Serfs and Slaves

We’re all slaves to a certain extent during one phase of our lives or another, knowingly and unknowingly: to fashion, food, ideas, our jobs, our kids, sports, religion, politics, to the past and to haunted memories. I was a slave once too, of one of the lowest castes -- one that was hackled to a computer and tethered to a phone deep in the belly of corporate America. I was able to liberate myself, but it the annals of history, there are many that were not as fortunate.

What is a slave or a serf? The dictionary defines a serf as a member of a servile feudal class bound to the land and subject to the will of its owner. The word slave is derived from the root, Slav, and alludes to the frequent enslavement of Slavs during the Middle Ages: a person held in servitude as the possession of another.

In America, slaves were imported form Africa to toil in the cotton and tobacco fields of the South, in India, there were those in the lowest subdivisions of the caste system, the Untouchables, the outcasts, the pariahs, the polluted laborers, in England, indentured servants, and in ancient Egypt, there were the Hebrew slaves who toiled under the heavy yoke of their masters. I could go on forever.

Slaves existed the world over, and it was not an idea concocted by one specific race. In Russia, the roots of serfdom can be traced back to the eleventh century in Kiev and the invasions of the Mongolians/Tatars. This class of individuals lived -- dare I call it living -- as peasants, tied to their masters despite the pervasive Russian Orthodox religion.

A Russian serf was called the krepostnoy krestyanin -- krepost meaning in fortress in Russian and krestyanin meaning peasant. I wonder how the word krest, which means cross, was incorporated into the word for peasant. Slavery is an institution that the Master Jesus would not have approved of.

For eight centuries, serfdom was a way of life in Russia. It was a harsh life for the serf under the yoke of the nobility or dvorianye, and it became even worse with additional taxation imposed. The uprisings through the years and bloodshed came to naught.

Finally, in 1861, two years prior to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, Emperor Alexander the Second, known as The Liberator, freed 20 million serfs under his reforms. The manifest proclaiming svoboda -- freedom -- was read at the end of the liturgical service in all Russian churches. Hallelujah.

Of course, it was not as easy as simply abolishing serfdom. Former serfs remained poor and the disparity between the upper, privileged echelon and the lower grew. Undoubtedly, this was an important factor that contributed to the explosion known as the Russian Revolution that changed Russia forever.