Peasants of the Krekenava District

An interesting side note to these birth records I've been digging through, relates to the heading of one of the columns on the forms.

It reads: "To which parents and which estate or society [class?] do they belong, when and where, i.e. in which parish, was the baptised person born?"

To which estate does the person belong?! This appears to be a reference to the system of feudalism that the Russian Empire imposed on its territories. When the Russians took over in the late 1700s, they formalised a strict set of social rules and hierarchies. Common people were made into serfs who had few rights, including no freedom of movement. The practice formally ended in 1861 when Tsar Alexander II made the "Emancipation Edict". He was no progressive visionary though. In breaking the news to the nobility, Alexander gave his reasoning:  "It is better to abolish serfdom from above, than to wait for that time when it starts to abolish itself from below." Even after this edict, though, most serfs continued a meager existence.

The birth records I've been looking at were made some 35 years after the serfs were emancipated. It just seems nobody bothered updating the forms. Regardless, they still make a person's place in society clear. My ancestors are identified as крестьянь Кракиновской волости, "peasants of the Krekenava district".