THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS (TILL 1772)
1. THE ANTI-JEWISH ATTITUDE OF MUSCOVY DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
The Empire of Muscovy, shut off from Western Europe by a Chinese--or,
more correctly, Byzantine--wall, maintained during the sixteenth century
its attitude of utmost prejudice towards the Jews, and refused to admit
them into its borders. This prejudice was part of the general disfavor
with which the Russian people of that period, imbued as it was with the
traditions of Tataric-Byzantine culture, looked upon foreigners or
"infidels." But the prejudice against the Jews was fed, in addition,
from a specific source. The recollection of the "Judaizing heresy" which
had struck terror to the hearts of the pious Muscovites at the end of
the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century[208] had not
yet died out. The Jews were regarded as dangerous magicians and
seducers, superstitious rumors ascribing all possible crimes to them.
The ambassador of the Muscovite Grand Duke, Basil III., at Rome,
observed in 1526 to the Italian scholar Paolo Giovio: "The Muscovite
people dread no one more than the Jews, and do not admit them into their
borders."
Jewish merchants of Poland and Lithuania visited occasionally, in
connection with their business affairs, the border city Smolensk, but
they had no permanent residence there. From time to time they would
carry their goods even into the capital, Moscow, although such daring
did not always pass unpunished. About 1545 the goods imported by Jewish
merchants from Brest-Litovsk to Moscow were burned there, on which
occasion the Muscovite ambassador called the attention of the Polish
Government to the fact that the Jews had imported forbidden merchandise
to Russia, though they had not even the right to travel thither. In 1550
the Polish King Sigismund Augustus addressed a "charter" to Tzar Ivan
the Terrible (Ivan IV.), demanding the admission of Lithuanian Jews into
Russia for business purposes, by virtue of the former commercial
treaties between the two countries. Ivan IV. rejected this demand in
resolute terms:
It is not convenient to allow Jews to come with their goods to
Russia, since many evils result from them. For they import
poisonous herbs [medicines] into our realm, and lead astray the
Russians from Christianity. Therefore he, the [Polish] King,
should no more write about these Jews.
Ivan the Terrible soon had occasion to demonstrate concretely that he
was not inclined to tolerate Jews in his domains. When, in 1563, the
Russian troops occupied the Polish border city Polotzk,[209] the Tzar
gave orders to have all local Jews converted to the Greek Orthodox
faith, and those who refused baptism drowned in the Dvina. His attitude
towards the Poles was more indulgent. He contented himself in their case
with taking them captive and demolishing their churches. Fortunately a
few years later, in 1579, Polotzk was restored to Poland through the
bravery of Stephen Batory, the protector of the Jews.
These primitive forms of denominational politics continued for a long
time to prevail in Muscovy. The Jews of Poland and Lithuania managed,
though illegally, to visit the capital in the interest of their
business. With the influx of Poles into Moscow during the so-called
"period of unrest," the interregnum preceding the establishment of the
Romanov dynasty in 1613, a goodly number of Jews penetrated into Russia.
The Muscovites became alarmed, and their apprehensions found expression
in 1610, when the noblemen of Moscow were conducting negotiations with
Poland looking to the election of the Polish Crown Prince Vladislav to
the Russian throne. An agreement was concluded, consisting of twenty
clauses, setting forth the conditions on which the noblemen were willing
to vote for Vladislav. The fourth clause of this agreement runs as
follows:
No churches or temples of the Latin or any other faith shall be
allowed in Russia. No one shall be induced to adopt the Roman or
any other religion, and the Jews shall not be allowed to enter
the Muscovite Empire either on business or in connection with
any other affairs.
In these circumstances the Jews were deprived of all opportunity to
develop commercial life in the reactionary Empire. Forty years later
this same Empire pushed its way into the territories of Poland and
Lithuania, which were populated by Jews, and the policy of Muscovy was
destined to reveal its creative genius in the domain of the Jewish
question.
The first contact of the Muscovite Empire with large Jewish masses took
place when the province of Little Russia was annexed by Tzar Alexis
Michaelovich in 1654. When the Russian troops, allied with the Cossacks,
overran White Russia, Lithuania, and the Ukraina, they were struck by
the undreamed-of spectacle of cities in which entire quarters were
populated by Jews, a strange people about which the unenlightened
Muscovites knew nothing except that once upon a time they had crucified
Christ, and for this reason were not allowed to enter pious, Greek
Orthodox Russia. Alexis Michaelovich and his military commanders began
after their own fashion to play the masters in the temporarily occupied
Polish provinces. In Vilna and Moghilev the Jews were murdered, and
those who survived were expelled. In Vitebsk the Jews were made
prisoners of war, while in other cities they were assaulted and
plundered.[210]
As a result the Muscovite Empire soon found within its precincts a
strangely composed Jewish population, consisting of prisoners of war,
who had been carried off principally from the border towns of the
Government of Moghilev, and had been deported to the central provinces
of Russia, and in some cases even as far as Siberia. By the Peace of
Andrusovo, concluded in 1667 between Russia and Poland, the prisoners of
war of both countries were given their freedom, but the captive Jews
were allowed to remain in Muscovy. These Jews formed the nucleus of a
small Jewish colony in Moscow, which grew up gradually, and in which
occasionally even converts were to be found. It seems that with the aid
of these "legal" Jewish residents other "illegal" Jews, from the
neighboring regions of Lithuania and White Russia, managed to penetrate
to Moscow. A few Jewish merchants, particularly those trading in cloth,
succeeded in obtaining an official permit, the so-called "red ticket,"
to visit the capital. However, in 1676 the prohibition against Jews
entering Moscow was renewed. Only in the portion of the Ukraina which
had been annexed by Russia, in the provinces of Chernigov and Poltava,
and a part of the province of Kiev, there could still be found small
groups of Jews who had survived the Cossack massacres of 1648. Moreover,
from the Polish section of the Ukraina, Jews occasionally came on
business into these Cossack districts, notwithstanding the fact that,
according to Russian law, the Jews were barred from residing within the
borders of Little Russia.
2. THE JEWS UNDER PETER I. AND HIS SUCCESSORS
This treatment of the Jews did not improve even in the new Russia, in
which Peter the Great, the Tzar-Reformer, "had broken through a window
into Europe." True, Peter's reforms effected a change for the better in
the attitude of the isolated, unenlightened Empire towards foreigners,
but this change did not extend to the Jews. We know of no laws enacted
during his reign which might illustrate the views of the new Government
on the Jewish question. There is reason to believe that the Tzar, in
allowing the former enactments against the admission of Jews into Russia
to remain in force, took into account the primitive habits and
prejudices of his people. A contemporary witness narrates that, in 1698,
during Peter's stay in Holland, the Jews of Amsterdam requested the
burgomaster Witsen to petition the Tzar concerning the admission of
their coreligionists into Russia. After listening to the convincing
arguments of Witsen, with whom he was on a very friendly footing, Peter
replied:
My dear Witsen, you know the Jews, and you know their character
and habits; you also know the Russians. I know both, and believe
me, the time has not yet come to unite the two nationalities.
Tell the Jews that I am obliged to them for their proposition,
and that I realize how advantageous their services would be to
me, but that I should have to pity them were they to live in
the midst of the Russians.
Discounting the element of anecdote in this story, we may reasonably
assume that Peter did not think it entirely harmless for the Jewish
emigrants to settle among the benighted Russian masses, which had been
accustomed to look upon the Jew as some kind of sea-monster, and as an
infidel and Christ-killer. It is possible that Peter was prompted by
similar considerations when he refused to admit the Jews into the
central provinces of Russia.
However, from another source we learn that the "reformer" of Russia was
not free from anti-Jewish prejudices, though they were not always of a
religious nature.
While inviting skilful foreigners from all over--says the
Russian historian Solovyov--Peter made a permanent exception but
for one people--the Jews. "I prefer," he was wont to say, "to
see in our midst nations professing Mohammedanism and paganism
rather than Jews. They are rogues and cheats. It is my endeavor
to eradicate evil and not to multiply it. They shall not be
allowed either to live or to trade in Russia, whatever efforts
they may make, and however much they may try to bribe those near
me."
Of course, only a goodly dose of anti-Semitic bias could prompt a view
which regards in this light the economic activity of the Jews among the
Russian merchants, those same merchants who had of yore given expression
to their commercial principles in the well-known Russian dictum, "If you
don't cheat, you don't sell."
It is possible that Peter was not unfamiliar with anti-Jewish prejudices
of a more objectionable kind. In 1702 reports were received in Moscow
from Little Russia, that in the town of Gorodnya, near Chernigov, "the
Jews had tortured a Christian to death, and had sent his blood to a
number of Jews in Little Russian towns." The descendants of Khmelnitzki
had evidently succeeded in importing into Russia what was at that time a
fashionable article in Poland, the charge of ritual murder, and these
obscure rumors may have affected injuriously the attitude of the Russian
Tzar towards the Jews.
On the other hand, we are informed that, during the Russo-Swedish War,
when the Russian army was operating on the Polish border territory,
populated by Jews, Peter the Great refrained from repeating the pogrom
experiments of his father, Alexis Michaelovich. In August, 1708, shortly
before the celebrated battle at Lesnaya, in White Russia, he checked a
military riot against the Jews which had been started in Mstislavl. A
brief Hebrew entry in the local Kahal journal, or _Pinkes_, runs as
follows:
On the twenty-eighth of Elul, in the year 5468, there came the
Cæsar, who is called the Tzar of Muscovy, by the name of Peter,
the son of Alexis, with his whole suite, an immense, numberless
host. Robbers and murderers from among his people fell upon us,
without his knowledge, and it almost came to bloodshed. And if
the Lord Almighty had not put it into the heart of the Tzar to
enter our synagogue in his own person, blood would certainly
have been shed. It was only with the help of God that the Tzar
saved us, and took revenge for us, by giving orders that
thirteen men from among them [the rioters] be immediately
hanged, and the land became quiet.
During the last years of his reign, Peter began to admit Jewish
financial agents to his new capital, St. Petersburg. One of the most
energetic financial agents at that time was the "court Jew" Lipman Levy,
a banker from Courland, who attained to particular prominence under
Peter's successors.
Under the immediate successors of Peter the Great the "defensive" policy
towards the Jews gradually became an "offensive" one. The magnates at
the Russian court, who dominated Russia under the label of "The Supreme
Secret Council," called attention to the unnecessary proximity of the
Jewish colony in Smolensk to the center of the Empire. The district of
Smolensk bordering on Poland harbored a group of White Russian Jews, who
earned a livelihood by a trade profitable at that time, the lease of
excise and customs duties. One of these big tax-farmers, a certain
Borukh Leibov (son of Leib), even had the courage to build a synagogue
for the few Jews of the village of Zverovich. This aroused the ire of
the local Greek Orthodox priest, who in his _naïveté_ was convinced that
the establishment of a synagogue would result in diverting his flock
from the Church and converting it to Judaism. The inhabitants began to
bombard St. Petersburg with their protests, the elders of the Holy Synod
became alarmed, the specter of the "Judaizing heresy" once more flitted
across their vision, and, as a result, Empress Catherine I. issued, in
March, 1727, an ukase[211] through the Supreme Secret Council, that
Borukh and his associates be removed from their office in connection
with the excise and customs duties, and "be deported immediately from
Russia beyond the border."
A month later another even stricter ukase was promulgated by the Empress
through the Supreme Secret Council, which affected all Jews in the
border provinces, particularly those residing in Little Russia. The
ukase decreed that "the Jews, both of the male and the female sex, who
have settled in the Ukraina and in other Russian cities, be deported
immediately from Russia beyond the border, and in no circumstances be
admitted into Russia, of which fact they shall in all places be strictly
forewarned." The exiles were forbidden to carry gold and silver coins
abroad, into the Polish dominions. They were ordered to exchange them
for copper money prior to their expulsion. This ukase was a gross
violation not only of the ancient rights of the Jews who had been left
in Little Russia after its annexation by Muscovy, but also of the
autonomy of the province and its elective authorities, the hetmans, to
whom the right of initiative belonged in such cases.
The arbitrariness of the central Government called forth the protest of
the Little Russian Cossacks, who were otherwise far from friendly to the
Jews. In the name of "the Zaporozhian army on both sides of the
Dnieper"[212] Hetman Daniel Apostol addressed a petition to St.
Petersburg, pleading for the admission of traveling Jewish salesmen to
the Little Russian fairs, in view of their commercial usefulness. A
reply to this petition may be found in an ukase which the Supreme Secret
Council issued in 1728, in the name of Emperor Peter II., the latter
still being a minor. One of its clauses runs thus:
The Jews are permitted to visit temporarily the fairs of Little
Russia for commercial purposes, but they are only allowed to
sell their goods wholesale, and not retail, by ells and in
pounds. The money taken in from the sale of these goods shall be
used to buy other goods. In no circumstances shall they be
allowed to carry gold and silver money from Little Russia
abroad.... The [permanent] residence of the Jews in Little
Russia is forbidden by virtue of the ukase of the previous year,
1727.
In this way the Jews who had been illegally deported were now
"graciously" granted the right of temporary visits to the fairs.
Moreover, even this right was hedged about by severe restrictions, such
as the prohibition of retail business, and the compulsion of leaving in
the country the money taken in for their goods, for the purpose of
equalizing imports and exports.
In 1731, this act of "grace" was extended to the Government of Smolensk,
and three years later another concession was wrested from the
authorities. The representatives of the "Border Province of Sloboda,"
the present Government of Kharkov, petitioned the Russian ruler to grant
permission to the Jews visiting the fairs to sell their goods not only
wholesale but also retail, "by ells and in pounds," in view of the fact
that "in the Sloboda regiments there are few business men, and their
trade is unsatisfactory." Empress Anna complied with the request in
1774. In the same year the privilege concerning the retail trade of Jews
at the fairs was extended to the whole of Little Russia, in compliance
with a petition of its Christian inhabitants.
But this avalanche of "favors" and "privileges"--the partial restoration
of rights which had been grossly trampled upon--suddenly stopped, and
was followed by a series of cruel repressions. The change was prompted
by the Muscovite fear of Jews, the traditional dread felt by the Russian
people of the specter of "Jewish seduction." An occurrence had taken
place which was enough to strike terror to the hearts of people with old
Muscovite notions. The above-mentioned tax-farmer of Smolensk, Borukh
Leibov, who, even after his expulsion, continued to cross the forbidden
Polish-Russian frontier, had occasion, during his stay in Moscow, to
come in close contact with Alexander Voznitzin, a retired captain of
the navy, and "seduced him." Voznitzin, who was wont to speculate about
religious matters, studied the Bible under the guidance of his Jewish
friend, and his eyes were opened. He realized that the Biblical doctrine
of one God was incompatible with the dogmas of the Greek Church and with
the cult of ikons, in which he had been brought up. Voznitzin became
convinced of the truth of Judaism, and, having made up his mind to
embrace the Jewish religion, he decided to brave the difficulties and
dangers which such a step implied. He went to the little town of
Dubrovna, in the Government of Moghilev, near Smolensk, where the son of
Borukh Leibov resided, to undergo there the ceremony of circumcision and
accept the principles and practices of Judaism. Voznitzin's conversion
became known, and the Captain, together with his teacher Borukh, were
brought to justice. They were conveyed to St. Petersburg, and turned
over to the awe-inspiring "Chancellery for Secret Inquisitorial
Affairs."
The accused were put on the rack and confessed their "crimes." Voznitzin
admitted having embraced "the Jewish law," and having uttered
"blasphemous words against the Holy Church," while Borukh Leibov owned
that he had "seduced" Voznitzin from the path of Greek Orthodoxy. In
addition, Borukh was accused of having, "together with other Jews,"
predisposed the common people in Smolensk in favor of the Jewish
religion, and of having insulted, by word and deed, the local Russian
Pope Abramius, in connection with the establishment of a Jewish
synagogue in the village of Zverovich. The latter crimes, however, were
not investigated further in view of the fact that the conversion of
Voznitzin was sufficient to inflict the death penalty on Borukh. The
Inquisitorial Court hastened to announce its verdict, basing it upon
the "statute" of Tzar Alexis Michaelovich. The report of the Senate
elicited in 1738 an Imperial resolution,[213] decreeing that "both of
them [Voznitzin and Borukh] shall be executed and burned, in order that
other ignorant and godless people, witnessing this, shall not turn away
from the Christian law, and such seducers as the above-mentioned Jew
Borukh shall not dare to lead them astray from the Christian law and
convert them to their own laws." The _auto-da-fé_ took place in St.
Petersburg, on a public square, in the presence of a large crowd of
spectators, on July 15, 1738.
This one isolated incident was sufficient to rekindle in the Government
circles of St. Petersburg the inveterate Muscovite hatred against
"unbaptized Jews" and to justify further violence against them. It had
come to the knowledge of the authorities that, contrary to the ukase of
1727, numerous Jews were still residing in Little Russia, being employed
on the estates of the Russian landowners as arendars and innkeepers. It
had also been ascertained that the Jews who came from the Polish part of
the Ukraina to visit the fairs in many cases settled permanently in
Little Russia. The Government found such a state of affairs unendurable.
In 1739 the Senate decreed the expulsion of the Jews from Little Russia,
whither in recent years they had penetrated "from the other side of the
Dnieper." In reply to this Senatorial rescript, the Military Chancellery
of Little Russia reported that an immediate expulsion of the Jews was
fraught with danger, on account of the war with Turkey, which was going
on at that time, "since their present expulsion might be accompanied by
spying." The Cabinet of Ministers, acting upon the representation of the
Senate, passed the resolution, that "the expulsion of the Jews shall be
postponed until the termination of the present Turkish War." When the
war was over, Empress Anna issued an ukase, in 1740, ordering the
execution of the postponed expulsion. The number of Jews liable to
expulsion was found to be 292 of the male sex and 281 of the female sex,
who resided on 130 manorial estates, altogether a handful of 573 Jewish
souls, who had obtained shelter on the outskirts of Russia.
3. ELIZABETH PETROVNA AND THE FIRST YEARS OF CATHERINE II.
The policy of religious intolerance was practiced assiduously during the
reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1761). During the reign of this
Empress, who divided her time between church services and court-balls,
the persecutions of the adherents of other faiths were intensified. By
order of the Holy Synod and the Senate, Greek Orthodoxy began to be
disseminated among the pagan nationalities of the East, while those of
them who, under the influence of the Tatars, had embraced Mohammedanism,
were subjected to fines unless they adopted the religion of the state.
In the hope of suppressing the Mohammedan propaganda, orders were given
to demolish the mosques in many villages of the Governments of Kazan and
Astrakhan. The destruction of the mosques was stopped only by the fear
of Turkish reprisals, "in order that this rumor shall not reach those
countries in which adherents of the Greek Orthodox persuasion live in
the midst of Mohammedans, and that the churches existing there shall not
suffer oppression."
The Jews living in the border provinces were subjected to similar
treatment: they were expelled with one hand and pushed into the doors
of the church with the other. Towards the end of 1741, Elizabeth
Petrovna issued a remarkable ukase. Referring to the decree of 1727
concerning the expulsion of Jews, the Empress states that "it has now
come to our knowledge that some Jews in our Empire, and particularly in
Little Russia, continue to live there under all kinds of pretence, being
engaged in business or in keeping inns and taverns, from which
circumstance no benefit of any kind, but, coming from such _haters of
the name of our Savior Christ_, only extreme injury, can accrue to our
faithful subjects." Hence the Empress "most graciously" commands that
from our whole Empire, both from the Great Russian and Little
Russian cities, villages, and hamlets, all Jews of the male and
female sex, of whatever calling and dignity they may be, shall,
at the publication of this our ukase, be immediately deported
with all their property abroad, and shall henceforward, under no
pretext, be admitted into our Empire for any purpose; unless
they shall be willing to accept the Christian religion of the
Greek persuasion. Such [Jews], having been baptized, shall be
allowed to live in our Empire, but they shall not be permitted
to go outside the country.
The ukase was to be printed and promulgated in the whole Empire, so as
to gain wide circulation among the people and to inculcate in the
Russian masses the proper sentiments towards "the haters of the name of
our Savior Christ."
However, the Empress and her exalted prompters calculated wrongly. The
cruel expulsion decree did not draw a single Jew into the fold of the
Greek Orthodox Church, while the reason given in the ukase for the
expulsion, "the extreme injury" inflicted by the enemies of Christ "upon
our faithful subjects," failed to carry conviction to the latter. The
ukase had been designed in particular to "benefit" the inhabitants of
the two border provinces of Little Russia and Livonia by eliminating the
Jews from their midst. These inhabitants, however, speaking through
their local representatives, declared that such "beneficence" would only
result in ruining them. From Little Russia the Greek contractors of the
customs duties complained to the Senate that the repressions against the
Jews, which hampered their commercial visits to Poland, had caused great
losses to the state revenues by lowering the income from imported goods,
that a sudden expulsion of Jews, who were bound up with the Christian
merchants by business interests and monetary obligations, would ruin
both sides, and that it was therefore necessary to allow the Jews to
retain their former right of free admission into Little Russia for
business purposes.
Even more energetic representations were sent to the Senate from the
Baltic province of Livonia. The gubernatorial administration of the
province and the magistracy of the city of Riga stated that, in
accordance with the promulgated ukase, the Jews living in the suburb of
Riga and in the surrounding district had been ordered to leave within
six weeks, but that this expulsion was bound to cause great injury to
the exchequer and to spell ruin for the whole mercantile class. For the
Polish pans and merchants, who had their Jewish brokers in Riga, would
stop buying their goods there, and would prefer to import them, with the
aid of their expelled Jewish middlemen, from Germany, so that "trade in
Riga would fall off, and commerce might be destroyed entirely," the
Russian merchants finding themselves unable to secure customers for "the
goods imported by sea." The Livonians therefore pleaded to grant the
Jews free admission into Riga for carrying on business, though it be
only in the capacity of temporary residents.
Impressed by these representations, the Senate submitted a report to the
Empress, in which it endeavored to convince her that for the sake of
"promoting commerce," increasing the revenues of the exchequer, and
guarding the interests of the Christian population in the "border
localities," it was necessary to comply with the petitions of the
Ukrainians and Livonians and grant the Jews free admission to both
provinces and to other localities on the frontier, so that they may
carry on temporary business during the time of the fairs, this privilege
having been exercised by them in Little Russia since 1728, by virtue of
earlier Imperial decrees. Elizabeth Petrovna read these convincing
arguments of the Senate, but, blinded by religious fanaticism, refused
to pay attention to them. On the reports submitted by the Senate, she
put down, in December, 1743, the following laconic resolution[214]:
"From the enemies of Christ I desire neither gain nor profit."
The Senate could do nothing but submit to the despotic will of the
Empress. A month later, in January, 1744, an ukase was issued, demanding
that immediate steps be taken to detect the Jews in Little Russia,
Livonia, and other places, and expel all except those who were willing
to be baptized.
Henceforward--the Senatorial decree runs--the above Jews shall
not by any means, under any conditions, and for any purpose
whatsoever, be admitted into Russia, though it be for the fairs
or for a short time only; nor shall any representations
concerning their admission be further addressed to the Senate,
and the Senate shall be duly informed when all the above [Jews]
shall have been expelled.
In this manner Elizabeth Petrovna cleared these provinces of their
Jewish population, where--for better or for worse--it had lived long
before their annexation by Russia. A contemporary historian calculates
that up to his time (1753) some 35,000 Jews had been banished from
Russia.
The fanatical Empress searched with the vigilance of an inquisitor for
the slightest trace of Judaism in her Empire. Since 1731 there had lived
in St. Petersburg a learned physician, by the name of Antonio Sanchez,
evidently a Sephardic Marano, who professed Judaism in secret.
Originally invited from Holland, Sanchez occupied in St. Petersburg the
post of body-physician at the courts of Anna Johannovna and her
successors, and he was at the same time in charge of the medical
department of the army. He subsequently became a member of the Academy
of Sciences, and wrote a number of medical works, which drew the
attention of the scientific world to him. In 1749 Sanchez was suddenly
dismissed from the Academy of Sciences, and compelled to transfer his
abode to Paris. It seems that Empress Elizabeth had found out the secret
"crime" of her body-physician, which was none other than his loyalty to
Judaism. "As far as I am aware"--the president of the Academy,
Razumovski, wrote to Sanchez--"you have not been guilty of any
wrong-doing against her Imperial Majesty or against any of her
interests. But she finds it contrary to her conscience to tolerate in
the Academy a man who has deserted the banner of Christ, and has joined
the ranks of those who fight under the banner of Moses and the Old
Testament prophets." When the famous mathematician Euler heard of
Sanchez' expulsion, he wrote: "I doubt whether amazing actions of this
kind will contribute towards the reputation of the Russian Academy of
Sciences."
There was no one perhaps in the contemporary Government circles of
Russia who was so ready to condemn this malicious policy, inspired by
Byzantine clericalism, as that cultured "Westerner," Empress Catherine
II. (1762-1796). Nevertheless in the first years of her reign she found
herself unable to change a policy which had already been hallowed by
tradition, and was regarded as "national" and truly Russian. Catherine
II., in endeavoring to justify the dethronement of her husband, the
Prussophil Peter III., was bound, in the first years of her reign, to
act against her own convictions and pose as a national ruler, anxious to
follow in the footsteps of her Orthodox predecessors. We derive our
knowledge of this fact from her own memoirs, in which, speaking of
herself in the third person, she makes this confession:
On the fifth or sixth day after her accession to the throne,
Catherine II. arrived at the Senate. It happened that on the
agenda of that session was the question of the admission of Jews
into Russia. The Senators unanimously declared that their
admission was useful, but Catherine, in view of the
circumstances at the time, found it difficult to give her
assent. The Senator Count Odoyevski came to her aid. He rose up
and said: "Before making a decision, perhaps your Imperial
Majesty will consent to see the autograph decision which on a
similar occasion was rendered by Empress Elizabeth." Catherine
ordered the documents to be brought, and she found that Empress
Elizabeth, prompted by piety, had written on the margin, "From
the enemies of Christ I desire neither gain nor profit." It is
necessary to observe that less than a week had passed since
Catherine's accession to the throne. She had been placed on it
for the defense of the Greek Orthodox faith; she had to deal
with a pious people and with a clergy to which its estates had
not yet been returned, and which, in consequence of this
ill-fitting measure, had nothing to live on. The minds, as is
always the case after such a great upheaval [the violent death
of Peter III.], were in a state of great excitement. To begin
her reign by the admission of Jews would not at all have helped
to pacify their minds; to declare it as injurious was also
impossible. Catherine acted simply: when the Procurator-General
collected the votes and approached her for her decision, she
said to him, "I desire that this matter be postponed for another
time." Thus it often happens that it is not enough to be
enlightened, to have good intentions, and even the power to
realize them.
In this way, in spite of the unanimous opinion of the Senate, that the
admission of Jews was beneficial to Russia, and in spite of her own
liberal frame of mind, Catherine II. left the Jewish question in its
former state, being afraid of arousing against her the resentment of the
reactionary element of the Russian people. In the very same year, on
December 4, 1762, the Empress, in issuing a manifesto permitting all
foreigners to travel and to settle in Russia, added the fatal formula,
_kromye Zhydov_ ("except the Jews").
Two years later, in 1764, Catherine II. received a petition from the
Little Russian nobles and elders, who, together with the hetman, pleaded
for the restoration of the autonomous "ancient rights" of Little Russia,
which had been grossly violated by the Russian Government. Out of the
twenty clauses of the document, one refers to the Jews. The
representatives of the Little Russian people declare that the law
barring Jews from entering their province had inflicted great damage on
the local trade, because the Jews, "being inhabitants of a neighboring
state, take a very large part in Little Russian commerce, buying the
goods of Little Russia at a much larger price, and the foreign goods at
a smaller price, as compared with that now prevailing." The petition
concludes with these words:
That the above-mentioned Jews be granted domicile in Little
Russia, with this we dare not trouble your Imperial Majesty. All
we do is to plead most humbly that, _for the sake of promoting
Little Russian commerce_, the Jews be allowed to visit Little
Russia for free commercial transactions.
The petition was not granted, for even Catherine II. "dared not" repeal
the inquisitorial resolution of Elizabeth Petrovna against "the enemies
of Christ."
It was amidst conditions such as these that the event which marks a
critical juncture in the history of the Jewish people took place.
Starting with the year 1772, Russia began to acquire the inheritance of
disintegrating Poland. The country which had stood in fear of a few
thousand Jews was now forced to accept them, at one stroke, by the tens
of thousands and, shortly afterwards, by the hundreds of thousands.
Subsequent history will show in what way Russia endeavored to solve this
conflict between her anti-Jewish traditions and the necessity of
harboring in her dominions the greatest center of the Jewish Diaspora.
FOOTNOTES:
[208] See p. 36 and p. 37.
[209] [In the present Russian Government of Vitebsk, to be distinguished
from Plotzk, in Polish, _Plock_, the capital of the Government of the
same name in Russian Poland, on the right bank of the Vistula.]
[210] See pp. 153 _et seq._
[211] [Pronounced _ookaz_, with the accent on the last syllable. The
original meaning of the word is "indication," "instruction." It is
applied to orders issued by the Tzar himself or, in the name of the
Tzar, by the Senate.]
[212] Little Russia possessed at that time its own military
organization, consisting of regiments and "hundreds," under the command
of native officers. At the head of the organization stood the
commander-in-chief, called hetman [see p. 143, n. 1].
[213] [The term "resolution" (in Russian, _resolutzia_) is applied to a
decision written by the Tzar in his own hand on the margin of the
reports submitted to him.]
[214] [See p. 253, n. 1.]