The second edition of serfdom

The name of this phenomenon is due to the fact that by the 13th — 14th centuries in some European countries serfdom had almost disappeared and was replaced by light forms of feudal exploitation. Perhaps for the first time this term was used by Engels .

The second edition of serfdom was observed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Hungary, Russia, the Czech Republic, Denmark and in the states of eastern Germany: Prussia, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Austria and some others. In all these countries, by that time, market relations and private property were established, which differed from the conditions under which classical serfdom emerged.

An important feature of the new serfdom was that the enslaving economy was not natural, but commodity, that is, included in a single market. Another peculiarity was that the peasants were private property ^{[1] of the} landowners: there was a wide trade in souls (often without land — in Pomerania, Russia, Mecklenburg and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) ^[2] .

The Marxist tradition explains the second edition of serfdom by the emergence of a large monetary demand for bread in Western European countries (or in Eastern European countries themselves) and the strengthening of state power capable of effectively coping with the uprisings.

Another point of view is that Eastern Europe simply passed through a period of serfdom.

Proponents of the theory of dependent development emphasize that in the course of introducing capitalist relations that have already been established into traditional society, it is only partially modernized (the emergence of enclaves of modern production), against the backdrop of massive archaization of social relations beyond them, including a return to serfdom peasants or its tightening where it still existed, but was in the process of decomposition.

• In the Czech Republic, the peasants were liberated in 1781.
• In some states, serfdom was abolished during the Napoleonic wars (in particular, in Prussia - in 1807).
• In Mecklenburg, serfdom was liquidated in 1820.
• In the kingdom of Hannover - in 1831.
• In Saxony - in 1832.
• In the Austrian Empire - in 1848, and in Hungary - in 1853.
• In Russia, the abolition of serfdom occurred in 1861.
• In Bulgaria (as part of the Ottoman Empire) - in 1879.
• In Bosnia and Herzegovina - in 1918.

• On the causes of serfdom in Russia

• Copyhold