After the dismemberment of Poland, Friederich Wilhelm III. restored personal liberty to the peasantry in the parts of the kingdom which were allotted to Prussia; in the Austrian portion, the condition of the peasantry was ameliorated and their personal liberty partially restored by Joseph II.; while that part of Poland which, at the end of the eighteenth century, was annexed, or rather reannexed, to Russia--as Lithuania and the Russian provinces--came under the control of the regulations prevailing in the empire. In Poland proper, all the peasantry are now free and enjoy full civil rights; and even the soil tilled by the peasants will soon be fully freed from every kind of predial servitude attached to its possession: and thus the peasantry will recover at least a part of the property taken from them by violence or subterfuge long centuries ago. The Slavonians in what is now called Russia proper--from Lake Peypus and the Waldai Heights down to the banks of the Dnieper--lived, from time immemorial, in villages; these, again, were formed into smaller or larger districts (_obschtschestwo_, _wolost_), which elected for themselves their chiefs or heads (_golowa_). Among the few cities in Russia, the great republican and commercial emporiums of Novgorod and Pskoff--well known and flourishing at the dawn of the mediæval epoch--formed the centres of that Slavic region. No nobility existed then, no slaves, and no bondmen. In 862 the republicans of Novgorod, distracted by domestic feuds and party dissensions, invited a Scandinavian, Nordman, or Variægue leader, called Rurick, to take upon himself the government of their republic. Rurick and his followers extended the Variægue supremacy as far as the southern region of the Dnieper, and Kieff became the capital of the Russian empire. At the commencement of this Variægue rule, no positive change was introduced into the internal organism of society, or the condition of the population. Rurick and his descendants were elected or confirmed by the Slavonic people, and he governed the cities and districts through his companions-in-arms or lieutenants. These, together with the direct descendants of Rurick, under the various designations of princes (_kniaz_ and _mouja_), vassals, and warriors, were the founders of the Russian nobility. This, however, could not be called feudalism, as these functionaries corresponded somewhat with the counts and _missi dominici_, or lieutenant-deputies of Charlemagne. The grand-princes or grand-dukes of Kieff made war upon various tribes, mostly those of Mongolian or Tartar origin, and swept south of the Dnieper along the shores of the Black Sea down to the Caucasus; they repeatedly invaded the Byzantine empire, sometimes reaching even the suburbs of Constantinople. Then the war-prisoners and captives became domestic chattels, and chattels were also purchased from neighboring tribes and imported into Russia.