I have always enjoyed slave narrative tracts by people who managed to escape the chattel slavery of the American south, as it's one of the best ways to read firsthand accounts from people who were once enslaved about what slavery was like for them.

Recently, I started watching the hilarious and incredibly historically inaccurate show about Catherine the Great's rise to power, The Great (forgivable as it notes it isn't even close to accurate on the show's title card). It reminded me of something I've always wondered about Russian serfs.

Russian history is something I happen to know enough about to know that the serfs weren't freed in Russia until the same decade as the slaves of the U.S., and I have read up on a few eras of Russia's history. But I admit that I've never read anything by someone claiming to be a serf who managed to get out of serfdom.

I've read accounts of kindly landowners treating the serfs like children, I've read reports by intelligentsia members who denounced serfdom, and I've read about the bouncing views on serfs from Peter the Great to Alexander II, but nothing from someone who once was a serf (I assume the person would have to be a former serf, as from everything I've read there were no learned serfs).

Does such a thing exist at all? Or was serfdom such that escape and betterment was near impossible and thus no serf ever had the chance to speak up for himself?