Final answer:
The question appears to refer to the period when Michael Romanov was elected as czar in 1613, but it was actually Alexander II who, through the emancipation of serfs in 1861, significantly altered the status of peasants, leading to a complex aftermath. Before emancipation, peasants were under the control of their landowners; afterwards, they owed money to the government for their freedom.
Step-by-step explanation:
Michael Romanov was elected czar of Russia in 1613, during a period when the Russian Empire was evolving and expanding. However, the question of whom he gave absolute control over peasants seems to be slightly mistaken, as it was not Michael Romanov but his later successor Alexander II who significantly changed the status of peasants with the emancipation of serfs in 1861. Prior to this, peasants or serfs were under the control of landowners, but the emancipation freed them, although they still encountered hardships due to the economic conditions imposed on them, such as having to buy the land that they had previously worked on.
After emancipation, serfs legally owed the government money that had been used to buy their freedom from the nobility. They often remained in a similar economic situation as before, continuing to work on the same land to pay off their debts. The notion of the tsar as a benevolent protector was thus already in a state of flux before the abolition of serfdom, with varied responses to the changing system from different segments of Russian society.