Leibeigenschaft im Ostseeraum. Versuch einer Typologie by Christoph SchmidtReview by: Roger BartlettThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 77, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 341-342Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4212859 .

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REVIEWS 34I

maintain a substantial magazine of rye, able to provision troops in transit and supplement the supplies of other royal castles and manors. This ran parallel with livestock farming, mainly beef and dairy cattle, which contributed stocks of preserved meats and butter. The castle also managed one of the largest royal stud farms in Finland, supplying both riding and draught horses for crown service. At the same time the castle hosted specialized artisan activity, which maintained and developed the structure of the castle, supplied tools and processed produce. The barley, malt and hops delivered in payment of taxes were brewed into prodigious quantities of beer, which was a major component of the contemporary diet, while the castle textile department produced clothing and bedding in quantities sufficient to meet the castle's own needs and build up stocks for servicing soldiers in transit. Much of the labour required for running the castle enterprises was supplied by the labour services due from the local peasantry, so that these services were geared directly to meeting the needs of central government policy. In spite of the burdens all this placed on the local peasant community, the castle economy also had a positive impact as the largest employer of hired labour in the area, and as a channel for introducing new technologies. Overall, Vilkuna's study is a valuable storehouse of significant and well-authenticated information about the impact of government policies at grass-roots level and the specifics of existence in an early-modern agrarian society. The English-language referat provides a reasonable summary of the principal findings.

Department ofModern Histoy A. F. UPTON

University of St Andrews

Schmidt, Christoph. Leibeigenschaft im Ostseeraum. Versuch einer Typologie. Bohlau, Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, I 997. I 67 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. DM 39.00.

THIS short book undertakes a daunting task; to anatomize the relationship of lord and peasant across north-eastern Europe and to set up a typology of serfdom in the regions involved. In his opening survey of previous histori- ography Schmidt offers five justificatory theses: that the conventional coun- terposition of east-Elbian Gutsherrschaft with west-German Grundherrschaft is in fact not a precise analytical tool; that research hitherto has been excessively concerned with partial, regional investigations; that most studies have concentrated on the institution of Gutsherrschaft rather than on serfdom as such; and that post-World War II researchers have favoured purely economic questions, while their predecessors were similarly obsessed by legalistic 'constitutional' concerns. He proposes five corresponding sets of questions for elucidation. Schmidt's previous book should be recalled here, a determined social-historical attempt to relate criminality and serfdom in Russia through a study of the concrete behaviour of members of the lower class (reviewed in SEER, 76, I998, I, PP. 159-60). The first part of the present book is devoted to a review of the evolution of serfdom in Northern Germany, Poland, Livonia and Russia. Schmidt then examines the forms taken by serfdom, exploring the Danzig grain trade; the relationship between communal village structures and

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342 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

forms of resistance, and individual biographies of persons who escaped or transcended their unfree origins. The last two sections seek to generalize about the social changes involved in the establishment of serfdom and to set up the promised typology. The latter rests upon the foregoing analysis 'in depth' of the origins, and 'in breadth' on the forms of serfdom. Schmidt concentrates here on chosen benchmarks of peasant status-peasants' right to complain, property rights, the extent of corvee, trade in serfs, and the extent of landlords' judicial powers. On this basis he distinguishes three principal forms of serfdom in his chosen arena, also geographically defined. East Holstein and Branden- burg show the lightest form of hereditary subjection. In Mecklenburg, Poland and Livonia the power of the nobility subjugated the peasants to a greater extent; but Russia 'may be called the region of extreme serfdom', with the peasant largely at the mercy of the estate-owner, lack of legal regulation favouring conflictual relations, and the effects of the poll tax inculcating 'crass egalitarianism' (p. I 36). This division corresponds to other criteria favouring a tripartite geographical schema. Schmidt's treatment of so large a subject in such short compass leads to a sampling rather than systematic coverage of regions and trends, and in some cases to vulnerable generalizations. His comparative statements for instance that only Russian pomeshchiki could exile peasants (p. I9), or that Russian peasants, serf and state, had no right of complaint (p. 133), are less than the whole truth. Several major social institutions in Russia possessed the right of exile; state peasants certainly possessed, and used, rights of complaint, and the daily reality of serf attempts to complain still awaits research. Schmidt himself in his previous book sought to approach this grass-roots level of social relations; here it risks becoming a casualty of the broad-brush approach. Nevertheless his wide angle of vision is a valuable attempt to transcend the regional particularism he rightly criticizes in much of the literature, and although his conclusions do not radically change the received picture, they throw up interesting insights and connections. This is a topic worth working out at greater length.

School of Slavonic and East European Studies ROGER BARTLETT University of London

Kamenskii, Aleksandr B. The Russian Empire in the Eighteenth Centugy. Searchingfor a Place in the World. Translated and edited by David Griffiths. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY and London, I997. 307 pp. Notes. Index. $64.95; $24.95.

ALEKSANDR KAMENSKII has established himself as one of the leading new Russian historians with essays and two book-length studies of Catherine II which diverge sharply from pre-iggi orthodoxies. He has also written a prize-winning history textbook for Russian schools. This account of Russia's eighteenth century builds upon these foundations. Kamenskii's text demon- strates an impressive mastery of his field, wide erudition and familiarity with recent historical literature. It is also marked by the events of the last decade. Like his colleague and fellow dix-huitieimiste Evgenii Anisimov, Kamenskii is concerned to place his studies in the frame of more recent Russian history, to

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