Colonel V. A. Pashkov and the Late Nineteenth-Century Protestant Movement in Russia, Jan M. Surer, 1999

e sectarians' material conditions as key factors in the movement's origin and development. He also stresses the socio-economic differences between the largely upper-class Pashkovites (Evangelicals) of northern Russia and the Stundists and Baptists of the south and between leaders and followers within each group. Klibanov's approach thus raises the guestion of the socio-economic aspects of these sectarian movements in the changing conditions of post- Emancipation Russia. 19 A. I. Klibanov, History of Religious Sectarianism in Russia (1860s-1917 ) ( Istoriya reliaioznoao sektantstva v Rossii . Moscow, 1965), trans. by Ethel Dunn, ed. by Stephen P. Dunn, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1982. Chapter 2 In Search of a New Social Order The Pashkovite movement began at a time of sweeping change in Russia. The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the government's increasing support of industrialization were gradually eroding the old order and creating new social groups. And with these changes came increasing discontent against the dying order and the autocratic government which had created it. A major characteristic of the old order had been a stratification of society into legal estates ( sosloviya ) on which one's personal and civil rights were based. Much of the early revolutionary protest was initially directed against this system and its social and economic legacy. Legal estate and privilege Nobility, clergy, townsmen, and serfs were the four major estates in the nineteenth century. Entrance to the nobility under the civil service system of Peter I (1682-1725) was a reward for government service in the military or the civil administration. The fourteen levels of the Table of Ranks measured advancement in both services. In 1722, civil officials who reached the eighth rank and all military officers acquired hereditary noble status. 1 By the second half 1 Patrick de Gmeline, Dictionnaire de la Noblesse Russe , Editions Contrepoint, Paris, 1978, p. 63. 13 14 of the nineteenth century, the qualifying rank had been raised to the fourth from the top. 2 Nonhereditary or "personal" noble status, a sub-category of the noble estate, was also possible. Although such status did not devolve upon one's children, it did permit inclusion in the highest legal estate, which entailed certain privileges. Foremost among these was the right to own inhabited property, i.e., land and serfs. Other privileges enjoyed by the nobility included several exemptions, namely from the poll tax, compulsory labor service, military conscription, and corporal punishment. 3 The clergy estate and the "distinguished citizens" segments of the urban estate also enjoyed these exemptions. Additional noble privileges were the right to a trial by a jury of their peers and the right to travel. Although they were not the only estate which could enter the civil service, they enjoyed "preferential treatment" once embarked on such a car