Note 9 — Chapter I · GENERAL SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANDHOLDING IN RUSSIA.

The government did not act in consistence with the principles of the emancipation of the serfs when applying in 1866 the “Statute on peasants freed from bond serfdom” to those freed from dependence upon the State. While the former were declared “peasant proprietors,” the latter were regarded only as hereditary tenants. A new law was subsequently passed, granting the former State peasants the right of buying out their lots from the State. I have not the respective statutes at hand, and am not certain as to the year in which the law was passed. It was certainly later than 1882, the year of the census whose reports we use further on.