I have recently come across a notable "leftist" article "Slavery vs.
Serfdom, or Was Poland a Colonial Empire?" <https://is.gd/Cc5INv>.
Title of the original article in Polish poses not a question, but a
statement <https://is.gd/2uiAle> "Colonialism Polish Style, a Long
Shadow of Serfdom". There's much about the Ukraine. Since the Ukraine
is currently a hot topic, some may be interested to better know the
Ukraine-related history. And some critical remarks below.

| Starting in the 15th century, [serfdom] gradually and consistently
| disappeared from the West .. At around the same time Eastern and
| Central Europe witnessed the exact opposite trend ..

The most primary reason for serfdom was a state need / desire of ruling
class to control / constraint migrations of low classes. It may be well
illustrated by the fact that the serfdom policies ceased earliest - or
did not even appear - in such areas where were natural (geographical)
barriers for mass migrations. Britain and Japan both illustrate it, -
if you are a poor low class then you hardly can easily migrate out from
the island, you have no choice other than staying within the area.

In Western Europe, regional developments by the 15th century made mass
migrations of low class people difficult ("all lands are already taken
by someone"), that underminded the background for serfdom policies.

For Poland, situation was so that the post-Golden Horde ("post-Mongol")
formations in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe became relatively
weaker, and there was the (proto)Cossack presence maturing in the
steppeside, which opened for agricultural activities new untapped areas
that were seen too vulnerable to nomadic raids before.

For Russia, situation became much more drastic since the 16th century.
The incorporation of the middle and south Volga area, then the Cossack
expansion up to the Urals and furher into Siberia, enabled vast new
areas for agricultural use, which in turn stimulated the desire of the
landlords to constraint migrations out from "the center". This is why,
within Russia, the serfdom policies happened only in "central Russia"
region (including the Ukraine).

In the 1920s, the Russian serfdom was heavily demonized by the early
Soviet propaganda, which saw its goal in denigrating "old regime" as
much as possible in order to contrast it to the post-revolution regime.
It inter alia had a long-term international impact so that many started
to believe that the serfdom system in the Tsarist Russia was something
extremely special (which in fact was not so). I once posted here about
it <https://is.gd/vu02Az>.

| .. landowners in 19th century Ukraine were extremely cruel and their
| cruelty was never appropriately punished .. But *szlachta* had also
| more sophisticated modes of subjugating peasants ..

Here the Polish writer cites a French researcher who inaccurately
shifted the mid-late-18th century realities and mores to "19th century
Ukraine". The French writer then complained <https://is.gd/eVbBJJ> that
in Poland his historical research is meeting with some hostility, since
the ideologues of the post-communist regime promote narrative of
"civilization mission of Poles" towards the Ukrainians, and they
naturally dislike the facts that can disnoble the narrative.

Some irony is that the Polish colonisation of the Ukraine was continued
even *within* Russia in the 19th century. In the 16th century, since
the incorporation of Duchy of Lithuania, Poland made a purposeful
effort to economically and cuturally "polonize" the upper class of the
ethnic Russian area (i.e. the Ukraine) within Poland. Polish 'magnates'
acquired lands there, and the native landlords got more favor if they
sought to mimic Poles, converted to Catholicism etc. It created such a
situation when almost all the landlords in the Poland's Russian area
were Polish, while their serfs were Russian (Ukrainian). In later time,
when more post-Poland lands, then a half of Poland itself, fell under
control of Russia, the imperial government cared pretty little about
"ethnic" etc topics. They realized some issues only since the mid-19th
century, when turbulent pre-revolutionary developments already started.

Along with that, the historical Polish impact is a secondary, minor
factor regarding the current hostile situation between Russia and the
post-coup Kiev regime (despite the insanely anti-Russia stance of the
modern Poland's government). The primary factor is the Banderist
ideology <https://bit.ly/3q5yHav>, which is historically linked to
Galicia, - a peculiar west-Ukrainian region that got especial impact
from Austrian empire. Their pro-Hitlerian nostalgism isn't "Polish".

| .. on the other, the local Ruthenian nobility ..

"Ruthenian" means "Russian". It's just an alternative form for Russian
in Western Latin / Romance languages. "Ruth-" instead of "Rus-", and
nothing more. "Ruthenian" is rather common in Western use in order to
designate various "western" fragments of what originally was
"pre-Mongol" Russia. Many Western writers aren't enthusiastic to remind
a reader that some originally Russian people(s) turned out outside of
Russia, so let's call them "Ruthenian" instead.

| .. colonial discourse in the Polish presence in Ukraine, like the
| myth of terra nullius (where the steppes of Ukraine, allegedly devoid
| of human presence, can be compared to the vast of American West ..

Hey, it's not a myth. The steppes of the present day Ukraine, until the
18th century, were not allegedly, but very literally "devoid of human
presence". More accurately, the steppes were controlled by the nomads,
or it was a kind of "gray zone". But the nomads need huge chunks of
land to run their mobile pastoralism properly. This is why such lands
naturally look "devoid of human presence" (like in Mongolia, where few
Mongols occupy a huge land that seems devoid of human presence).

In contrast to waterless Mongolia, agricultural use of those western
steppes would be much more productive against the environment-friendly
mobile pastoralism. But if an enterprising man started farming there,
then one day a group of equestrian guys would come to him for bringing
him to the popular slave market in Crimea. End of farming.

In the 15-17th centuries, those Ottoman-backed equestrian guys were a
non-illusory pain in the ass for their neighbours (not only for Poland
(Ukraine) and Russia, but also for the Chircassian Islamic brothers),
because they abused their equestrian skills to raid and capture people,
and then sell them to slavery.

| .. the Polish colonization of Ukraine .. required some kind of
| rationalization, which was provided by the Sarmatian ideology ..
| constructing ideologies, which would justify social and racial
| boundaries .. Around 16th century the nobility started to identify
| themselves with the descendants of the ancient Sarmatian tribe ..,
| which .. had once conquered the lands of Slavs and subjugated
| its rural population. This genetic myth helped to establish a
| symbolical division between members of the nobility (that is the top
| ten percent of the population) and the rural local population ..

It's boldly misleading to declare the Ukraine as a primary reason for
emergence of "the Sarmatian ideology". The "symbolical division"
between "Ruthenians" and Poles existed since the Christrian Schism, and
the Poland's Catholics cultivated an idea of superiority over the
Orthodox Church. It didn't demand invention of additional concepts.

The primary reason for the Sarmatism ideology was a wish to rationalize
a symbolical division between the low class ethnic Poles and the noble
enthic Poles ("Szlachta"), and the Ukraine topic is aside of that.

From this Polish article, it's visible that while describing the ugly
features of the Polish serfdom, the writer persistently seeks to shift
focus on the Ukraine, moreover, the very title manifests an intention to
link "serfdom" with "colonization" (of the Ukraine). It's not a honest
bundle. With regard to the Poland's history, including the Ukraine, it
would be more honest to describe serfdom as serfdom and colonization as
colonization, separately.

The serfdom(-like) regulations in Poland were introduced since the 12th
century, and such laws gradually became more stringent long before the
Ukraine fell under Poland's governance.

An invariable companion of the serfdom practice is the issue of flight
of peasants from the residences - assigned to certain landlords - where
they must mandatory be. In Poland, it became a painful issue already in
the 15th century <https://is.gd/Mau9Tc>. Among popular destinations for
runaway Polish serfs were Dachy of Lithuania and outskirts of Moscow
state, where orders were milder at the time (also many joined incipient
Cossack communities in the southern near-steppe areas).

So the Polish serfdom was primarily applied to the Polish own peasants,
but then the modern Polish nationalism made an effort to symbolically
uplift, in a retrospect, the Polish peasants somewhat closer to the
Szlachta image, and the insistent shift of focus to the Ukraine serves
the trick "to contrast" Poles vs Ukrainians. If you ask a modern Pole
about his or her ancestors then the most popular answer today would be
they were from a minor Szlachta and the like. It's somewhat like every
second Arab in Middle East or North Africa would tell you that his or
her descency is directly from Prophet Muhammad.

Within the modern Polish nationalist sentiment, the Ukrainians serve as
a legit image of inferiority <https://archive.is/JEQWP>, which explains
the effort to shift the "Polish serfdom" towards the Ukraine.

In turn, in an effort to extrapolate the Szlachta image to all the
Poles, the "Sarmatism" article in the Wikipedia <https://is.gd/e0IMGt>,
rhetorically operates, for the most part, in terms of simply "Poles".

Such a "sarmatian" pattern is somewhat common. In various communities
it's possible to notice people who tend to accentuate their 'special'
origin against "the average", which sometimes may be true but often
seems a wishful fantasy. Within Europe, such a search for a special
origin became especially popular at the time the Europeans call the Age
of Renaissance and Enlightenment. It particular, it produced the basis
for the European "scientific racism".

In the 9th century - six centuries before the European "Renaissance" -
the chieftains of the most early Russia implemented the same pattern by
inventing a special "Varyagnian" origin for themselves (also by use of
the Nordic names like Igor and Oleg). For the Russian warlords, it
served both the internal purpose (alienation from the low populace) and
their "foreign policy". From the latter perspective, at the time, the
pagan Norsemen were already well-known as a formidable barbaric power
throughout the Christian Europe, so the Russian princes - when making
their looting raids into the Eastern Roman Empire (a.k.a. Byzantium) -
resorted to cunningly misrepresent themselves under a vague image close
to this brandname.

The Szlachta's especially contemptuous racist-like attitude towards
their local populace contributed to the fact that most of the European
Jewish community began concentrating within Poland since about the 14th
century, so that in the 16th century, about 80% of all the Jews in the
world were residing in Poland (which eventually formed the Jewish major
Ashkenazim branch). Way of life of the Jewish diaspora in the medieval
Europe was so that they maintained quite an egalitarian community among
themselves and sought to sell their skills and services to regional
aristocracy. The Jews put a great effort into education, so they indeed
had something to sell. But the Jewish religion demanded to keep and
manifest a distance between Jews and non-Jews. Local populace became
annoyed of the fact that their noblemen maintain "special relationship"
with the 'alien' Jews, and sometimes it led to situations when local
aristocracy had to choose between the irritated populace and the Jews.
In Poland, the Jewish community could be less afraid of an anti-Jewish
action "on polular demand" from the Poland's authorities, which made it
a comfortable place for the Jews at the time.

| The common American derogatory term based on the Latin word for
| black, 'niger', finds a surprising semantic correlation in the
| Polish word 'czern' [adj. czarny - 'black'] ..

Niger means simply 'black' in Latin, while czern is not an exclusively
Polish word, it's a common Slavic word, that also means simply 'black'.
In languages related to agricultural societies, long before the modern
racist 'color' obsession, it was quite a common case to figuratively
associate low class peasants with 'blackness', because these people are
digging in the soil, and the soil is black, the dirt on their hands,
faces, clothes is 'black'. The American N-word, in turn, is primarily
linked with the skin color, so the "surprising semantic correlation" is
far-fetched here.

In east-European languages, and in Russian language as well, one may
encounter various white and black this and that, and not only white and
black but also various other colors figuratively applied to various
entities. One'd keep in mind the fact that most of such figurative use
of colors evolved in language many centuries ago, long before people
started to know and think anything about 'races'. Attempts to interpret
a someone's old color symbolism on the basis of the modern Western
racial 'color' concepts might naturally lead to wrong conclusions, and
it's better to avoid too acute semantic insights.

| A shocking proof of how terribly effective this Sarmatian ideology
| was, can be found in a personal letter of Zygmunt Krasinski, one of
| the three greatest Polish Romantic poets in the 19th century (and a
| descendant of an aristocratic family). In the mid-19th century
| Krasinski wrote to his English friend Henry Reeve:
| | "Believe me and rest assured that apart from aristocracy there's
| nothing in Poland: no talent, no bright minds, nor sense of
| sacrifice. Our third state [bourgeoisie] is nonsense; our peasants
| are machines. Only we [nobles] are Poland."

Contemptuous attitude from nobles (especially, non-prominent or petty
nobles) towards both the poor "baser" peasantry and the rich people
(merchants, "bourgeoisie") of non-noble descent is more or less common
for a feudal environment, it's not specifically Polish. Compare it with
this French poem <https://archive.is/UwbU1> "It pleases me immensely"
and so on. The same accents. The only notable fact is that the French
verse is from the 12th century while the Polish excerpt is more recent.

| .. the disdainful approach of Polish lords toward Ukrainian peasants
| as a key cause of brutal, bloody uprisings in Ukraine, from the
| Khmelnitsky Uprising in 1648 ..

When there's a strong correlation between social status and ethnicity,
it always implies certain social tensions and may even promise a great
turmoil. So was the Poland in the 17th century, and moreover, there was
also religious issue. It was "Ukrainian" uprising (the term "Ukraine"
at the time was still not well established) but not an uprising of the
whole Polish peasantry, because in addition to "disdainful approach" of
the landlords, the proto-Ukrainains also suffered from religious and
ethnic discrimination within Poland. Three in one. The Khmelnitsky 1648
Uprising was not the very first, it was rather the first succesful.

One of the side effects of the uprising was emergence of the Jewish
Chassidism, by the way. The rebels targeted not only the Polish
landlords but also the Jews as "Polish collaborators", given that the
landlords widely employed the Jews as their assistants / middlemen to
supervise over the peasants, or leased to Jews their villages, so the
peasants often might experience that "disdainful approach" by means of
the Jews. The uprising turned out a big shock for the Poland's Jews, it
undermined their confidence that they might feel safe while relying on
the Poland's aristocracy only, and stumulated their spiritual quest.

| In recent years the historical issue of serfdom was subject to a
| lively and at times heated debate .. The real nature of serfdom was
| addressed by historians .. but without much consensus ..

It seems clear that the basic attribute that primarily defines "the
real nature of serfdom" is a restriction on freedom of movement and
choice of residence. Such restrictions may vary in their strictness. In
the modern world, most of countries have laws somehow restricting
freedom of movement of their citizens in some cases. Misc. "residence
permits" and "registrations" may be seen akin to serfdom. Unpaid debts
may be a reason for forbidding a person to move freely. Etc etc ..

From the "capitalist economic" perspective, the serfdom(-like) practice
is sort of unfair competition. Hired workers can compete by choosing an
employer, landless peasants can compete through choosing a landlord (or
through domestication of some untapped lands). Disabling them from
freedom of movement and choice means they can no longer economically
compete this way. From the market perspective, a 'fair' competition,
including through migrations, is a driver for economy. But the state
still can find some non-capitalist, non-market reasons to conclude that
uncontrolled migrations may cause some unwanted effects. Understanding
of when and why the state resorted to such a logic, and implemented it,
would likely answer about the real nature of serfdom.