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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   2414 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 19, 2026

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For significant portions of Russian history, serfs were also understood as of a different blood and breed to the point of being practically speaking a different race.

Yes, and of course the aristocracy everywhere considered itself "different breed", but with black slavery it's always more prominent. It's one thing when somebody is of the low birth and you can find it out by digging into the archives, and quite another when you literally see it in their skin color. If you take a Russian serf, feed him well, clean him up, dress him up and put him next to a typical Russian pomeshik, you'd see little difference. Not so with a black slave.

You think that, and I think that, and it might even be true. Aristocrats of the time, true believers, did not think that was true. Aristocrats truly believed that they looked, thought, acted, simply were different at a biological breed level than their lessers. No matter how much you dressed a peasant up, the true nobles would see right through him. He could not imitate the nobility that comes from generations of breeding.

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