The Jews and revolution: Russian perspectives, 1881-1918

2018

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2006

At the beginning of the 20th century, the "Jewish century" in Yuri Slezkine's formulation, Russia and Romania remained the only European states that still limited the rights of their Jewish citizens. 1 As Benjamin Nathans has recently reminded us, however, Jews in late imperial Russia faced both prejudices and novel opportunities. 2 Be that as it may, discrimination drove Jews to seek their fortunes abroad whenever possible, to long for a homeland of their own, and/or to join the ranks of the revolutionary parties, becoming well-, even over-represented, among those arrested on political charges. The statistics do not say it all but make a compelling point: in the middle of the 19th century, approximately three-quarters of the world's Jewish population resided in tsarist Russia. Between Alexander III's accession to the throne in 1881 and the start of World War I, roughly two million of them abandoned the country. The vast majority of them immigrated to the United States. Well before 1917, the public expected Jews to participate actively in any future revolutionary explosion, because they had compelling reason to do so. The association the Russian public made with Jews and the revolutionary movement ("11 anarchists were shot, 15 of whom were Jews") led to a growth in official and popular antisemitism in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1904-6. Indeed, when World War I broke out, the tsarist government expelled Jews scattered throughout the western borderlands. Despite its suspicion of them, the government drafted a half-million Jews into the Imperial Army, but it would not permit them to serve as officers. In 1915, Petrograd authorities ordered newspapers not to print the names of Jewish war heroes. By the time revolution came in 1917, the self-fulfilling prophecy had come true: most Jews backed Zionist or revolutionary parties (or hybrid combinations thereof). Yet, far from homogeneous, Russian Jews could be found in the central committees of virtually all political parties. The issues that divided Russians divided them, too.

1978

The Jewish intelligentsia and Russian Marxism I. Communism and intellectuals 2. Party affiliation Russia 3. Socialist parties 4. Jews in Russia I. Title 30 1 .5'g2 JN65g8.A I ISBN 0-333-23206-2 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions oj' the Net Book Agreement vi vii (1. THEORETICAL PROSPECTUS I 2. CLASS AND ETHNIC STRUCTURE TO 1905 9 A. The Jewish Community in Pre-capitalist Poland 9 B. The Decline of Serfdom and the Development of Capitalism in Russia I3 C. Peasant and Working Class Unrest '7 D. The Jews Between Feudalism and Capitalism 23 E. Jewish Workers 30 3. THE EMBEDDING PROCESS A. Classification B. Declassification C. Reclassification 4. STRANGERS AND REBELS A. The Jewish Question B. The Role of the Intelligentsia C. The Agents and Character of the Revolution 5. ROOTLESS COSMOPOLITANS? Notes

Nationalities papers, 1996

Jewish Liberal Politics in Tsarist Russia, 1900–14, 1995

This chapter describes the socio-political background which let the Liberals re-emphasize their Jewish past and develop a new self-consciousness. This found expression in their first activities-in the organization of legal aid provided to Jews and the propagation of Jewish rights-and finally preserited them as another interest group beside those already active (the Zionists and the Jewish Socialists, also known as Bundists). However, from the early 1890s until the eve of the First Russian Revolution in 1904, the Liberals pursued a strategy still mainly bound to the old methods of promoting Jewish interests, and can be described as a combination of shtadlanstvo and activities focused on protest and propaganda actions against anti-Semitic measures and acts of the Russian government. Therefore, according to our definition of politics , the first stage was characterized by a mainly non-political approach to the solution of the Jewish question in Russia. 1.1 JEWISH SOCIETY IN TRANSITION Jewish Liberals appeared as a result of a process of transformation within Jewish society which took place during the reign of Alexander 11. 1 His new approach to solving the Jewish question-which can be described as the traditional formula for emancipation, 'equal rights for Russification'-laid the basis for the Liberals' advent. Alexander II's policy towards the Jews had changed in two ways : in his attempt to break down what both he and his father Nicholas had called 'Jewish separateness', he no longer used repressive means and had given up all attempts at converting Jews to Christianity. His approach aimed at Russifying the Jews, and to this end he extended promises and even rewarded elements regarded as Russified. Along these lines merchants of the first guild, university graduates and artisans were granted the right to live everywhere in the empire, which was to be both a reward and in the case of the latter also an incentive. Large numbers of Jews responded by flocking into Russian schools and universities.' His policy found support among the successors of the late

Political Studies, 1987

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2020

Jewish History, 2014

Introduction: William Craft Brumfield vi PART I: Russian-Jewish Historians and Historiography The Return of the Ḥeder among Russian-Jewish Education Experts, 1840–1917 2 ‘Building a Fragile Edifice’: A History of Russian-Jewish Historical Institutions, 1860–1914 Myths and Counter-Myths about Odessa’s Jewish Intelligentsia during the Late Tsarist Period Saul Borovoi’s Survival: An Odessa Tale about a Jewish Historian in Soviet Times 53 The Ideological Challenges of S. M. Dubnov in Emigration: Autonomism and Zionism, Europe and Palestine 70 PART II: Russian–Jewish Intelligentsia’s Cultural Vibrancy 85 Semyon An-sky—Dialogic Writer 86 Russian-Jewish Writers Face Pogroms, 1880–1914 111 M. O. Gershenzon, Alexander Pushkin, the Bible, and the Flaws of Jewish Nationalism 123 Battling for Self-Definition in Soviet Literature: Boris Eikhenbaum’s Jewish Question 139 Vladimir Jabotinsky and the Mystique of 1905 156 Vladimir Jabotinsky and Violence 177 PART III: Jewish Heritage in Russian Perception 197 Vladimir Solov’ev and the Jews: A View from Today 198 Fear and Stereotyping: Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace 215 Bibliography 233 Index