Russia/Slavery
“ For Szamuely, the central problem in Russian history is slavery. Yes, slavery. Using the word “serf” to describe its put-upon agricultural workers leads us to think of the society as merely backward, quaint, feudal. But this is wrong. Russian slavery was a creation of modernity. Once-free agricultural labourers somehow got buried under debt about 500 years ago, and in the mid-16th century the government bound them to the land, the better to tax them. The owner of the serfs was the state, not the notables on whose land they toiled. There was an equality in this, for the notables were beholden to the state, too. The upper crust owed the tsar military service. Until recent centuries, Russia was one of the rare countries where nobles could be publicly flogged.
- Why is Russia obsessed with slavery?
- https://twitter.com/RealKeithWeiner/status/1599003064513355776
- "The 2018 Global Slavery Index estimates 794,000 people currently living in slavery-like conditions in Russia."
- Slavery in modern Russia
- Russian Orthodox Church/Children in captivity and medieval torture
- Global Slavery Index
