Social estates in the Russian Empire

Social estates in the Russian Empire were denoted by the term soslovie (sosloviye), which approximately corresponds to the notion of the estate of the realm. The system of sosloviyes was a peculiar system of social groups in the history of the Russian Empire. In Russian language the terms "сословие" and "состояние" (in the meaning of the civil/legal estate) were used interchangeably.

The Code of the Law of the Russian Empire of 1832, vol. 9, "Laws about Estates" (Законы о состояниях) defined four major estates: dvoryans (nobility), clergy, urban dwellers and rural dwellers (peasants). Within these, more detailed categories were recognized. See "Russian nobility: Categories" for dvoryans. Clergy was subdivided into "white" (priests) and "black" (monks). Urban dwellers (Городские обыватели) were categorized into потомственные почетные граждане (hereditary distinguished citizens), личные почетные граждане(personal distinguished citizens), merchantry (), urban commoners (), and guilded craftspeople (цеховые ремесленники). There also existed the military estate, which included lower military ranks (higher ranks were associated with the estate of dvoryans), and discharged and indefinite-leave. Dependent families were usually included into the estate of the head of the household.

Urban commoners included people who had some real estate in a town, were engaged in some trade, craft, or service, and paid taxes. Subject to these conditions, a person could assign himself into this category, which was hereditary, and one may be excluded from it in the court of law or by the urban commoner's self-government (мещанская управа).

The category of rural dwellers (сельские обыватели) had permanent residence in towns, and they were correspondingly classified as "urban peasants" (городовые крестьяне). The rural dwellers category also included the inorodtsy (инородцы) estate, that included non-Russian and non-Orthodox native peoples of Siberia, Central Asia or Caucasus. An inorodets who converted into Orthodox Christianity was excluded from this estate and included into one of the other ones, most often peasantry.

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