Editing History of Latvia (section)

====Emancipation in Courland, 1819====
In 1816 Governorate of Estonia proposed a law for emancipation of serfs which was based on the model of the [[Prussian reforms]]. Czarist authorities ordered Courland Landtag to come up with a similar proposal, which was accepted on August 25, 1817, and proclaimed in Jelgava on August 30, 1818, in presence of Czar Alexander I. Emancipation came into force in 1819 and continued until 1832 as only a selected number of peasants was emancipated each year. Emancipation gave peasants personal freedom, but no land, which they had to lease from land-owners. Peasants were not completely free, as they still could not move to another governorate or city without land-lord's permit.