the Faith—"Man is created free, and is free, even if born in chains." The tragic example of the poet Sibirjakov shows the limits imposed in Russia upon moral and spiritual freedom. Born in chains, what his lord valued in him was not his poetic gift, but his skill as pastrycook, the trade he had been taught. When Žukovskii and others became interested in the poet, and desired to purchase his freedom, compensation to the amount of ten thousand roubles was demanded.
A recognition of the social and moral bearing of serfdom made its abolition a primary demand of persons holding enlightened and humanitarian views. But these considerations were reinforced by economic calculation, which never ceased to demonstrate the comparative unproductiveness of servile labour. Finally, Russian aristocrats and landowners could not fail to understand the meaning of incessant jacqueries, chateau burnings, and assassinations.
Liberation of the peasantry was the pious aspiration of eighteenth-century humanists, of masonic and political secret societies, and above all of the decabrists. Not in vain was the death of Pestel; not fruitless were the sufferings of the exiles who languished in Siberia. Nor was it by chance that Prince Obolenskii, a decabrist, returning from exile in 1856, exercised in this matter a decisive influence upon Rostovcev, the counsellor of Alexander II and one of the leading promoters of this reform.
Uvarov's philosophy of serfdom fell with the fall of Sevastopol.
The history of the abolition of serfdom under Alexander II is brief but momentous. There was a fierce struggle between the progressives and the moderates, between the opponents and the supporters of the institution. The emperor's position was difficult, for with two exceptions (Constantine, Alexander's younger brother, and Helena Pavlovna, his aunt) all the members of the court were adverse to the reform.
After the conclusion of peace and the issue of the peace manifesto of 1856, the tsar seized the first opportunity to instruct the delegation of the Moscow aristocracy to consider the possibility of liberating the serfs. Following the path that had been trodden by his father, in 1857 he summoned
