The abolition of serfdom in villages of the tsar family by the reform of June 26, 1863 in the Russian historiography

Vil’son I., Khodsky L.V., Bogolyubov V.A., Gotye Yu.V. et al. were the first to study the reform of June 26, 1863 in Russia. By the key aspect - the allotment of peasants by land - some of them believed that peasants of the Tsar family have maintained and increased their lands, others recognized the reduction of allotments, with the exception of 5 provinces of the “forest belt”.In the period of formation of Soviet historiography, the reform of 1863 was not the subject of special study and was not mentioned even in the first Soviet encyclopedia. Outstanding was the work of V. Levashev, who, as key documents, used new sources - statutory letters. Using these documents, a number of works about the abolition of serfdom in a village of the Tsar family both in the whole Russia and individual regions of the country appeared in the 1950-1980-s. It was finally recognized that peasants of the Tsar family were immediately transferred to the redemption and they had no "gradation of duties". However, the authors, recognizing the segments of the peasant lands in villages of the Tsar family of Chernozem region and Central Russia after 1863, emphasized the extension of the landowning of peasants of the Tsar family of the "forest belt". In this part they have retained and even strengthened the ideas presented in the early 20th century, which are not revised in contemporary works.The misconceptions of Russian historians regarding the solution of the land question in the reform of 1863 were caused by several factors and had a source study nature. They used the methods of treatment the statutory letters developed for the study of the abolition of serfdom in a landowner village. This technique did not allow to fully reveal the information potential of statutory letters of a village of the Tsar family. Along with the redemption campaign in villages of the Tsar family, the completion of the reform of 1863, comparison of its results in relation to national and social groups of population and some other problems are still poorly analyzed.