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abolishing robot in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia with effect from March 31, 1849, with compensation for the landlords. Similar rescripts were issued for Styria on April II, Carinthia on April 25, and Carniola on May 23.⁴⁵>

Such was the situation when at last the Reichstag convened in Vienna on July 11, 1848. On July 26, Hans Kudlich, a 25-year-old univer-sity student and son of a peasant, who was a delegate from rural Silesia, proposed the immediate end of hereditary servitude. His motion was carried unanimously⁴⁶> and on September 7 the definitive Act of Emancipation was passed. The act abolished hereditary servitude, removed all burdens from peasant lands, recognized the principle of compensation, and canceled all the lords' feudal obligations. The lords were to receive no compensation for the abolition of their peasants' personal bondage but were to be paid for the abrogation of their dues in money, kind and services for usufruct of their land; all easements were revoked without indemnity.⁴⁷)

Though problems were encountered in the execution of the law, these, too, were resolved. After the triumph of the counterrevolution, patents issued on March 4, 1849, and July 5, 1853, cleared up moot points in the legislation while leaving its basie terms intact. Jerome Blum properly concludes: "Not only had the noble landowners succeeded in getting rid of the system they had found to be an economic liability. They were paid for giving it up”.⁴⁸>

The Russian Patiem of Emancipation in the Congress Kingdom

The existence of the Duchy of Warsaw in Napoleon’s Europę exer-cised an enduring, powerful and multiform influence on the pattern of czarist Russian emancipation of the Polish peasantry. In the duchy the fate of the peasants was a product of the attitudes of the French bour-geoisie and the Polish szlachta.⁴⁹> The constitution of the duchy, promulgated by Napoleon on July 2, 1807, declared: "Slavery shall be abolished. All citizens are equal before the law. Personal freedom shall

45)    Blum, Noble Lando wners..., p. 233; Niederhauser, op. cit., p. 96.

46)    Blum, ibid., p. 234, n. 105; Niederhauser, ibidem; K.K. Reichsrath, Verhandlungen des ósterreichischen Reichstages nach der stenographischen Aufnahme (Wien: Aus der kaiserlich-kóniglichen Hof* und Staatsdruckerei, 1850), vol. I, 159.

47)    Ibid, I 290-291. Blum, ibid., p. 235; Niederhauser, ibid., pp. 57-98. The main differenc© between this legislation and the Prussian pattern was that the Prussian law madę only the peasants with large holdings owners of their land while the Habsburg law madę all the peasants proprietors of the land they worked, whatever size it was. Kieniewicz, op. cit., p. 137. Lordly monopolies were abolished in the Habsburg Empire with the outstanding exception of propinatio in Galicia. Ibid., p. 139.

48)    Noble Landowners..., p. 238. A heavily Mancist appraisal of the achievement of Habsburg emancipation and a treasurehouse of detail are in P&l S. Sśndor (ed.), Parasztsdgunk a Habsburg onkćnyuralom korszakdban, 1849-1867 [Our Peasantry during the Period of Habsburg Tyranny, 1849-1867] (Budapest: Kbzoktatśsligyi Kiadóv£llalat, 1951). The problems that the 1848 emancipation left for the Habsburgs to solve are analyzed in Szabó, op. cit., pp. 363-396.

49)    Kieniewicz, op. cit., p. 45.

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