_STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW._ EDITED BY THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. Volume II.] [Number 1. THE ECONOMICS OF THE RUSSIAN VILLAGE. BY ISAAC A. HOURWICH, PH.D., _Seligman Fellow in Political Science, Columbia College._ NEW YORK. 1892. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION. THE RISE OF “PEASANTISM.” 7 CHAPTER I. GENERAL SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANDHOLDING IN RUSSIA 19 The Russian village community of historical times--Survivals of communal co-operation--The communistic peasant household--Origins of private property in land--Patrimony and fee--Slavery resulting from the obligation of loan--Tenure in fee an institute of public law--Limitation of the peasant’s right of migration--The fee becomes hereditary--Statute of Peter the Great on inheritance in the estates held by the nobility; abolition of the distinction between patrimony and fee--The poll tax--Slaves and serfs put upon a common footing--Emancipation of the nobility from their duty toward the state--The serfs agitated by a feeling in favor of emancipation--“Land and Liberty”--The question discussed in the Legislative Assembly convoked by Catherine II.--Insurrection under the head of Emilian Pougatchoff--Further developments of the abolitionist problem--Peasant riots about the time of the Crimean War--Economic necessity of abolition of serfdom--Evolution of private property achieved by the emancipation--Expropriation of the peasantry--Legends of land nationalization popular with the peasantry--The Statute of 1861 in its characteristic features--Russian taxation--Limitation of the personal liberty of the taxpayer--The village community upheld by over-taxation of the land--Counteracting influence of the rise of rent. CHAPTER II. COMMUNITY OF LAND 37 The region selected for review with regard to geographical position and population--Forms of ownership in land--Agrarian communism--Community of land with shares fixed in perpetuity--History of the latter form of ownership--Evolution of the same into agrarian communism--Opinions of Russian students on the origin of agrarian communism. CHAPTER III. THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF THE PEASANTRY 47