armed forces. But in general, laws tied serfs to their masters for life and caused them to suffer under an owner's rule. The most harrowing part of the experience was the lack of rights given to a serf, whether he was a peasant, entrepreneur, or member of the serf intelligentsia. His state was one of constant vulnerability; a bad season farming his land could bring famine and its related difficulties to his family, and he was always at the mercy of a master who could switch from benevolent to vicious at any moment. One's stability was constantly threatened: a serf's family could be removed from their land, sold away, or raped by their owner. The serf could be conscripted for the army, sent to Siberia, punished viciously without cause or proof of guilt, beaten, or even killed. See also Ambassadors and envoys from Russia to Poland (1763–1794) Bibliography of Russian history (1613–1917) References Geography, topical maps Barnes, Ian. Restless Empire: A Historical Atlas of Russia (2015), copies of historic maps Catchpole, Brian. A Map History of Russia (Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1974), new topical maps. Channon, John, and Robert Hudson. The Penguin historical atlas of Russia (Viking, 1995), new topical maps. Chew, Allen F. An atlas of Russian history: eleven centuries of changing borders (Yale UP, 1970), new topical maps. Gilbert, Martin. Atlas of Russian history (Oxford UP, 1993), new topical maps. The first draft of this article was taken with little editing from the Library of Congress Federal Research Division's Country Studies series. As their home page at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html says, "Information contained in the Country Studies On-Line is not copyrighted and thus is available for free and unrestricted use by researchers. As a courtesy, however, appropriate credit should be given to the series." Please leave this statement intact so that credit can be given. 1721 1721