Mahtra War
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Mahtra War was a peasant insurgency at the Mahtra estate (now in Rapla County, 60 km from Tallinn) in Estonia, in the then Russian Empire in May-July 1858.
The revolt was suppressed using the army and the participants of the uprising were exiled to Siberia.
[edit] Historical context
In the Governorate of Estonia, serfdom was abolished in 1816 (in comparison, in the whole Russian Empire it was abolished in 1861), however the land was not redistributed among the peasants and the corvée labor was preserved (until 1876). The March 19, 1856 manifesto of Tsar Alexander II spoke about further agrarian reforms, but the implementation was slow, and this sparkled the unrest, including the Mahtra revolt.[1]
The events significantly influenced the work of the committees working on the project of the emancipation of the serfs in Russia.
[edit] In culture
- Mahtra Peasant Museum (Estonian: Mahtra Talurahvamuuseum) [2], [3]
- Eduard Vilde, "War in Mahtra", historical novel (1902, Estonian title: “Mahtra sõda"; Russian translation: Эдуард Вильде, Война в Махтра, 1950, Tallinn, publisher: "Художественная литeратура и искусство")
- Anatoli Garshnek, "Mahtra sõda" [Mahtra War] (1958), cantata
