Abstract
Hellie's excellent survey of the recent literature on kholopstvo raises the question of the true meaning of kholop. Might I suggest that, for the Muscovite period, servant is a more accurate translation than slave? There is even a good precedent: the first Russian historian, Vasilii Tatishchev, suggested it over two hundred years ago. Criticizing the translators of the Bible for wrongly using to translate both sluzhitel' (servant) and (slave), Tatishchev explained that the kholop was not a slave. The rab became a slave through military conquest. The kholop was a native Russian, whose low position was only partly like that of the prisoner of war, since the master's rights over him were temporary, like those of a father over his children.'
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