Abstract:
In the early 18th century, Peter I synthesized all sorts of Russian nobles into an integrate nobility class and forced them to engage in lifelong panel servitude for the country. Since then, the Russian nobles steadily demanded to get rid of the duty of lifelong panel servitude from their own interests. In the period of “Palace Coup”(1725—1762), the nobility’s threat to the royalty and the state’s financial difficulty in the Seven Years’ War (1756—1763) offered an opportunity and prerequisite for the nobility’s freedom and liberation. In 1762 Peter III enacted Manifesto on the Liberty of the Russian Nobility, admitting that the nobles had the right of liberally choosing to engage in panel servitude. In 1785 Yekaterina II issued Charter to the Nobility, which took a solid step on the road for the nobility’s freedom and liberation by combining the nobility’s freedom with their participation in local executive administration and hierarchical selfgovernment. In a word, the Russian nobility’s freedom and liberation helped to strengthen the serfdom but to pioneer the liberation of all hierarchies in Russian society.
