Serfowners against Serfdom: Elite Divisions and Agrarian Reform at the Livonian Diet of 1803

• In Event: Interdisciplinary History I: The Russian Empire

Abstract

What explains variation in the incidence of serfdom? Predictions about landed elite preferences can be derived from classic as well as more recent political economy models of labor coercion, but individual-level evidence on such preferences, and their correlates, is surprisingly thin. I make good this deficit, using petitions, written opinions, and genealogical data to measure and explain the preferences of 100 members of the Livonian Diet (1803) over serfdom and its reform.

Author

• Brendan McElroy, U of Toronto (Canada)