Emancipation Reform of 1861

Alexander II's emancipation decree granted personal freedom to millions of privately owned serfs. Peasant communities received land through arrangements that usually required long-term redemption payments.

The reform did not distribute land on terms acceptable to many peasants, and noble estates continued to depend on unequal economic relationships. It nevertheless transformed labour, property and local politics.

In Anna Karenina, Levin's experiments with farming and his arguments with labourers reflect the unsettled rural economy created after emancipation rather than an unchanged system of serfdom.