Rustical lands

Rustical lands. Peasant landholdings in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including the Western Ukrainian territories, Galicia (from 1772), and Bukovyna (from 1774). The agrarian reforms introduced by Joseph II in the 1780s specified that rustical lands belonged to the peasants and guaranteed the peasantry the use of the lands in perpetuity. The peasants, however, were not permitted to sell or divide them. Nobles were legally barred from purchasing the lands, but between 1787 and 1847 nobles were able to acquire over 5 percent of all rustical lands. In 1844 rustical lands in eastern Galicia accounted for 70 percent of all the arable land, 68.5 percent of the meadows, 63.7 percent of the pastures, but only 0.7 percent of the forests (of which the nobles claimed some 98 percent). Rustical lands represented almost 49 percent of all the land, whereas over 47 percent was owned by the nobility. With the abolition of serfdom in 1848, the rustical lands were transformed into the private holdings of individual peasants.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]