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Emancipation, Edict of

(Encyclopedia)Emancipation, Edict of, 1861, the mechanism by which Czar Alexander II freed all Russian serfs (one third of the total population). All personal serfdom was abolished, and the peasants were to receive...

Nantes, Edict of

(Encyclopedia)Nantes, Edict of, 1598, decree promulgated at Nantes by King Henry IV to restore internal peace in France, which had been torn by the Wars of Religion; the edict defined the rights of the French Prote...

Emancipation Proclamation

(Encyclopedia)Emancipation Proclamation, in U.S. history, the executive order abolishing slavery in the Confederate States of America. The proclamation did not reflect Lincoln's desired solution for the slavery p...

Catholic Emancipation

(Encyclopedia)Catholic Emancipation, term applied to the process by which Roman Catholics in the British Isles were relieved in the late 18th and early 19th cent. of civil disabilities. They had been under oppressi...

Philaret, Vasily Drosdov

(Encyclopedia)Philaret or Filaret, Vasily Drosdov both: vəsēˈlyē drəsdôfˈ fēlərĕtˈ [key], 1782?–1867, Russian prelate, author, and preacher. He became archbishop of Tver and a member of the holy synod ...

Stolypin, Piotr Arkadevich

(Encyclopedia)Stolypin, Piotr Arkadevich pyôˈtər ərkäˈdyĭvĭch stəlĭˈpĭn [key], 1862–1911, Russian premier and minister of the interior (1906–11) for Czar Nicholas II. He sought to fight the revoluti...

mir, former Russian peasant community

(Encyclopedia)mir mēr [key], former Russian peasant community. The mir, which antedated serfdom (16th cent.) in Russia, persisted in its primitive form until after the Russian Revolution of 1917. In a community of...

Camisards

(Encyclopedia)Camisards kămˈĭsärdz, Fr. kämēsärˈ [key], Protestant peasants of the Cévennes region of France who in 1702 rebelled against the persecutions that followed the revocation (1685) of the Edict o...

Alexander II, czar of Russia

(Encyclopedia)Alexander II, 1818–81, czar of Russia (1855–81), son and successor of Nicholas I. He ascended the throne during the Crimean War (1853–56) and immediately set about negotiating a peace (see Paris...

dragonnades

(Encyclopedia)dragonnades or dragonades both: drăgənādzˈ [key], name given to a form of persecution of French Protestants, or Huguenots, before and after the revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes (see Nantes...