One Landowner’s Quiet Revolution in an Age of Serfdom

By Daria Topchii

In most 18th-century European countries, if you were born a commoner, you’d quickly realize how limited your freedom was. Russian Empress Catherine II made this explicit in her framing for her law-code committee in 1767, writing, “What is the true End of Monarchy? Not to deprive People of their natural Liberty; but to correct their Actions, in order to attain the Supreme Good.”¹

By contrast, while most of Eastern Europe maintained hereditary serfdom and absolute monarchy, a Polish count, Ignatius Scibor-Markhotskyi, decided to push the limits of what freedom—and “good”—could mean.

After the final division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, he placed signs around an area of land he’d inherited four years earlier—more than a dozen villages in the Podillia region, modern western-central Ukraine—demarcating it from Russian- and Austrian-controlled territories. The signs read, “The border of the Mynkovetska State from the Kingdom of Russia” and “. . . from Austria.”² On that land, he implemented a pioneering attempt at building a rights-respecting European nation.

Early Life: Roots of Rebellion

Born in 1749, Markhotskyi didn’t have a comfortable childhood, despite his family’s wealth. Orphaned young, he and his siblings landed under the guardianship of their stern uncle, Wojciech Markhotskyi—a wealthy, domineering estate owner in the Kyiv region.

Whereas his more complacent sisters won favor, Markhotskyi’s independent streak set him apart. After he refused to follow the clerical path of his elder brother, his uncle shipped him off to the Prussian army. “Not voluntarily,” Markhotskyi later wrote, he endured what he described as “years of real slavery_._”³

Despite rising through the military ranks, Markhotskyi was pulled back home in 1774 when his uncle fell ill and began considering his own mortality. Though potential inheritance was dangled before Markhotskyi, it was yanked away at the last moment. Instead of passing on his lands to his nephew (as traditionally expected), Wojciech handed them to a brother-in-law, citing fears that Markhotskyi would “squander” the family legacy.⁴

Markhotskyi’s spirit was unshaken. He became deeply interested in the ideals of free thought, drawn to Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri Saint-Simon, Thomas More, and Charles Fourier.⁵ In the army, he learned several languages, including French, which enabled him to read more thinkers’ original works.⁶ These influences motivated him to reject authoritarian hierarchies, hereditary privilege, and coercive rule, and instead embrace a philosophy that placed individual dignity and self-determination at the center of social life.

When Wojciech Markhotskyi died in 1788, his nephew disputed the matter of his inheritance in court. After a long legal process, he eventually secured land in the Podillia region.⁷

Historical Context: An Age of Obedience

In 1795, Austria, Russia, and Prussia—all authoritarian empires that upheld serfdom as a social order and an imperial control mechanism—jointly absorbed the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Markhotskyi’s inherited land appeared under the governance of the Russian Empire.

Under Imperial Russian law, Markhotskyi did not need an outright charter from the tsar to launch his nation-building project. The law gave every landowner free rein to do whatever he liked inside his property, provided he paid taxes and kept the peace.⁸ Markhotskyi quickly registered as a Russian subject and paid all his taxes, making that clause a shield for his social experiment.⁹

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Russia wanted to bring back a Kingdom of Poland ruled by the Russian tsar. Empress Catherine II tried to win over Poland’s landowning nobles by promising that they would be safer and better off under Russian rule.¹⁰ Practically, this left Markhotskyi able to behave relatively freely for a short period of time, and the Russian authorities initially did nothing to block his efforts.

Out of the former territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Podillia had the highest proportion of serfs: 87 percent of the population.¹¹ Under Russian law, the murder of a serf could result in a monetary fine, which was often unenforced. Even though killing serfs was illegal, Catherine II passed laws that prevented the families of murdered serfs from suing their landlords.¹² It was normal for nobles to trade serfs for such things as animals and playing cards, and to use them as collateral for loans.

Villagers also had to pay annual tributes to the landlord in the form of a tenth of their sheep, a tenth of the honey they collected, two or three chickens, and a frequently increasing tax on livestock. Landowners used whips, thick branches, slingshots, and chains to stop the people from trying to reach freedom and make them work harder on the land. Servants were outrageously mistreated. Landowners often put them in filthy rooms, poured cold water over them, and starved them.¹³

All this put Markhotskyi’s Enlightenment-based ambitions at odds with the legal and social status quo. By late 1790, with the disputes resolved, Markhotskyi—together with his wife, her parents, and their two children—started implementing reforms in his recently obtained lands.¹⁴

Living Reforms—Rights, Work, and Civic Life

Markhotskyi’s vision for Mynkovetska State began with a bold move: In 1791–92, he wrote and published The Rights of the City of Mińkowiec through his own press and distributed a copy to every family on his land.¹⁵ This statute, which he as a tax-paying landowner had a legal prerogative to implement, functioned as the governing charter of his estate, setting out local laws and social norms.

The thirty-two-page charter praised towns as centers of arts, crafts, and trade. It abolished almost every feudal tax.¹⁶ It also created a six-member elected magistrate and court where Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, and Jews could all vote, judge, and pay the same tax. A printing press set up in 1792 spread these decrees, and further acts in 1795 abolished mandatory church tithes and some other taxes on peasants. In 1804, via his Laws of Farmers, Markhotskyi ensured that ex-serfs gained full, legally heritable ownership of their cottages, fields, and orchards.¹⁷ Under this decree,Markhotskyi also replaced corvée (mandatory unpaid labor) with a modest cash rent.

Freed from the constraints of forced labor and high levies, the local economy took off. People launched new ventures, including two cloth factories, a fabric factory, an anise oil distillery, a carriage workshop, brick and tile production, a pottery, a limestone factory, and even a paper mill.¹⁸To support this growing economy, Markhotskyi also established a local mint, issuing his own currency for use across the estate.¹⁹

These actions demonstrated a simple but powerful truth: When people are free to create, compete, and trade voluntarily, they flourish. In addition to the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, the count was guided by a desire to improve his own welfare and that of the peasants. In an explanatory note to the gubernia’s administration, Markhotskyi subsequently explained that,

having entered the ownership of my patrimonial land, having the intention to lead a humble life, distanced from the secular routine . . . I wished to totally engage myself in land and . . . improve arable farming, teaching sciences to my peasants . . . conformable to their country life, thus willing to facilitate and improve their citizenship, as far as possible, to turn bondage into reasonable freedom, I gave them rights . . . made a peaceful agreement with my peasants-ploughmen, in as much as this could meet their concepts of simplicity. As Solon said about Athenians, “I gave them the law not as it should be, but as the Athenians could forbear.”²⁰

Understanding that true reform also requires a free exchange of ideas, Markhotskyi founded a printing house in Mynkivtsi, the main village governing the eighteen small villages in Mynkovetska State. Soon, it produced the first Polish translation of Hamlet, making high culture accessible to a wider audience. Even more telling, Markhotskyi allowed the Jewish community to open their own press.²¹

Valuing life, regardless of social status and religion, he organized funerals for peasants and composed epitaphs for their graves.²² Markhotskyi treated freedom of speech and cultural expression not as privileges but as vital to the life of a civilized community.

The count didn’t stop at freeing individuals—he actively invested in their success. He introduced new agricultural techniques, encouraged the planting of varietal gardens and silkworm farms, and created a public seed granary to shield the community from famine.²³ He backed his liberal ambitions with tangible actions that improved everyday life and worked to undo the systematic oppression that the former serfs had endured at the hands of his ancestors.

Justice and law-enforcement reform was another cornerstone of Markhotskyi’s work. He laid the groundwork for a society in which the residents took it upon themselves to maintain order via the formation of a local government, rather than relying on royal or imperial troops. In every one of the nineteen villages he oversaw, people voted each year to choose their own local judges while volunteer militiamen kept order in the settlements.²⁴ Markhotskyi fiercely opposed corporal punishment, so even the most severe court sentence was forced relocation to the Markhotskyi family’s Black Sea properties close to Odessa.²⁵

To help people feel more connected to his new nation, Markhotskyi created three public holidays. In winter, they proudly celebrated the approval of The Rights of the City of Mińkowiec; in spring, they held the Hai holiday (a festival of renewal and community bonding); and in summer, on August 15, they marked the Reaping, the midsummer harvest celebration.²⁶

Markhotskyi also worked on improving everyday life in the Mynkovetska State by opening facilities such as a pharmacy, a hospital, rural schools, housing for orphans; he even planned a music academy.²⁷ As a skilled violinist and pianist himself, Markhotskyi had long valued music; when he initially inherited the land, he made significant investments in the promotion of music, seeing it as an essential component of cultural and civic life in his reformist society. In a founding document, “Guidelines for Management of Landowners’ Lands” (1796), he prioritized necessary institutions such as pharmacies, hospitals, orphanages, and parish schools—things that had never been available to the serf population—while specifically stating that the rest of the budget should fund an orchestra known as the “Academy of Music.”²⁸

The title “academy” emphasized Markhotskyi’s serious approach to music—as both art and instruction. Musicians and singers had important roles in public celebrations, particularly the Reaping festival. Although the community provided some resources, Markhotskyi paid for the majority of the expenses, including instruments, performance clothes, and conductor and chapel master fees.²⁹ The energy and creativity of the singers, musicians, and entertainers made the festival fun, emotional, and appealing to everyone, from local townspeople to visitors from abroad.³⁰

When a society is broadly joyful and free, other people want to be part of it—or at least see what’s going on. That’s what made Mynkovetska State so unique. It showed that a different, freer way of living was possible and desirable. Events such as the Reaping festival celebration communicated the values on which the Mynkovetska State was founded—creativity, the value of individual life, and an unwavering belief in a bright future.

The 1797 Pandemic—Actively Protecting People

As soon as he established the Mynkovetska State, Markhotskyi made sure that the community had access to health-care facilities and good sanitation. He financed the construction of a small estate hospital and hired two doctors, a midwife, and a pharmacist.³¹ He believed that for people to reach their full potential, they should not be burdened by health problems.

His effective response to a series of disease outbreaks between the 1770s and 1790s was a key demonstration of his deep concern for public health.³² Upon learning of the disease’s spread, Markhotskyi quickly implemented preventive strategies: He invited the renowned doctor Baron Asch (a physician whose treatment methods were considered among the most advanced at the time), hired additional physicians, and personally distributed treatments and cared for the sick. After the epidemic subsided, he published a sixteen-page guide based on Asch’s method—A Method for Treating the Plague, Practiced in Iași by Baron Asch—to teach people about effective ways to prevent and treat the disease. Markhotskyi also supported those whose homes and clothes were burned after being infected with the plague. He provided food, clothing, housing, and education to them at his expense. Due to his intervention, many orphans were taught trades or placed in caring households. He even founded a new village, Prytulia, to shelter them.³³

Polish-Ukrainian historian Y. Rolle wrote that “the neighbors at first laughed at Mr. Scibor, but in the end had to recognize the expediency of his precaution, because the influx of patients was growing rapidly, it created many demands, and all of them were fulfilled by the administration of the Mynkovetska State manor.”³⁴

Altogether, Markhotskyi combined Enlightenment ideals—such as individual liberty, equality before the law, property rights, and laissez-faire economics—with personal compassion to create a thriving micro-state.

Autonomy against Authority: A Vision Too Free for an Empire

Markhotskyi died in March 1827. He bequeathed his creation to his son Karol, who meticulously upheld its charter in accordance with his father’s wishes. However, Karol was banished to Siberia due to his Polish patriotic views, involvement in the 1830–31 uprising, and connections to the rebel Stanisław Konarski, a precursor of the Enlightenment in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.³⁵ After 1831, the Russian government seized all the count’s estates, while Ignatius’s former adversary and neighbor, Stadnytskyi, got three villages of the eighteen.³⁶

Although Catherine II initially tolerated Markhotskyi’s wide leeway as a gesture toward the Polish nobility, after 1815 successive governors grew deeply wary of decentralized or experimental governance.³⁷

The tsarist bureaucracy was built on the assumption that autonomy leads to rebellion. Many local reforms were seen by tsarists as potential sparks for revolution—especially following the French Revolution, which haunted monarchs across Europe.

Markhotskyi’s autonomous Mynkovetska State, with its own judiciary, schools, militia, and currency, was eccentric and innovative for its time. It was inevitable that a centralized authority would respond with hostility to the success of a free and self-governing community. Initially, the Russian Empire permitted Markhotskyi’s microstate because it posed no apparent threat and even served as a convenient experiment that could pacify or distract the Polish nobility. However, when it began to outperform surrounding regions—demonstrating superior welfare, productivity, education, sanitation, and civil order without coercive state mechanisms—it became a living refutation of authoritarian rule.

The prosperity of the Mynkovetska State, rooted in voluntary cooperation, low regulations, and respect for individual rights, directly contradicted the foundational premises of imperial power. It challenged the central premise of imperialism: that the state’s political interests are more important than individuals’ lives and freedom. In so doing, it exposed the inefficiency and moral bankruptcy of centralized control.

Thus, it was not its failure but precisely its brilliance that necessitated its destruction in the eyes of the empire. A system built on force cannot coexist with a demonstration of what free individuals can achieve without raising doubts among its people.

Enduring Influence and Legacy

Markhotskyi wasn’t the only Podolian nobleman who drew inspiration from the Enlightenment in Europe in the late 18th century. For instance, Valerian Dzieduszycki opened a parish school for peasant children in 1788, freed several serfs in recognition of their academic success, and later reportedly replaced serfdom with monetary rent on his estates. Progressive landowner Antoni Grocholski of the Volyn region sought to improve landlord–peasant relations on his estate in Tereshky by implementing substantial agrarian reforms, including the establishment of proper storage for the community’s agricultural products and seed fund. His efforts culminated in the promulgation of the Statute for Farmers in March 1805.³⁸

However, none of them sought reforms to the same extent or with the same degree of rational radicalism as Markhotskyi.For fear of provoking the Russians, most people avoided drawing attention to themselves. Dzieduszycki lost his estates after Russia annexed the territory in 1793; he relocated to the Austrian Empire, where he owned profitable lands and enjoyed greater political freedom.

The resilient Markhotskyi chose to carry on the changes he had started in his Mynkovetska State a few years before.³⁹ He remained on his lands and continued his reform program under Russian rule.

Though Ignatius Scibor-Markhotskyi’s name does not appear prominently in mainstream historical narratives, his concept of principled resistance to authoritarianism completely changed local communities’ social order and significantly influenced subsequent leading Romantic—and late‑Romantic—Polish poets such as Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, and Cyprian Norwid.⁴⁰ Although his early life was shaped by rejection, he responded by embodying defiance and resilience. His success proved that whereas oppression destroys prosperity, freedom creates it.

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1. Catherine II, The Grand Instructions to the Commissioners Appointed to Frame a New Code of Laws for the Russian Empire, trans. Michael Tatischeff (London: T. Jefferys, 1768), 72. ↑

2. Oleksandr Hryhorenko, “The Figure of the Landowner-Reformer Ignatius Scibor Markhotskyi against the Background of the Era,” Scholarly Works of the Kamianets-Podilskyi State Historical Museum-Reserve 1 (2017): 49. ↑

3. Machowski Wawrzyniec and Maria Kazimiera, Polski Słownik Biograficzny, vol. 19 (Wrocław, 1974), 550–53. ↑

4. Hryhorenko, “The Figure of the Landowner-Reformer Ignatius Scibor Markhotskyi,” 49. ↑

5. Volodymyr Zakhariiev, “The Humanities Sphere—A Vital Component of the Functioning of the ‘Mynkovetska State’ of Reformer Ignatius Scibor Markhotskyi,” Socio-Political and Military Life (Kamianets-Podilskyi: Kamianets-Podilskyi State Historical Museum-Reserve), 59. ↑

6. Bronislav Hryshchuk, “Ihnatsii Scybor-Markhotskyi. Prytuliia,” Zamky i khramy Ukrainy, n.d., https://castles.com.ua/ma.html (accessed June 15, 2025). ↑

7. Museum Studies in Podillya: History and Modernity (Kamianets-Podilskyi: Kamianets-Podilskyi State Historical and Architectural Reserve, 2015), 139. ↑

8. Sylwester Groza, Hrabia Ścibor na Ostrowcu (Warsaw, 1848), 1:23. ↑

9. Anatolii Hermanovych Stepaniuk, “The ‘Mynkivtsi State’ and Ignatii Markhotsky as Its Founder,” Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal, n.d., accessed June 17, 2025. ↑

10. Hryhorenko, “The Figure of the Landowner-Reformer Ignatius Scibor Markhotskyi,” 46. ↑

11. B. Hud and O. Vozniuk, “The Poles in Kyiv Region, Volyn and Podillia: From the Divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the January Uprising,” Skhidnoievropeiskyi Istorychnyi Visnyk [East European Historical Bulletin] 33 (2024): 27–40, https://doi.org/10.24919/2519-058X.33.317461. ↑

12. Barbara Evans Clements, “Peasant Women under Serfdom,” in A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), chap. 5, https://erenow.org/common/history-women-russia-earliest-times-present/16.php (accessed June 15, 2025). ↑

13. Oleksandr Hryhorenko, “The Figure of the Landowner-Reformer Ignatius Scibor Markhotskyi against the Background of the Era,” Socio-Political and Military Life (2017), 45. ↑

14. D-r Antoni (Yuzef Rollé), Graf Reduks, Translated by V. Hanuščak, (Drohobych, 2008), 81. ↑

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16. A quitrent was a fee paid by a freeman or craftsman to a feudal lord in lieu of providing services directly. ↑

17. Benyamin Lukin, “Jews—Subjects of the ‘Minkovtsy State’: On the History of Jewish Book Printing in Ukraine,” in Jewish Space in Central and Eastern Europe: Day-to-Day History, ed. Jurgita Šiaučiūnaitė-Verbickienė and Larisa Lempertienė, 293–317. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007; Roman Aftanazy, Dzieje rezydencji na dawnych kresach Rzeczypospolitej 9 (Warszawa, 1996): 255–65. ↑

18. O. P. Hryhorenko and V. A. Zakhariiev, “Ignatius Markhotskyi u Kraieznavchii Sspadshchyni Yevfimiia Sitsinskoho,” Muzeina sprava na Podilli: istoriia ta suchasnistʹ, 2015, 140. ↑

19. Violetta Wiernicka, “Państwo Mińkowieckie,” CiekawostkiHistoryczne.pl, June 17, 2024, https://ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl/2024/06/17/panstwo-minkowieckie. ↑

20. Lukin, “Jews—Subjects of the ‘Minkovtsy State,’” 293–317. ↑

21. Zakhariiev, “The Humanities Sphere—A Vital Component of the Functioning of the ‘Mynkovetska State,’” 63. ↑

22. Violetta Wiernicka, “Państwo Mińkowieckie,” CiekawostkiHistoryczne.pl, June 17, 2024, https://ciekawostkihistoryczne.pl/2024/06/17/panstwo-minkowieckie/. ↑

23. Hryhorenko, “The Figure of the Landowner-Reformer Ignatius Scibor Markhotskyi,” 51. ↑

24. O. P. Hryhorenko and V. A. Zakhariiev, Vyznachni predstavnyky zemlevlasnykiv-reformatoriv Podillia ta Pivdenno-Skhidnoi Volyni (Khmelnytskyi), 77. ↑

25. Hryhorenko, “The Figure of the Landowner-Reformer Ignatius Scibor Markhotskyi,” 52. ↑

26. O. P. Hryhorenko and V. A. Zakhariiev, “Ignatius Markhotskyi u kraieznavchii spadshchyni Yevfimiia Sitsinskoho,” Muzeina sprava na Podilli: istoriia ta suchasnistʹ, 2015, 140. ↑

27. Vitaliy Kolesnyk, Vidomi poliaky v istorii Vinnychchyny: Biohrafichnyi slovnyk (Vinnytsia, 2007), 404–8. ↑

28. D-r Antoni (Yuzef Rollé), Hraf Reduks, trans. from Polish by V. Hanushchak (Drohobych: 2008), 33. ↑

29. Zakhariiev, “The Humanities Sphere—A Vital Component of the Functioning of the ‘Mynkovetska State,’” 64. ↑

30. Kost Koperzhynskyi, Obzhynky [The Reaping Festival] (Odesa, 1926), 29–59. ↑

31. Zakhariiev, “The Humanities Sphere—A Vital Component of the Functioning of the ‘Mynkovetska State,’” 59. ↑

32. Małgorzata Jaszczuk, “Dżuma w polskim piśmiennictwie w XVIII w.,” Medycyna Nowożytna 1, no. 2 (1994): 31–60, 58; Ignacy Scibor-Marchocki, Castles.com.ua, https://castles.com.ua/marchocki.html. ↑

33. Zakhariiev, “The Humanities Sphere—A Vital Component of the Functioning of the ‘Mynkovetska State,’” 59. ↑

34. D-r Antoni (Yuzef Rollé), Hraf Reduks, 30. ↑

35. S. S. Arhatyuk, “Karol Scibor Markhotskyi,” Naukovi zapysky Tsentru Markhotsʹkoznavstva, vol. 4 (Khmelnytskyi, 2013), 29–48; “Stanisław Konarski,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Konarski. ↑

36. Anatolii Hermanovych Stepaniuk, “The ‘Mynkivtsi State’ and Ignatii Markhotsky as Its Founder,” Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal, n.d. ↑

37. Stepaniuk, “The ‘Mynkivtsi State.’” ↑

38. Henryk Grocholski, “Grocholski, Antoni (1767–1808),” Grocholski.pl, https://www.grocholski.pl/pl/grocholski-antoni-1767-1808/. ↑

39. Hryhorenko and Zakhariiev, Vyznachni predstavnyky zemlevlasnykiv-reformatoriv Podillia ta Pivdenno-Skhidnoi Volyni, 77–82. ↑

40. Jan Zieliński, “Historyczny pierwowzór Serionic z ‘A Dorio ad Phrygium,’” Studia Norwidiana 29 (2011): 189–200, 199. ↑