Blagoveshchenskii, Vasilii Timofeevich

Blagoveshchenskii, Vasilii Timofeevich

 

Born in 1801;died Aug. 19(31), 1864, in Revel. A critic of serfdom in Estonia.

Blagoveshchenskii studied at Moscow University. He greeted the peasant agitations of 1858 in Estonia with sympathy, and influenced by them, he wrote the book The Estonian and His Master (in 1861, in German; in 1871, in Russian; and in 1959, in Estonian). This book contains much factual material, which reveals the burdensome socioeconomic situation of the Estonian peasantry and exposes the reactionary agrarian policies of the Baltic German nobility.