The influence of emancipation reforms on the Polish rural family in western provinces of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century

ABSTRACT Eastern Europe in the early modern period is seen as a region where the serfdom system provided the gentry with political and economic power at the expense of the peasant class. The centrally introduced abolition of serfdom was to comprehensively affect all aspects of life of this social group. This article analyzes the effects of serfdom and subsequent peasant emancipation on families and households within agricultural communities of western provinces in the Russian Empire (the Grodno and Volhynia provinces), which were formerly part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. These communities were not composed of serfs alone, but of petty gentry as well. Special attention is paid to changes in household structures of the two aforementioned population groups and those in their employ. The increasing share of simple family households is presented with the use of registers of parishioners from before and after agrarian reforms. In the parishes under scrutiny, this was not accompanied by any significant decline in the size of peasant households.