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HISTORY OF THE JEWS
IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY
BY
S.M. DUBNOW
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN
BY
I. FRIEDLAENDER
VOLUME II
FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I. UNTIL THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III.
(1825-1894)
PHILADELPHIA
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
5706--1946
Copyright 1918 by
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
It was originally proposed to give the history of Russian
Jewry after 1825--the year with which the first volume concludes--in a
single volume. This, however, would have resulted in producing a volume
of unwieldy dimensions, entirely out of proportion to the one preceding
it. It has, therefore, become imperative to divide Dubnow's work into
three, instead of into two, volumes. The second volume, which is
herewith offered to the public, treats of the history of Russian Jewry
from the death of Alexander I. (1825) until the death of Alexander III.
(1894). The third and concluding volume will deal with the reign of
Nicholas II., the last of the Romanovs, and will also contain the
bibliographical apparatus, the maps, the index, and other supplementary
material. This division will undoubtedly recommend itself to the reader.
The next volume is partly in type, and will follow as soon as
circumstances permit.
Of the three reigns described in the present volume, that of Alexander
III., though by far the briefest, is treated at considerably greater
length than the others. The reason for it is not far to seek. The events
which occurred during the fourteen years of his reign laid their
indelible impress upon Russian Jewry, and they have had a determining
influence upon the growth and development of American Israel. The
account of Alexander III.'s reign is introduced in the Russian original
by a general characterization of the anti-Jewish policies of Russian
Tzardom. Owing to the rearrangement of the material, to which reference
was made in the preface to the first volume, this introduction, which
would have interrupted the flow of the narrative, had to be omitted. But
a few passages from it, written in the characteristic style of Mr.
Dubnow, may find a place here:
Russian Tzardom began its consistent role as a persecutor of the
Eternal People when it received, by way of bequest, the vast Jewish
population of disintegrated Poland. At the end of the eighteenth
century, when Western Europe had just begun the emancipation of the
Jews, the latter were subjected in the East of Europe to every
possible medieval experiment.... The reign of Alexander II., who
slightly relieved the civil disfranchisement of the Jews by
permitting certain categories among them to live outside the Pale
and by a few other measures, forms a brief interlude in the Russian
policy of oppression. His tragic death in 1881 marks the beginning
of a new terrible reaction which has superimposed the system of
wholesale street pogroms upon the policy of disfranchisement, and
has again thrown millions of Jews into the dismal abyss of
medievalism.
Russia created a lurid antithesis to Jewish emancipation at a time
when the latter was consummated not only in Western Europe, but also
in the semi-civilized Balkan States.... True, the rise of Russian
Judaeophobia--the Russian technical term for Jew-hatred--was
paralleled by the appearance of German anti-Semitism in which it
found a congenial companion. Yet, the anti-Semitism of the West was
after all only a weak aftermath of the infantile disease of
Europe--the medieval Jew-hatred--whereas culturally retrograde
Russia was still suffering from the same infection in its acute,
"childish" form. The social and cultural anti-Semitism of the West
did not undermine the modern foundations of Jewish civil equality.
But Russian Judaeophobia, more governmental than social, being fully
in accord with the entire régime of absolutism, produced a system
aiming not only at the disfranchisement, but also at the direct
physical annihilation of the Jewish people. The policy of the
extermination of Judaism was stamped upon the forehead of Russian
reaction, receiving various colors at various periods, assuming the
hue now of economic, now of national and religious, now of
bureaucratic oppression. The year 1881 marks the starting-point of
this systematic war against the Jews, which has continued until our
own days, and is bound to reach a crisis upon the termination of the
great world struggle.
Concerning the transcription of Slavonic names, the reader is referred
to the explanations given in the preface to the first volume. The
foot-notes added by the translator have been placed in square brackets.
The poetic quotations by the author have been reproduced in English
verse, the translation following both in content and form the original
languages of the quotations as closely as possible. As in the case of
the first volume, a number of editorial changes have become necessary.
The material has been re-arranged and the headings have been supplied in
accordance with the general plan of the work. A number of pages have
been added, dealing with the attitude of the American people and
Government toward the anti-Jewish persecutions in Russia. These
additions will be found on pp. 292-296, pp. 394-396, and pp. 408-410. I
am indebted to Dr. Cyrus Adler for his kindness in reading the proof of
this part of the work.
The dates given in this volume are those of the Russian calendar, except
for the cases in which the facts relate to happenings outside of Russia.
As in the first volume, the translator has been greatly assisted by the
Hon. Mayer Sulzberger, who has read the proofs with his usual care and
discrimination, and by Professor Alexander Marx, who has offered a
number of valuable suggestions.
I.F.
NEW YORK, February 25, 1918.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XIII. THE MILITARY DESPOTISM OF NICHOLAS I.
1. Military Service as a Means of De-Judaization 13
2. The Recruiting Ukase of 1827 and Juvenile Conscription 18
3. Military Martyrdom 22
4. The Policy of Expulsions 30
5. The Codification of Jewish Disabilities 34
6. The Russian Censorship and Conversionist Endeavors 41
XIV. COMPULSORY ENLIGHTENMENT AND INCREASED OPPRESSION.
1. Enlightenment as a Means of Assimilation 46
2. Uvarov and Lilienthal 50
3. The Abolition of Jewish Autonomy and Renewed Persecutions 59
4. Intercession of Western European Jewry 66
5. The Economic Plight of Russian Jewry and Agricultural
Experiments 69
6. The Ritual Murder Trial of Velizh 72
7. The Mstislavl Affair 84
XV. THE JEWS IN THE KINGDOM OF POLAND.
1. Plans of Jewish Emancipation 88
2. Political Reaction and Literary Anti-Semitism 94
3. Assimilationist Tendencies Among the Jews of Poland 100
4. The Jews and the Polish Insurrection of 1831 105
XVI. THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF MILITARY DESPOTISM.
1. The Uncompromising Attitude of Rabbinism 111
2. The Stagnation of Hasidism 116
3. The Russian Mendelssohn (Isaac Baer Levinsohn) 125
4. The Rise of Neo-Hebraic Culture 132
5. The Jews and the Russian People 138
XVII. THE LAST YEARS OF NICHOLAS I.
1. The "Assortment" of the Jews 140
2. Compulsory Assimilation 143
3. New Conscription Horrors 145
4. The Ritual Murder Trial of Saratov 150
XVIII. THE ERA OF REFORMS UNDER ALEXANDER II.
1. The Abolition of Juvenile Conscription 154
2. "Homeopathic" Emancipation and the Policy of "Fusion" 157
3. The Extension of the Right of Residence 161
4. Further Alleviations and Attempts at Russification 172
5. The Jews and the Polish Insurrection of 1863 177
XIX. THE REACTION UNDER ALEXANDER II.
1. Change of Attitude Toward the Jewish Problem 184
2. The Informer Jacob Brafman 187
3. The Fight Against Jewish "Separatism" 190
4. The Drift Toward Oppression 198
XX. THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER II.
1. The Russification of the Jewish Intelligenzia 206
2. The Society for the Diffusion of Enlightenment 214
3. The Jewish Press 216
4. The Jews and the Revolutionary Movement 221
5. The Neo-Hebraic Renaissance 224
6. The Harbinger of Jewish Nationalism (Perez Smolenskin) 233
7. Jewish Literature in the Russian Language 238
XXI. THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER III. AND THE INAUGURATION OF POGROMS.
1. The Triumph of Autocracy 243
2. The Initiation of the Pogrom Policy 247
3. The Pogrom at Kiev 251
4. Further Outbreaks in South Russia 256
XXII. THE ANTI-JEWISH POLICIES OF IGNATYEV.
1. The Vacillating Attitude of the Authorities 259
2. The Pogrom Panic and the Beginning of the Exodus 265
3. The Gubernatorial Commissions 269
4. The Spread of Anti-Semitism 276
5. The Pogrom at Warsaw 280
XXIII. NEW MEASURES OF OPPRESSION AND PUBLIC PROTESTS.
1. The Despair of Russian Jewry 284
2. The Voice of England and America 287
3. The Problem of Emigration and the Pogrom at Balta 297
4. The Conference of Jewish Notables at St. Petersburg 304
XXIV. LEGISLATIVE POGROMS.
1. The "Temporary Rules" of May 3, 1882 309
2. Abandonment of the Pogrom Policy 312
3. Disabilities and Emigration 318
XXV. INNER UPHEAVALS.
1. Disillusionment of the Intelligenzia and the National
Revival 324
2. Pinsker's "Autoemancipation" 330
3. Miscarried Religious Reforms 333
XXVI. INCREASED JEWISH DISABILITIES.
1. The Pahlen Commission and New Schemes of Oppression 336
2. Jewish Disabilities Outside the Pale 342
3. Restrictions in Education and in the Legal Profession 348
4. Discrimination in Military Service 354
XXVII. RUSSIAN REACTION AND JEWISH EMIGRATION.
1. Aftermath of the Pogrom Policy 358
2. The Conclusions of the Pahlen Commission 362
3. The Triumph of Reaction 369
4. American and Palestinian Emigration 373
XXVIII. JUDAEOPHOBIA TRIUMPHANT.
1. Intensified Reaction 378
2. Continued Harassing 382
3. The Guildhall Meeting in London 388
4. The Protest of America 394
XXIX. THE EXPULSION FROM MOSCOW.
1. Preparing the Blow 399
2. The Horrors of Expulsion 401
3. Effect of Protests 407
4. Pogrom Interludes 411
XXX. BARON HIRSCH'S EMIGRATION SCHEME AND UNRELIEVED SUFFERING.
1. Negotiations with the Russian Government 434
2. The Jewish Colonisation Association and Collapse of the Argentinian
Scheme 419
3. Continued Humiliations and Death of Alexander III. 423
CHAPTER XIII
THE MILITARY DESPOTISM OF NICHOLAS I.
1. MILITARY SERVICE AS A MEANS OF DE-JUDAIZATION
The era of Nicholas I. was typically inaugurated by the bloody
suppression of the Decembrists and their constitutional demands, [1]
proving as it subsequently did one continuous triumph of military
despotism over the liberal movements of the age. As for the emancipation
of the Jews, it was entirely unthinkable in an empire which had become
Europe's bulwark against the inroads of revolutionary or even moderately
liberal tendencies. The new despotic regime, overflowing with aggressive
energy, was bound to create, after its likeness, a novel method of
dealing with the Jewish problem. Such a method was contrived by the iron
will of the Russian autocrat.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 410, n. 1.]
Nicholas I., who was originally intended for a military career, was
placed on the Russian throne by a whim of fate.[1] Prior to his
accession, Nicholas had shown no interest in the Jewish problem. The
Jewish masses had flitted across his vision but once--in 1816--when,
still a young man, he traveled through Russia for his education. The
impression produced upon him by this strange people is recorded by the
then grand duke in his diary in a manner fully coincident with the
official views of the Government:
[Footnote 1: After the death of Alexander I. the Russian crown fell to
his eldest brother Constantine, military commander of Poland.
Accordingly, Constantine was proclaimed emperor, and was recognized as
such by Nicholas. Constantine, however, who had secretly abdicated some
time previously, insisted on resigning, and Nicholas became Tzar.]
The ruin of the peasants of these provinces [1] are the Zhyds. [2] As
property-holders they are here second in importance to the landed
nobility. By their commercial pursuits they drain the strength of
the hapless White Russian people.... They are everything here:
merchants, contractors, saloon-keepers, mill-owners, ferry-holders,
artisans.... They are regular leeches, and suck these unfortunate
governments [3] to the point of exhaustion. It is a matter of
surprise that in 1812 they displayed exemplary loyalty to us and
assisted us wherever they could at the risk of their lives.
[Footnote 1: Nicholas is speaking of White Russia. Compare Vol. I, pp.
329 and 406.]
[Footnote 2: See on this term Vol. I, p. 320, n. 2.]
[Footnote 3: See on this term Vol. I, p. 308, n. 1.]
The characterization of merchants, artisans, mill-owners, and
ferry-holders as "leeches" could only spring from a conception which
looked upon the Jews as transient foreigners, who, by pursuing any line
of endeavor, could only do so at the expense of the natives and thus
abused the hospitality offered to them. No wonder then that the future
Tzar was puzzled by the display of patriotic sentiments on the part of
the Jewish population at the fatal juncture in the history of Russia.
This inimical view of the Jewish people was retained by Nicholas when he
became the master of Russian-Jewish destinies. He regarded the Jews as
an "injurious element," which had no place in a Slavonic Greek-Orthodox
monarchy, and which therefore ought to be combated. The Jews must be
rendered innocuous, must be "corrected" and curbed by such energetic
military methods as are in keeping with a form of government based upon
the principles of stern tutelage and discipline. As a result of these
considerations, a singular scheme was gradually maturing in the mind of
the Tzar: to detach the Jews from Judaism by impressing them into a
military service of a wholly exceptional character.
The plan of introducing personal military service, instead of the
hitherto customary exemption tax, [1] had engaged the attention of the
Russian Government towards the end of Alexander I's reign, and had
caused a great deal of alarm among the Jewish communities. Nicholas I.
was now resolved to carry this plan into effect. Not satisfied with
imposing a civil obligation upon a people deprived of civil rights, the
Tzar desired to use the Russian military service, a service marked by
most extraordinary features, as an educational and disciplinary agency
for his Jewish subjects: the barrack was to serve as a school, or rather
as a factory, for producing a new generation of de-Judaized Jews, who
were completely Russified, and, if possible, Christianized.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 318.]
The extension of the term of military service, marked by the ferocious
discipline of that age, to a period of twenty-five years, the enrolment
of immature lads or practically boys, their prolonged separation from a
Jewish environment, and finally the employment of such methods as were
likely to produce an immediate effect upon the recruits in the desired
direction--all this was deemed an infallible means of dissolving Russian
Jewry within the dominant nation, nay, within the dominant Church. It
was a direct and simplified scheme which seemed to lead in a straight
line to the goal. But had the ruling spheres of St. Petersburg known the
history of the Jewish people, they might have realized that the
annihilation of Judaism had in past ages been attempted more than once
by other, no less forcible, means and that the attempt had always proved
a failure.
In the very first year of the new reign, the plan of transforming the
Jews by "military" methods was firmly settled in the emperor's mind. In
1826 Nichola instructed his ministers to draft a special statute of
military service for the Jews, departing in some respects from the
general law. In view of the fact that the new military reform was
intended to include the Western region [1], which was under the military
command of the Tzar's brother. Grand Duke Constantine [2], the draft was
sent to him to Warsaw for further suggestions and approval, and was in
turn transmitted by the grand duke to Senator Nicholas Novosiltzev, his
co-regent [3], for investigation and report. As an experienced statesman,
who had familiarized himself during his administrative activity with the
Jewish conditions obtaining in the Western region, Novosiltzev realized
the grave risks involved in the imperial scheme. In a memorandum
submitted by him to the grand duke, he argued convincingly that the
sudden imposition of military service upon the Jews was bound to cause
an undesirable agitation among them, and that they should, on the
contrary, be slowly "prepared for such a radical transformation."
[Footnote 1: The official designation for the territories of Western
Russia which were formerly a part of the Polish Empire.]
[Footnote 2: Constantine was appointed by his brother Alexander I,
Commander-in-chief of the Polish army after the restoration of Poland in
1815. He remained in this post until his death in 1831. See also above,
p. 13, n. 2.]
[Footnote 3: He was the imperial Russian Commissary in Warsaw, and was
practically in control of the affairs in Poland. See below, p. 92 et
seq.]
Novosiltzev was evidently well informed about the state of mind of the
Jewish masses. No sooner had the rumor of the proposed ukase reached the
Pale of Settlement than the Jews were seized by a tremendous excitement.
It must be borne in mind that the Jewish population of Western Russia
had but recently been incorporated into the Russian Empire. Clinging
with patriarchal devotion to their religion, estranged from the Russian
people, and kept, moreover, in a state of civil rightlessness, the Jews
of that region could not be reasonably expected to gloat over the
prospect of a military service of twenty-five years' duration, which was
bound to alienate their sons from their ancestral faith, detach them
from their native tongue, their habits and customs of life, and throw
them into a strange, and often hostile, environment. The ultimate aim of
the project, which, imbedded in the mind of its originators, seemed
safely hidden from the eye of publicity, was quickly sensed by the
delicate national instinct, and the soul of the people was stirred to
its depths. Public-minded Jews strained every nerve to avert the
calamity. Jewish representatives journeyed to St. Petersburg and Warsaw
to plead the cause of their brethren. Negotiations were entered into
with dignitaries of high rank and with men of influence in the world of
officialdom. Rumor had it that immense bribes had been offered to
Novosiltzev and several high officials in St. Petersburg for the purpose
of receiving their co-operation. But even the intercession of leading
dignitaries was powerless to change the will of the Tzar. He chafed
under the red-tape formalities which obstructed the realization of his
favorite scheme. Without waiting for the transmission of Novosiltzev's
memorandum, the Tzar directed the Minister of the Interior and the Chief
of the General Staff to submit to him for signature an ukase imposing
military service upon the Jews. The fatal enactment was signed on August
26, 1827.
2. The Recruiting Ukase of 1827 and Juvenile Conscription
The ukase announces the desire of the Government "to equalize military
duty for all estates," without, be it noted, equalizing them in their
rights. It further expresses the conviction that "the training and
accomplishments, acquired by the Jews during their military service,
will, on their return home after the completion of the number of years
fixed by law (fully a quarter of a century!), be communicated to their
families and make for greater usefulness and higher efficiency in their
economic life and in the management of their affairs."
However, the "Statute of Conscription and Military Service," subjoined
to the ukase, was a lurid illustration of a tendency utterly at variance
with the desire "to equalize military duty." Had the Russian Government
been genuinely desirous of rendering military duty uniform for all
estates, there would have been no need of issuing separately for the
Jews a huge enactment of ninety-five clauses, with supplementary
"instructions," consisting of sixty-two clauses, for the guidance of the
civil and military authorities. All that was necessary was to declare
that the general military statute applied also to the Jews. Instead, the
reverse stipulation is made: "The general laws and institutions are not
valid in the case of the Jews" when at variance with the special statute
(Clause 3).
The discriminating character of Jewish conscription looms particularly
large in the central portion of the statute. Jewish families were
stricken with terror on reading the eighth clause of the statute
prescribing that "the Jewish conscripts presented by the [Jewish]
communes shall be between the ages of twelve and twenty-five." This
provision was supplemented by Clause 74: "Jewish minors, i.e., below the
age of eighteen, shall be placed in preparatory establishments for
military training."
True, the institution of minor recruits, called _cantonists_, [1] existed
also for Christians. But in their case it was confined to the children
of soldiers in active service, by virtue of the principle laid down by
Arakcheyev [2] that children born of soldiers were the property of the
Military Department, whereas the conscription of Jewish minors was to be
absolute and to apply to all Jewish families without discrimination. To
make things worse, the law demanded that the years of preparatory
training should not be included in the term of active service, the
latter to start only with the age of eighteen (Clause 90); in other
words, the Jewish cantonists were compelled to serve an additional term
of six years over and above the obligatory twenty-five years. Moreover,
at the examination of Jewish conscripts, all that was demanded for their
enlistment was "that they be free from any disease or defect
incompatible with military service, but the other qualifications
required by the general rules shall be left out of consideration"
(Clause 10).
[Footnote 1: From _Canton_, a word applied in Prussia in the eighteenth
century to a recruiting district. In Russia, beginning with 1805, the term
"cantonists" is applied to children born of soldiers and therefore liable
to conscription.]
[Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 395, n. 1.]
The duty of enlisting the recruits was imposed upon the Jewish communes,
or Kahals, which were to elect for that purpose between three and six
executive officers, or "trustees," in every city. The community as such
was held responsible for the supply of a given number of recruits from
its own midst. It was authorized to draft into military service any Jew
guilty "of irregularity in the payment of taxes, of vagrancy, and other
misdemeanors." In case the required number of recruits was not
forthcoming within a given term, the authorities were empowered to
obtain them from the derelict community "by way of execution." [1] Any
irregularity on the part of the recruiting "trustees" was to be punished
by the imposition of fines or even by sending them into the army.
[Footnote 1: The term "execution" (_ekzekutzia_) is used in Russian to
designate a writ empowering an officer to carry a judgment into effect,
in other words, to resort to forcible seizure.]
The following categories of Jews were exempted from military duty:
merchants holding membership in guilds, artisans affiliated with
trade-unions, mechanics in factories, agricultural colonists, rabbis,
and the Jews, few and far between at that time, who had graduated from a
Russian educational institution. Those exempted from military service in
kind were required to pay "recruiting money," one thousand rubles for
each recruit. The general law providing that a regular recruit could
offer as his substitute a "volunteer" was extended to the Jews, with the
proviso that the volunteer must also be a Jew.
The "Instructions" to the civil authorities, appended to the statute,
specify the formalities to be followed both at the recruiting stations
and in administering the oath of allegiance to the conscripts in the
synagogues. The latter ceremony was to be marked by gloomy solemnity.
The recruit was to be arrayed in his prayer-shawl (Tallith) and shroud
(Kittel). With his philacteries wound around his arm, he should be
placed before the Ark and, amidst burning candles and to the
accompaniment of shofar blasts, made to recite a lengthy awe-inspiring
oath. The "Instructions" to the military authorities accompanying the
statute prescribe that every batch of Jewish conscripts "shall be
entrusted to a special officer to be watched over, prior to their
departure for their places of destination, and shall be kept apart from
the other recruits." Both in the places of conscription and on the
journey the Jewish recruits were to be quartered exclusively in the
homes of Christian residents.
The promulgated "military constitution" surpassed the very worst
apprehension of the Jews. All were staggered by this sudden blow, which
descended crushingly upon the mode of life, the time-honored traditions,
and the religious ideals of the Jewish people. The Jewish family nests
became astir, trembling for their fledglings. Barely a month after the
publication of the military statute, the central Government in St.
Petersburg was startled by the report that the Volhynian town of
Old-Constantine had been the scene of "mutiny and disorders among the
Jews" on the occasion of the promulgation of the ukase. Benckendorff,
the Chief of the Gendarmerie, [1] conveyed this information to the Tzar,
who thereupon gave orders that "in all similar cases the culprits be
court-martialed". Evidently, the St. Petersburg authorities apprehended a
whole series of Jewish mutinies, as a result of the dreadful ukase, and
they were ready with extraordinary measures for the emergency.
[Footnote 1: Since 1827 the Gendarmerie served as the executive organ of
the political police, or of the so-called Third Section, dreaded
throughout Russia on account of its relentless cruelty in suppressing
the slightest manifestation of liberal thought. The Third Section was
nominally abolished in 1880.]
However, their apprehensions were unfounded. Apart from the incident
referred to, there were no cases of open rebellion against the
authorities. As a matter of fact, even in Old-Constantine, the "mutiny"
was of a nature little calculated to be dealt with by a court-martial.
According to the local tradition, the Jewish residents, Hasidim almost
to a man, were so profoundly stirred by the imperial ukase that they
assembled in the synagogues, fasting and praying, and finally resolved
to adopt "energetic" measures. A petition reciting their grievances
against the Tzar was framed in due form and placed in the hands of a
member of the community who had just died, with the request that the
deceased present it to the Almighty, the God of Israel. This childlike
appeal to the heavenly King from the action of an earthly sovereign and
the emotional scenes accompanying it were interpreted by the Russian
authorities as "mutiny." Under the patriarchal conditions of Jewish life
prevailing at that time a political protest was a matter of
impossibility. The only medium through which the Jews could give vent to
their burning national sorrow was a religious demonstration within the
walls of the synagogue.
3. MILITARY MARTYRDOM
The ways and means by which the provisions of the military statute were
carried into effect during the reign of Nicholas I. we do not learn from
official documents, which seem to have drawn a veil over this dismal
strip of the past. Our information is derived from sources far more
communicative and nearer to truth--the traditions current among the
people. Owing to the fact that every Jewish community, at the mutual
responsibility of all its members, was compelled by law to supply a
definite number of recruits, and that no one was willing to become a
soldier of his own volition, the Kahal administration and the recruiting
"trustees," who had to answer to the authorities for any shortage in
recruits, were practically forced to become a sort of police agents,
whose function it was to "capture" the necessary quota of recruits.
Prior to every military conscription, the victims marked for prey, the
young men and boys of the burgher class, [1] very generally took to
flight, hiding in distant cities, outside the zone of their Kahals, or
in forests and ravines. A popular song in Yiddish refers to these
conditions in the following words;
[Footnote 1: Compare on the status of the burgher in Russian law Vol. I,
p. 308, n. 2. Nearly all the higher estates were exempt.]
_Der Ukas is arobgekumen auf judische Selner,
Seinen mir sich zulofen in die puste Wälder.....
In alle puste Wälder seinen mir zulofen,
In puste Gruber seinen mir verlofen_..... Oi weih, oi weih!_....[1]
[Footnote 1:
When the ukase came down about Jewish soldiers,
We all dispersed over the lonesome forests;
Over the lonesome forests did we disperse,
In lonesome pits did we hide ourselves.... Woe me, Woe!]
The recruiting agents hired by the Kahal or its "trustees," who received
the nickname "hunters" or "captors," [1] hunted down the fugitives,
trailing them everywhere and capturing them for the purpose of making up
the shortage. In default of a sufficient number of adults, little
children, who were easier "catch," were seized, often enough in
violation of the provision of the law. Even boys under the required age
of twelve, sometimes no more than eight years old, were caught and
offered as conscripts at the recruiting stations, their age being
misstated. [2] The agents perpetrated incredible cruelties. Houses were
raided during the night, and children were torn from the arms of their
mothers, or lured away and kidnapped.
[Footnote 1: More literally "catchers"; in Yiddish _Khappers_.]
[Footnote 2: This was the more easy, as regular birth-registers were not
yet in existence.]
After being captured, the Jewish conscripts were sent into the
recruiting jail where they were kept in confinement until their
examination at the recruiting station. The enlisted minors were turned
over to a special officer to be dispatched to their places of
destination, mostly in the Eastern provinces including Siberia. For it
must be noted that the cantonists were stationed almost to a man in the
outlying Russian governments, where they could be brought up at a safe
distance from all Jewish influences. The unfortunate victims who were
drafted into the army and deported to these far-off regions were mourned
by their relatives as dead. During the autumnal season, when the
recruits were drafted and deported, the streets of the Jewish towns
resounded with moans. The juvenile cantonists were packed into wagons
like so many sheep and carried off in batches under a military
convoy. When they took leave of their dear ones it was for a quarter of a
century; in the case of children it was for a longer term, too often it
was good-bye for life.
How these unfortunate youngsters were driven to their places of
destination we learn from the description of Alexander Hertzen, [1] who
chanced to meet a batch of Jewish cantonists on his involuntary journey
through Vyatka, in 1835. At one of the post stations in some
God-forsaken village of the Vyatka government he met the escorting
officer. The following dialogue ensued between the two:
[Footnote 1: Hertzen, a famous Russian writer (d. 1870), was exiled to the
government of Vyatka for propagating liberal doctrines.]
"Whom do you carry and to what place?"
"Well, sir, you see, they got together a bunch of these accursed
Jewish youngsters between the age of eight and nine. I suppose they
are meant for the fleet, but how should I know? At first the command
was to drive them to Perm. Now there is a change. We are told to
drive them to Kazan. I have had them on my hands for a hundred
versts or thereabouts. The officer that turned them over to me told
me they were an awful nuisance. A third of them remained on the road
(at this the officer pointed with his finger to the ground). Half of
them will not get to their destination," he added.
"Epidemics, I suppose?", I inquired, stirred to the very core.
"No, not exactly epidemics; but they just fall like flies. Well, you
know, these Jewish boys are so puny and delicate. They can't stand
mixing dirt for ten hours, with dry biscuits to live on. Again
everywhere strange folks, no father, no mother, no caresses. Well
then, you just hear a cough and the youngster is dead. Hello,
corporal, get out the small fry!"
The little ones were assembled and arrayed in a military line. It
was one of the most terrible spectacles I have ever witnessed. Poor,
poor children! The boys of twelve or thirteen managed somehow to
stand up, but the little ones of eight and ten.... No brush, however
black, could convey the terror of this scene on the canvas.
Pale, worn out, with scared looks, this is the way they stood in
their uncomfortable, rough soldier uniforms, with their starched,
turned-up collars, fixing an inexpressibly helpless and pitiful gaze
upon the garrisoned soldiers, who were handling them rudely. White
lips, blue lines under the eyes betokened either fever or cold. And
these poor children, without care, without a caress, exposed to the
wind which blows unhindered from the Arctic Ocean, were marching to
their death. I seized the officer's hand, and, with the words: "Take
good care of them! ", threw myself into my carriage. I felt like
sobbing, and I knew I could not master myself....
The great Russian writer saw the Jewish cantonists on the road, but he
knew nothing of what happened to them later on, in the recesses of the
barracks into which they were driven. This terrible secret was revealed
to the world at a later period by the few survivors among these martyred
Jewish children.
Having arrived at their destination, the juvenile conscripts were put
into the cantonist battalions. The "preparation for military service"
began with their religious re-education at the hands of sergeants and
corporals. No means was, neglected so long as it bade fair to bring the
children to the baptismal font. The authorities refrained from giving
formal instructions, leaving everything to the zeal of the officers who
knew the wishes of their superiors. The children were first sent for
spiritual admonition to the local Greek-Orthodox priests, whose efforts,
however, proved fruitless in nearly every case. They were then taken in
hand by the sergeants and corporals who adopted military methods of
persuasion.
These brutal soldiers invented all kinds of tortures. A favorite
procedure was to make the cantonists get down on their knees in the
evening after all had gone to bed and to keep the sleepy children in
that position for hours. Those who agreed to be baptized were sent to
bed, those who refused were kept up the whole night till they dropped
from exhaustion. The children who continued to hold their own were
flogged and, under the guise of gymnastic exercises, subjected to all
kinds of tortures. Those that refused to eat pork or the customary
cabbage soup prepared with lard were beaten and left to starve. Others
were fed on salted fish and then forbidden to drink, until the little
ones, tormented by thirst, agreed to embrace Christianity.
The majority of these children, unable to endure the tortures inflicted
on them, saved themselves by baptism. But many cantonists, particularly
those of a maturer age (between fifteen and eighteen), bore their
martyrdom with heroic patience. Beaten almost into senselessness, their
bodies striped by lashes, tormented to the point of exhaustion by
hunger, thirst, and sleeplessness, the lads declared again and again
that they would not betray the faith of their fathers. Most of these
obstinate youths were carried from the barracks into the military
hospitals to be released by a kind death. Only a few remained alive.
Alongside of this passive heroism there were cases of demonstrative
martyrdom. One such incident has survived in the popular memory. The
story goes that during a military parade [1] in the city of Kazan the
battalion chief drew up all the Jewish cantonists on the banks of the
river, where the Greek-Orthodox priests were standing in their
vestments, and all was ready for the baptismal ceremony. At the command
to jump into the water, the boys answered in military fashion "Aye,
aye!" Whereupon they dived under and disappeared. When they were dragged
out, they were dead. In most cases, however, these little martyrs
suffered and died noiselessly, in the gloom of the guard-houses,
barracks, and military hospitals. They strewed with their tiny bodies
the roads that led into the outlying regions of the Empire, and those
that managed to get there were fading away slowly in the barracks which
had been turned into inquisitorial dungeons. This martyrdom of children,
set in a military environment, represents a singular phenomenon even in
the extensive annals of Jewish martyrology.
[Footnote 1: A variant of the legend speaks of a review by the Tzar
himself.]
Such was the lot of the juvenile cantonists. As for the adult recruits,
who were drafted into the army at the normal age of conscription
(18-25), their conversion to Christianity was not pursued by the same
direct methods, but their fate was not a whit less tragic from the
moment of their capture till the end of their grievous twenty-five
years' service. Youths, who had no knowledge of the Russian language,
were torn away from the heder or yeshibah, often from wife and children.
In consequence of the early marriages then in vogue, most youths at the
age of eighteen were married. The impending separation for a quarter of
a century, added to the danger of the soldier's apostasy or death in
far-off regions, often disrupted the family ties. Many recruits, before
entering upon their military career, gave their wives a divorce so as
not to doom them to perpetual widowhood.
At the end of 1834 rumors began to spread among the Jewish masses
concerning a law which was about to be issued forbidding early marriages
but exempting from conscription those married prior to the promulgation
of the law. A panic ensued. Everywhere feverish haste was displayed in
marrying off boys from ten to fifteen years old to girls of an equally
tender age. Within a few months there appeared in every city hundreds
and thousands of such couples, whose marital relations were often
confined to playing with nuts or bones. The misunderstanding which had
caused this senseless matrimonial panic or _beholoh,_[1] as it was
afterwards popularly called, was cleared up by the publication, on April
13, 1835, of the new "Statute on the Jews." To be sure, the new law
contained a clause forbidding marriages before the age of eighteen, but
it offered no privileges for those already married, so that the only
result of the _beholoh_ was to increase the number of families robbed by
conscription of their heads and supporters.
[Footnote 1: A Hebrew word, also used in Yiddish, meaning _fright,
panic_.]
The years of military service were spent by the grown-up Jewish soldiers
amidst extraordinary hardships. They were beaten and ridiculed because
of their inability to express themselves in Russian, their refusal to
eat _trefa_, and their general lack of adaptation to the strange
environment and to the military mode of life. And even when this process
of adaptation was finally accomplished, the Jewish soldier was never
promoted beyond the position of a non-commissioned under-officer,
baptism being the inevitable stepping-stone to a higher rank. True, the
Statute on Military Service promised those Jewish soldiers who had
completed their term in the army with distinction admission to the civil
service, but the promise remained on paper so long as the candidates
were loyal to Judaism. On the contrary, the Jews who had completed their
military service and had in most cases become invalids were not even
allowed to spend the rest of their lives in the localities outside the
Pale, in which they had been stationed as soldiers. Only at a later
period, during the reign of Alexander II., was this right accorded to
the "Nicholas soldiers" [1] and their descendants.
[Footnote 1: In Russian, _Nikolayevskiye soldaty_, i.e., those that had
served in the army during the reign of Nicholas I.]
The full weight of conscription fell upon the poorest classes of the
Jewish population, the so-called burgher estate, [1] consisting of petty
artisans and those impoverished tradesmen who could not afford to enrol
in the mercantile guilds, though there are cases on record where poor
Jews begged from door to door to collect a sufficient sum of money for a
guild certificate in order to save their children from military service.
The more or less well-to-do were exempted from conscription either by
virtue of their mercantile status or because of their connections with
the Kahal leaders who had the power of selecting the victims.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 23, n. 1.]
4. THE POLICY OF EXPULSIONS
In all lands of Western Europe the introduction of personal military
service for the Jews was either accompanied or preceded by their
emancipation. At all events, it was followed by some mitigation of their
disabilities, serving, so to speak, as an earnest of the grant of equal
rights. Even in clerical Austria, the imposition of military duty upon
the Jews was preceded by the _Toleranz Patent_, this would-be Act of
Emancipation. [1]
[Footnote 1: Military service was imposed upon the Jews of Austria by
the law of 1787. Several years previously, on January 2, 1782, Emperor
Joseph II. had issued his famous Toleration Act, removing a number of
Jewish disabilities and opening the way to their assimilation with the
environment. Nevertheless, most of the former restrictions remained in
force.]
In Russia the very reverse took place. The introduction of military
conscription of a most aggravating kind and the unspeakable cruelties
attending its practical execution were followed, in the case of the
Jews, by an unprecedented recrudescence of legislative discrimination
and a monstrous increase of their disabilities. The Jews were lashed
with a double knout, a military and a civil. In the same ill-fated year
which saw the promulgation of the conscription statute, barely three
months after it had received the imperial sanction, while the moans of
the Jews, fasting and praying to God to deliver them from the calamity,
were still echoing in the synagogues, two new ukases were issued, both
signed on December 2, 1827--the one decreeing the transfer of the Jews
from all villages and village inns in the government of Grodno into the
towns and townlets, the other ordering the banishment of all Jewish
residents from the city of Kiev.
The expulsion from the Grodno villages was the continuation of the
policy of the _rural_ liquidation of Jewry, inaugurated in 1823 in White
Russia. [1] The Grodno province was merely meant to serve as a starting
point. Grand Duke Constantine, [2] who had brought up the question, was
ordered "_at first_ to carry out the expulsion in the government of
Grodno alone," and to postpone for a later occasion the application of
the same measure to the other "governments entrusted to his command."
Simultaneously considerable foresight was displayed in instructing the
grand duke to wait with the expulsion of the Jews "until the conclusion
of the military conscription going on at present." Evidently there was
some fear of disorders and complications. It was thought wiser to seize
the children for the army first and then to expel the parents--to get
hold of the young birds and then to destroy the nest.
[Footnote 1: It may be remarked here that the principal enactments of
that period, down to 1835, were, drafted in their preliminary stage by
the "Jewish Committee" established in 1823. See Vol. I, p. 407 _et
seq._]
[Footnote 2: Commander-in-Chief of the former Polish provinces. See p.
16, n. 2.]
The expulsion from Kiev was of a different order. It marked the
beginning of a new system, the narrowing down of the _urban_ area
allotted to the Jews within the Pale of Settlement. Since 1794 [1] the
Jews had been allowed to settle in Kiev freely. They had formed there,
with official sanction, an important community and had vastly developed
commerce and industry. Suddenly, however, the Government discovered that
"their presence is detrimental to the industry of this city and to the
exchequer in general, and is, moreover, at variance with the rights and
privileges conferred at different periods upon the city of Kiev." The
discovery was followed by a grim rescript from St. Petersburg,
forbidding not only the further settlement of Jews in Kiev but also
prescribing that even those settled there long ago should leave the city
within one year, those owning immovable property within two years.
Henceforward only the temporary sojourn of Jews, for a period not
exceeding six months, was to be permitted and to be limited, moreover,
to merchants of the first two guilds who arrive "in connection with
contracts and fairs" or to attend to public bids and deliveries.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 317.]
In 1829 the whip of expulsion cracked over the backs of the Jews
dwelling on the shores of the Baltic and the Black Sea. In Courland and
Livonia measures were taken "looking to the reduction of the number of
Jews" which had been considerably swelled by the influx of
"newcomers"--of Jews not born in those provinces and therefore having no
right to settle there. The Tzar endorsed the proposal of the "Jewish
Committee" to transfer from Courland all Jews not born there into the
cities in which their birth was registered. Those not yet registered in
a municipality outside the province were granted a half-year's respite
for that purpose. If within the prescribed term they failed to attend to
their registration, they were to be sent to the army, or, in case of
unfitness for military service, deported to Siberia.
In the same year an imperial ukase declared that "the residence of
civilian Jews in the cities of Sevastopol and Nicholayev was
inconvenient and injurious," in view of the military and naval
importance of these places, and therefore decreed the expulsion of their
Jewish residents: those owning real property within two years, the
others within one year. By a new ukase issued in 1830 the Jews were
expelled from the villages and hamlets of the government of Kiev. Thus
were human beings hurled about from village to town, from city to city,
from province to province, with no more concern than might be displayed
in the transportation of cattle.
This process of "mobilization" had reached its climax when the Polish
insurrection of 1830-1831 broke out, affecting the whole Western
region. [1] Fearing lest the persecuted Jews might be driven into the
arms of the Poles, the Government decided on a strategic retreat. In
February, 1831, in consequence of the representations of the local
military commander, who urged the Government "to take into consideration
the present political circumstances, in which they (the Jews) may
occasionally prove useful," the final expulsion of the Jews from Kiev
was postponed for three years. At the end of the three years, the
governor of Kiev made similar representations to St. Petersburg,
emphasizing the desirability of allowing the Jews to remain in the city,
even though it might become necessary to segregate them in a special
quarter, "this (i.e., their remaining in the city) being found useful
also in this respect that, on account of their temperate and simple
habits of life, they are in a position to sell their goods considerably
cheaper, whereas in the case of their expulsion many articles and
manufactures will rise in price." Nicholas I. rejected this plea, and
only agreed to postpone the expulsion until February, 1835, for the
reason that the new "Statute Concerning the Jews," then in preparation,
which was to define the general legal status of Russian Jewry, was
expected to be ready by that time. Similar short reprieves were granted
to the Jews about to be exiled from Nicholayev, from the villages of the
government of Kiev, and from other places.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 16, n. 1.]
5. THE CODIFICATION OF JEWISH DISABILITIES
No sooner had the conscription ukase been issued than the bureaucrats of
St. Petersburg began to apply themselves in the hidden recesses of their
chancelleries to a new civil code for the Jews, which was to supersede
the antiquated Statute of 1804. The work passed through a number of
departments. The projected enactment was framed by the "Jewish
Committee," which had been established in 1823 for the purpose of
bringing about "a reduction of the number of Jews in the monarchy," and
consisted of cabinet ministers and the chiefs of departments. [1]
Originally the department chiefs had elaborated a draft covering 1230
clauses, a gigantic code of disabilities; evidently founded on the
principle that in the case of Jews everything is forbidden which, is not
permitted by special legislation. The dimensions of the draft were such
that even the Government was appalled and decided to turn it over to the
ministerial members of the Committee.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 407 et seq.]
Modified in shape and reduced in size, the code was submitted in 1834 to
the Department of Laws forming part of the Council of State, and after
careful discussion by the Department of Laws was brought up at the
plenary sessions of the Council. The "ministerial" draft, though smaller
in bulk, was marked by such severity that the Department of Laws found
it necessary to tone it down. The ministers, with the exception of the
Minister of Finance, had proposed to transfer all Jews, within a period
of three years, from the villages to the towns and townlets. The
Department of Laws considered this measure too risky, pointing to the
White Russian expulsion of 1823, which had failed to produce the
expected results, and, "while it has ruined the Jews, it does not in the
least seem to have improved the condition of the villagers." [1] The
plenum of the Council agreed with the Department of Laws that "the
proposed expulsion of the Jews (from the villages), being extremely
difficult of execution and being of problematic benefit, should be
eliminated from the Statute and should be stopped even there where it
had been decreed but not carried into effect."
[Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 407.]
The report was laid before the Tzar, who attached to it the following
"resolution": [1] "Where this measure (of expulsion) has been started, it
is inconvenient to repeal it; but it shall be postponed for the time
being in the governments in which no steps towards it have as yet been
made." For a number of years this "resolution" hung like the sword of
Damocles over the heads of rural Jewry.
[Footnote 1: See on the meaning of the term "resolution" Vol. I, p. 253,
n. 1.]
Less yielding was the Tzar's attitude on the question of the partial
enlargement of the Pale of Settlement. The Department of Laws had
suggested to grant the merchants of the first guild the right of
residence in the Russian interior in the interest of the exchequer and
big business. At the general meeting of the Council of State only a
minority (thirteen) voted for the proposal. The majority (twenty-two)
argued that they had no right to violate the time-honored tradition,
"dating from the time of Peter the Great," which bars the Jews from the
Russian interior; that to admit them "would produce a very unpleasant
impression upon our people, which, on account of its religious notions
and its general estimate of the moral peculiarities of the Jews, has
become accustomed to keep aloof from them and to despise them;" that the
countries of Western Europe, which had accorded fall citizenship to the
Jews, "cannot serve as an example for Russia, partly because of the
incomparably larger number of Jews living here, partly because our
Government and people, with all their well-known tolerance, are yet far
from that indifference with which certain other nations look upon
religious matters." After marking his approval of the last words by the
marginal exclamation "Thank God!", the Tzar disposed of the whole matter
in the following brief resolution: "This question has been determined by
Peter the Great. I dare not change it; I completely share the opinion of
the twenty-two members."
While on this occasion the Tzar endorsed the opinion of the Council as
represented by its majority, in cases in which it proved favorable to
the Jews he did not hesitate to set it aside. Thus the Department of
Laws, as part of the Council of State, and, following in its wake, the
Council itself had timidly suggested to Nicholas to comply in part with
the plea of the Jews for a mitigation of the rigors of conscription, [1]
but the imperial verdict read: "To be left as heretofore." Nicholas
remained equally firm on the question of the expulsions from Kiev. The
Department of Laws, guided by the previously-mentioned representations
of the local governor, favored the postponement of the expulsion, and
fourteen members of the plenary Council agreed with the suggestion of
the Department, and resolved to recommend it to the "benevolent
consideration of his Majesty," in other words to request the Tzar to
revoke the baneful ukase. But fifteen, members rejected all such
propositions on the ground that, as far as that question was concerned,
the imperial will was unmistakable, the Tzar having decided the matter
in a sense unfavorable to the Jews. In a similar manner, numerous other
decisions of the Council of State were dictated not so much by inner
conviction as by fear of the clearly manifested imperial will, which no
one dared to cross.
[Footnote 1: The Kahal of Vilna, in a memorandum submitted in 1835,
pleaded for the abolition of the dreadful institution of cantonists, and
begged that the age limit of Jewish recruits be raised from 12-15 to
20-35.]
Under these circumstances, the entire draft of the statute passed
through the Council of State. In its session of March 28, 1835, the
Council voted to submit it to the emperor for his signature. On this
occasion a solitary and belated voice was raised in defence of the Jews,
without evoking an echo. A member of the Council, Admiral Greig, who was
brave enough to swim against the current, submitted a "special opinion"
on the proposed statute, in which he advocated a number of alleviations
in the intolerable legal status of the Jews. Greig put the whole issue
in a nut-shell: "Are the Jews to be suffered in the country, or not?"
If they are, then we must abandon the system "of hampering them in their
actions and in their religious customs" and grant them at least "equal
liberty of commerce with the others," for in this case "we may
anticipate more good from their gratitude than from their hatred."
Should, however, the conclusion be reached that the Jews ought not to be
tolerated in Russia, then the only thing to be done is "to banish them
all without exception from the country into foreign lands." This might
be "more useful than to allow this estate to remain in the country and
to keep it in a position which is bound to arouse in them continual
dissatisfaction and resentment." It need scarcely be added that the
voice of the "queer" admiral found no hearing.
Nor did the Jewish people manage to get a hearing. Stunned by the
uninterrupted succession of blows and moved by the spirit of martyrdom,
Russian Jewry kept its peace during those dismal years. Yet, when the
news of an impending general regulation of the Jewish legal status began
to leak out, a section of Russian Jewry became astir. For to anticipate
a blow is more excruciating than to receive one, and it was quite
natural that an attempt should be made to stay the hand which was lifted
to strike. Towards the end of 1833 the Council of State received, as
part of the material bearing on the Jewish question, two memoranda, one
from the Kahal of Vilna, signed by six elders, and another from Litman
Feigin of Chernigov, well known in administrative circles as merchant
and public contractor.
The Kahal of Vilna declared that the repressive policy, pursued during
the last few years by the "Jewish Committee," had thrown a large part of
the Jewish people "into utmost disorder," and had made the Jews "shiver
and shudder at the thought that a general Jewish statute had been
drafted by the same Committee and had now been submitted to the Council
of State for revision." The petitioners go on to say that, weighed down
by a succession of cruel discriminations affecting not only their rights
but also their mode of discharging military service, the Jews would
succumb to utter despair, did they not repose their hopes in the
benevolence of the Tzar, who, on his recent trip through the Western
provinces, had expressed to the deputies of the Jewish communes his
imperial satisfaction with the loyalty to the throne displayed by the
Jews during the Polish insurrection of 1831. The Kahal of Vilna,
therefore, implored the Council of State "to turn its attention to this
unfortunate and maligned people" and to stop all further persecutions.
A more emphatic note of protest is sounded in the memorandum of Feigin.
By a string of references to the latest Government measures he
demonstrates the fact that "the Jewish people is hunted down, not
because of its moral qualities but because of its faith."
The Jews, faced by the new statute, have lost all hope for a better lot,
inasmuch as the Government has embarked upon this measure without having
solicited the explanations or justifications of this people, whereas,
according to common legal procedure, even an individual may not be
condemned without having been called upon to justify himself.
The rebuke had no effect. The Government preferred to render its verdict
_in absentia_, without listening to counsel for the defence and without
any safeguards of fair play. In line with this attitude, it also denied
the petition of the Vilna Kahal to be allowed "to send at least four
deputies to the capital as spokesmen of the entire Jewish people for the
purpose of submitting to the Government their explanations and
propositions concerning the reorganization of the Jews, after having
been presented with a draft of the statute." The final verdict was
pronounced in the spring of 1835, and in April the new "Statute
concerning the Jews" received the signature of the Tzar.
This "Charter of Disabilities," which was destined to operate for many
decades, represents a combination of the Russian "ground laws"
concerning the Jews and the restrictive by-laws issued after 1804. The
Pale of Settlement was now accurately defined: it consisted of Lithuania
[1] and the South-western provinces, [2] without any territorial
restrictions, White Russia [3] minus the Villages, Little Russia [4]
minus the crown hamlets, New Russia [5] minus Nicholayev and Sevastopol,
the government of Kiev minus the city of Kiev, the Baltic provinces for
the old settlers only, while the rural settlements on the entire
fifty-verst zone along the Western frontier were to be closed to
newcomers. As for the interior provinces, only temporary "furloughs"
(limited to six weeks and to be certified by gubernatorial passports)
were to be granted for the execution of judicial and commercial affairs,
with the proviso that the travellers should wear Russian instead of
Jewish dress. The merchants affiliated with the first and second guilds
were allowed, in addition, to visit the two capitals, [6] the sea-ports,
as well as the fairs of Nizhni-Novgorod, Kharkov, and other big fairs
for wholesale buying or selling. [7]
[Footnote 1: The present governments of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, and Minsk.]
[Footnote 2: The governments of Volhynia and Podolia.]
[Footnote 3: The governments of Vitebsk and Moghilev.]
[Footnote 4: The governments of Chernigov and Poltava.]
[Footnote 5: The governments of Kherson, Yekaterinoslav, Tavrida, and
Bessarabia.]
[Footnote 6: St. Petersburg and Moscow.]
[Footnote 7: The time-limit was six months for the merchants of the
first guild and three months for those of the second.]
The Jews were further forbidden to employ Christian domestics for
permanent employment. They could hire Christians for occasional services
only, on condition that the latter live in separate quarters. Marriages
at an earlier age than eighteen for the bridegroom and sixteen for the
bride were forbidden under the pain of imprisonment--a prohibition which
the defective registration of births and marriages then in vogue made it
easy to evade. The language to be employed by the Jews in their public
documents was to be Russian or any other local dialect, but "under no
circumstances the Hebrew language."
The function of the Kahal, according to the Statute, is to see to it
that the "instructions of the authorities" are carried out precisely and
that the state taxes and communal assessments are "correctly remitted."
The Kahal elders are to be elected by the community every three years
from among persons who can read and write Russian, subject to their
being ratified by the gubernatorial administration. At the same time the
Jews are entitled to participation in the municipal elections; those who
can read and write Russian are eligible as members of the town councils
and magistracies--the supplementary law of 1836 fixed the rate at
one-third, [1] excepting the city of Vilna where the Jews were entirely
excluded from municipal self-government.
[Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 368.]
Synagogues may not be built in the vicinity of churches. The Russian
schools of all grades are to be open to Jewish children, who "are not
compelled to change their religion" (Clause 106)--a welcome provision in
view of the compulsory methods which had then become habitual. The
coercive baptism of Jewish children was provided for in a separate
enactment, the Statute on Conscription, which is declared "to remain in
force." In this way the Statute of 1835 reduces itself to a codification
of the whole mass of the preceding anti-Jewish legislation. Its only
positive feature was that it put a stop to the expulsion from the
villages which had ruined the Jewish population during the years
1804-1830.
6. THE RUSSIAN CENSORSHIP AND CONVERSIONIST ENDEAVORS
With all its discriminations, the promulgation of this general statute
was far from checking the feverish activity of the Government. With
indefatigable zeal, its hands went on turning the legislative wheel and
squeezing ever tighter the already unbearable vise of Jewish life. The
slightest attempt to escape from its pressure was punished ruthlessly.
In 1838 the police of St. Petersburg discovered a group of Jews in the
capital "with expired passports," these Jews having extended their stay
there a little beyond the term fixed for Jewish travellers, and the Tzar
curtly decreed: "to be sent to serve in the penal companies of
Kronstadt." [1] In 1840 heavy fines were imposed upon the landed
proprietors in the Great Russian governments for "keeping over" Jews on
their estates.
[Footnote 1: A fortress in the vicinity of St Petersburg.]
Considerable attention was bestowed by the Government on placing the
spiritual life of the Jews under police supervision. In 1836 a
censorship campaign was launched against Hebrew literature. Hebrew
books, which were then almost exclusively of a religious nature, such as
prayer-books, Bible and Talmud editions, rabbinic, cabalistic, and
hasidic writings, were then issuing from the printing presses of Vilna,
Slavuta, [1] and other places, and were subject to a rigorous censorship
exercised by Christians or by Jewish converts. Practically every Jewish
home-library consisted of religious works of this type. The suspicions
of the Government were aroused by certain Jewish converts who had
insinuated that the foreign editions of these works and those that had
appeared in Russia itself prior to the establishment of a censorship
were of an "injurious" character. As a result, all Jewish home-libraries
were subjected to a search. Orders were given to deliver into the hands
of the local police, in the course of that year, all foreign Hebrew
prints as well as the uncensored editions, published at any previous
time in Russia, and to entrust their revision to "dependable" rabbis.
These rabbis were instructed to put their stamp on the books approved by
them and return the books not approved by them to the police for
transmission to the Ministry of the Interior. The regulation involved
the entire ancient Hebrew literature printed during the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, prior to the establishment of the
Russian censorship. In order to "facilitate the supervision" over new
publications or reprints from older editions, all Jewish printing
presses which existed at that time in various cities and towns were
ordered closed, and only those of Vilna and Kiev, [2] to which special
censors were attached, were allowed to remain.
[Footnote 1: A town in Volhynia.]
[Footnote 2: The printing-press of Kiev was subsequently transferred to
Zhitomir.]
As the Hebrew authors of antiquity or the Middle Ages did not fully
anticipate the requirements of the Russian censors, many classic works
were found to contain passages which were thought to be "at variance
with imperial enactments." By the ukase of 1836 all books of this kind,
circulating in tens of thousands of copies, had to be transported to St.
Petersburg under a police escort to await their final verdict. The
procedure, however, proved too cumbersome, and, in 1837, the emperor,
complying with the petitions of the governors, was graciously pleased to
command that all these books be "delivered to the flames on the spot."
This _auto-da-fé_ was to be witnessed by a member of the gubernatorial
administration and a special "dependable" official dispatched by the
governor for the sole purpose of making a report to the central
Government on every literary conflagration of this kind and forwarding
to the Ministry of the Interior one copy of each "annihilated" book.
But even this was not enough to satisfy the lust of the Russian
censorship. It was now suspected that even the "dependable" rabbis might
pass many a book as "harmless," though its contents were subversive of
the public weal. As a result, a new ukase was issued in 1841, placing
the rabbinical censors themselves under Government control. All
uncensored books, including those already passed as "harmless," were
ordered to be taken away from the private libraries and forwarded to the
censorship committees in Vilna and Kiev. The latter were instructed to
attach their seals to the approved books and "deliver to the flames" the
books condemned by them. Endless wagonloads of these confiscated books
could be seen moving towards Vilna and Kiev, and for many years
afterwards the literature of the "People of the Book," covering a period
of three milleniums, was still languishing in the gaol of censorship,
waiting to be saved from or to be sentenced to a fiery death by a
Russian official.
It is almost unnecessary to add that the primitive method of solving the
Jewish problem by means of conversion, was still the guiding principle
of the Government. The Russian legislation of that period teems with
regulations concerning apostasy. The surrender of the Synagogue to the
Church seemed merely a question of time. In reality, however, the
Government itself believed but half-heartedly in the sincerity of the
converted Jews. In 1827 the Tzar put down in his own handwriting the
following resolution: "It is to be strictly observed that the baptismal
ceremony shall take place unconditionally on a Sunday, and with all
possible publicity, so as to remove all suspicion of a pretended
adoption of Christianity." Subsequently, this watchfulness had to be
relaxed in the case of those "who avoid publicity in adopting
Christianity," more especially in the case of the cantonists, "who have
declared their willingness to embrace the orthodox faith"--under the
effect, we may add, of the tortures in the barracks. Sincerity under
these circumstances was out of the question, and, in 1831, the battalion
chaplains were authorized to baptize these helpless creatures, even
"without applying for permission to the ecclesiastical authorities."
The barrack missionaries were frequently successful among these
unfortunate military prisoners. In the imperial rescripts of that period
the characteristic expression "privates from among the Jews _remaining
in the above faith_" figures as a standing designation for that group of
refractory and incorrigible soldiers who disturbed the officially
pre-established harmony of epidemic conversions by remaining loyal to
Judaism. But among the "civilian" Jews, who had not been detached from
their Jewish environment, apostasy was extraordinarily rare, and law
after law was promulgated in vain, offering privileges to converts or
leniency to criminals who were ready to embrace the orthodox creed. [1]
[Footnote 1: Under Clause 157 of the Russian Penal Code of 1845, the
penalty of the law was softened, not only in degree but also in kind,
for those criminals who had embraced the Greek-Orthodox faith during the
investigation or trial.]