| abstract
| - Forbidden Years (ru: Заповедные лета) were part of a tightening of the service obligations of serfs in Russia leading to full-scale serfdom in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. They were first instituted by Tsar Ivan IV (r. 1533-1584) in 1581 as a temporary measure, but eventually became permanent. Due to the hardships brought about by Ivan IV's Livonian War (1558-1582), the excesses of the Oprichnina (1565-1572), Tatar raids (such as the one on Moscow in 1571) and a series of crop failures and other natural disasters, the Tsar temporarily suspended serfs' rights of movement or transfer in an ukaz (decree) issued in 1581. This move, in fact, proved permanent, as it was never lifted. His son's government made this limitation permanent in an ukas of September 1, 1597 (though on November 24 of that year, it made the statute of limitations (called "fixed years" - urochniye leta or урочные лета) on the return of run-away serfs five years). The Ulozhenie of 1649 did away with this statute of limitations, and this is often seen as the final element of full-blown serfdom in Russia.
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