concept
Krepostnoy (serf)
serf
also: крепостной, serfdom
A krepostnoy was a peasant legally bound to a landowner's estate under Russian serfdom, abolished by the Emancipation Reform of 1861 -- a recent enough memory that a former serf's rise over his former master carries real sting.
Reading notes
- The Virtuous Tavern-Keeper §9 serf
A krepostnoy, a peasant legally bound to a landowner's estate under serfdom, abolished by the Emancipation Reform of 1861 -- barely two decades before this story, so the narrator's former serf now effectively owns him through debt.