Meaning of kmet | Babel Free

Definitions

A serf in Southeast Europe, especially one holding land under the estate system introduced by the Ottomans and retained in some areas by Austria-Hungary.

historical

Examples

“Suffering from this double disability, social and religious, the Christian ‘kmet,’ or tiller of the soil, is worse off than many a serf in our darkest ages, and lies as completely at the mercy of the Mahometan owner of the soil as if he were a slave.”

“The authorities repeatedly emphasized that the kmet was not bound to his master, to counter allegations equating kmet tenure with servile status.”

“In any case, the Serbian kmets who remained within the old estate system on the eve of the First World War were not especially badly off by the standards of early twentieth-century peasant Europe […]”

CEFR level