History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II

History of the Jews in Russia and
Poland. Volume II

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Poland.
Volume II, by S.M. Dubnow This eBook is for the use of anyone
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Title: History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II From the
death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander III. (1825-1894)
Author: S.M. Dubnow
Translator: I. Friedlaender
Release Date: April 30, 2005 [EBook #15729]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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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