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Primary Sources

(1) Stephen Graham, Alexander II (1935)

To give the land (to the serfs) meant to ruin the nobility, and to give freedom without land meant to ruin the peasantry.

The state treasury impoverished by the vast expenses of war, could not afford to indemnify either party. There lay the problem.

Alexander ii of russia biography template

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Could the serfs made to pay for their freedom? Could the serf-owners be granted loans on the security of their estates? Would not twenty-two million slaves suddenly set free combine to take matters into their own hands.

The position of most large landowners was this.

They lived in St. Petersburg or some other great city. They did not farm their estates.

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They had stewards who administered their property and collected their revenue. They had numbers of serfs paying a handsome annual tribute for their partial freedom, a tribute which the landowners' agents strove incessantly to increase.

It was their slaves rather than their land which brought them inco