Note 1446 — Chapter XVII · —The Influence Of Climate

The rigorous climate of Russia was undoubtedly one cause for the attachment of the peasants to the soil in 1593. This measure was resorted to at a time when the Muscovite dominion from its center in Great Russia had recently been extended at the expense of the Tartars, and had thus embraced fertile southern lands, which tempted the northern peasant away from his unfruitful fields.1446 This attraction, coupled with the free and hopeful life of the frontier, met the migrant instinct bred in the peasant by the wide plains and far horizon of Russia, so that the north threatened to be left without cultivators. Later, the harsh climatic conditions of the north were advanced as an argument against the abolition of serfdom, on the ground that this system alone secured to the landed proprietor a steady labor supply, and guaranteed to the peasant his maintenance during the long, idle winter.