A Comparative Study of American Slavery and Russian Serfdom

FAIN: FA-11072-75

Peter Kolchin
University of Delaware (Newark, DE 19711-3651)

To make a comparative study of American slavery and Russian serfdom. Project will deal with what slavery and serfdom meant for the laborer, how they shaped owner ideology, and what their roles were in the social and economic development of the two countries. Since serfdom was a non-racial system, a central focus of project will be to clarify class, racial, and cultural responses, in U.S. through comparison with "purer" but in some ways more complicated system of serfdom.