This books is concerned with the emancipation of the Russian serfs in 1861, the most important event in Russian history between the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725) and the Revolution of 1905. It is a social history of the emancipation. The attitudes of the landowning gentry toward emancipation: their part in its preparation and their conflict with the government over the terms of emancipation and related reforms, are the major subjects treated. The book shows in what circumstances the emancipation took place, and how the gentry were involved in the process. The undertaking of emancipation produced a political and social crisis which involved a serious threat to the autocratic regime, laid the foundations for the rise of constitutional liberalism in Russia, but destroyed the foundations of the gentry class.