History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II by S.M. Dubnow

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HISTORY OF THE JEWS
IN RUSSIA AND POLAND

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY

BY
S.M. DUBNOW

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN
BY
I. FRIEDLAENDER

VOLUME II

FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I. UNTIL THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III.
(1825-1894)

PHILADELPHIA
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
5706--1946

Copyright 1918 by
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

It was originally proposed to give the history of Russian
Jewry after 1825--the year with which the first volume concludes--in a
single volume. This, however, would have resulted in producing a volume
of unwieldy dimensions, entirely out of proportion to the one preceding
it. It has, therefore, become imperative to divide Dubnow's work into
three, instead of into two, volumes. The second volume, which is
herewith offered to the public, treats of the history of Russian Jewry
from the death of Alexander I. (1825) until the death of Alexander III.
(1894). The third and concluding volume will deal with the reign of
Nicholas II., the last of the Romanovs, and will also contain the
bibliographical apparatus, the maps, the index, and other supplementary
material. This division will undoubtedly recommend itself to the reader.
The next volume is partly in type, and will follow as soon as
circumstances permit.

Of the three reigns described in the present volume, that of Alexander
III., though by far the briefest, is treated at considerably greater
length than the others. The reason for it is not far to seek. The events
which occurred during the fourteen years of his reign laid their
indelible impress upon Russian Jewry, and they have had a determining
influence upon the growth and development of American Israel. The
account of Alexander III.'s reign is introduced in the Russian original
by a general characterization of the anti-Jewish policies of Russian
Tzardom. Owing to the rearrangement of the material, to which reference
was made in the preface to the first volume, this introduction, which
would have interrupted the flow of the narrative, had to be omitted. But
a few passages from it, written in the characteristic style of Mr.
Dubnow, may find a place here:

Russian Tzardom began its consistent role as a persecutor of the
Eternal People when it received, by way of bequest, the vast Jewish
population of disintegrated Poland. At the end of the eighteenth
century, when Western Europe had just begun the emancipation of the
Jews, the latter were subjected in the East of Europe to every
possible medieval experiment.... The reign of Alexander II., who
slightly relieved the civil disfranchisement of the Jews by
permitting certain categories among them to live outside the Pale
and by a few other measures, forms a brief interlude in the Russian
policy of oppression. His tragic death in 1881 marks the beginning
of a new terrible reaction which has superimposed the system of
wholesale street pogroms upon the policy of disfranchisement, and
has again thrown millions of Jews into the dismal abyss of
medievalism.

Russia created a lurid antithesis to Jewish emancipation at a time
when the latter was consummated not only in Western Europe, but also
in the semi-civilized Balkan States.... True, the rise of Russian
Judaeophobia--the Russian technical term for Jew-hatred--was
paralleled by the appearance of German anti-Semitism in which it
found a congenial companion. Yet, the anti-Semitism of the West was
after all only a weak aftermath of the infantile disease of
Europe--the medieval Jew-hatred--whereas culturally retrograde
Russia was still suffering from the same infection in its acute,
"childish" form. The social and cultural anti-Semitism of the West
did not undermine the modern foundations of Jewish civil equality.
But Russian Judaeophobia, more governmental than social, being fully
in accord with the entire regime of absolutism, produced a system
aiming not only at the disfranchisement, but also at the direct
physical annihilation of the Jewish people. The policy of the
extermination of Judaism was stamped upon the forehead of Russian
reaction, receiving various colors at various periods, assuming the
hue now of economic, now of national and religious, now of
bureaucratic oppression. The year 1881 marks the starting-point of
this systematic war against the Jews, which has continued until our
own days, and is bound to reach a crisis upon the termination of the
great world struggle.

Concerning the transcription of Slavonic names, the reader is referred
to the explanations given in the preface to the first volume. The
foot-notes added by the translator have been placed in square brackets.
The poetic quotations by the author have been reproduced in English
verse, the translation following both in content and form the original
languages of the quotations as closely as possible. As in the case of
the first volume, a number of editorial changes have become necessary.
The material has been re-arranged and the headings have been supplied in
accordance with the general plan of the work. A number of pages have
been added, dealing with the attitude of the American people and
Government toward the anti-Jewish persecutions in Russia. These
additions will be found on pp. 292-296, pp. 394-396, and pp. 408-410. I
am indebted to Dr. Cyrus Adler for his kindness in reading the proof of
this part of the work.

The dates given in this volume are those of the Russian calendar, except
for the cases in which the facts relate to happenings outside of Russia.

As in the first volume, the translator has been greatly assisted by the
Hon. Mayer Sulzberger, who has read the proofs with his usual care and
discrimination, and by Professor Alexander Marx, who has offered a
number of valuable suggestions.

I.F.

NEW YORK, February 25, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIII. THE MILITARY DESPOTISM OF NICHOLAS I.
1. Military Service as a Means of De-Judaization 13
2. The Recruiting Ukase of 1827 and Juvenile Conscription 18
3. Military Martyrdom 22
4. The Policy of Expulsions 30
5. The Codification of Jewish Disabilities 34
6. The Russian Censorship and Conversionist Endeavors 41

XIV. COMPULSORY ENLIGHTENMENT AND INCREASED OPPRESSION.
1. Enlightenment as a Means of Assimilation 46
2. Uvarov and Lilienthal 50
3. The Abolition of Jewish Autonomy and Renewed Persecutions 59
4. Intercession of Western European Jewry 66
5. The Economic Plight of Russian Jewry and Agricultural
Experiments 69
6. The Ritual Murder Trial of Velizh 72
7. The Mstislavl Affair 84

XV. THE JEWS IN THE KINGDOM OF POLAND.
1. Plans of Jewish Emancipation 88
2. Political Reaction and Literary Anti-Semitism 94
3. Assimilationist Tendencies Among the Jews of Poland 100
4. The Jews and the Polish Insurrection of 1831 105

XVI. THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF MILITARY DESPOTISM.
1. The Uncompromising Attitude of Rabbinism 111
2. The Stagnation of Hasidism 116
3. The Russian Mendelssohn (Isaac Baer Levinsohn) 125
4. The Rise of Neo-Hebraic Culture 132
5. The Jews and the Russian People 138

XVII. THE LAST YEARS OF NICHOLAS I.
1. The "Assortment" of the Jews 140
2. Compulsory Assimilation 143
3. New Conscription Horrors 145
4. The Ritual Murder Trial of Saratov 150

XVIII. THE ERA OF REFORMS UNDER ALEXANDER II.
1. The Abolition of Juvenile Conscription 154
2. "Homeopathic" Emancipation and the Policy of "Fusion" 157
3. The Extension of the Right of Residence 161
4. Further Alleviations and Attempts at Russification 172
5. The Jews and the Polish Insurrection of 1863 177

XIX. THE REACTION UNDER ALEXANDER II.
1. Change of Attitude Toward the Jewish Problem 184
2. The Informer Jacob Brafman 187
3. The Fight Against Jewish "Separatism" 190
4. The Drift Toward Oppression 198

XX. THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER II.
1. The Russification of the Jewish Intelligenzia 206
2. The Society for the Diffusion of Enlightenment 214
3. The Jewish Press 216
4. The Jews and the Revolutionary Movement 221
5. The Neo-Hebraic Renaissance 224
6. The Harbinger of Jewish Nationalism (Perez Smolenskin) 233
7. Jewish Literature in the Russian Language 238

XXI. THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER III. AND THE INAUGURATION OF POGROMS.
1. The Triumph of Autocracy 243
2. The Initiation of the Pogrom Policy 247
3. The Pogrom at Kiev 251
4. Further Outbreaks in South Russia 256

XXII. THE ANTI-JEWISH POLICIES OF IGNATYEV.
1. The Vacillating Attitude of the Authorities 259
2. The Pogrom Panic and the Beginning of the Exodus 265
3. The Gubernatorial Commissions 269
4. The Spread of Anti-Semitism 276
5. The Pogrom at Warsaw 280

XXIII. NEW MEASURES OF OPPRESSION AND PUBLIC PROTESTS.
1. The Despair of Russian Jewry 284
2. The Voice of England and America 287
3. The Problem of Emigration and the Pogrom at Balta 297
4. The Conference of Jewish Notables at St. Petersburg 304

XXIV. LEGISLATIVE POGROMS.
1. The "Temporary Rules" of May 3, 1882 309
2. Abandonment of the Pogrom Policy 312
3. Disabilities and Emigration 318

XXV. INNER UPHEAVALS.
1. Disillusionment of the Intelligenzia and the National
Revival 324
2. Pinsker's "Autoemancipation" 330
3. Miscarried Religious Reforms 333

XXVI. INCREASED JEWISH DISABILITIES.
1. The Pahlen Commission and New Schemes of Oppression 336
2. Jewish Disabilities Outside the Pale 342
3. Restrictions in Education and in the Legal Profession 348
4. Discrimination in Military Service 354

XXVII. RUSSIAN REACTION AND JEWISH EMIGRATION.
1. Aftermath of the Pogrom Policy 358
2. The Conclusions of the Pahlen Commission 362
3. The Triumph of Reaction 369
4. American and Palestinian Emigration 373

XXVIII. JUDAEOPHOBIA TRIUMPHANT.
1. Intensified Reaction 378
2. Continued Harassing 382
3. The Guildhall Meeting in London 388
4. The Protest of America 394

XXIX. THE EXPULSION FROM MOSCOW.
1. Preparing the Blow 399
2. The Horrors of Expulsion 401
3. Effect of Protests 407
4. Pogrom Interludes 411

XXX. BARON HIRSCH'S EMIGRATION SCHEME AND UNRELIEVED SUFFERING.
1. Negotiations with the Russian Government 434
2. The Jewish Colonisation Association and Collapse of the Argentinian
Scheme 419
3. Continued Humiliations and Death of Alexander III. 423

CHAPTER XIII

THE MILITARY DESPOTISM OF NICHOLAS I.

1. MILITARY SERVICE AS A MEANS OF DE-JUDAIZATION

The era of Nicholas I. was typically inaugurated by the bloody
suppression of the Decembrists and their constitutional demands, [1]
proving as it subsequently did one continuous triumph of military
despotism over the liberal movements of the age. As for the emancipation
of the Jews, it was entirely unthinkable in an empire which had become
Europe's bulwark against the inroads of revolutionary or even moderately
liberal tendencies. The new despotic regime, overflowing with aggressive
energy, was bound to create, after its likeness, a novel method of
dealing with the Jewish problem. Such a method was contrived by the iron
will of the Russian autocrat.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 410, n. 1.]

Nicholas I., who was originally intended for a military career, was
placed on the Russian throne by a whim of fate.[1] Prior to his
accession, Nicholas had shown no interest in the Jewish problem. The
Jewish masses had flitted across his vision but once--in 1816--when,
still a young man, he traveled through Russia for his education. The
impression produced upon him by this strange people is recorded by the
then grand duke in his diary in a manner fully coincident with the
official views of the Government:

[Footnote 1: After the death of Alexander I. the Russian crown fell to
his eldest brother Constantine, military commander of Poland.
Accordingly, Constantine was proclaimed emperor, and was recognized as
such by Nicholas. Constantine, however, who had secretly abdicated some
time previously, insisted on resigning, and Nicholas became Tzar.]

The ruin of the peasants of these provinces [1] are the Zhyds. [2] As
property-holders they are here second in importance to the landed
nobility. By their commercial pursuits they drain the strength of
the hapless White Russian people.... They are everything here:
merchants, contractors, saloon-keepers, mill-owners, ferry-holders,
artisans.... They are regular leeches, and suck these unfortunate
governments [3] to the point of exhaustion. It is a matter of
surprise that in 1812 they displayed exemplary loyalty to us and
assisted us wherever they could at the risk of their lives.

[Footnote 1: Nicholas is speaking of White Russia. Compare Vol. I, pp.
329 and 406.]

[Footnote 2: See on this term Vol. I, p. 320, n. 2.]

[Footnote 3: See on this term Vol. I, p. 308, n. 1.]

The characterization of merchants, artisans, mill-owners, and
ferry-holders as "leeches" could only spring from a conception which
looked upon the Jews as transient foreigners, who, by pursuing any line
of endeavor, could only do so at the expense of the natives and thus
abused the hospitality offered to them. No wonder then that the future
Tzar was puzzled by the display of patriotic sentiments on the part of
the Jewish population at the fatal juncture in the history of Russia.

This inimical view of the Jewish people was retained by Nicholas when he
became the master of Russian-Jewish destinies. He regarded the Jews as
an "injurious element," which had no place in a Slavonic Greek-Orthodox
monarchy, and which therefore ought to be combated. The Jews must be
rendered innocuous, must be "corrected" and curbed by such energetic
military methods as are in keeping with a form of government based upon
the principles of stern tutelage and discipline. As a result of these
considerations, a singular scheme was gradually maturing in the mind of
the Tzar: to detach the Jews from Judaism by impressing them into a
military service of a wholly exceptional character.

The plan of introducing personal military service, instead of the
hitherto customary exemption tax, [1] had engaged the attention of the
Russian Government towards the end of Alexander I's reign, and had
caused a great deal of alarm among the Jewish communities. Nicholas I.
was now resolved to carry this plan into effect. Not satisfied with
imposing a civil obligation upon a people deprived of civil rights, the
Tzar desired to use the Russian military service, a service marked by
most extraordinary features, as an educational and disciplinary agency
for his Jewish subjects: the barrack was to serve as a school, or rather
as a factory, for producing a new generation of de-Judaized Jews, who
were completely Russified, and, if possible, Christianized.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 318.]

The extension of the term of military service, marked by the ferocious
discipline of that age, to a period of twenty-five years, the enrolment
of immature lads or practically boys, their prolonged separation from a
Jewish environment, and finally the employment of such methods as were
likely to produce an immediate effect upon the recruits in the desired
direction--all this was deemed an infallible means of dissolving Russian
Jewry within the dominant nation, nay, within the dominant Church. It
was a direct and simplified scheme which seemed to lead in a straight
line to the goal. But had the ruling spheres of St. Petersburg known the
history of the Jewish people, they might have realized that the
annihilation of Judaism had in past ages been attempted more than once
by other, no less forcible, means and that the attempt had always proved
a failure.

In the very first year of the new reign, the plan of transforming the
Jews by "military" methods was firmly settled in the emperor's mind. In
1826 Nichola instructed his ministers to draft a special statute of
military service for the Jews, departing in some respects from the
general law. In view of the fact that the new military reform was
intended to include the Western region [1], which was under the military
command of the Tzar's brother. Grand Duke Constantine [2], the draft was
sent to him to Warsaw for further suggestions and approval, and was in
turn transmitted by the grand duke to Senator Nicholas Novosiltzev, his
co-regent [3], for investigation and report. As an experienced statesman,
who had familiarized himself during his administrative activity with the
Jewish conditions obtaining in the Western region, Novosiltzev realized
the grave risks involved in the imperial scheme. In a memorandum
submitted by him to the grand duke, he argued convincingly that the
sudden imposition of military service upon the Jews was bound to cause
an undesirable agitation among them, and that they should, on the
contrary, be slowly "prepared for such a radical transformation."

[Footnote 1: The official designation for the territories of Western
Russia which were formerly a part of the Polish Empire.]

[Footnote 2: Constantine was appointed by his brother Alexander I,
Commander-in-chief of the Polish army after the restoration of Poland in
1815. He remained in this post until his death in 1831. See also above,
p. 13, n. 2.]

[Footnote 3: He was the imperial Russian Commissary in Warsaw, and was
practically in control of the affairs in Poland. See below, p. 92 et
seq.]

Novosiltzev was evidently well informed about the state of mind of the
Jewish masses. No sooner had the rumor of the proposed ukase reached the
Pale of Settlement than the Jews were seized by a tremendous excitement.
It must be borne in mind that the Jewish population of Western Russia
had but recently been incorporated into the Russian Empire. Clinging
with patriarchal devotion to their religion, estranged from the Russian
people, and kept, moreover, in a state of civil rightlessness, the Jews
of that region could not be reasonably expected to gloat over the
prospect of a military service of twenty-five years' duration, which was
bound to alienate their sons from their ancestral faith, detach them
from their native tongue, their habits and customs of life, and throw
them into a strange, and often hostile, environment. The ultimate aim of
the project, which, imbedded in the mind of its originators, seemed
safely hidden from the eye of publicity, was quickly sensed by the
delicate national instinct, and the soul of the people was stirred to
its depths. Public-minded Jews strained every nerve to avert the
calamity. Jewish representatives journeyed to St. Petersburg and Warsaw
to plead the cause of their brethren. Negotiations were entered into
with dignitaries of high rank and with men of influence in the world of
officialdom. Rumor had it that immense bribes had been offered to
Novosiltzev and several high officials in St. Petersburg for the purpose
of receiving their co-operation. But even the intercession of leading
dignitaries was powerless to change the will of the Tzar. He chafed
under the red-tape formalities which obstructed the realization of his
favorite scheme. Without waiting for the transmission of Novosiltzev's
memorandum, the Tzar directed the Minister of the Interior and the Chief
of the General Staff to submit to him for signature an ukase imposing
military service upon the Jews. The fatal enactment was signed on August
26, 1827.

2. The Recruiting Ukase of 1827 and Juvenile Conscription

The ukase announces the desire of the Government "to equalize military
duty for all estates," without, be it noted, equalizing them in their
rights. It further expresses the conviction that "the training and
accomplishments, acquired by the Jews during their military service,
will, on their return home after the completion of the number of years
fixed by law (fully a quarter of a century!), be communicated to their
families and make for greater usefulness and higher efficiency in their
economic life and in the management of their affairs."

However, the "Statute of Conscription and Military Service," subjoined
to the ukase, was a lurid illustration of a tendency utterly at variance
with the desire "to equalize military duty." Had the Russian Government
been genuinely desirous of rendering military duty uniform for all
estates, there would have been no need of issuing separately for the
Jews a huge enactment of ninety-five clauses, with supplementary
"instructions," consisting of sixty-two clauses, for the guidance of the
civil and military authorities. All that was necessary was to declare
that the general military statute applied also to the Jews. Instead, the
reverse stipulation is made: "The general laws and institutions are not
valid in the case of the Jews" when at variance with the special statute
(Clause 3).

The discriminating character of Jewish conscription looms particularly
large in the central portion of the statute. Jewish families were
stricken with terror on reading the eighth clause of the statute
prescribing that "the Jewish conscripts presented by the [Jewish]
communes shall be between the ages of twelve and twenty-five." This
provision was supplemented by Clause 74: "Jewish minors, i.e., below the
age of eighteen, shall be placed in preparatory establishments for
military training."

True, the institution of minor recruits, called _cantonists_, [1] existed
also for Christians. But in their case it was confined to the children
of soldiers in active service, by virtue of the principle laid down by
Arakcheyev [2] that children born of soldiers were the property of the
Military Department, whereas the conscription of Jewish minors was to be
absolute and to apply to all Jewish families without discrimination. To
make things worse, the law demanded that the years of preparatory
training should not be included in the term of active service, the
latter to start only with the age of eighteen (Clause 90); in other
words, the Jewish cantonists were compelled to serve an additional term
of six years over and above the obligatory twenty-five years. Moreover,
at the examination of Jewish conscripts, all that was demanded for their
enlistment was "that they be free from any disease or defect
incompatible with military service, but the other qualifications
required by the general rules shall be left out of consideration"
(Clause 10).

[Footnote 1: From _Canton_, a word applied in Prussia in the eighteenth
century to a recruiting district. In Russia, beginning with 1805, the term
"cantonists" is applied to children born of soldiers and therefore liable
to conscription.]

[Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 395, n. 1.]

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