Mirskie Povinnosti

(communal obligations), obligations in money and in kind imposed on prerevolutionary Russian village and volost (small rural district) peasant communities over and above state and zemstvo (local government) taxes.

These obligations comprised compulsory—those for maintenance of peasant administrative organs, roads, and bridges and for measures against natural calamities—and noncompulsory obligations—those for the construction and maintenance of churches and schools, and so on. Such obligations were apportioned by the skhod (assembly) according to the number of peasants and the amount of land held by each. Some 40 percent of the revenue thus collected was expended on village and district institutions. At the end of the 19th century, these communal obligations constituted about 20 percent of all peasant payments.