legislation on peasants

In Russia during the first quarter of the 19th century, the quest for solutions to the issue of serfdom was inextricably intertwined with the government’s policy of regulating interactions between various estates and intra-estate groups within Russian society. The article, which is based on an analysis of archival materials, presents an analysis of the content and focus of discussions on measures to prevent the fraudulent sale of peasants and the development of ways to introduce a contractual model of relations between peasants and landowners. In this context, the article presents an analysis of the arguments of senators, members of the Department of Laws of the State Council and the Council of the Commission for the Drafting of Laws, expressed during the discussion of the draft submitted by the Minister of Internal Affairs O. P. Kozodavlev on allowing all free Russian subjects to acquire populated lands. Consequently, rhetorical techniques, semantic accents and ideological attitudes were employed to justify the rejection of the proposed measure, thereby demonstrating, firstly, the recognition of the importance of maintaining state control in the sphere of interclass relations and, secondly, the understanding of the need to transition from a model of precedent-based response to private abuses of power by landowners to a model of preventive resolution of potentially possible conflict situations through the introduction of the practice of contractual relations.