The socio-economic situation of the landowner peasants after the peasant reform in Georgia (the last quarter of the 19th - the early 20th century)
The article analyses the main provisions of the peasant reform in Georgia, which had a further impact on the socioeconomic development of the landowner peasants of Tiflis and Kutaisi provinces in the last quarter of the 19th - the early 20th centuries. On the basis of archival sources and literature, the author considers the reasons for the difficult economic situation of the Georgian landowners in the period under study. An analysis makes it possible to conclude that the socioeconomic relations that had been formed in Georgia determined the contradictions inherent in the capitalist mode of management. On the one hand, the peasant reform contributed to the more rapid development of the capitalist mode of production in the countryside, laying the foundation for economic development in agriculture, the introduction of commercial agriculture, the growth of agricultural productivity, and the maturation of commodity-capitalist relations. On the other hand, the main means of production were in the hands of the landlords, which led to an even greater extensive impoverishment of the landlord peasants. Thus, in Georgia, the remnants of serfdom survived even longer than in the European provinces of the Russian Empire. It is concluded that the reason for these remnants included the backwardness and relatively weak development of capitalist relations in the South Caucasus, in particular, in Georgia.