THE BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN RÉGIME
1. THE JEWISH POLICY OF CATHERINE II. (1772-1796)
The quarantine which Russia, prior to Catherine II., had established for
the "enemies of Christ," was broken through in 1772 by the first
partition of Poland. At one stroke the number of Russian subjects was
swelled by the huge Jewish masses of White Russia. The Russian Empire
was augmented by a new province adjoining its central possessions, and
together with the new region and its variegated population it acquired
hundreds of thousands of subjects of the kind it had hitherto ruthlessly
driven beyond its borders.
What was to be done with the unwelcome heritage bequeathed by Poland?
The primitive policy of an Elizabeth Petrovna might have dictated some
barbarous measure, such as the wholesale expulsion of the Jews from the
newly-acquired territory. But the statesmanlike intellect of a Catherine
could not, during the formulation of the liberal "Instructions,"[234]
admit such barbarism, which moreover would have been incompatible with
the new pledges the Russian Government had found it necessary to give to
the heterogeneous population of White Russia at the time of annexation.
In the "Placard" issued on this occasion by Count Chernyshev, the first
Governor-General of White Russia, all residents, "of whatever birth and
calling," were "solemnly assured by the sacred name and word of the
Empress," that their religious liberty as well as their personal rights,
and the privileges attaching to property and estate, would remain
inviolate.
This "assurance" included the Jews, though not without qualification, as
is shown by this passage:
From the aforesaid solemn assurance of the free exercise of
religion and the inviolability of property for one and all, it
follows of itself that also the Jewish communities residing in
the cities and territories now incorporated into the Russian
Empire will be left in the enjoyment of all those liberties
which they possess at present, in accordance with the [Russian]
law and [their own] property. For the humaneness of her Imperial
Majesty will not allow her to exclude the Jews alone from the
grace vouchsafed to all and from the future prosperity under her
beneficent rule, so long as they on their part shall live in due
obedience as faithful subjects, and shall limit themselves to
the pursuit of genuine trade and commerce according to their
callings.
To be sure, the Jews, in contradistinction to the rest of the
population, are promised the high Imperial favor on condition of "due
obedience." Yet the inviolability of their former rights was solemnly
guaranteed, and Russian politics had henceforward to be guided by it.
Immediately on the annexation of the new province a general census was
ordered. According to the testimony of a contemporary, the number of
Jews in White Russia was found to amount to over forty thousand
families, about two hundred thousand souls. An ukase of 1772 imposed
upon them a _per capita_ tax of one rubel (50c.). The annexed territory
was divided into two Governments, those of Moghilev and Polotzk, or, as
it is called at present, Vitebsk. In the interest of the regular
collection of taxes, the administration from the very beginning gave
instructions "to have all Jews affiliate with the Kahals and to
institute such [Kahals] as the governors may suggest or as necessity for
them may arise."
The problems connected with the inner organization of the Jews were of a
more complicated character. Far-reaching changes were taking place at
that time in the provincial and the social organization of the Russian
Empire. In 1775 was promulgated the "Regulation Concerning the
Governments."[235] In 1785 was issued the "Act Concerning Municipal
Administration,"[236] and the authorities were confronted by an
alternative: either to place the Jews under the general laws, according
to the estate to which they belonged (in the cities the mercantile
class, the burghers, and the trade-unions), or, in view of their
peculiar conditions of life and the Kahal autonomy inherited from
Poland, allow them to retain their own institutions as part of their
communal and spiritual self-government. It was a difficult problem, and
Russian legislation at first wavered between these two ways of solving
it, with the result that matters became muddled. The interference of the
local administration and the old rivalry among the various estates made
confusion worse confounded.
The ukase issued by the Senate in 1776 sanctioned the existence of the
Kahal, regarding it primarily as a fiscal and legislative institution,
which the Russian administration found convenient for its purposes. At
the instance of Governor-General Chernyshev, the Jews of White Russia
were set apart as a separate tax-unit and as an estate of their own.
They were to be entered on special registers in the towns, townlets,
villages, and hamlets, wherever a census was taken. The instructions
read that
in order that their taxes may be more regularly remitted to the
exchequer, Kahals shall be established in which they [the Jews]
shall all be enrolled, so that every one of the "Zhyds,"[237]
whenever he shall desire to travel somewhere on business, or to
live and settle in one place or another, or to take anything on
lease, shall receive a passport from the Kahal. The same Kahal
shall pay the head-tax, and turn it over to the provincial
exchequer.
Thus, as regards the payment of taxes, and the rights not only of
transit but also of business, every Jew was placed in the same position
of dependence on his Kahal as under the old Polish _régime_. At the same
time the Kahal was endowed with certain judicial functions. District and
Government Kahals, the latter conceived as courts of appeal, were
established for cases between Jews, each of these Kahals being assigned
a definite number of elective judges. Only lawsuits between Jews and
non-Jews were to be brought before the general magistracy courts.
But a few years later the Government was shaken in its resolve to uphold
the former Kahal organization to its full extent. In 1782 an inquiry was
addressed by the Senate to Passek, the new Governor-General of White
Russia, as to the legality of establishing special Jewish law courts. A
year later the Government took a decided step in the opposite direction.
It recognized the rights of Jews registered in the merchant class to
participation in the general city government, to elect and to be elected
on equal terms with the Christian members of the magistracies, town
councils, and municipal courts. The realization of this reform was
greatly hampered by the opposition of the Christian merchants and
burghers, who hated the Jews, and could not reconcile themselves to the
municipal equality of their competitors. Having accustomed themselves to
look down upon the Jews as citizens of an inferior grade, the Christian
city officials assumed a hostile attitude towards their Jewish
colleagues who had been elected to public posts, and by electioneering
methods managed to reduce their numbers in the city corporations to a
minimum. The interests of the Jews were bound to suffer, particularly as
far as the administration of justice was concerned.
On the other hand, the administration itself began to oppress them. The
liberal Chernyshev was superseded by the anti-Jewish Passek, who did his
utmost to restrict the Jews in their economic activities, to the obvious
advantage of their competitors in the ranks of the Shlakhta and the
Christian merchants.
The Jews--a contemporary who had himself been affected by these
measures informs us--were driven from their breweries and
distilleries, their toll-houses, hostelries, etc., which formed
their principal means of livelihood. Thousands of families were
reduced to beggary. In addition, new restrictions were
introduced affecting business, handicrafts, and so forth.
The acuteness of the economic and social crisis among the Jews of White
Russia during that period of transition is evidenced by the petition
which their delegates submitted in 1784 to Catherine II.
The petition, consisting of six points, is permeated with a profound
feeling of despair. The Jews complain that the administration has
deprived them completely of their main sources of income: distilling,
brewing, and liquor-selling in the cities. They furthermore point out
that Governor-General Passek has forbidden the landed proprietors to
lease the inns on their estates to Jews, and that in consequence a large
number of families, who depended for their livelihood on some form of
liquor-selling and innkeeping, had been brought to the verge of ruin.
They also contend that the Jews had not reaped the expected benefits
from the equal municipal rights conferred upon them, for where the Jews
are in a minority not a single Jewish candidate is admitted to a
municipal or judicial office, "so that whenever a Jew goes to law
against a Christian, he is liable to become the victim of a partial
verdict, because there is no coreligionist to intercede on his behalf in
the courts, and he is not familiar with the Russian language." Their
further grievances relate to the arbitrariness of the landed
proprietors, who "from sheer caprice, contrary to agreement," impose an
excessive land rent on the Jews who have erected houses on their
property, so that they are forced to abandon their houses. Sometimes
houses are requisitioned for Government purposes, or are torn down "to
be rebuilt according to [new official street] plans," without the
slightest compensation to their owners. The magistracies, on the other
hand, often compel the Jews who are domiciled in the townlets and
villages, but are enrolled among the merchants or burghers of some
city, to build houses in that city, "whereby the Jews are liable to be
reduced to extreme poverty, inasmuch as by spending their capital on
building they have no capital wherewith to run their business."
The petition was received by the Empress, who, in forwarding it, in
1785, to the Senate for consideration, deemed it necessary to indicate
her general attitude in the following "resolution":
Her Majesty desires to have it pointed out that, inasmuch as the
aforesaid persons of the Jewish religion have been placed by the
ordinances of her Majesty in the same position as the others, it
is necessary in every case to observe the rule that everyone is
entitled to the advantages and rights appertaining to his
calling or estate, without distinction of religion or
nationality.
The Senate had to comply with the comprehensive and liberal-minded
injunction of the Empress in endeavoring to solve the burning problems
affecting Jewish life. The solution finally arrived at was a feeble
compromise between the economic, national, and class interests which
were contradictory to one another. In its ukase of May 7, 1786, the
Senate partly fulfilled and partly declined the demands of the White
Russian Jews. The right of pursuing freely the liquor trade in the
cities was refused, in view of the fact that, according to the new law,
liquor-dealing constituted a monopoly of the city administration. On the
other hand, the Jews were accorded the rights of participating on equal
terms with non-Jews in the public bids for the lease of the pothouses.
Passek's rescript forbidding the landowners to let out distilleries and
inns to the Jews was declared an illegal infringement of the rights of
the landowners, and therefore ordered to be countermanded.
The complicated question as to the compatibility of municipal
self-government with Jewish Kahal autonomy was equally solved by a
compromise. With respect to the magistracies, town councils, boards of
aldermen, and law courts, the Jews were accorded proportionate
representation in agreement with the general provisions of the new city
government. The common municipal courts, in which Jews were to be
represented by elective jurymen of their own, were to handle both civil
and criminal cases, not only between persons of different denominations,
but also between Jew and Jew. The District and Government Kahals were to
deal with spiritual affairs only. They were also to be charged with the
distribution of the state and communal taxes in the various Jewish
communities.
As for the complaints of the Jews against the oppression of the
administration as well as of the magistracies and the landowners, all
the Senate did was to point to the principle by which all the members of
a given estate are equally vouchsafed the rights appertaining to it. The
Senate even went so far as to bar all references to the former Polish
laws with their discriminations against the Jews, "for, inasmuch as they
[the Jews] are enrolled among the merchants and burghers on the same
terms, and pay equal taxes to the exchequer, they ought in all
circumstances to be given the same protection and satisfaction as the
other subjects." Yet in the very same ukase the Senate refuses to grant
the petition of several White Russian Jews who asked to be enrolled in
the merchant corporation of Riga, basing its refusal on the absence of a
special Imperial permit allowing the Jews to register as merchants
outside of White Russian territory.
Here we have the first application of the ignominious principle of
subsequent Russian legislation, that everything is forbidden to Jews
unless permitted by special law. The ukase of 1786, with all its liberal
phrases about the equality of the members of all classes irrespective of
religion, imperceptibly instituted a Pale of Settlement by attaching the
Jews to definite localities, which had been wrested from Poland, and
refusing them the right of residence in other parts of Russia. The
implied criticism of the Senate, directed against "the former Polish
laws with their discriminations against the Jews," could with far
greater justice be leveled in much sharper form against the Russian
legislation which subsequently curtailed the Jewish right of transit and
commerce to an extent undreamt-of even by the fiercest anti-Jewish
restrictionists of Poland.
While in the first two decades after the occupation of White Russia the
Russian Government observed a comparatively liberal, at least a
well-intentioned, attitude towards the Jewish question, in later years
it openly embarked upon a policy of exceptional laws and restrictions.
The general reactionary tendency, which was partly the result of the
"ominous" successes of the great French Revolution, and gained the upper
hand in Russia towards the end of Catherine's reign, was mirrored also
in the position of the Jews. At that juncture the second and third
partitions of Poland (1793, 1795) were effected, and hundreds of
thousands of Jews from Lithuania, Volhynia, and Podolia were added to
the numbers of Russian subjects. The country, which barely a generation
before had not tolerated a single Jew within its borders, now included a
territory more densely populated by Jews than any other. Some means of
reconciliation had to be found between these historic opposites, the
traditional anti-Jewish policy of Russia, on the one hand, and the
presence of millions of Jews within its dominions, on the other, and
such means were found in that system of Jewish rightlessness which since
that time has become one of the principal characteristics of the
political genius of Russian autocracy. The ancient Muscovite policy
peeped out with ever greater boldness from beneath the European mask of
St. Petersburg.
On the very eve of the second partition of Poland, when the Russian
Government merely anticipated an influx of Jews, it had a fatal gift in
store for them: the law of the Pale of Settlement, which was to create
within the monarchy of peasant serfs a special class of territorially
restricted city serfs. It should be added that the impulse towards the
creation of this disability did not come from above but from below, from
the influential Christian middle class, which, fearing free competition,
began to shout for protection.
The first step in robbing the Jews of Russia of their freedom of
movement was made a few years after the occupation of White Russia. The
Jewish merchants of the White Russian Governments Moghilev and Polotzk
(or, as the latter is called at present, Vitebsk) which border on the
Great Russian Governments of Smolensk and Moscow, began to visit the two
cities of the same name and carry on trade, wholesale and retail, in
imported dry goods. They did a good business, for the Jewish merchants
sold goods of a higher quality at a lower figure than their Christian
competitors. This set the merchants of Moscow agog, and in February,
1790, they lodged a complaint with the commander-in-chief of Moscow
against the Jews who sell "foreign goods by lowering the current prices,
and thereby inflict very considerable damage upon the local trade." The
complainants point to the ancient tradition of the Muscovite Empire
excluding the Jews from its borders, and assure the authorities that
Jewish rivalry will throw the trade of Moscow into complete "disorder,"
and bring the Russian merchants to the verge of ruin.
The petition, which at bottom was directed not alone against the Jews,
but also against the interests of the Russian consumer, who was
exploited by the "real Russian" trade monopolists, found a sympathetic
echo in Government circles. Accordingly, in the autumn of the same year,
the Council of State, after considering the counter-petition of the Jews
asking to be enrolled in the merchant corporations of Smolensk and
Moscow, rendered the decision that it did not deem it expedient to grant
the Jews the right of free commerce in the inner Russian provinces,
because "their admission to it is not found to be of any benefit." A
year later this verdict was reaffirmed by an Imperial ukase issued on
December 23, 1791, to the effect that "the Jews have no right to enroll
in the merchant corporations in the inner Russian cities or ports of
entry, and are permitted to enjoy only the rights of townsmen and
burghers of White Russia." To mitigate the severity of this measure the
ukase "deemed it right to extend the said privilege beyond the White
Russian Government, to the vice-royalty of Yekaterinoslav and the region
of Tavrida," _i. e._ the recently annexed territory of New Russia, where
the Government was anxious to populate the lonely steppes.
In this way the first territorial ghetto, that of White Russia, was
established by law for the purpose of harboring the Jewish population
taken over from Poland. When again, two years later, the second
partition of Poland took place, the northwestern ghetto was increased by
the neighboring Government of Minsk and the southwestern
region--Volhynia with the greater part of the Kiev province and
Podolia. The ukase of June 23, 1794, conferred upon this enlarged Pale
of Settlement the sanction of the law. The Jews were granted the right
"to engage in the occupations of merchants and burghers in the
Governments of Minsk, Izyaslav (subsequently Volhynia), Bratzlav
(Podolia), Polotzk (now Vitebsk), Moghilev, Kiev, Chernigov,
Novgorod-Seversk, Yekaterinoslav, as well as in the region of Tavrida."
The ukase thus enlarges the former pale of Jewish settlement by
including Little Russia, or the portion of the Ukraina which had been
wrested from Poland as far back as 1654,[238]--in short, the territory
from which the Jews had been assiduously driven "beyond the border" in
the reign of the three Empresses preceding Catherine. The organic
connection of Little Russia with the portion of the Ukraina on the right
bank of the Dnieper which had just been annexed from Poland, left the
Russian Government no other choice than to allow the Jews who had lived
in those parts from time immemorial to remain there. Even the holy city
of Kiev opened its gates to the Jews. The Dnieper became thereby the
central river of the Jewish Pale of Settlement.
The third partition of Poland, in 1795, added to the Dnieper system that
of the Niemen, the territory of Lithuania, consisting of the Governments
of Grodno and Vilna.[239] This completed the process of formation of the
Pale of Settlement, at the end of the eighteenth century. As for Eastern
Russia, she was just as vigilantly on her guard against the penetration
of the Jewish element as she had been in the time of the ancient
Muscovite Empire.
The same ukase of 1794, which circumscribed the area of the Jewish
right of residence, laid down another fundamental discrimination, that
of taxation. The Jews, desirous of enrolling themselves in the
mercantile or burgher class in the cities, were to pay the instituted
taxes "doubly in comparison with those imposed on the burghers and
merchants of the Christian religion." Those Jews who refused to remain
in the cities on these conditions were to leave the Russian Empire after
paying a fine in the form of a double tax for three years. In this way
the Government exacted from the Jews, for the privilege of remaining in
their former places without the right of free transit in the Empire,
taxes twice as large as those of the Christian townspeople enjoying the
liberty of transit. This punitive tax did not relieve the Jews from the
special military assessment, which, by the ukases of 1794 and 1796, they
had to pay, like the Russian mercantile class in general, in exchange
for the personal discharge of military service.
It is interesting to observe that at the solicitation of Count Zubov,
the Governor-General of New Russia, the Karaites of the Government of
Tavrida were released from the double tax. They were also granted
permission to own estates, and were in general given equal rights with
the Christian population, "on the understanding, however, that the
community of Karaites should not be entered by the Jews known by the
name of Rabins (Rabbanites), concerning whom the laws enacted by us are
to be rigidly enforced" (ukase of June 8, 1795). Here the
national-religious motive of the anti-Jewish legislation crops out
unmistakably. The handful of Karaites, who had for centuries lived
apart from the Jewish nation and its spiritual possessions, were
declared to be more desirable citizens of the monarchy than the genuine
Jews, who were on the contrary to be cowed by repressive measures.
A decided bent in favor of such measures is manifested in the ukase of
1795, which prescribes that the Jews living in villages be registered in
the towns, and that "endeavors be made to transfer them to the District
towns, so that these people may not wander about, but may rather engage
in commerce and promote manufactures and handicrafts, thereby furthering
their own interests as well as the interests of society." The effect of
this ukase was to sanction by law the long-established arbitrary
practice of the local authorities, who frequently expelled the Jews from
the villages, and sent them to the towns under the pretext that Jews
could be enrolled only among the townsfolk. The expelled families,
deprived of all means of livelihood, were of course completely ruined,
as the mere bidding of the authorities did not suffice to enable them
"to engage in commerce and promote manufactures and handicrafts" in the
towns in which even the resident merchants and artisans failed to make a
living. The system of official tutelage had the effect of fettering
instead of developing the economic activity of the Jews.
Experiments were now made to extend this tutelage to the communal
self-government of the Jews. In 1795 the edict was repeated whereby the
Government and District Kahals, in view of the right, conferred upon the
Jews, of participating in the general city administration, in the
magistracies and town councils, were to be deprived of their social and
judicial functions, and not to be allowed "to concern themselves with
any affairs except the ceremonies of religion and divine service."[240]
As a matter of fact, the active participation of the Jews in the
municipalities, owing to the hostile attitude of the Christian burghers,
was extremely feeble. Yet, in the interest of the exchequer, the Kahals
were preserved for fiscal purposes, and, on account of their financial
usefulness, they continued to function as the organs of Jewish communal
autonomy, however curtailed and disorganized the latter had now become.
In this wise the restrictive legislation against the Jews appears firmly
established towards the end of the reign of Catherine II. A "Muscovite"
wall had been raised between the west and east of Russia, and even
within the circumscribed area of Jewish settlement the tendency was
discernible to mark off a still smaller area and, by forcing the Jews
out of the villages, to compress the Jewish masses in the towns and
cities. It fell to the lot of the successors of Catherine to consolidate
this tendency into law.
In conclusion, the historian cannot pass over in silence the solitary
"reform" of this period. In the legislative enactments of the last
decade of Catherine's reign the formerly current contemptuous
appellation "Zhyd" gave way to the name "Hebrew" (Yevrey).[241] The
Russian Government found it impossible to go beyond this verbal reform.
2. JEWISH LEGISLATIVE SCHEMES DURING THE REIGN OF PAUL I.
The brief reign of Paul I. (1796-1801) added nothing of moment to the
Russian legislation concerning the Jews. The law imposing a double tax
was confirmed, and also the other restrictions were left in force. The
area of Jewish settlement was increased by the newly-acquired Government
of Courland, on the outskirts of the Empire. In this Duchy, which was
annexed in 1795, there were several thousand Jewish inhabitants, who had
been "tolerated" as foreigners, after the German pattern, and had only
partly succeeded in forming a communal organization. The question now
arose as to the best way of collecting the taxes from the itinerant
chapmen who formed the bulk of the Jewish population, and were enrolled
neither among the rural nor the urban estates, and were not even
affiliated with Jewish communities. The Russian Government solved this
question in 1799, by placing the Jews of Courland in the same position
as their coreligionists in the other western Governments, and by
granting them the right of enrolling themselves among the mercantile or
burgher estates, as well as establishing their own Kahals. In this case
fiscal considerations were responsible for the organization of the
Jewish masses in the dominion of the German barons.
Having confined the Jewish population within the western pale, the
Government could not very well hamper its freedom of transit within that
pale, at least as far as moving from city to city was concerned. This
elementary right of free transit was resorted to by many Jews of
impoverished White Russia, who began to emigrate into the Little Russian
provinces, particularly into the Government of Novgorod-Seversk, later
the Government of Poltava, which were more prosperous, and less crowded
with Jews. The Government became aware of this internal transmigration,
and could not abstain from taking it under its fatherly protection.
Merchants were allowed to move unhampered from White Russia into Little
Russia. Burghers, however, were permitted to emigrate only on the
conditions applying to all persons of the taxable estates--they had to
obtain certificates of dismissal (December, 1796).
Poor as was the reign of Paul in the field of concrete legislation
concerning the Jews, it was rich in preliminary endeavors leading up to
it. For his reign abounds in all kinds of projects looking to the
regulation of the status of the Jews on the basis of official
"investigations." In the outgoing years of the eighteenth century
(1797-1800) the Government offices were feverishly busy in this
direction. The Government was endeavoring to familiarize itself with the
state of the former Polish provinces and particularly with the condition
of the Jewish population. The first step in this pursuit after knowledge
consisted in sending out a circular inquiry to the nobles and the higher
officials of the region under consideration. The stimulus to this
inquiry came in 1797, from a report submitted on account of the famine
which had been raging in the Government of Minsk. Governor Karnyeyev of
Minsk received orders from St. Petersburg to gather the opinions of the
local Marshals, or leaders of the nobility, and on that basis supply "an
elucidation of the causes of the impoverished condition of the
peasants," with plans looking to their amelioration.
The shrewd device of questioning the landed aristocrats as to the causes
of the impoverishment of their peasant serfs bore worthy fruit. Needless
to say, the Polish magnates who assembled in Minsk at the invitation of
the Government did not even for a moment think of reproaching themselves
and their own estate of slaveholders for the misery of the people
enthralled by them. Instead they preferred to put the blame partly on
external circumstances ("the changes and mutinies in the province," bad
crops, poor means of communication, etc.), and partly on the Jews, "whom
the owners [of the villages] retain as arendars and tavern-keepers,
contrary to the orders of the authorities restricting their domicile to
the cities." The Jewish tavern-keepers in the country, so the nobles
allege, "lure the peasants into drunkenness," by selling them spirits on
trust, and thereby "render them unfit to manage their affairs." In order
to save the peasants, the Government should insist "that the right of
distilling be open exclusively to the landowners, and be withheld from
the Jews as well as other arendars and tavern-keepers," and that in the
rural public houses "permission to sell hot wine [whiskey] be given only
to the squires." To put it in other words, the peasants will thrive and
be "fit to manage their affairs," if, instead of Jewish alcohol, they
will imbibe the aristocratic alcohol of the landed proprietors.
One need not be a statesman to discover the underlying motive of this
"opinion" of the nobles, who were concerned only about retaining the
ancient alcohol monopoly which they had enjoyed under the Polish
_régime_ ("the right of propination"). This, however, did not prevent
the Governor of Minsk from presenting the report of the nobility to the
Tzar, who on July 28, 1797, put down the following "resolution":[242]
"Measures are to be taken, in accordance with the proposals of the
marshals of the nobility, to restrict the rights of the Jews who ruin
the peasants." At the same time the Senate called the Governor's
attention to Catherine's ukase ordering the transfer of the Jews to the
District towns, "so that these people may not wander to and fro to the
detriment of society." This was tantamount to giving the authorities
_carte blanche_ in expelling the Jews from the villages.
In 1798 came the turn of the nobility of the Southwest, of Volhynia and
Podolia, to state their wishes for the benefit of the fatherland. The
marshals of Podolia, who met at Kamenetz, elaborated a much more
comprehensive scheme of reform than their compeers in Minsk. After
expressing their gratitude to the Tzar "for his Imperial benevolence in
leaving us the franchise of liquor-dealing," the nobles plead that
"neither the right of distilling nor that of selling liquor be let to
Jews or even to Christians," and that the nobles themselves be granted
the "liberty" of employing people in their "public houses at their own
discretion." After securing the monopoly of intoxicating the people
through their own bartenders, the nobles propose to transform the bulk
of the Jews into export agents, to find foreign markets for the
agrarian, _i. e._ manorial, products, "whence commercial profits will
accrue both to the tillers of the soil (?!) and to the nobles." As for
the other Jews, part of them were to be retained by the landowners in
their public houses, and the rest were "to be forced to engage in
agriculture and handicrafts."
This brilliant prospect of becoming the tools of the nobles for the
disposal of rural products and the sale of manorial alcohol had
evidently little fascination for the Jews themselves. Alarmed by these
aristocratic designs, they held a consultation, and even called a
conference of delegates. The conference met in Ostrog (Volhynia) in the
summer of 1798, and decided to collect a fund and send a deputation to
St. Petersburg, to lay before the Tzar the needs and wishes of the Jews
of the Southwest, whom the Government had entirely forgotten to ask how
they themselves would like to have their affairs arranged. Unfortunately
the Governor-General of the Southwest, Count Gudovich, "got wind" of
these preparations. Far-sighted statesman that he was, he immediately
suspected "that this collection [of money for the deputation] might
merely serve as a cover for some wicked Jewish design." He accordingly
confiscated the funds already secured, forbade all further collections,
and hastened to report his achievement to St. Petersburg. To his
astonishment, the overzealous Governor-General received the chilling
reply, that the Tzar found nothing criminal in the desire of the Jews to
send a deputation to him. At the same time he was instructed to return
the confiscated money and not to interfere with the sending of the
deputation (September, 1798). Whether the deputation actually proceeded
to the capital, and what it achieved, is unknown. But the occurrence in
itself bears witness to the fact that even in that unenlightened epoch
and in the secluded Hasidic environment of Volhynia and Podolia, the
Jews were not altogether insensible of the political and social
upheavals which were taking place in Russia.
The last to respond to the Governmental inquiry was the nobility of
Lithuania. The marshals of the nineteen Lithuanian districts, who met in
1800, submitted their "opinion," which had been adopted with only three
dissenting votes, to Friesel, the Governor of Vilna. The three opposing
marshals suggested leaving the Jews in the condition which had prevailed
under the Polish _régime_. All the others drafted a plan of Jewish
"reform," which was even more radical than that of the nobles of Minsk
and Podolia. The Jews were to be barred not only from distilling and
keeping taverns of their own, but also from the sale of spirits in the
manorial public houses. The Jewish rural population, which would thus be
deprived of all means of subsistence, was to be transferred partly to
the cities, partly "to be scattered over the crown and manorial
settlements, where they might be allowed to grow corn and to mortgage
and farm estates." The economic reform was to be supplemented by one
affecting the inner life of the Jews. It was necessary "to abolish the
Jewish costume and introduce among the Jews the form of dress customary
among the other inhabitants." Altogether the separateness of the Jews
was to be broken down, for "they constitute a people by themselves, and
as such have their own administration ... in the form of synagogues and
Kahals, which not only arrogate to themselves spiritual authority, but
also meddle in all civil affairs and in matters appertaining to the
police." These measures would bring about the amalgamation of the Jews
with the surrounding population.
The "reformatory" ardor of the Lithuanian nobles, who thought it
necessary to bracket the problem of Kahal autonomy with the sale of
alcohol, was the effect of outside interference. Friesel, the Governor
of Vilna, who was a cultivated German, and as such was acquainted with
the state of the Jewish problem in Germany, found it necessary to
address himself to the Lithuanian marshals twice, their first statement
having been found "unsatisfactory." Only a second revision of the views
of the nobles, which included the plan of inner reforms, satisfied
Friesel. In April, 1800, Friesel forwarded these recommendations to the
Senate, accompanying them by his own comprehensive memorandum, which to
a large extent was obviously based on Chatzki's and Butrymovich's
projects submitted some ten years previously to the "Jewish Commission"
of the Quadrennial Diet.
Friesel urges the necessity of a "general reform," and professes to take
Western Europe as a model, but all he adopted thence was the most
objectionable tactics of "enlightened absolutism." In his opinion "the
education of the Jewish people must begin with their religion." It is
necessary "to wipe out all Jewish sects with their superstitions and to
forbid strictly the introduction of any innovations whereby impostors
might seduce the masses and plunge them into ever greater ignorance," a
veiled allusion to the Hasidim and in particular to their Tzaddiks,
whose strife with the anti-Hasidic rabbis was engaging the attention of
the Russian Government at the time. He further recommends that the Jews
be forced to send their children to the Government schools, to conduct
all their business in Polish, to wear the customary non-Jewish form of
dress, and not to marry before the age of twenty. Finally the Jews are
to be classified in three categories, merchants, artisans, and tillers
of the soil, these three estates to form part of the general class
stratification of the Empire. In this way the fiscal services of the
Kahals could be dispensed with, and the Kahals themselves would pass out
of existence automatically.
The suggestions of the leaders of the nobility as well as the proposals
of the governors were turned over in the spring of 1800 to the Senate,
whose function was to examine and utilize them for a new legal enactment
or "statute." Here they happened to fall into the hands of one of the
Senators, Gabriel Dyerzhavin, the celebrated Russian poet, who by the
whim of fate was soon to blossom forth into a "specialist" _in rebus
Judaicis_.
3. DYERZHAVIN'S "OPINION" ON THE JEWISH PROBLEM
Dyerzhavin was born in one of the remote eastern provinces of Russia,
and spent the greater part of his life in the Government offices of St.
Petersburg. He had never come in contact with the Jewish population,
until, in 1799, he was dispatched to the little town of Shklov in White
Russia, to look into the case of the owner of the town, a retired
general by the name of Zorich. The latter had been one of the favorites
of Catherine, and lived the fast and extravagant life of a Russian
country squire in the town which was his private property. His typically
Russian devil-may-care conduct was not calculated to spare the large
Jewish population of the town. Zorich evidently fancied that the Jews
living on his land were just as much his serfs as were the peasants, and
he handled them in the way serfs were dealt with in those days. He
expelled several of them from the town, and seized their houses. Others
he beat with his own hands, and still others he forced to supply him
with drink free of charge. The Jews appealed to the Government against
this attempt to turn them into serfs, and it was in response to their
appeal that Emperor Paul dispatched Senator Dyerzhavin, with
instructions to curb the violence of the boisterous squire. Dyerzhavin,
who was imbued with the spirit of serfdom, could not but take a mild
view of the high-handed methods of Zorich, and came to the conclusion
that the Jews were partly to blame for the disorders that had taken
place. The death of Zorich in 1800 put a stop to the case, but
theoretically the Senate decided that, according to Russian law, the
Jews, by virtue of their being members of the merchant and burgher
class, could not be regarded as serfs even in the towns and settlements
owned by squires.
A year later Dyerzhavin was again dispatched to White Russia, this time
invested with very large powers. The province was in the throes of a
terrible famine, brought about not only by bad crops but also by the
outrageous conduct of the landed proprietors. These gentlemen, instead
of supplying their peasants with foodstuffs, preferred to send large
quantities of grain either abroad, for sale, or into their distilleries,
for the production of whiskey, which, instead of feeding the peasants,
poisoned them. In dispatching Dyerzhavin to White Russia, Emperor Paul
gave him full power to put a stop to these abuses and to inflict severe
penalties on the squires, who, "moved by unexampled greed, leave their
peasants without assistance." They were to be dispossessed, and their
estates placed under state control (June 16, 1800). In a supplementary
instruction added by the Procurator-General of the Senate, Obolanin, the
following clause was added: "And whereas, according to information
received, the exhaustion of the White Russian peasants is to a rather
considerable extent caused by the Zhyds, it is his Majesty's wish that
your Excellency may give particular attention to their part in it and
submit an opinion how to avert the general damage inflicted by them."
This unmistakably anti-Semitic postscript, to which Dyerzhavin was in
all likelihood a party, to which at all events he gave his approval, was
designed to mitigate the blow aimed at the squires and turn it against
the Jews. The conspiracy of these two bureaucrats, who believed in
serfdom and sided with the squires, put an altogether different
complexion on Dyerzhavin's mission.
The pacification of White Russia was speedily accomplished. Dyerzhavin
placed the estate of one Polish magnate under state control, and
personally closed up a Jewish distillery in the town of Lozno, the
residence of the famous Hasidic Tzaddik, Rabbi Zalman Shneorsohn. He
proceeded with such energy that one Jewish woman complained of having
received blows at his hands. After having "installed order," Dyerzhavin
set out to do what he considered to be his main task--prepare an
elaborate memorandum concerning the Jews, under the characteristic
title, "Opinion of Senator Dyerzhavin Concerning the Averting of the
Want of Foodstuffs in White Russia by Curbing the Avaricious Pursuits of
the Jews, also Concerning Their Re-education, and Other Matters."
The very title betrays the underlying motive of the writer, to make the
Jews the scapegoat for the economic ruin of the province, in which the
squires had always been the masters of the situation. But Dyerzhavin did
not confine himself to the evaluation of the economic activity of the
Jews. He was no less anxious to depict their inner life, their beliefs,
their training and education, their communal institutions, their "moral
situation." For all these purposes he drew upon a multitude of sources.
While writing his memorandum in Vitebsk, in the fall of 1800, he
gathered information about the Jews from the local anti-Jewish merchants
and burghers, and from the "scientific" instructors at the Jesuit
College in the same city, in the court-houses, and--from "the very
Cossacks themselves."
It must be added that Dyerzhavin also had in his possession two projects
from the pen of "enlightened Jews." The author of one of them, Nota
Shklover by name, a wealthy merchant, who had served as purveyor to
Potemkin's army, and, living at that time in St. Petersburg, knew the
drift of opinion in Government circles, proposed to attract the Jews to
manufacturing, which should be introduced, in connection with
agriculture and cattle-breeding, into colonies set apart for this
purpose "in the neighborhood of the Black Sea ports." The originator of
the second project, a physician from Kreslavka, in the Government of
Vitebsk, by the name of Frank,--evidently a German Jew of the
Mendelssohnian type--suggested that the Government through Dyerzhavin
focus its attention on the reform of the Jewish religion, which "in its
original purity rested on unadulterated Deism and the postulates of pure
morality," but in the course of time was distorted by "the absurdities
of the Talmud." Frank accordingly proposes to follow the example set by
Mendelssohn in Germany, to throw open the Russian public schools to the
Jews, and to teach their children Russian, German, and Hebrew, implying
of course that the Jew thus educated will not fail to prove himself of
unquestionable benefit to the country.
Aside from these projects, Dyerzhavin had before him specimens of
several Prussian _Juden-Reglements_, as well as the recommendations of
the marshals and governors of Western Russia referred to above, and
similar documents.[243] This material sufficed for the Russian official,
who had caught no more than a fleeting glimpse of the Jews while passing
through White Russia, to elaborate a most comprehensive "Opinion"
demanding a complete transformation of Jewish life.
The somber picture which Dyerzhavin draws of the life of the Jews
suffices to show how superficial was his acquaintance with the
conditions he describes. The _naïveté_ with which he judges and
completely distorts many aspects of Jewish life is astounding. The
economic pursuits of the Jews, such as trading, leasing of land,
innkeeping, brokerage, are nothing but "subtle devices to squeeze out
the wealth of their neighbors, under the guise of offering them benefits
and favors." The Jewish school is "a hotbed of superstitions." Moral
sentiments are entirely absent among Jews: "they have no conception of
lovingkindness, disinterestedness, and other virtues." All they do is
"to collect riches in order to erect a new temple of Solomon or [to
satisfy] their fleshly desires."
This curious bit of characterization forms the preamble to a vast
scheme, consisting of no less than eighty-eight clauses, looking to the
"transformation of the Jews." The Jews are to be placed under "Supreme
[_i. e._ Imperial] protection and tutelage" and to be supervised by a
special Christian official, a "Protector," who, with the assistance of
committees to be appointed by the gubernatorial administrations, shall
carry out this work of "transformation," shall take a census of all the
Jews, and provide them with family names. Thereupon the Jews shall be
divided into four categories: merchants, urban burghers, rural burghers,
and agricultural settlers, and every Jew shall be forced to register in
one of these categories. All this mass of Jews is to be evenly
distributed over the various parts of White Russia, and the surplus
transferred to the other Governments.
This reform having been accomplished, the Kahals shall be dispensed
with. To provide for the management of the spiritual affairs of the
Jews, "synagogues," with rabbis and "schoolmen," are to be organized in
the various Governments. A supreme ecclesiastic tribunal is to be
established at St. Petersburg, under the name "Sendarin,"[244] which
shall be presided over by a chief rabbi, or "patriarch," after the
pattern of the Mohammedan mufti of the Tatars.
Suggestions of various repressive and compulsory measures supplement
these positive proposals. The Jews are to be forbidden to keep Christian
domestics; they are to be deprived of their right of participating in
the city magistracies; they are to be compelled to give up their
distinct form of dress and to execute all deeds and business documents
in Russian, Polish, or German. The children shall be allowed to go to
the Jewish religious schools only up to the age of twelve, and shall
afterwards be transferred to the secular schools of the state. Finally
the author proposes that the Government establish a printing-office of
its own, to publish Jewish religious books "with philosophic
annotations." In this way, Dyerzhavin contends, will "the stubborn and
cunning tribe of Hebrews be properly set to rights," and Emperor Paul,
by carrying out this reform, will earn great fame for having fulfilled
the commandment of the Gospels, "Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you."
Such is Dyerzhavin's project, a curious mixture of the savage fancies of
an old-fashioned Muscovite about an unfamiliar historic culture on the
one hand, and notions of reform conceived in the contemporary Prussian
barrack spirit and various "philosophic" tendencies on the other hand, a
medley of hereditary Jew-hatred, vague appreciation of the historic
tragedy of Judaism, and the desire to "render the Jews useful to the
state."[245] And over it all hovers the spirit of official patronage and
red-tape regulations, the curious notion that a people with an ancient
culture can, at the mere bidding of an outside agency, change its
position like figures on a chess-board, that strange faith in the saving
power of _mechanical_ reforms which prevailed, though in less naïve
manifestations, also in Western Europe.
Dyerzhavin's "Opinion" was laid before the Senate in December, 1800, and
together with the previously submitted recommendations of the
West-Russian marshals and governors was to supply the material for an
organic legal enactment concerning the Jews.
But the execution of this plan was not destined to take place during the
reign of Paul. In March, 1801, the Tzar met his tragic fate, and the
cause of "Jewish reform" entered into a new phase, a phase characterized
by the struggle between the liberal tendencies prevalent at the
beginning of Alexander I.'s reign and the retrograde views held by the
champions of Old Poland and Old Russia.
FOOTNOTES:
[234] [In 1766 Catherine convened a Commission, consisting of
representatives of the various estates, for the purpose of elaborating a
new Russian code of laws. As a guide for this Commission Catherine wrote
her famous "Instructions" (in Russian _Nakaz_), outlining the principles
of government, largely in the spirit of Montesquieu.]
[235] [This law laid the foundation for the division of the Russian
Empire into "Governments," in Russian _gubernia_ (the English term is a
reproduction of the French _gouvernement_). The chief of a Government is
called Governor, in Russian, _Gubernator_. There are also a few
Governors-General, in Russian, _Gheneral-Gubernator_, placed over
several Governments, mostly on the borders of the Empire.]
[236] [According to this new law, the city population is divided into
merchants, burghers, and artisans. The burghers--in Russian (also in
Polish, see above, p. 44, n. 2), _myeshchanye_--are placed below the
merchants. The former are those possessing less than 500 rubels ($250);
they have to pay the head-tax and are subject to corporal punishment.
The merchants are those who have a larger capital, and are privileged in
the two directions indicated. The artisans are organized in their
trade-unions. Each estate is registered and administered separately.]
[237] [See p. 320, n. 2.]
[238] It consisted of the Governments of Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversk
(subsequently Poltava) and a part of the Government of Kiev.
[239] [The present Government of Kovno was constituted as late as 1872.
Its territory was up till then included in the Government of Vilna.]
[240] This was in direct violation of the pledge given by the Russian
Government at the occupation of the Polish provinces. As recently as in
January of the same year (1795) the Lithuanian Governor-General Repnin
had replied to the application of the Lithuanian Jews, who pleaded for
the maintenance of the Kahal tribunal, that the Jews "may retain the
same rights they had been enjoying prior to the last [Polish] mutiny [of
1794]."
[241] [_Zhyd_, originally the Slavic form of the Latin _Judaeus_, has
assumed in Russian a derogatory connotation. It is interesting to note
that in Polish the same word has no unpleasant meaning, although in
polite speech other terms are used.]
[242] [See p. 253, n. 1; for "propination" see p. 67, n. 2.]
[243] Dyerzhavin's statement, that he had "borrowed his principal ideas
from Prussian institutions," refers in all likelihood to the well-known
Prussian _Juden-Reglement für Süd- und-Neuostpreussen_ of 1797, which
was at that time operative in the whole of Prussian Poland. There are
numerous points of contact between Dyerzhavin's project and the Prussian
enactment. The latter may be found in the work of Rönne and Simon,
_Verhältnisse der Juden in den sämmtlichen Landestheilen des
preussischen Staates_, ed. 1843, pp. 281-302.
[244] This is the way Dyerzhavin spells the word Synhedrion, or
Sanhedrin, which he evidently had picked up casually.
[245] The following sentence in Dyerzhavin's "Opinion" is typical of
this mixture of medieval notions with the new system of "enlightened
patronage": "Inasmuch as Supreme Providence, in order to attain its
unknown ends, leaves this people, despite its dangerous characteristics,
on the face of the earth, and refrains from destroying it, the
Governments under whose scepter it takes refuge must also suffer it to
live; assisting the decree of destiny, they are in duty bound to extend
their patronage even to the Jews, but in such wise that they [the Jews]
may prove useful both to themselves and to the people in whose midst
they are settled."