Rights education Jews Russian Empire. How Jews ended up on the territory of the Russian Empire
(Institute of Oriental Studies RAS).
"The Jewish Question" Russian Empire in the XIX - early XX centuries:
attempts to solve it: by the authorities, society and the Jewish community.
1. Repressive integration .
2. Attempts by the authorities to reform Judaism.
3. The reaction of the Jewish masses to government policy.
One of the most important legislative acts concerning the Jews of the entire period was the "Charter of Recruitment and Military Service of the Jews" (1827). According to the same Stanislavsky, according to this Charter, from 1827 to 1854. about 70 thousand Jews were called up, about 50 thousand of whom were minors, the so-called cantonists. According to his calculations, in the Nikolaev era, approx. 30 thousand Jews, of which only approx. 5 thousand converted to Orthodoxy voluntarily. Recruitment was not associated with military circumstances, but was seen as the most effective way of "enlightenment" and "correction" through baptism. The children of the Polish nobles were also recruited to the cantonists, after the uprising of 1831, and the children of the declassed elements. Formally, the recruiting charter allowed a Jew to practice his faith in the army. But the reality was often different. For this, minors were recruited, so that it would be easier to break them. In special battalions and units for juveniles - cantonist schools, Jewish boys found themselves in an alien and hostile environment. They got it for ignorance of the Russian language, for differences in faith and customs. Often it was forbidden to correspond with parents, Jewish prayer books were taken away. They were not allowed to speak and pray in their native language. Recruits drafted into the army from the age of eighteen and older could still stand up for themselves and their faith. It was much more difficult for the children. They were forced to convert to Orthodoxy, and those who persisted were ruthlessly tortured. Many memoirs of former cantonists about those cruel and inhuman times have come down to our time. The opinion of J. Petrovsky-Stern, who tried to re-evaluate the tragic history of child martyrs, can hardly be accepted. One of the Jewish folk legends tells how one day on the Volga, near Kazan, several hundred Jewish cantonist boys gathered on the same day to baptize. The local authorities and clergy in full vestments settled down on the banks of the river. The children stood in orderly rows. Finally, Tsar Nicholas I himself drove up and ordered the children to enter the water. “Listen, Higher Imperial Majesty!” they all exclaimed and jumped into the river together. But none of them surfaced. All the children voluntarily drowned themselves. Instead of being baptized, they agreed in advance to commit suicide, to die for the sake of their faith. They made "al kiddush ha-Shem" - they illuminated the Name of the Almighty, as their fellow believers did in ancient times and the Middle Ages in the era of persecution in different countries. They accepted suffering and martyrdom in the name of faith in God and fidelity to the precepts of Judaism. At baptism, the names of the godfathers were usually given, often also their surnames. As a result, Yesel Levikov became Vasily Fedorov. Movsha Peisakhovich - Grigory Pavlov, Israel Petrovitsky - Nikolai Ivanov, etc. And when you look through these endless lists, Saul Ginzburg wrote, the thought involuntarily arises: how much Jewish blood was poured into the Russian people, and how much among the current Ivanovs. Petrovs, Stepanovs, there are descendants of Jewish children who were once forcibly baptized.
Young recruits were recruited primarily from the poor and uninfluential sections of the Jewish community. To carry out the recruitment, the kahal leaders formed the institution of happers (“catchers”) - specially selected people who, for money, were engaged in abducting children and handing them over to the army. The recruiting policy of the autocracy led to tragic chaos in the Jewish communities, a sharp loss of influence and authority of the kahal leaders.
The Jews tried to resist recruitment, in addition to suicide, self-mutilation, escape and traditional ways of behavior were actively spread: fasting, prayers, as well as bribes to officials. Recruitment left a traumatic mark in historical memory people.
Another important act of the Nikolaev era in relation to the Jews was the Regulations of 1835, which finally established the outer boundaries of the Pale of Settlement. Within those borders, the "line" existed until the First World War. An important aspect of this Regulation was the intervention of the authorities in the process of choosing a rabbi and turning them, in fact, into state officials. The Law on Jewish Printing Houses, adopted in 1836, according to which all Jewish printing houses were closed, except for two in Vilna and Zhytomyr, meant a further offensive by the government against traditional Jewish society. All Jewish book business was subject to state censorship.
In 1844 state schools for Jews were established. These educational institutions were supposed to educate a new generation of Jews loyal to Russian culture, the tsar and the fatherland. The new schools met with serious opposition from the administrative and spiritual leaders of the Jewish communities. First of all, children from poor families who did not have any influence in the kahals went to these "heretical" schools. In the last years of Nicholas's reign, enlightenment ideas became the ideology not only of a part of the intellectual elite, but also of a certain part of the poor. New educational institutions played a significant role in the dissemination of education and the formation of the so-called. secular Russian-Jewish intelligentsia. Government-supported Jewish educators were serious threat traditional order. Maskilim received new support in the form of Jews, the first graduates of Russian gymnasiums and universities. She shared the views of the authorities on the need to reform the life and religion of her co-religionists. On the initiative of S. Uvarov, a graduate of a German university, Rabbi M. Lilienthal, was invited to Russia, who was supposed to lead the reform of Judaism in Russia. Dozens more Reform rabbis were to follow him. However, his activities, like the entire project, were not implemented.
In the same 1844, kahals were abolished. The community self-government system was abolished. In addition, Jews were ordered to wear European clothes. They were obliged to take surnames for themselves, etc. The alliance between the authorities and the Jewish enlighteners represented the greatest danger to the traditional way of Jewish life. He caused increased opposition to the regime among a significant part of the Jewish masses. The contradictions that existed between Hasidism and its opponents misnagdim began to fade into the background. Moreover, recent seemingly irreconcilable opponents began to unite to fight the supporters of enlightenment. The policy of Nicholas I in relation to Russian Jewry, according to Stanislavsky, turned out to be generally repressive and discriminatory. And it cannot be called successful. At the same time, one of the most important consequences of this policy was the destruction of the isolated state of the Jewish community. The closed existence of the Jews in the backyards of Russia was over. Already at the end of the Nikolaev era, the Jews were drawn into the seething stream of Russian life and politics.
The era of the Great Reforms.
1. Policy of selective integration.
2. The attitude of the Jewish community towards baptism.
3. The emergence and features of Russian anti-Semitism.
During the years of liberal reforms of Alexander II, the policy towards the Jews also changed. It goes by the slogan "rapprochement and merger", although the maskilim and the government often invested in it a different meaning. However, goals and worldview basis in "Jewish politics" remained the same, it ceased to be repressive, violent. The authorities are moving to incentive measures, the main of which was the abolition of the Pale of Settlement for "productive", from the point of view of the authorities, layers of Jewry: 1859 - for merchants of the 1st guild, 1861 for Jews from higher education, 1865 - to some categories of artisans. Thus, as Benjamin Nathans notes, a policy of "selective integration" was carried out. The Nikolaev soldiers, who proved through the court the violent nature of their baptism, got the opportunity to return to Judaism. Despite the selective integration of Jews into Russian society, only baptism in most cases opened up opportunities for full rights: holding government positions and promotions, positions in higher educational institutions, etc. Recognized only church marriage, and one of the parties (not a Christian - / Jew / ki) was required to be baptized. A Jew/ka, could marry a person of a different faith, without giving up his religion, only on a pagan/tse.
The Jewish community and family usually broke off all relations with the converts. The protagonist of the novel of the same name "Tevye the Milkman" - a classic of Jewish literature, Sholom Aleichem, is forced to break off relations with one of his daughters Khava, who was baptized to marry the Christian clerk Fyodor:
"Get up ... my wife, take off your shoes and sit on the floor - to celebrate mourning according to the command of God. The Lord gave, and the Lord took it… Let it seem to us that there never was Khava... I ordered in the house that no one dared to mention the name of Khava - there is no Khava!
So, for example, it happened with the famous Jewish historian Sh. Dubnov, who completely broke off relations with his daughter Olga, who married the Social Democrat M. Ivanov and, due to this, was forced to perform the inevitable formality in these cases - to be baptized. A similar drama was experienced somewhat earlier by the family of the famous thinker Ahad Gaam, whose daughter Rachel (Rosa) married the Russian writer, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party M. Osorgin.
Moses Krol () - a well-known Jewish public figure, people's will, political exile and ethnographer, reproduces a symptomatic dialogue in his memoirs. On behalf of the manager of the affairs of the Committee of Ministers, one of the sponsored ministers, N. Paterson, made an offer to Krol to work on the staff of the office, provided that Krol was baptized:
“Isn’t it otherwise?” I asked him ironically. “You know,” Peterson continued in a tone of sympathy, “that at present it is absolutely impossible to accept a Jew for public service. “But as soon as I get baptized, I will become a completely different person, isn’t it “Of course not,” Peterson admitted, what to do when the authorities demand this formality. Are you that religious? -Of course not! - What can keep you from baptism? For you, this rite should not present any inconvenience. It's like that. That you change your jacket for a tailcoat. His naive cynicism and utter incomprehension of all the meanness of the deal offered to me with conscience directly disarmed me. I laughed and said to him: “No, Nikolai Petrovich, I love my jacket very much and would not exchange it for the best tailcoat in the world ... My work at the office of the Committee of Ministers was completed.”
Dubnov openly spoke out with a sharp condemnation of that part of the Jewish youth that was baptized. The vast majority of the converts were young people, who thus sought to bypass the percentage rate and freely enter higher educational institutions and make a career. It should be noted that many converts were atheists, and this step did not carry essentially any moral significance for cynical young people. Some of them converted not to Orthodoxy, but to Protestantism, which was much easier procedurally. At the same time, the conversion of hundreds of young Jews to another faith undoubtedly testified to the crisis of traditional Jewish values in the 1900s. Dubnov called his letter, published in the summer of 1913 in the journal Novy Voskhod, “On the Departing” (“Declaration on Conversions”). He called on society to establish a certain attitude towards renegades: renounced." He spoke especially to those who still hesitated. He called them:
“You are on the verge of betrayal. Stop, rethink! You acquire civil rights and personal benefits, but you will forever lose the great historical privilege of belonging to a nation of spiritual heroes and martyrs."
However, there is no doubt that this appeal prevented very few people from fulfilling their plans. Even earlier, in 1911, a well-known publicist and one of the leaders of the Zionist movement published an article on the same topic, under the characteristic title "Our "everyday phenomenon."
Indeed, since 1907, according to the reports of the Chief Procurator of the Synod, only the following people passed to Orthodoxy from Judaism: in 1908; one; nineteen; in 1; in 1; in 1 person. Not for everyone, this act was a mere formality. A student of the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, Solomon Lurie, in the future, a well-known historian of antiquity, decided to be baptized under strong pressure from his father, who raised his son as an atheist, alien to any religious faith. Baptism allowed Lurie to remain at the university as a "professor's fellow". Nevertheless, he did not leave the feeling of guilt. In one of the letters, student Lurie frankly remarked to his addressee: "Baptism, in any case, if not meanness, then the most vile of compromises."
Anatoly Ivanov, who studied this phenomenon, nevertheless exaggerates when he claims that during this period, Judaism, as the foundation of the Jewish community, was rapidly losing its adherents among the Jewish intelligent youth. At the same time, he is obviously right when he notes that for Jewish students in Russian higher educational institutions, Judaism has ceased to be the main factor in national consolidation. However, one should not simplify the processes that took place in Jewish society in the period that followed the first Russian revolution until the First World War. Along with the "leaving" there was also a "return" to his people. The Jewish community, especially in Eastern Europe, became more and more aware of itself not only and not so much religious community, but by the people. In 1897, Theodor Herzl said the same thing in Western Europe in his book The Jewish State: "We are a people, one people." For Western Europe this statement was in the nature of a revolutionary challenge.
However, in the context of the strengthening of secular tendencies in Russian society, and Jewish society in particular, the return sometimes took place not only through the tradition of "baal teshuva" - a return to Judaism, but in the secular field: the emergence of interest in the spiritual values of their people, empathy and compassion for their difficult spiritual and physical suffering. One of the leaders of the Bund - the Jewish Social Democratic Labor Party, later known as the "legend of the Jewish labor movement" Vladimir Medem, who was born in the family of a high-ranking military doctor, recalled his childhood and youth, returning to his people. These reminiscences are so sincere and spontaneous that we have taken the liberty of quoting an extensive fragment of them:
Although I was the youngest, it was I who happened to be the first Christian in our family. When I was born (July 1879) my parents decided: “We have suffered enough because of our Jewishness. May our youngest not be familiar with these sufferings.” I was baptized in the Orthodox Church… although my parents themselves remained Jews for quite a long time… But in fact my father became a Christian before he accepted the rite of baptism itself. In our house, everything was respected church holidays … When I was five years old, I was in the church for the first time. It left a strong impression: sacred paintings, flickering candlelight, rituals shrouded in mystery, the vibrating bass of the protodeacon, the singing choir... As I grew older, my religious feelings...began to dissipate. When I was in the second grade of the gymnasium, I began to develop critical views in myself. During the last years of my stay at the gymnasium, my social circle imperceptibly became more and more Jewish… In 1897 I was admitted to Kiev University… I began to study political economy… and learned about the Bund. In addition to studying Marx, I decided to study Hebrew. But my interest in Hebrew was more literary than Jewish… I wanted to read the Bible in the original… At home during the summer holidays, it was not difficult for me to find myself a teacher. Mitche, a boy who lived in our yard, agreed to teach me in exchange for Russian lessons…. He taught me the alphabet and pronunciation.. But I suspected that Mitche himself did not understand very well what he was teaching me ... I never learned Hebrew, but I got something else: I learned the alphabet - having received the key to the Yiddish language ... In various ways and for various reasons I began to turn towards Jewishness. Here, I must mention my friendship with Isaac Teumin, a man much older than me… he was involved in the Jewish labor movement… He… came from a traditional Jewish family, knew and loved Jewish life. This love was passed on to me. It was in Minsk… On Yom Kippur Teumin took me to the synagogue. I remember that evening well. I wandered through the streets... the shops were closed, the streets were empty and deserted... There was an unusual silence in the city. It felt like this day was different from all the others. Later, Teumin and I went to the synagogue. I have been to the synagogue before... But for the first time I found myself in an old synagogue... I felt the presence of a new, hitherto unknown atmosphere in all its originality and charm. All this was different from what was in the Russian church. There, a large mass of people were in silence, calmness and sadness, and only the priest and the choir spoke and sang on behalf of the community, spoke and sang in beautiful, harmonious and restrained tones. But here, I found myself in the midst of a seething, boiling sea. Hundreds and hundreds of worshipers were absorbed in prayer, and each prayed to God at the top of his voice, with passionate perseverance. Hundreds of voices ascended to heaven, each for himself, without any agreement, harmony. And they all flowed together into one amazing sound. Needless to say, how strange all this was for the Western ear, but it made a deep impression and possessed the unusual beauty of a passionate mass feeling. Then we went to another, even smaller prayer house... And here, too, I found myself surrounded by hundreds of voices. But one voice - the voice of the old gray-haired cantor - itself rose and rushed upward above the noisy murmur of the masses. It was neither singing nor prayer, but rather weeping, which evoked the burning tears of a suffering heart. And here there was nothing of the solemnity or measured harmony of Christian prayer. It was truly an Oriental passion of a suffering soul, a voice from hoary antiquity that weeps and prays to God. And there was a great beauty in this... Undoubtedly, the Jewish working environment greatly influenced me.... constant contact with Jews and Jewish life Judaized me... My memories are still fresh in my memory when I walked along Jewish streets, impoverished little alleys with their tiny houses. It was a Friday night…Saturday candles were burning in every house…I still remember that unique charm of that night…and I felt a romantic connection with the Jewish past; that warmth and that intimate closeness that you feel only to your past... And when did the moment come when I fully and irrevocably recognized myself as a Jew? Hard to say. But I know that when I was arrested at the beginning of 1901, the gendarme gave me a questionnaire to fill out; under the nationality item, I wrote down "Jew."
The rapid development of capitalism in Russia gave the Jews new employment opportunities. Among the financial and industrial elite of the country, the names of bankers Ginzburgs, railway magnates Polyakovs and others appear. Thousands of Jews go to study at Russian universities, and upon graduation they settle throughout the country, making up a noticeable percentage among people of "liberal professions".
At the same time, the end of this era was marked by the strengthening of anti-Jewish sentiments in Russian society. In conditions of unequal existence, the Jews retained the isolated nature of their social and cultural life, which, along with the success of individual Jewish circles in the economic sphere and the influx of Jewish youth into secondary and higher educational institutions, contributed to the spread of all kinds of myths about the "Jewish conspiracy". Russian anti-Semitism is emerging, in which the myth of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy plays important place. The ideologist of Russian anti-Semitism, as noted by D. Klier, was I. Aksakov. The demonization of the Talmud and the qahal plays an important role in his journalism.
Anti-Jewish sentiments in Russian society reached their apogee after the assassination of Alexander II and resulted in pogroms.
The Age of Reaction.
1. From integration to segregation.
2. Beilis process.
3. The reaction of the Jewish population.
If before the 1880s. Since the government was striving for the social integration of Jews, in late imperial Russia it switched to the position of state anti-Semitism. Pogroms in the early 1880s became one of the turning points in the history of the Jews of Russia. With them begins a new turn to repression in the Jewish policy of the authorities. The adopted "Temporary Rules" (1882) essentially abandoned the integration direction of the imperial policy in the Jewish question. The main idea of these "rules" was based on the principle of segregation, minimizing any contact between the Jewish and Christian population. According to this law, the Pale of Settlement was reduced, Jews were forbidden to live in the countryside, it was forbidden to trade on Sunday and Christian holidays. Due to the fact that petty trade in the villages of the line was the main source of subsistence, the new law deprived a significant number of Jews of the means of subsistence.
The bloody pogroms (the Chisinau pogrom of 1903 and the pogroms during the revolution became especially infamous) and the blood libel - the “Beilis affair” - became distinctive feature Russian life at the beginning of the 20th century. The rules adopted in 1887 on the "percentage norm" for the admission of Jews to gymnasiums and higher educational institutions contributed to the radicalization of Jewish youth. In the entire history of Tsarist Russia, Jews were never allowed to serve in the public service, to be officers in the army (only converts were accepted for these positions).
The strengthening of socio-political oppression is forcing many Jews to leave the empire: there is a mass emigration of Jews to North America and South America, Palestine, and European countries. Secular tendencies appear and intensify in Jewish society. The Jews themselves are trying to solve the "Jewish question". Impoverishment and the policy of discrimination lead to the strongest socio-political ferment among the Jews. The Zionist movement gained great popularity, in 1897 the Jewish Social Democratic Party Bund was created, in 1905 the Union for the achievement of the full rights of the Jewish people in Russia. Jewish liberal parties and movements take an active part in the elections to the Duma and they manage to get their representatives into the first Russian parliament.
The Beilis process is the loudest of all ritual processes in Russia and the world in the 20th century. The verdict of Beilis's innocence was accepted by a majority vote of the jury. The same jurors answered positively to the question of whether the murder of a Christian youth was of a ritual nature, which created a precedent for the organization of ritual processes in the future.
During World War I, Jews were officially accused by the Russian authorities of aiding the enemy, and in 1915 the Russian army carried out a series of mass evictions of Jews from the front line (at least 200,000 Jews were evicted). Paradoxically, it was precisely the evictions and Jewish refugees who overflowed the provinces of the “Pale of Settlement”, as well as the pressure of international public opinion, that caused the partial abolition of the “Pale” in August 1915. However, Jews were still forbidden to live in the capitals and some other places. Finally, all restrictions on Jews imposed by the tsarist government were lifted immediately after the February Revolution of 1917.
The first surviving authentic document of Kievan Rus was a letter written in Hebrew. By the end of the 19th century, five and a half million Jews already lived in Russia, which accounted for 80 percent of their total number in the world.
New hypotheses
Until recently, the main version of how the Jews ended up in Eastern Europe was the Rhine hypothesis, according to which the Eastern European Jews descended from the descendants of the Israelite-Canaanite tribes who migrated from the Holy Land under the influence of Islamic expansion in the 7th century to the territory of the middle reaches of the Rhine. Before that, there were already small communities that moved to these lands in the late Roman era.
However, recent major genome studies by American geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik of Johns Hopkins University have shown that the genetic map of Jewish communities is far from monolithic, moreover, it is dominated by South European and Caucasian ancestral signatures with a small admixture of Middle Eastern ones. Dr. Elhaik's research was published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.
Similar studies were carried out by other scientists. In 2013, 17 researchers from 12 scientific organizations studied more than 3.5 thousand mitochondrial DNA from Jews from Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East and came to the conclusion that more than 80% of them come from the Old World, and not from the Front Asia and not from the Caucasus.
According to the author of the study, Englishman Martin Richards (Center for the Study of Archaeogenetics at the University of Huddersfield) and his colleagues, among whom are Russian scientists from the Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Rychkov and Oksana Naumova, this suggests that about 2000 years ago a large group of Jews migrated from Palestine, and they were predominantly men, which is important, since Jewishness is transmitted through the maternal line.
Thus, today we can say that Jewish migration to the territory of Russia went, firstly, in several stages, and secondly, it came from different places: from the territory of Palestine and from the territory of the Khazar Khaganate, and the number of Palestinian Jews was smaller.
The first Jews in the future territory of Russia
The first Jews in the future territory of Russia appeared in the I-II centuries. They lived in the Greek island colonies. This is evidenced by the tombstone of a Jewish warrior found in Taman, dating from the 1st century, as well as numerous monuments with Jewish symbols of Jewish symbols (images of the menorah, shofar, lulav and etrog).
It is also known that a significant number of Jews lived in the Bosporan kingdom at the end of the 4th century, they were the descendants of the participants in the Bar Kokhba uprising and those who were expelled during the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity.
In the 7th century, the Taman Peninsula was a major center for the concentration of Jews. This is evidenced by the entry of the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes, which he made in 671:
"... in the city of Phanagoria and its environs, many other tribes also live near the Jews living there."
The researcher of the history of the Jews of Eastern Europe, Julius Brutskus, wrote that part of the Palestinian Jews from Persia migrated through the Derbent passage to the lower Volga, where the city of Itil, the capital of the Khazar Khaganate, appeared in the 8th century. As you know, one of the religions of the kaganate in the second half of the 8th-beginning of the 9th century was Judaism, which obviously took root there under the influence of Jewish communities. At that time, Jewish Radanite merchants, under the auspices of the Khazar rulers, were engaged in trade and controlled the circulation of fur, weapons, silk and spices between the West and the East.
After the collapse of the Khazar Khaganate, Jews were forced to migrate to the west. This is confirmed by the chronicles of 1117 about the resettlement of the Khazars from Belaya Vezha (Sarkela) near Chernigov, as well as numerous toponyms like Zhidovo, Zhidichev, Zhidov vila, Kozari, Kozara, Kozarzevek on the territory of Ancient Russia and Poland.
Jews in Kievan Rus
Even in the early period of Kievan Rus, Jewish communities were already in Smolensk, Chernigov, Przemysl and Vladimir-Volynsky. Information about them is contained in the documents of the XI-XIII centuries. There was also a significant Khazar-Jewish colony in Kiev at that time. In the annals of Kievan Rus there are references to the Zhydovsky quarter and the Zhydovsky gates.
One of the oldest authentic manuscripts of Kievan Rus, the so-called Kievan letter, was written in Hebrew. It was a letter of recommendation given to Jacob ben Hanukkah by the Jewish community of Kiev. It dates back to the 10th century.
There are other historical confirmations of the activity of the Jewish population of Kievan Rus in X-XII centuries. So, in 1094 and 1124 commentaries on the Pentateuch were compiled in Kievan Rus. In 1156, the Greek monk Theodosius mentioned the Karaites living in Kiev. The Kiev rabbi of the end of the 12th century Moshe ben Yaakov from Kiev was personally acquainted with the French rabbi Yaakov Tam and was in correspondence with the head of the Baghdad yeshiva Shmuel ben Ali ha-Levi Gaon (he died about 1194), the head of the yeshiva in Baghdad. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Kiev in 1173, called it "the great city".
Pale of Settlement
The term "Pale of Settlement" today has a negative connotation, and is often misunderstood as some kind of demarcation narrow border. Let's define terms. The Pale of Settlement was the border of the territory of the Russian Empire, beyond which from 1791 to 1915 the permanent residence of Jews was prohibited. It is important to understand that this was not a narrow strip of land, the territory of the Pale of Settlement was 1,224,008 sq. km, that is, it was a whole country, which is larger in area than the territory of Moldova, or Belarus, or Ukraine. For comparison: the territory of Israel: 22,072 square meters. km.
It is known that Napoleon, recruiting a militia, turned to the Jews of France: "Who are you, citizens, or outcasts?"
Jews who lived in the Pale of Settlement on the territory of the Russian Empire rarely cooperated with Napoleon, perceiving the invasion as a threat to their culture, traditions and faith, that is, they did not feel like outcasts, but began to actively help the Russian army in the fight against the invaders.
The Pale of Settlement was not only a form of discrimination (and not on a national, but on a religious basis), but also a form of protection for Jewish society from external influences.
Jews were not taken into the army for a long time, they did not pay taxes. They were allowed many activities, including distilling, brewing, were allowed to work as craftsmen and artisans.
After the appearance of the Pale of Settlement, not all Jews were limited in their rights. An exception was made for non-Jewish Jews, for merchants of the first guild, dentists, pharmacists, paramedics, mechanics, the same distillers and brewers, people who graduated from universities, clerks of Jewish merchants of the 1st guild.
Partitions of Poland
The largest part of the Jews ended up in the Russian Empire after the partitions of Poland (1772-1794). After the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772, about 200,000 Jews ended up in Russia. The Russian government took into account the specifics of tradition. The Jews were retained the right to exercise their faith in public and to own property. The Senate decree of 1776 legitimized the existence of the kahal.
Catherine II began to restrict the rights of Jews, but it was still far from reactionism of the late 19th century and pogroms.
In 1795, the Pale of Settlement already included 15 provinces: Volyn, Yekaterinoslav, Kiev, Podolsk, Poltava, Tauride, Kherson, Chernigov (modern Ukraine), Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev (modern Belarus), Vilna, Kovno (modern Lithuania) and Bessarabia (modern Moldova).
Jews in Russia by the end of the 19th century
Some statistics. At the end of the 19th century, in 1897, there were 7.5 million Jews in the world, 5.25 million of them lived on the territory of the Russian Empire. Of these, 3.837 million lived in European Russia, 105 thousand Jews - in the Caucasus, Siberia and Central Asia.
Jews made up over 50% of the urban population of Lithuania and Belarus. In the cities of Ukraine lived: Russians - 35.5%, Jews - 30%, Ukrainians - 27%.
Federal State Budgetary Educational Institutionhigher professional education
Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov
As a manuscript
ABAKUMOVA Evgenia Vladimirovna
LEGAL STATUS OF THE JEWS
IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
AT THE END OF THE XVIII - BEGINNING OF THE XIX CENTURIES.
Specialty 12.00.01 - theory and history of law and state;
history of the doctrines of law and the state
Thesis
for the degree of candidate of legal sciences
Scientific adviser:
Doctor of Law, Professor
Novitskaya Tatyana Evgenievna
Moscow - 2014
Content
Introduction……….………………………………………...………………………..5
Section 1. The legal status of Jews on the eve of their entry into Russian citizenship and the conditions for their acceptance into Russian citizenship ……………………………………………………………….……….19
Jews in Russia until 1772………………………….……….……...19
The legal status of the Jews in the Commonwealth on the eve of their entry into Russian citizenship..…………………….…………....…...24
Conditions for the acceptance of Jews into Russian citizenship in 1772……………………..…………………………………………………………...35
Section 2. The Right of Jews to Settle in the Territory of the Russian Empire…………………..………………………………………………….…..47
Formation of the institution of the Pale of Settlement……….........……..………47
The right of Jews to temporary entry into the inner provinces after the establishment of the Pale of Settlement……………..………………….……..…….....70
Special rules on the residence of Jews in certain cities in the Pale of Settlement………………..........……………………...…….….……...…. ..74
Special rules on the residence of Jews in Livonia and Courland………………………………………………..………..………..…..…..81
The ban on the residence of Jews in the countryside..….…………...90
Jewish agricultural colonization………..…………..…...…..111
Section 3. Personal and property rights of Jews in the Russian Empire……………………………..…………………………………….…....130
Class rights of Jews…………...…………….…………….………130
Prohibition on distillation and wine trade………………...………………………………………………....…….145
State regulation of trade by Jews………………………………………………………………….…........156
The right of Jews to testify in court…………...…………….…..161
The rights of Jews in the field of religious activity……....….…….165
State regulation of the costume of the Jews…...……...….……173
State regulation of the education of Jews and the study of European languages…..……………………………………….……….…..…..178
The ban on the hiring of Christian workers by Jews…………....………...192
Section 4…………..…………...………………………………….………..207
Peculiarities of the Fiscal Status of the Jews………….…..………..…..207
Organization of revision accounting of Jews in connection with the problem of tax collection…………...………………………………………....…….226
Organization of intracommunal redistribution of taxes among Jews………...……………………………………………………..……….......237
The duty of the Jews to perform military service…….....245
The rights of Jews in the field of self-taxation by intra-communal dues………………………………………………………………..……………251
The duty of the Jews to pay mandatory payments in favor of the landowners…………………………….....…………………………………….…..264
The tax status of the Karaites……………...………………………..……270
Taxable status of Jews who converted to Christianity…………….…...275
Section 5. The rights of Jews in the field of self-government……….…..……...287
Kahal self-government of Jewish communities……...……..…….…287
The participation of Jews in the general system of self-government………….…….308
Conclusion……….……………….……………………………………...……322
List of used sources and literature………...….……..328
Introduction
The relevance of the topic of the dissertation research is due to the fact that the national question in Russia always remains one of the most burning issues. The Russian state, already initially formed as a multinational, subsequently gradually included in its composition the territories inhabited by various peoples, and also allowed representatives of various nationalities to accept Russian citizenship. This was equally facilitated by the special geographical position and the cultural and political underdevelopment of some neighboring nations, and traditionally active expansive foreign policy. In some cases, such peoples gradually assimilated, but more often they retained their national identity, and the Russian authorities were forced to take into account the uniqueness of their traditions, lifestyle, culture, level of economic development, social structure, etc. Of course, under the influence of many factors, relations with various peoples lined up in different ways, but throughout the history of Russia, no national group has aroused such deep and enduring hostility as the Jews.
Anti-Semitic sentiments have been passed down from generation to generation for centuries, and some of their excesses are still found in our country. In such a situation, it seems important to return to the origins of the “Jewish question” and find out how the state carried out the legal isolation of the Jews, how more than two centuries ago the formation of their special legal status began. These arguments confirm the relevance of the study.
Subject This study is the legal status of the Jews, established in the Russian legislation in 1772-1825.
object research is the Russian legislation, which established the legal status of the Jews, as well as the practice of its application. At the same time, not only the laws that determined the rights and obligations of the Jewish population were considered, but also some acts in which, although the Jews were not directly mentioned, they concerned all subjects, regardless of nationality and religion, or separate groups, the members of which could be Jews. (for example, residents of the annexed Belarusian provinces or merchants in general).
For a correct understanding of the subject of research, it is necessary to determine what meaning is attached to the term "Jews" in this work. The answer to this question does not seem obvious for the reason that the ethnic definition and self-determination of the representatives of the Jewish people is traditionally closely related to religious affiliation. The Russian state also historically equated the confession of Judaism and belonging to the Jewish nationality. So, in particular, in the 16th-17th centuries, when Jews found themselves on the territory of our country as residents of conquered cities or prisoners of war, the application of certain special measures to them (repressive, such as mass executions, or incentives, such as , expulsion to their homeland) was determined by the preservation of their religion. At the same time, it was stipulated that Jews who wished to be baptized could be left alive and considered subjects of the Russian Tsar. Until the 18th century, this situation could be explained by the general course of state policy on issues of determining citizenship: since Russia for a long time remained the only state where Orthodoxy was the state religion professed by the majority of citizens, the adoption of Orthodoxy for foreigners was legally identified with the transition to Russian citizenship 1 .
Subsequently, after 1772, the granting of a special legal status to the Jews was also directly dependent on their belonging to Judaism. Conversions who accepted Christianity ceased to be subject to both special privileges and restrictions provided for Jews. The process of consolidating the legal position of the crosses will be discussed in more detail below, in the main part of this study; however, it is necessary to clarify in advance that in the text of the work, wherever otherwise is not specifically stated, the term "Jew" is used not only in ethnic, but also in ethno-confessional meaning, denoting not any representative of the Jewish people, but a follower of Judaism. A.K. Tikhonov, in this regard, argued that when considering the legal aspects of the pre-revolutionary history of Russian Jewry, it would be more correct to use the term "Jew" 2 ; theoretically, one could agree with this proposal, but its practical implementation is difficult due to the fact that the name "Jew" in the meaning given to it in this dissertation is well-established, being used both in pre-revolutionary legislation and in the vast majority of historical and historical and legal research on this topic.
In addition, it should be clarified that the framework of the dissertation does not allow analyzing the legal status of all groups of the Jewish population that were found in the Russian Empire during the period under review. As a result, it seems appropriate to focus on the analysis of the rights and obligations of the most numerous of these groups, which left the most noticeable mark on Russian history, namely the Ashkenazi Jews who became part of the Russian subjects in late XVIII century during the annexation of the former territories of the Commonwealth and living in areas that were later called the "Pale of Permanent Jewish Settlement". In addition, some attention will need to be paid to some other Jewish communities, namely the Crimean Karaites and the Jews of the Baltic provinces, since the development of their legal status took place as part of a general discussion about the status of Russian Jewry. At the same time, the legal status of the rest of the Jewish communities that existed in Russia in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. (Mountain and Georgian Jews, Jews of the Kingdom of Poland) will not be considered within the framework of this study, since it was formed mainly autonomously, regardless of the legal status of the Jews who inhabited the western provinces, based on completely different local socio-political characteristics.
Chronological framework research is not random. If from ancient Russian times Jews appeared in our country in small numbers and sporadically, then it was in 1772 that territories with a Jewish population of many thousands were annexed to the Russian Empire, in relation to which the state had to pursue a certain policy, which consisted primarily in determining subjective rights and obligations . Initially, this policy was in the formative stage and was contradictory, ambivalent, sometimes even inconsistent: separate, in some cases contradictory laws were issued, the state, through trial and error, tried to develop a line of behavior towards the Jews. In this form, the legislator acted until the end of the reign of Emperor Alexander I. Subsequently, the government approached the regulation of the legal status of the Jews in a more systematic and meaningful way. The program goals of the state policy towards the Jews changed several times, which meant the onset of a new stage of policy in the Jewish question. Each such stage was characterized by special problems and special legal measures to resolve them; therefore, each of the stages requires a separate study, so it seems appropriate to limit this study to one of these periods.
Based on the fact that purpose work is to study the features of regulation and evolution of the legal status of Jews in Russia, the following are determined research objectives:
determine how the conditions under which the entry of the Jewish population into the citizenship of the Russian Empire took place influenced the legislative regulation of their status;
to analyze the factors that influenced the formation of legislation on the Jews, and to identify the reasons for the rather frequent changes in the general direction of this legislation;
establish the reasons for fixing in the Russian legislation a special status for Jewish subjects;
highlight the main directions of the legislative activity of the state in relation to the Jews;
consider how the theories expressed by politicians influenced legislation on the Jewish question;
consider the legal norms that established a special legal status for Jews, as well as the practice of applying these norms from the point of view of their interdependence, mutual compliance,
find out to what extent the socio-cultural and legal consequences caused by them corresponded to the aspirations of the legislator and how much they contradicted the aspirations of the Jewish population as a whole and its individual groups.
Methodological base research constitutes both general and special scientific methods. The general scientific methods used in this study include analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, abstraction, systemic and structural-functional approaches, modeling. Special scientific methods include chronological (historical), formal legal, comparative legal methods, periodization method.
empirical base research can be divided into several blocks of materials.
First, these are the normative acts adopted in the Russian Empire at various levels of state power: personal decrees of emperors, decrees of the Senate, orders of central departments (primarily the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Public Education), normative acts of governors and governors of provinces and etc. Most of the analyzed legal acts are included in the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire; the texts of some other legal acts that were not included in the PSZ have been restored from copies kept in state archives. These sources are the main ones in the study, since the legislative acts directly regulated the legal status of the Jews, establishing, confirming or changing their rights and obligations.
Secondly, these are the materials of state archives (the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (Moscow), the Russian State Historical Archive (St. Petersburg), the State Archive Russian Federation(Moscow)), in particular, documents of departmental correspondence, statistical data of audits of the taxable population, petitions submitted to various state bodies, memorandums and reports of officials, reform projects, etc. These materials allow, firstly, to judge the reasons and motives that led to the formation of the current legislation, and secondly, to identify the legal and social consequences of the application of this legislation.
Thirdly, these are published memoirs and testimonies of contemporaries, in particular, travel notes of foreign travelers who visited the Russian Empire during the period under review (E. Henderson, F. Miranda), memoirs of Russian officials who in one way or another met with Jews due to their official duties (A.N. Golitsyn, N.I. Mamaev, P.P. von Getze, G.R. Derzhavin), memoirs of representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia (A.I. Paperna, L. Zeltser). The historical reliability of these sources cannot be recognized as absolute, primarily because it is necessary to take into account the possibility of deliberate or accidental distortion of facts by the authors of the memoirs; nevertheless, it is impossible to deny the research value of the information reported by the direct participants in the events and the assessments they offer.
Fourthly, these are the internal norms applied by Jewish communities to regulate various issues of Jewish life. The internal documentation of the communities, in which these norms were recorded, was written in Hebrew and was practically not published, which is why it was out of sight of most researchers. Nevertheless, there is a published collection of pincos of the Lithuanian vaad, i.e. collection of resolutions of congresses of representatives of Lithuanian Jewish communities of the 17th-18th centuries. An analysis of this document makes it possible to form a fairly objective idea of the Jews' own views on some of those issues that, to one degree or another, fell into the field of view of the Russian legislator.
Due to the fact that the Jewish question has been topical in Russia for more than two centuries, thousands, and possibly tens of thousands of various publications have been devoted to the relevant topics. However, the topicality of the problem had a downside: a significant part of the work was of a journalistic nature or was devoted to the analysis of the current situation for the author. The historical, and even more so the historical and legal aspects of this issue, especially in relation to the period considered in this dissertation, were covered relatively infrequently.
Nevertheless, among the researchers who addressed the topic of the history of Russian Jews in the period of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, one can name E.K. Anishchenko 3 , S.A. Bershadsky 4 , M. Vishnitser 5 , Yu.I. Gessen 6 , N.N. Golitsyna 7, N.D. Gradovskogo 8 , S.M. Dubnova 9 , J.D. Kliera 10, M.I. Kulischer 11 , I. Levitats 12 , F.I. Leontovich 13 , P. Marek 14 , V.A. Matseevsky 15, A.I. Miller 16 , O.Yu. Minkina 17, I.G. Orshansky 18, D.Z. Feldman 19 .
However, despite the existence of these studies, this topic cannot be considered exhausted. appreciating scientific value of these works, one cannot but admit that all of them, to one degree or another, had features that make it possible to speak about the need for further research in this area. Thus, the works of pre-revolutionary researchers were created, as a rule, in the general mainstream of public polemics on the Jewish question, and therefore doubts about the objectivity and scientific impartiality of their authors, who either engaged in apologetics of the state anti-Jewish policy of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, trying to find it justification in the events of a century ago (like N.N. Golitsyn, an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose research was carried out at the direct request of the state and published for official use) or, on the contrary, developed a discourse that presented Jews as victims of systematic unjustified oppression by the authorities ( like YI Gessen and SM Dubnov, who were prominent representatives of informal Jewish social movements).
Foreign authors, whose interest in this topic took shape during the era of the Cold War, were deprived of access to primary sources for political reasons and were forced to base their research only on rethinking the facts known to them from previously published works. On the one hand, this led to interesting results, forcing them, in the absence of other ways, to critically rethink other people's theories (as did, for example, B. Nathans, who built his reasoning in accordance with the theory that the restriction on the rights of Jews was only one of the manifestations of the general lack of rights of the subjects of the Russian Empire 20) or pay attention to material that was not analyzed in detail by their predecessors (as J.D. Klier, who devoted an extensive chapter to the consideration of Jewish reform projects, which were previously only fragmentarily mentioned by scientists, but did not become the subject of a comprehensive analysis). On the other hand, the impossibility of obtaining new empirical material inevitably limited not only the factual base, but also the research topics, and hence the nature of the conclusions obtained.
Many studies on the history of Russian Jews as a whole have given insufficient importance to the time period considered in this dissertation, concentrating mainly on later periods, when legislative regulation was carried out more actively and was more abundantly covered by contemporaries of events. Because of this, a number of important problems have not received sufficient coverage, including, in particular, the legal status of kahals, internal taxation of Jewish communities, legal relations between rural Jews and landowners, the class status of Jews, etc. In addition, most of the works in this area were prepared by historians who did not pay special attention to the legal aspects of the problems they considered.
Relatively recently, G.A. Kozlitin and on its basis a monograph 21 was prepared, and a monograph by V.V. Egorova 22 . However, in the work of G.A. Kozlitin only a small part of a relatively small volume (131 pages) is devoted to the period up to 1825, moreover, since the author does not rely on archival sources, the monograph does not introduce new data into scientific circulation. Monograph by V.V. Egorova also focuses on later periods of legal regulation, and a significant part of important legislative acts is either not mentioned at all or is not analyzed in sufficient detail; in addition, normative legal acts are used as the main source for this period, and some documents of the regional archive are used only to highlight the status of Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition, the positions of the author of this dissertation do not coincide with the views of the above scientists, which allows us to state that this study has scientific novelty.
The dissertation was discussed at a meeting of the Department of State History and Law of the Law Faculty of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov. Separate provisions of the dissertation were presented in the report at the conference of students, graduate students and young scientists "Lomonosov-2010".
For the first time, Jews appeared on the lands of Eastern Europe in the Greek policies of the Black Sea region at the end of the 2nd century BC. Archaeological finds indicate that they penetrated many lands of the Crimea, the Caucasus and the shores of the northern Black Sea region. In the 8th - 9th centuries, they made up almost the entire nobility of the Khazar state, which extended its influence to many peoples of Eastern Europe. Preserved in the languages of many peoples (Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, Lithuanians, etc.), the word “Jew” comes from the Khazar jihid. Jews also settled in Kievan Rus. It is recognized that at the beginning of the 12th century. Jewish settlers had a significant cultural and economic influence on the trade routes of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region. They were mainly newcomers from the countries of the Mediterranean region. At the end of the 14th century Ashkenazis, immigrants from German lands, settled on these lands. In the 14th - 15th centuries. they penetrate the territory of the Moscow and Novgorod principalities. In 1498, the Bible was translated into Slavonic, and the heresy of the Judaizers spread among the Orthodox clergy. They were not ethnic Jews, but belonged to the Slavic group of nationalities. Like ethnic Jews, Judaizers were persecuted. The church and the autocrats adhered to this principle. The position of the Jews was especially hardened under Ivan the 4th. In the lands he occupied, Jews who refused to be baptized were exterminated. After the death of Ivan the 4th, repression somewhat weakened.
Terror, comparable to the Holocaust, raged during the Russian-Polish wars and the uprising of the Cossacks of B. Khmelnitsky. However, some Jews penetrated even into the upper strata of society. At the courts of the Russian rulers there were individual Jews, who sometimes adopted the Christian faith. With the creation of the Russian Empire, the position of the Jews did not improve, however, the rigid regime of Peter did not allow the willful excesses of the crowd. In the city of Mstislavl, on his orders, 13 soldiers were hanged, guilty of marauding and robbing Jews. Under him, several baptized Jews took high positions. After the death of Peter, his heirs tightened the living conditions of the Jews and demanded their complete expulsion from Russia. However, a complete expulsion did not occur due to the resistance of large feudal lords and government officials. Jews are quite firmly rooted in the economy of the western regions.
In 1727, Catherine 1 signed a decree on the complete expulsion of Jews from Russia. This was facilitated individual cases conversion of the Orthodox to the Jewish faith. The same policy was carried out under the Empress Anna Ioannovna and under Elizabeth Petrovna. In 1742, she issued a decree: “Out of our entire empire ... villages and villages, all Jews should immediately be sent abroad and henceforth they should not be let in under any circumstances.” After the high-profile case of the conversion to the Jewish faith of the naval captain Alexander Voznitsyn and his execution (together with Borokh Leibov in 1738), the Senate additionally issued a new decree confirming the complete expulsion of Jews from the Russian Empire. Jews who converted to Christianity, on the contrary, did not leave the country for fear that they might return to Judaism. Exile was usually accompanied by confiscation or looting of property. Under Catherine the 2nd, the legal status of the Jews did not change. Only individual exceptions were made for large merchants. According to her 1962 manifesto, settlement in Russia was allowed for all foreigners, except for Jews. However, even under Catherine the 2nd, the spontaneous actions of the crowd and robbery were suppressed. The joint actions of the Russian and Polish troops suppressed the uprising of the Gaidamaks in Ukraine, which was characterized by a particularly large scale of anti-Jewish atrocities. Jews took refuge in Russian fortresses. The requirements of the Haidamaks for their extradition were rejected by the commandants of the fortresses.
In 1772, the division of Poland took place, as a result of which Eastern Belarus and Latgale were ceded to Russia. These lands had a significant Jewish population. By imperial decree, the Jews were retained all the rights they previously had in Poland. The organs of Jewish self-government - kahals - have also been preserved. It was under Catherine the 2nd that they stopped using the word “Jew”, replacing it in the documents with the word “Jew”.
The living conditions of the Jews in Eastern Europe at that time were characterized by a very limited set of civil rights, actually purchased from local feudal lords and magistrates. Jews were considered foreigners, despite the length of their residence in the area. The very right of their residence was taxed. Local rulers limited the growth of the Jewish population, so the members of the growing families had to look for a new place of residence in other areas. This largely explained the ability of the Jews to spread. When moving to another place, a special fee was required. The birth of another child was also taxed. The result of centuries of Christian propaganda was widespread hatred and mistrust of the Jew. The right to work, the right to reside, the right to travel, the right to trade - all this the Jews had to buy. The situation was further aggravated by the complete self-will of the authorities, who arbitrarily changed their claims. Often, even the contracts did not save. At the slightest misunderstanding, Jews could be expelled from their homes. If people of other nationalities had states that took them under their protection, then the Jews, who did not have their own state, had no such hopes. The authorities and the church tried in every possible way to limit the contacts of Jews with Christians. In some places it was forbidden to eat and drink together with Christians, to publish books without censorship, to go outside during Christian holidays. This naturally contributed to the isolation of the Jews. As a rule, attacks on Jews were punished purely symbolically.
Catherine the 2nd, the first of the Russian autocrats, accepted the ideas of the French enlighteners. Her famous "Instruction", containing the principles of the new legislation of the country, contained their ideas of social order. Here are some excerpts: “The equality of citizens consists in that all are subject to the same laws.”; “The persecution of human minds irritates, and the permission to believe according to one’s own law softens even the most hard-hearted hearts and leads them away from seasoned stubbornness.” These ideas, drawn from European educational philosophy, did not take root on Russian soil.
Under Catherine II, passports for Jews were introduced. “Passportization” was carried out with the participation of Jewish self-government bodies - kahals. They wielded considerable power in Jewish affairs. Rabbis played an important role in religious matters. However, all Jews continued to submit to the administrative and judicial authorities of Russia in serious matters.
In 1783, a decree was published allowing Jews to enroll in the merchant class. Jews began to appear, elected to city self-government bodies. But even here they met resistance from the authorities. In response to the peasant uprisings that swept through the western provinces, the queen ordered all merchants and townspeople (and these estates included all Jews) to be resettled in the cities. One of the main permitted cases of the Jews - the tavern trade was forbidden to them and transferred to the hands of landowners and magistrates. As always in such cases, some Jews managed to avoid deportation by bribing officials. The local governor zealously followed this instruction, but four years later, in response to the request of Jewish representatives, the Senate issued a decree allowing Jews to live in villages and take over the production and sale of strong drinks from the landowners. It is worth noting that this was one of the few crafts of Jews of medium and small incomes, allowed at that time. At the same time, it was confirmed that Jews could elect and even be elected to city self-government bodies and courts. Judicial proceedings were also allowed in Hebrew. Religious matters were allowed to be heard in a religious court. A year earlier, the division of the population of the empire into 6 categories was established. The Jewish population in its mass could fall into the category of merchants or philistines. Petty bourgeois and merchants were assigned to a certain place of residence, but sometimes “according to the convenience of commerce” they were allowed to travel to other cities. Jewish merchants began to penetrate the capitals. Fearing competition, the local merchant class secured a decision to expel Jewish merchants from Moscow. Jews were obliged to live only in Belarus and in the areas captured in the Turkish wars.
In 1793, the second partition of Poland took place. Withdrawn to Russia: western Belarus, Podolia, the western part of Volhynia and Polissya. After the Kosciuszko uprising in 1795, the 3rd partition of Poland was carried out. Part of Latvia, Courland and Lithuania were annexed to Russia. This led to a sharp increase in the Jewish population of the empire.
In 1794, Catherine II issued a decree on the Pale of Settlement for Jews. It included the western regions inhabited by Jews. The tax on Jews was set at 2 times higher than on Christians. In order to leave Russia, it was necessary to pay twice as much for the next three years. As you can see, Gorbachev's government had predecessors. Additionally, a decree was issued prohibiting the residence of Jews in villages. It was a hard blow for them. It turned into a mass expulsion of many families from their homes and habitable places, often with the loss of property.
Paul the 1st, who ascended the Russian throne, somewhat weakened these restrictions and arbitrariness. He allowed the Jews to settle in Kovna and Kamenetz-Podolsky and rejected the demand to evict them from Kiev. Under him, the poet G.R. Derzhavin. This is how he described the living conditions of the Jews at that time.
“…Synagogues are nothing but nests of prejudice and anti-Christian hatred; ... "Kahals" form a state within a state, which should not be allowed by a properly organized political organism; “ Further, Derzhavin proposes to force the Jews to engage in “honest and useful crafts” and moral self-improvement, taking as an example the era of Moses Mendelssohn in Germany, where, in his opinion, “... the kingdom of the Talmud came to an end. Now in the German lands there are many educated Jews who are not inferior to the most erudite people of Europe.”
Despite the current legislation and at the initiative of the local authorities, proposals were made placing all sorts of restrictions on the participation of Jews in the elections of local bodies. Under Paul 1, such proposals were rejected, but under Alexander 1, the prohibitions extended to a number of provinces. During the reign of Paul the 1st, in response to the complaint of the Jews that the landowners were oppressing them, an instruction was given that the landowners could not personally judge the Jews. In turn, the landowners began to expel Jews from their possessions.
The aforementioned poet G.R. had a great influence on the formation of the views of Alexander 1. Derzhavin. After visiting the Pale of Settlement, he blamed the famine on the Jews, who allegedly soldered the peasants. However, the entire history of the Russian state testifies to the great predilection of all sectors of society for alcohol. Yes, and in the provinces outside the Pale of Settlement, according to statistics, they drank not less, but more than in places allowed for settlement by Jews. His proposals contained statements about the prohibition of certain Jewish customs. However, Derzhavin believed that the main direction for correcting the existing situation should be “the moral improvement of the Jews, similar to what happened in Germany during the activities of Moses Mendelssohn.” The king hoped that as a result of emancipation, the conversion of Jews to Christianity would be accelerated. In the development of these ideas, Alexander the 1st established a special committee on Jewish affairs. The task of the Committee was to develop Russia's policy towards its greatly increased Jewish population. It included: Minister of the Interior Count V. Kochubey, Prince A. Czartoryski, Count S. Potocki, M. Speransky. Minister of Justice G. Derzhavin resigned from its membership due to disagreement with the views of the other members of the committee. . Representatives of kahals of four provinces were invited to St. Petersburg. The new "Regulations on the Jews", developed by the Committee, defined its goal as "concern for the benefit of the native inhabitants." The Regulation established the right to acquire ownership of uninhabited land and cultivate it without using the labor of Christians, receive loans for inventory, and open enterprises in the Pale of Settlement. Craftsmen were exempted from double taxation, some educated Jews and artisans were allowed to temporarily stay outside the Pale of Settlement. Jewish farmers were allowed to live in two outlying regions of Russia (in the Caucasus and in the Astrakhan province). The landlords were forbidden to judge Jews, but when leaving the estates they were required to provide a certificate of no debt.
As for education, the Regulations allowed Jews to study in all educational institutions, to open their own schools with the obligatory teaching of one of the European languages (Russian, German or Polish). The qualification of knowledge of the European language was also established for all officials of self-government. Those who traveled outside the Pale of Settlement were required to wear European clothes.
Along with liberal guidelines, the Regulations also had a number of restrictions. Forbidden
1. Rent farms from landowners.
2. Own drinking establishments and inns.
3. Live in villages and villages.
It turned out to be impossible to implement the last restriction and it was soon suspended in this part. The reason was not only in a more humane attitude towards the Jews, but mainly in the difficulties of ensuring the normal development of the economy of this region.
As is known, in 1806 Napoleon convened the Sanhedrin in Paris, to which he invited the most prominent representatives of the Jews of France. The purpose of this meeting was to ascertain the loyalty of the Jewish population in order to extend to it the freedoms won by the revolution. Alexander the 1st was afraid of the reaction to this of the Jews of Russia. He and his advisers feared that Russian Jews might embrace the freedom-loving ideas of the French. The Orthodox Church of Russia declared Napoleon an enemy of Christianity and a false messiah. The eviction of Jews from the villages turned out to be unfeasible due to the problems that arose in this case, affecting the indigenous population. After hesitation, the tsar agreed with the conclusion of several commissions that investigated this issue, and suspended the eviction.
In 1817, the emperor issued a decree prohibiting accusing Jews of killing Christian children "without any evidence, on the basis of common prejudice." As a result, all cases on allegations of blood libel were closed. In the same year, the Society of Israeli Christians was established, whose tasks included helping baptized Jews. At this time, sects of Judaizers spread outside the Pale of Settlement. The adherents of this sect were not blood relatives Jews, but sacredly adhered to the customs of Judaism.
In response, a series of bans followed. It was forbidden to give debtors of Christians to work off a debt, to keep Christians as servants, restrictions on the right of residence were intensified, the prohibition of the wine industry and the decree on eviction was confirmed, which, for practical reasons, was only extended. In 1925, by order of the tsar, the Velizh case was resumed. It lasted 12 years and ended with the rejection of the blood libel against the Jews. At the same time, several Jews died in prison during the investigation.
The discriminatory policy directed against the Jews manifested itself especially strongly in the reign of Nicholas 1. The tsar built his policy of forcibly converting Jews to Christianity on forcing Jews to teach the younger generation in Russian educational institutions. He was raised to believe that Jews and Judaism were dangerous to Christianity. One of the goals of life, he believed that he should correct this situation. This policy was not openly expressed. Minister of Education Uvarov wrote: “When directing education in these schools against the Talmud, one should not openly proclaim this intention.”
Under him, about 600 laws and regulations concerning the Jews were issued. He hoped to accomplish this also with the help of the army. In 1827, a decree on conscription for Jews was signed. Duty was introduced much more difficult than for Christians. Every year the community had to supply 10 recruits per thousand men. For Christians, this figure was two, and recruits were selected every two years. He introduced cantonist schools, to which boys were sent from the age of 12. Sometimes even, according to A.I. Herzen, and younger. The term of service in the army was 25 years, and being a cantonist was not counted as military service. Only in exceptional cases Jews were promoted to non-commissioned officers. Officer positions were completely prohibited for unbaptized Jews. They were strictly forbidden to be used in auxiliary positions - batmen, soldiers of non-combat teams, etc. It was forbidden to enlist Jews in the guard.
Often the local administration arbitrarily increased the number of recruits. Even the king himself caught on and suspended a number of laws. There were also abuses by the kahals.
In 1827, the tsar ordered that the Pale of Settlement be cut and the Jews from Courland evicted from the cities of Sevastopol, Nikolaev, Kiev, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Restrictions were also set for Jews with academic degrees, to which they had not previously been distributed. They were allowed to enter the civil service only in the western regions.
Based on these acts, a new “Regulation on the Jews” was developed, approved by the tsar in 1835. In the Regulation, a number of additional restrictions were added to the previous restrictions.
1. In Belarus, Jews could only live in cities.
2. In Little Russia, everywhere except Kiev and state-owned villages.
3. In Novorossiya everywhere except Nikolaev and Sevastopol.
4. Only natives of these places were allowed to live in the Baltic states.
5. It was allowed to stay in the internal provinces of the country for no more than 6 weeks and only with special documents and wear Russian clothes.
6. Jews were not allowed to hire Christians for housework.
7. Along with this, Jews received the right to hold positions in self-government bodies.
8. It was forbidden to wear national clothes and use the Hebrew language in official papers.
The Regulations included a number of restrictive clauses, indicating that they were introduced “By the highest command”. In all cases, they tightened the requirements for the Jews.
In 1840 the Council of State took up the Jews again. Minister Count Kiselyov proposed a number of measures, including the creation of general education schools as opposed to Talmud schools, the destruction of kahals, and the appointment of a provincial rabbi by the government. Jews were proposed to be divided into useful and "not having a permanent occupation." Most of the artisans and small traders were classified among them. From the latter, it was prescribed to significantly increase the number of recruits.
In contrast to the religious ones, secular schools were opened, which received the support of progressive Jewish leaders and aroused the desperate resistance of the Orthodox, who feared that this would serve as the beginning of the collapse of the Jewish community. In 1844, a new decree of the king "On the education of Jewish youth" followed. Schools were established in two categories: parish and county. Two rabbinical schools were also established (in Vilna and in Zhytomyr). It was decided that women's education was not contrary to Jewish law. This gave Jewish girls access to education. Additional money was collected for the maintenance of these schools. In secret instructions, the closure of the headers was planned. The teaching of natural subjects was allowed only to Christian teachers. However, the implementation of these measures ran into resistance from the orthodox part of society. As a result, the law was amended to somewhat weaken it. In 1844, the bodies of Jewish self-government - kahals - were liquidated. Special people from the Jewish communities were allocated to collect taxes and supply recruits. The Jewish customs of wearing sidelocks, shaving women's heads, etc. were abolished. By special order, Nicholas 1 forbade the admission of Jews to the civil service "as long as they remain in Jewish law."
It should be noted that it was impossible to fulfill many of the points of the laws, and they were put on the brakes by the local administration. However, the expulsion from the 50-verst border zone was carried out very consistently. But it was still not fully implemented.
From time to time, with the tacit approval of the king and his associates, cases of blood libels arose. Interest in this problem was caused by the famous “Damascus case”. The well-known lexicographer Vladimir Dal issued a secret report concluding that ritual killings were not practiced by the majority of Jews, but were found “with the fanatical Hasidic sect.” In 1844, the Ministry of the Interior compiled a memorandum "Investigations about the killing of Christian babies by Jews and the consumption of their blood." The question of the ritual use of blood has a very long and bloody history. Despite. that the shedding of blood, not only for ritual purposes, but also as an amusement often used by Christians (hunting, bloody fights, etc.), is strictly prohibited by Jewish religious laws, accusations of this continue to arise from time to time. None of these have ever been confirmed.
In 1851, after the personal pressure of the tsar, the State Council was forced to pass a law dividing the Jews into 5 categories: merchants, farmers, artisans, settled and non-settled philistines. The greatest restrictions affected the last category - non-settled bourgeois. For them, an enhanced recruitment was introduced, sent to state work and a ban on leaving the cities. For hiding from military service, the authorities were severely punished. Russian legislation specifically stipulated the “rights and obligations” of conversions (this term was used officially). Particular attention was paid to the prohibition to change the names received at baptism. It was forbidden to change the place of residence. The exceptions were graduates of higher educational institutions, some artisans, merchants of the first guild, persons with medical specialties, soldiers who had served their service and their families (with restrictions).
The position of the Jewish population of Russia was somewhat improved during the reign of Alexander the 2nd. At first, by inertia, various restrictive acts were still introduced. For example, the prohibition to acquire real estate in the Poltava and Chernihiv provinces, the prohibition to serve in the navy, etc.
In 1856, recruitment duty was somewhat weakened. A decree was issued on equating the number of recruits of Jews to the rest of the population. The recruitment of minors was also abolished. It is forbidden for communities to catch those without passports and turn them into soldiers, which, unfortunately, was practiced in order to protect the children of members of their community from recruitment. Cantonist schools were abolished. Somewhat later in Moscow, Jewish merchants received the right to stop in any part of the city. The orders of the former tsar on the prohibition of the residence of Jews in the 50-verst border zone of the Pale of Settlement have been cancelled. A number of cities were opened for merchants to live. The admission to the civil service of holders of scientific degrees in the field of medicine and other sciences was allowed. During their service, they were allowed to live outside the Pale of Settlement, and merchants of the 1st guild could live throughout Russia. But when they left the guild, they had to return to the Pale of Settlement. Members of their families could live with their parents until a certain age, and women until marriage. The number of such merchants was insignificant. In 1859 there were only 108 people.
In 1859, Jews were allowed to rent mortgaged estates, and then it was allowed to acquire landowners' lands, but without peasants. However, already in 1864, a decree was issued prohibiting the acquisition of any land and the use of any other forms of land transfer to Jews and Poles. (donation, inheritance).
A number of senior dignitaries often made proposals to lift restrictions on the Jews, believing that this was detrimental to the state. However, the emperor continued to adhere to the old policy. Nevertheless, the State Council passed a law in 1861 allowing those with scientific degrees to reside in any part of the empire. Jewish military personnel were given equal rights with Muslims and people of other non-Christian faiths, against whom a less severe discriminatory policy was pursued.
The Regulations on Zemstvo Institutions of 1864 also contained no restrictions for Jews. They were not in the new judicial statutes either. This lasted until 1870, when the authorities simply ceased to admit Jews to various government and judicial positions of their own arbitrariness. The number of Jewish jurors was not to exceed 1/3 of the total, and the new judicial statutes required a proportion of national composition. The city code established that the number of Jewish deputies in city dumas should not exceed 1/3 of the total number.
In 1865, permission was given for a general residence to some groups of Jewish artisans with families. Subsequently, this was supplemented by a special clarification that this right is valid while the individual is engaged in his craft. The same right was granted to those who served in the army on recruitment sets and even to the descendants of the Nikolaev soldiers.
In 1867, Jews were allowed to lease industrial enterprises located on landowners' lands.
C 1872 - 1879 Jews graduates of all higher educational institutions were given the right to settle outside the Pale of Settlement, except for the land of the Don Army, Western border provinces, Kuban and Terek regions. Restrictions on promotions have been lifted. The rank of real state councilor gave the right to hereditary nobility. But there were very few such people. However, concessions in the field of education have borne fruit. Among the 3% of the population of the then Russia there were 10% of gymnasium students. And most importantly, what the tsarist officials feared was that there were 7% of Jews among political prisoners.
The new military code, although it did not contain special requirements for the Jews, however, independently of it, stricter measures for evaders and various other strictnesses, mainly affecting Jews, were arbitrarily introduced.
The result of the policy of easing enrollment in higher educational institutions was a large influx of Jewish students. The active participation of Jewish students in social activities (student riots, revolutionary organizations) was also noticed. This again led to a tightening of the percentage rate for admission to educational institutions.
After the occupation of the throne by Emperor Alexander 111, the situation of the Jews again deteriorated greatly. The defeat of Russia in the Crimean War led to the search for the culprits, among which was one of the companies that supplied the Russian army, whose leadership included many Jews. Jewish pogroms were provoked in a number of cities. Anti-Semitic proclamations were circulated. Often their authors and distributors were members of revolutionary parties. The government developed several decrees, which in 1882 were added to the Provisional Rules. Again, a ban was established on living in villages, acquiring real estate and renting land outside the towns and cities. The adopted additions allowed for an extended interpretation, which was used by anti-Semitic legislators and government officials. As S. Witte noted in his memoirs: “the Senate began to give interpretations of Jewish laws that in no way followed from the laws.”
Other laws were tightened as well. The share of Jewish medical workers in the army was limited, a 5% norm was introduced for those entering the Medical and Surgical Academy, the same for the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg, which was extended to other higher educational institutions, a 15% norm for gymnasiums and progymnasiums %, the rest of Russia - 5%, in Moscow and St. Petersburg - 3%). These toughenings were not formalized in the usual legislative order, but were established as temporary executive orders. But even these norms were revised in 1901 in the direction of tightening.
In the Pale of Settlement - 7%, in the rest of Russia -3%. In the capitals -2%.
Along with restrictions on admission to the civil service, measures were taken to limit the practice of law. The proportion of Jewish sworn attorneys was set at 10% of their total number.
The same restrictions were established for local governments. In the 1990s, zealous efforts were made to expel Jews from a number of central cities. At the same time, a casuistic interpretation was used in every possible way: Jewish wives were not allowed to come to resorts without their husbands, if the husbands temporarily left Moscow, then the wives were not allowed to stay there, etc. File cabinets were set up in local police departments. Merchants were required to indicate the name, in passports the Jewish religion was sometimes indicated in red ink.
The anti-Jewish policy acquired a new impetus with the accession of Nicholas II. In 1898, Siberia was closed to the settlement of Jews, in 1899 the rules for the entry of Jews into the merchant class of Moscow were tightened, and it was forbidden for Jewish soldiers to remain outside the Pale of Settlement during vacations.
The anti-Semitic situation in the country led to pogroms and blood libels. After the Russo-Japanese War, some indulgence was made in anti-Jewish legislation for Jewish soldiers.
With the beginning of the revolutionary events of 1905-07. anti-Semitic agitation and the creation of nationalist unions sharply intensified again. However, the authorities were forced to make some concessions. Universities received autonomy and began to accept Jews in excess of the percentage rate, but after the defeat of the revolution, the percentage rate was restored again.
The tsar's manifesto of October 17, 1905 did not emphasize the Jewish question. However, he initiated a series of pogroms against Jews during which more than 800 people were killed.
Elections to the 1st State Duma determined the oppositional mood of the majority of the Jewish population. Preference was given to the Constitutional Democratic Party. The socialist parties, including the Bund, had much less support. The Black Hundreds, with the connivance of the authorities, sought to prevent Jews from participating in the elections, even threatening pogroms. However, they failed to do so. More than 70% of Jews took part in the elections. Eleven Jewish deputies were elected from the provinces of the Pale of Settlement. The Duma declared that it was “working out a draft law on the complete equalization of the rights of all citizens with the abolition of all restrictions and privileges due to class, nationality, religion and sex.” The Commission for the preparation of the law on civil equality developed the relevant law, which was preliminarily approved by the State Duma. But the Duma, under pressure from the reactionaries, was dissolved by the tsar without accepting him.
Meanwhile in different parts There were pogroms in Russia. Nationalist organizations such as the Union of the Russian People and the Union of Michael the Archangel became very active. The tsar himself prevented the adoption of democratic legislation in every possible way. Despite the arguments of the pre-Council Minister P. Stolypin, who generally had a negative attitude towards the Jews, about the need to lift restrictions, he refused him saying: “... An inner voice keeps telling me more and more insistently that I should not take decisions on myself.” A high-ranking Russian dignitary, Prince Urusov, wrote that the general administrative tendency was to infringe on the Jews at any cost, even at the cost of distorting the law. The wave of pogroms in Russia provoked sharp protests from the public. The leading newspapers of Europe and America angrily denounced the tsarist government. In Russia itself, 317 writers and artists (including Leo Tolstoy) signed a strong protest.
During the elections to the 2nd State Duma, the activity of the Jews dropped sharply due to the threats of the Black Hundreds and the pressure of the authorities, which at that time intensified significantly. Only 4 Jewish deputies were elected. Right-wing parties constantly made anti-Semitic statements. They introduced a bill that proposed the abolition of restrictions on religion, but with a caveat - "with the exception of Jews." But this Duma, too, was dissolved by the tsar.
After the suppression of the revolution of 1905-07. The government began to attack even those rights that had been given earlier. This was accompanied by an increase in anti-Semitic propaganda. Total number anti-Semitic books and pamphlets, for a decade (1906 - 1916) amounted to 2837. In addition, articles were published in newspapers. Under the pretext of a pernicious influence on the youth, the percentage rate for the Jews was further curtailed. In 1908, Nicholas II approved the law on the introduction of a percentage rate, which was “temporarily” in force until 1905, with the exception of the conservatory, in which there were enough vacancies. A year later, the same law was established for secondary schools, including private ones. Graduates of Jewish secondary schools were deprived of the right to enter state universities.
In 1912, the Senate further tightened anti-Jewish legislation by banning Jews from holding the positions of assistant attorney at law, which they found themselves in after the earlier ban on the office of attorney at law. It was ordered to expel the Jews from all places outside the Pale of Settlement, who settled there illegally. This even affected the participants in the defense of Port Arthur. The principle ""a baptized Jew becomes a Christian" was abandoned. The law of 1912 contained a ban on the promotion of children and grandchildren of converts to the rank of officer. Some members of the Duma spoke in favor of a ban on burying converts in Christian cemeteries.
The 3rd and 4th State Dumas were extremely reactionary. Special formulations were introduced into the laws, excluding the extension of legislative indulgences to the Jews. Many of the speeches and proposals of the right-wing deputies were extremely anti-Semitic.
Against the backdrop of rampant anti-Semitism, a new literary genre is developing - the anti-Semitic novel. The notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” appear. Anti-Semitism has taken on a racial character. The imposed restrictions were also extended to baptized Jews. A striking example is the head of the Military Medical Academy, a baptized Jew A. Danilevsky, was denied admission to the academy of his son. It was forbidden to accept into the cadet corps even those Jews whose ancestors were baptized. Against this background, another blood libel case arose, known in history as the Beilis Case - the case of the murder, allegedly for ritual purposes, of 12-year-old A. Yushchinsky. Contrary to the efforts of the government and judicial authorities, the jury acquitted M. Beilis. Despite the justification of Beilis, the king continued to support the version of ritual murders. At the end of the process, he stated: “Obviously, there was a ritual murder, but I am happy that Beilis is acquitted, because he is innocent.”
The anti-Semitism of the authorities caused a mass emigration of Jews. She met great difficulties in connection with many bureaucratic formalities. As always, there were people among the officials who turned this into a source of income. The intervention of Jewish charitable organizations somewhat improved the situation. Jews, contrary to generally accepted rules, lost Russian citizenship when crossing the border. This led to difficulties in the places of emigration.
With the outbreak of the 1st World War, the areas inhabited by Jews found themselves in a war zone. The anti-Jewish mood of Russian society has now manifested itself in full measure. The situation made it possible to blame many actions of the military authorities on conditions. Bullying, pogroms, false accusations were everywhere. There were cases of taking hostages and their execution. There were stories and rumors about widespread espionage in favor of Germany. The main figures of espionage were considered the queen (a German by nationality) and her entourage. Jews were accused of espionage in front-line areas. Some counterintelligence officers blackmailed the Jews with planted documents and demanded a bribe. There were numerous cases of executions on trumped-up charges. The commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and the chief of staff of the headquarters, General N. Yanushkevich, were especially distinguished. A general eviction from the front-line areas began. It took place in very difficult conditions with almost no things in the freight cars. By the end of 1916, the number of refugees was 350,000. The conditions of their stay in a foreign land were extremely difficult.
The attitude of the Russian authorities towards the Jews caused discontent in the world. Under pressure from the public, the government was forced to abolish the Pale of Settlement. It was necessary to find a haven for the Jews evicted from the western provinces.
Soon, under pressure from the international community and for fear of difficulties in obtaining foreign loans, adjustments to previously adopted laws began. Minister of the Interior Prince Shcherbatov stated the following: “...Abroad is also beginning to lose patience, and Russia is in danger of facing a reduction in loans. ... The requests have turned into an ultimatum: if you want to get money for the war, then ... These requests and complaints mean the need for a law that alleviates the plight of refugees and at the same time means the rehabilitation of the Jewish masses, condemned because of rumors of their betrayal.”
But Nicholas II opposed the liberalization of legislation in every possible way. He vetoed a bill proposed by the ministers. Goremykin, the presiding minister of Russia, said: “The emperor told me that he could not agree with anything on the Jewish question. The only way out is to act through the Duma.” Knowing the anti-Semitic sentiments of the Duma, the government carried out this instruction bypassing it.
Jews participating in the war and their children were allowed to enter higher and secondary educational institutions in excess of the percentage rate. It was partially allowed to accept Jews as lawyers.
The revitalization of Jewish activity in Russian industry and finance was hampered by numerous prohibitions and restrictions. In addition to the restrictions associated with the Pale of Settlement, there were special laws against the participation of Jews in mining. Prohibition of trade in grain through Russian ports, prohibition of felling and cultivation of forests, ownership of sawmills, lease of plots for warehouses near railway stations, etc. It should be noted that some Jewish entrepreneurs managed to overcome these difficulties.
After the abdication of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government lifted all "restrictions on Russian citizens due to belonging to a particular religion or nationality." They began to be re-introduced behind the scenes by the Stalinist leadership and continued in various forms until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but this is a separate issue.
Joseph Kremenetsky
sohnut-odessa.narod.ru
The "Jewish question" was certainly one of the most pressing issues in domestic politics. Russian state from the very period when the imperial borders began to include territories densely and from ancient times inhabited by Jews. The attitude of the official authorities in the person of the Russian sovereigns themselves, as well as the imperial bureaucracy, while maintaining a stable conservative attitude towards the Jews as a whole, had, however, its own specifics. It was associated with the political, economic or other conjuncture of the era and was reflected in the imperial legislation and the activities of various commissions (committees) that dealt exclusively with the "Jewish question in the empire." In this regard, the 19th century, of course, occupies a special place, since it managed to contain several “epochs” in the life of the Jews of Russia - epochs that, depending on the personal attitude of the ruling emperor towards the Jews, on the specific economic, political situation, affected their position differently.
It should be noted that already at the end of the XVIII century. a legal framework was laid that determined the position of the Jewish population. It was the decree of Catherine II of December 23, 1791, which actually laid the foundation for the creation of the Pale of Settlement in Russia, i.e. Jews were forbidden to settle outside Belarus, the Yekaterinoslav viceroy and the Tauride region. Protecting, on the one hand, to the detriment of consumers, the merchants of the inner provinces of the empire from Jewish competition, the law, on the other hand, contributed to the settlement by Jews of the sparsely populated and economically poor Novorossiysk Territory and the recently conquered Tauride Region. However, at the same time, the Russian government did not specifically seek to restrict the civil rights of Jews, but only adhered to the practice that existed at that time in Russia regarding the right of merchants and philistines to move around. Be that as it may, this provision (the concept of the Pale of Settlement did not yet exist) became the basis of the legislation on Jews that existed in the Russian Empire.
In the 19th century under the influence of the new religious and mystical views of Emperor Alexander, a new stage in the reformation of Jewish life begins. By a decree of November 9, 1802, the resolution of questions of Jewish life was transferred to a specially formed Jewish Committee1. Already in the report to the sovereign in October 1804, together with the draft reform, it was said that it was necessary to take effective measures to transform the life of the Jews. The dominant importance in it was given to the desire to neutralize the Jew, "to protect the peasants from his economic domination" and in general to protect the interests of the Christian population. In the introductory part of the Regulations, this was stated as follows: “According to complaints repeatedly to Us and to the Governing Senate, which reached various abuses and disorders to the detriment of agriculture and industry, the inhabitants in those Provinces where the Jews live, occurring, We recognized as necessary, by decree, in 9 day of November 1802 to the Governing Senate, to form a special Committee to consider cases related to this, and to select means to correct the present Jewish situation "1. In general, during the reign of Alexander I, 4 Jewish committees were created. In addition to the Committee of 1802, the Jewish Committee was convened in 1806. Then there was the Committee of 1809 and the Committee of 1823. But the Committee of 1802 was the most important and outstanding, since it determined the main directions of the Jewish policy of the autocracy, which remained unchanged in over the course of half a century. These include the following areas:
1) restriction of economic and religious influence Jews to Christians;
2) promoting the separation of Jews from their lifestyle through the introduction of the ideas of enlightenment and education (Haskalah);
3) assimilation using methods of economic and political pressure in order to encourage proselytism among Jews.
Jews in 1820 were again forbidden to keep Christians in their service. In 1824, the permanent residence of foreign Jews in Russia was prohibited. The Astrakhan province and the Caucasus region were excluded from the Pale of Settlement in the same year. In 1825, Jews were ordered to be evicted from those areas where subbotniks were found, as well as from neighboring counties. In the same year, the emperor approved the opinion of the State Council on the prohibition of Jews from trading outside the Pale of Settlement, since “you can expect strikes from them both with foreign trading houses and with merchants of the Great Russian provinces, through which trade will certainly pass into their hands over time, and the Jews themselves, in the form of clerks, will take advantage of the freedom to have a long-term stay within the state. The era of Nicholas I was an important milestone in the history of Russian Jewry. Given that Nicholas I, in principle, strove for a civilized state of law, his activities were distinguished by an abundance of lawmaking. And the Jewish question is no exception here. On this topic, under Nikolai Pavlovich, about 600 legislative acts were adopted. In 1835, these laws were systematized into another “Regulation on the Jews”, which, although based on the half-hearted Regulation of 1804, but which even more severely limited the rights of Jews in Russia: “The main goal of this provision was decided to arrange the position of the Jews on such rules, which, opening up a free path for them to gain a comfortable maintenance by exercises in agriculture and industry and to the gradual education of their youth, at the same time block them from idleness and illegal trades. Nicholas I signed his most terrible decree for the Jews on August 26, 1827, on the introduction of military service for the Jews. Military service was used as a means of forcibly separating from the community and converting to Christianity a significant group of the Jewish population (50,000 people in 29 years)3. A new stage was the secret legislative act - "Regulations on the Jews of 1844". In him main problem in the relationship between the Jews and the rest of the population of the empire, "the alienation of the Jews from the general civil order and from useful labor" was proclaimed. This "alienation" was expressed in the following factors in the daily life of the Russian Jewish community:
1) appearance;
2) the dominance of the Talmudic teaching in Jewish education to the detriment of general education schools and colleges, which incites Jews to self-isolation from the civil society within which they exist;
3) the dominance of kahals as opposed to general management;
5) the wide distribution among the Jewish population of persons without fixed occupations, as well as various small merchants and shinkars to the detriment of productive handicraft work, agriculture, large and medium-sized businesses and trade (merchants).
To eliminate this situation, the following measures were identified: the creation of special Jewish schools "in a spirit contrary to the current Talmudic teaching", the destruction of kahals, streamlining the use of box collection funds - separating the amounts for the maintenance of rabbis from the money intended to finance resettlement to state lands and to maintain schools; the direction of "school money" for the maintenance of "state schools", the establishment of provincial rabbis, who, receiving support from the treasury, with their influence could contribute to the types of government; the introduction of a special fee for wearing a long frock coat. In 1848, a tax was introduced on wearing a kippah; in 1850, the highest command was issued to ban Jews from wearing national clothes, to divide Jews according to the nature of their occupations into useful ones (merchants, artisans, farmers) and into “those who do not have a permanent productive occupation” (the latter were subjected to increased recruitment, etc., decision-making about “opening ways for Jews to engage in agriculture.”4 In general, the Nikolaev era in the history of the Jews of Russia can be characterized as a continuation of: 1) assimilation tendencies that arose under Alexander I, aggravated by the activity of the authorities in the field of military and educational reforms; 2) tendencies aimed at stimulating activity that is useful from the point of view of power (cantonists, the agricultural movement). That is, either you assimilate, or you must earn your residence in the empire by the most hard work for the good of the motherland. For the Jewish people, these were years of the most severe persecution and increased oppression.
The great reforms of Alexander II brought to life the following most important phenomena:
1) forcing the development of capitalism in Russia;
2) a reduction in the list of traditional Jewish occupations in the Pale of Settlement as a result of land reform and the abolition of serfdom;
3) the liberalization of employment legislation, which allowed Jews to enter the civil service and engage in other professions previously prohibited for them;
4) the emergence of additional opportunities for the broad Jewish masses to go beyond the Jewish Pale of Settlement.
The reforms affected the economic situation of the Jews to the greatest extent. In particular, some of the Jews received great economic opportunities. Mortgage and various private banks appeared, necessary to finance the economy, construction and other commercial companies, active construction began railways. Many Jews who had accumulated initial capital for themselves in the pre-reform period were able to start a new big business. The banking houses of the Gunzburgs and Polyakovs, who worked closely with the state, played a leading role in the development of various sectors of the Russian economy. Through their banking houses, Russian loans were placed abroad, they were the main agents of communication of the Russian government with foreign banks. Jews actively participated in railway construction. Controlling a significant part of the railway. in the south of Russia and part of the transport ships, the Jews created the conditions for themselves to take control of the export trade in grain and sugar. Jewish sugar refiners were the first to switch to new methods of sugar production by organizing the production of refined sugar. In 1878, Jews controlled 60% of Russia's grain exports, and a few years later, almost 100%. Thanks to the Jews, the economy of southern Russia began to develop rapidly in the 60-70s of the XIX century. At the same time, anti-Jewish legal restrictions prevented Jews from expanding their business and investing money, for example, in the extractive industries. Thus, the purchase of land (including oil-bearing areas) in the Caucasus, as well as oil exploration and production, were allowed only to persons with the right to reside outside the line, with the consent of the Minister of Trade and Industry and in the absence of objections from the governor of the Caucasus.
Thus, the development of capitalism in Russia required the equalization of all capitalists in rights, regardless of their religion. It was the call of the times. With all this, the large crowding of the Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement contributed to the growth of poverty and unemployment. There was an objective need for the able-bodied Jewish population to go beyond the limits, where there were more opportunities for employment and starting their own business. However, it can be noted that, in general, the policy of Alexander II is interpreted as a limited emancipation of the Jews (when compared with other countries)5. The most important activities include the following:
- - 08/26/1856 - the abolition of the institution of cantonists, the equalization of the rights of Jews with the rest of the subjects of the empire in matters of recruitment6;
- - On March 31, 1856, Jews were allowed to enter the civil service if they possess academic degrees. During their time in public service, they had the right to live outside the Pale of Settlement;
- — On March 16, 1859, merchants of the first guild were allowed permanent residence throughout the empire. Within 10 years after the resettlement, they were required to be in the guild and pay the appropriate fees. If they left the guild before this time, they were obliged to return to hell. In 1859, there were only 108 Jewish merchants of the first guild in Russia;
- - On November 27, 1861, the State Council passed a law that granted Jews who had a doctorate in science the right to live throughout the empire, engage in any type of activity and enter the public service;
- - in 1862, Jews were allowed to acquire "lands and lands that belonged to landowners' estates, in which the obligatory relationship of peasants to owners was terminated";
- - Baptism of Jews under the age of 14 without parental consent is prohibited:
- - a law was issued allowing the appointment of Jews as caretakers of state Jewish schools;
- - in 1864, the emperor approved a new charter of gymnasiums, which stated that they "educate children of all classes without distinction of religion";
- — On June 28, 1865, a law was passed that granted the right of universal residence in the empire to certain categories of Jewish artisans and members of their families for the period of employment in this craft;
- - in 1868, the law was annulled, which forbade the Jews of the Kingdom of Poland to settle in Russia, and the Russians - in the Kingdom of Poland;
- - in 1873 the Jewish state schools were transformed into elementary Jewish schools, the rabbinical schools into special Jewish teachers' institutes;
- - in January 1879, all Jews - graduates of universities, as well as pharmacists, obstetricians and dentists received the right of universal residence in the empire;
- - On April 3, 1880, a circular of the Ministry of Internal Affairs signed by Minister L. Makov was sent out, instructing the governors of the internal provinces not to evict the Jews who had illegally settled in them7.
In fact, the government of Alexander II fulfilled the necessary conditions for ensuring capitalist reforms in Russia in relation to the Jewish population: almost all restrictions on merchants of the 1st guild were removed, all opportunities were given for Jews to receive prestigious education and prestigious professions, which opened the way for them to real soft integration into Russian capitalist society.
In general, the reforms of the 60-70s of the XIX century. played an outstanding role in the history of the Jews of Russia. They gave impetus to the destruction of the patriarchal Jewish community, the real integration of a part of the Jewish population with Russian society, and led to the creation of a fairly large class of Jewish intelligentsia. At the same time, these reforms, due to their half-heartedness, created the preconditions for the activation of anti-Semitic tendencies in Russian society (Jews continued to be perceived as an unequal and defenseless part of the population of the empire) and did not lead to the irreversibility of the changes that had occurred. However, it should be recognized that the most important problem of autocracy remained, which consisted in the fact that the Jews were denied the right to be called a people with its inherent traditions, customs, everyday passions (moreover, a people equal to others inhabiting the empire), etc., and the whole problem was reduced to the channel of inter-religious confrontation with its accompanying problems of an economic and political nature. The era of counter-reforms of Alexander III clearly confirmed the situation we indicated.
Bibliography
- On the device of the Jews / The highest approved on December 9, 1804 Regulation // PSZRI. - First meeting. T. 28. 1804-1805. - St. Petersburg, 1830. - S. 731.
- The Highest Approved on April 13, 1835, the Regulations on the Jews // PSZRI. Meeting second. T. 10. Det. first. 1835. - St. Petersburg, 1836. - S. 308.
- Felix Kandel. Essays on times and events from the history of Russian Jews. - T. 2. - Essay IX. - Jerusalem, 1988.
- The highest approved on December 19, 1844 Regulations on the subordination of Jews in cities and counties to general administration, with the destruction of Jewish kahals // PSZRI. Meeting second. T. 19. Det. first. 1844. - St. Petersburg, 1845. - S. 887-890; Code of laws on states. Book 1. Sec. 5. About the state of foreigners. Chapter 2 //Code of Laws of the Russian Empire. - T. 9. - Art. 775.
- Engel V.V. The era of "great reforms". Jewish policy of Emperor Alexander II // Course of lectures on the history of Jews in Russia. - M., 1985.
- Code of laws on states. Book 1. Section 5. On the state of foreigners. Chapter 2 //Code of Laws of the Russian Empire. - T. 9. - Art. 779. (App. No. 5)
- Code of Laws of the Russian Empire // In 5 books. - Book 3. - T. 8. Part 2-9; T. 9. - St. Petersburg, 1912. - S. 87-95.
