kmet

plural kmets · plural kmetovi

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

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

   1997, Michael Palairet, The Balkan Economies c. 1800-1914, Cambridge, published 2002, page 206

   2 more 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.

   1876, Arthur John Evans, Through Bosnia and Herzegovina On Foot

   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 […]

   2012, Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin, published 2013, page 74