Abstract
The fall of the tsarist regime and of its bureaucratic Judeophobia, as well as the practical difficulties of research in the Soviet Union, may account for the absence of a sustained analytical study of political or official anti-Semitisim in Imperial Russia. But there is another reason. The Russian case always seemed to be a very simple one. The existence of a Jewish problem was generally recognized, as was the fact that discrimination, openly practised, was rooted in the laws and administrative practices of a backward polity and society).1
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Notes and References
‘The distinctive characteristics of antisemitism in tsarist Russia were determined by the fact that Russia was about 150 years behind the nations of Western Europe in its political, social and cultural development.’ M. Vishniak, ‘Antisemitism in Tsarist Russia’, in K. S. Pinson (ed.) Essays on Antisemitism (New York: 1942) p. 121.
Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge. Massachusetts: 1954) pp. 6–7.
For definitions of the term inorodtsy see S. Pushkarcv (comp.) Dictionary of Russian Historical Terms (New Haven: 1970) p. 31;
M. I. Mysh, Rukovodstvo k russkim zakonam o evreiakh (St Petersburg: 1914) pp. 1–2; EE, 8, pp. 224–5. The peculiar legal situation created by inclusion of Jews in the category of inorodtsy is discussed by
M. B. Ratner, ‘Evreiskii vopros’, Pravo, no. 17 (1 May 1905) pp. 1358–76. Surveys of the legal status of Russian Jews may be found in
N. M. Korkunov, Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo (St Petersburg: 1899) 3rd edn, 1, pp. 330–40;
N. D. Gradovskii, Otnoshenie k evreiam v drevnei i sovremennoi Rossii (St Petersburg: 1891) 1, pp. 36 ff:; A. A. Gol’denveizcr, ‘Pravovoe polozhenie evreev v Rossii’ in Kniga o russkom evreistve, pp. 111–54.
V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia (Moscow: 1932) 3rd edn, 17, pp. 291–2.
A. Kerenskii, The Crucifixion of Liberty (London: 1934) pp. 75–6.
Ibid., pp. 57, 73; Pipes, Formation, pp. 29–49;
Y. Maor, The Jewish Question in the Liberal and Revolutionary Movements in Russia (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: 1964).
B. A. Engel and C. N. Rosenthal (eds) Five Sisters: Women Against the Tsar (New York: 1975) pp. 230–1;
J. Frankel, Prophecy and Politics (Cambridge: 1981) pp. 98–102; Golczewski. Polnische-Jüdische Beziehungen, p. 56;
E. Goldhagen, ‘Communism and Anti-Semitism’, in A. Brumberg (ed.) Russia under Khruschev (New York: 1962) p. 328.
For only four of many possible examples of this view see: Goldhagen, ‘Jews’ in Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (New York: 1961) p. 257;
S. M. Dubnov and G. Ia. Krasnyi-Admoni (eds) Material dlia istorii antievreiskikh pogromov v Rossii (Petrograd: 1919–23) 1. p. ix; Joseph, Jewish Immigration, p. 63;
J. Lestschinsky (Ia. Leshchinskii) ‘The Anti-Jewish Program: Tsarist Russia, the Third Reich and Independent Poland’, JSS, 3, no. 2(1941) p. 143.
Miliukov, Constitutional Government for Russia (New York: 1908) p. 29.
L. Wolf, Introduction to F. Semenoff, The Russian Government and the Massacres (London: 1907) p. xviii. Dubnov, Materialy, 1, p. xxxi, speaks of the ‘pogrom ideology’ of the government.
J. H. Billington. Mikhailovskv and Russian Populism (New York and Oxford: 1958) p. 142.
S. Iu. Vitte, Vospominaniia (Moscow: 1960) 2, p. 214; EE, 12, p. 616.
‘Posle pervogo marta 1881g.’ KA, 45 (1931) p. 162; P. A. Zaionchkovskii, Krizis samoderzhaviia (Moscow: 1964) p. 385;
B. Dmur, ‘Ignat’ev’s Plans’ (Hebrew) Héavur, 10 (1963) pp. 5–60;
E. A. Peretts, Dnevnik (Moscow-Leningrad: 1927) p. 183.
Zaionchkovskii, ‘Aleksandr III i ego blizhaishee okruzhenie’ VI, no. 8 (1966) p. 132;
A. Poliakov, ‘Tsar’-mirotvorets; iz rezoliutsii Aleksandra III, Golos Minuvshago, nos 1–3 (1918) p. 228;
Komitet Ministrov, Istoricheskii obzor dciatcfnosti komilcta ministrov (St Petersburg: 1902) 4, p. 312;
B. N. Chicherin, Vospominaniia (Moscow: 1934) p. 140; Les Juifs de Russie (Paris: 1891) p. 397.
S. Lukashevich, ‘The Holy Brotherhood: 1881–1883’, ASFFR 18, no. 4 (1959) pp. 491–509; idem, Ivan Aksakov (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1965) p. 153.
K. K. Arsen′ev, Za chetvert′ veka (Petrograd: 1915) pp. 73, 104, 361.
The Gomel pogrom of September 19()3 demonstrated that anti-Jewish excesses could erupt even after Pleve, in the wake of Kishinev, had categorically instructed governors to prevent them and in spite of energetic efforts by the police to stop them. Concerning Kishinev, E. H. Judge, in his Plehve (Syracuse, New York: 1983) p. 101, concludes: The evidence might not be enough to convict Plehve of first-degree murder, but it presents a strong case for negligent homicide’. Löwe, Antisemitismus, p. 65, asks: ‘Why should Pleve dirty his fingers, since there were those who took his wishes as orders?’
On the origins of the URP see D. C. Rawson, ‘The Union of the Russian People’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington (1971) and Chapter 7, section III. On the URP’s part in the staging of pogroms, Rawson writes, p. 195: ‘It would be extremely difficult to show that the central leadership of the Union directed any of the pogroms or used its boevaia druzhina [combat organization] specifically for that purpose. This does not mean that Union leaders opposed pogroms, but only that most pogroms occurred without the planning of a central organizational or conspiratorial network. Probably, the Union contributed most to the pogroms by its constant outpouring of anti-Semitic propaganda which encouraged “true Russians” to turn their wrath on the Jews’.
Letter of Nicholas, 27 October 1905, in E. J. Bing (ed.) The Secret letters of the Last Tsar (New York: 1938) p. 187. On the printing press, see Vitte, Vospominamiia, pp. 85–8;
A. A. Lopukhin, Otryvki iz vospominanii (Moscow: 1923) pp. 88–91; and Löwe, Antisemitismus, pp. 96–7, who points out that the press began its activities only after the issuance of the October Manifesto.
H. Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire, 1801–1917 (Oxford: 1967) p. 268.
L. Kristoff, ‘The Russian Image of Russia’, in C. A. Fisher (ed.) Essays in Political Geography (London: 1968) p. 350.
J. Saussy, ‘L’apostasie des Tatars christianises en 1866’, Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique, 9, no. 1 (1968) pp. 20–45.
Byrnes, Pobedonostsev, p. 187; J. S. Curtiss, Church and State in Russia (New York: 1940) p. 227.
I. Birman, ‘Jewish Emigration from the USSR’, SJA, 9, no. 2 (1979) p. 50;
L. Schapiro, ‘The Soviet Jews’, New York Review, 19 July 1973, p. 3;
D. V. Pospielovsky, Russian Police Trade Unionism (London: 1971) p. 56.
This was true even under Nicholas I, when the prohibition on changing family names upon conversion was first introduced (see note 4 and Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I, p. 148). Conversion became more difficult in the reign of Nicholas II and residential restrictions were maintained for five years after it had taken place (Samter, Judentaufen, p. 145; Mysh, Rukovodstvo, pp. 561–6). That the missionary effort of the Orthodox Church among Jews was weak and poorly supported by the state is pointed out by M. S. Agurskii, ‘Die Judenchristen in der RussLsch-Orthodoxen Kirche’, Ostkirchliche Studien, 23, nos 2–3 (1974) pp. 137–76.
E. M. Feoktistov, Vospominaniia (Leningrad: 1929) p. 201.
S. L. Kucherov, Courts. Lawyers and Trials under the Last Three Tsars (New York: 1953) pp. 278–9; Löwe, Antisemitismus, p. 166.
A. V. Bogdanovich, Tri poslednikh samoderzhtsa (Leningrad: 1924) p. 470.
Ezhegodnik gazety Rech′ na 1913 g., p. 331; G. G. Iurskii, Pravye v tret′ei Gosudarstvennoi Dume (Khar′kov: 1912) pp. 89–130.
S. Ia. Elpat′evskii, ‘Evreiskii vopros’, RB, no. 10 (1913) p. 354;
R. Maurach, Russische Judenpolitik (Berlin: 1939) p. 379;
A. A. Polivanov, Iz dnevnikov (Moscow: 1924) p. 36. Even during the war, when the need for officers was desperate, a young man suspected of being Jewish had to prove that his parents and grandparents were Christians.
P. Kenez, ‘A Profile of the Pre-revolutionary Officer Corps’, CSS, 7 (1973) p. 148.
K. A. Skal’kovskii, Sovremennaia Rossia (St Petersburg: 1891) p. xix.
L. Slonimskii, ‘Sotsial′nyi roman g. Sergeia Sharapova’, VE, no. 4 (1903) pp. 774–88 and Sharapov’s paper Svidetet (June 1908) pp. 52–3.
P. de Arman, Temy dnia (Odessa: 1906) pp. 26–32; J. Kruk (ed.) Great Russians and the Jewish Question.
S. L. Burg, ‘The Calculus of Soviet Antisemitism’, in Azrael, Soviet Nationality Policies, pp. 191–2 and L. Schapiro, ‘Antisemitism in the Communist World’, SJA, 9, no. 1 (1979) pp. 42–52.
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© 1986 Hans Rogger
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Rogger, H. (1986). The Jewish Policy of Late Tsarism: A Reappraisal. In: Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06568-4_2
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