The Emancipation of State Peasants in Saaremaa 1841–1919.

Summary

The modernisation of Estonian economic life in the 2nd half of the 19th century and in the first decades of the 20th century brought about deep changes in agriculture as well. The main features of the development of capitalism in Estonian agritulture were: the gradual transformation of former feudal manorial estates into capitalist enterprises, the transition from labour rent to money rent, the sale of farms for perpetuity, which resulted in the emergence of bourgeois landownership of the peasants, the extensive use of new agrotechnology, changes in land utilization, increase in agricultural productivity, changes in the social composition and class structure of the rural population — the birth of two classes (landowners and hired workers).

The above-mentioned changes did not take place over the whole Estonia at the same time, nor did they follow the same pattern. Both the legislation and practice varied to a great degree. On the crown estates the rate of money rent and redemption payments were fixed. On the private manors the provisions of law allowing for payment of rent in money, or purchase of farms for perpetuity could be implemented only on the initiative of the manor owners. The terms of the contracts made with peasants were up to the manor owner to decide.

The book is focused on the problem of the development of capitalistic features in land tenure and in the relations between different social strata in the villages of the crown estates in Saaremaa. More than half of the peasantry (55%) in Saaremaa lived on crown estates. The addressed issue is the state peasants’ response to the attempts of the tsarist government to transform the villages. Did they approve of the changes brought about by the inroad of capitalism into the villages, or were they more inclined to resist them?

For the research, sources from the Estonian Historical Archives, Estonian State Archives, Estonian Literature Museum, Latvian State Historical Archives and Russian State Historical Archives were used. Most of the materials originated from the cadastral mapping of the crown estates and the sale of farms following the campaign. One of the aims of cartographic work was to determine the economic potential of the farms and manors.

In the first chapter of the research an overview is given of the crown estates in Saaremaa until the 1840s. The second chapter follows changes in land tenure in the 2nd half of the 19th century. The village was the main form of settlement. The village was a compact settlement with unity of land-holdings. The system of strip fields and common pastures persisted even in the 2nd half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, since farmers tried as much as possible to preserve the old village configuration. The consent of two-thirds of the households in a village was required to implement enclosure of strips. The maintenance of strip fields together with a three-field system was the response to the insufficiency of arables and to the uneven fertilty of soils in the villages. After the state-financed land settlement and taxation campaign had come to its end in the 1870s, the enclosure required the consent of all heads of peasant households, and the households had to cover the costs of it. It is not suprising that there were no enclosures during the following half-century.

Majority of farmsteads were middle-sized, 30% of the farms can be considered small farms. There were almost no great farm owners who could have become agricultural entrepreneurs and focus on commercially orientated production. Villages were mostly relatively small. The fields of dispersed farmsteads formed mainly a compact area. There were very few dispersed farmsteads on the crown estates in Saaremaa. The farmstead land-holding system did not prevent villages from producing intense social bonds.

During the period under consideration the number of farms did not grow, since most arables had been taken under cultivation already by the end of the 18th century. In the second half of the 19th century, land hunger became increasingly acute. Among the most important features of the agrarian relations in Saaremaa is the emergence of small cotter landholdings both in the villages as well as at the expense of manor land. In the 1870s the number of the so-called official cotters (2605) exceeded that of farmsteads (1594). Besides official cotters, there were also many smallholders who had usually settled down on common pastures of villages in accordance with the agreements concluded with farmers. The cotters provided both manors and farms with cheap labour. The peasants` attitude to land started to change. At the turn of the century and even more in the first decades of the 20th century conflicts between farmers and cotters aggravated.

For cotters and landless peasants, the solution to their distress lay in the acquisition of land. Therefore, one of their main demands was the partition of state estates. They wanted to attain the recognition of their demands by legal means. Both cotters and landless peasants sent a number of collective and individual petitions to the authorities requesting for the partition of state estates. Petitions were rejected until the revolution erupted in 1905.

The third part of the book addresses the problem of transition from labour rent to money rent. As the fields of farms were comparatively small and fertility was low, it was difficult for farmers to earn money to pay rent. Despite this, the speed of the process of the transition to money rent in the most backward county in Livonia (Saaremaa) did not fall behind that noted on the crown estates in economically much more developed regions of Livonia and Courland. By 1854 approximately 70% of the farmers in Saaremaa payed money rent. By 1862 all farmers on the crown estates in Saaremaa had started to pay money rent.

Compared with their counterparts in the other Livonian counties and Courland, the state peasants in Saaremaa were much less active in their demands for the transfer to money rent. However, it does not necessarily indicate the backwardness of peasants in Saaremaa. They were just poorer. This was due to the government legislation which forced the farmers to start paying money rent instead of labour rent. Besides, also shared responsibility to pay rent, as it was common in Russian guberniyas, was imposed upon peasants by an administrative fiat. In the case of remaining in debt, the future of the householder depended on the will of the commune. Transformation to money rent was less difficult for state peasants due to the fact that the amount of the rent was fixed according to land taxation, whilst on private manors landowners could extract from the tenants as much as they ever desired. The rise in rent prices in Saaremaa was slower than in the other regions of Livonia and Courland, while the growth of productive forces in the farms in Saaremaa was less intensive.

In the fourth chapter the problem of the emergence of peasant land ownership is explored. The peasants living on the crown estates were granted the right to buy their farms for perpetuity in 1859, but as the taxation of land had not yet been carried out by that time, they could not largely make use of this right until 1875. Until 1875 only five farms and three small holdings were bought in Saaremaa. In the next 10 years the peasants could choose whether to buy their farms or still remain tenants. According to the law of 12 June 1886, redemption of farms was made compulsory for all state peasants and the purchase sum could be paid during the subsequent 44 years. In the years 1875–1885 only 6% of the total number of farms and small holdings on the crown estates in Saaremaa were bought. As the prices of land were fixed according to the size and value of their holdings, they were, compared with the price of land in private manors, more than twice cheaper. Although the peasants were more active in the regions with most fertile soils, or where they could go fishing, the economic position of the peasants was a necessary precondition but not the only factor which determined the speed of the process of buying households for perpetual ownership, while still conservatively minded tenants cared much more about the social than the economic value of the land they tilled.

The fifth chapter is dedicated to the issue how the tsarist government in order to solve the land problem, tried to provide landless peasants and cotters with small plots of land up to 15 dessatins. Due to the high level of rural overpopulation in Saaremaa and the crucial importance of the land issue in the struggle of village labourers and cotters, the state government was forced to divide a number of state landed possessions and to parcel up their lands among the peasants after the revolution of 1905. Though only three estates were divided and given out to local peasants in Saaremaa before World War I, only nine of the 18 crown estates, the lease contracts of which expired in the years following the revolution of 1905, survived as estates. Six estates were resolved to split up, however, due to the war this plan was not carried out. Despite this, the lands of these estates were given out to peasants.

The partition of some state estates did not solve the land insufficiency problem. In the sixth chapter the land issue in Saaremaa in 1917–1919 is discussed. During the years of World War I the economic situation as a whole deteriorated. The tensions between manor owners and peasants as well as between farmers and cotters grew more tense. Farmers had started to request that their lands be consolidated in a single parcel as well as that the pastures, still in common use, be passed into individual ownership, which presented a threat to the landholdings of cotters. Farmers often increased the rent payed to them by cotters. Both requests intensified the conflicts between different social layers in the village.

Petitions sent by peasants to the authorities document their ideas and aspirations. Peasants’ attitude to land had changed. While farmers already considered land to be a commodity, then cotters and village labourers petitioning for small plots of land still considered land to be merely a resource of subsistence. Land could not become a profit-making source, but was to ensure self-subsistence. Peasants considered that large-scale agricultural enterprises were socially unjust. The idea of expropriating all crown estates as well as private manors and dividing them among peasants who till land there, gained increasing support. Discontent among the village poor, caused by land insufficiency, dragged on despite the attempts of the tsarist government to solve their problems at the expense of state demesne. The Estonian Provisional Government that came into power in November 1918 after the German occupation did not manage to solve the land problem meeting the demands of peasantry. This was among the major causes of the peasant revolt which broke out in February 1919 in Saaremaa. The village poor did not swing from passiveness to rebellion. Instead, they had constantly struggled with authorities for achieving of their goal.

The role of the tsarist government`s policies in the development of capitalism in the villages on the crown estates was of dual nature. On the one hand, it forced the peasants to pay money rent and to buy land for perpetuity. On the private manors in Saaremaa, where the speed of these processes was not regulated by the state government to such an extent as on the crown estates, the peasants started to pay money rent and buy farms for perpetual ownership only at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, both rent as well as land prices, though lower than on the private estates in Saaremaa, exceeded the real value of the landholdings and did not therefore facilitate investments in farms.