Trudy Gold
Pogroms and Options: 1881-1914

Trudy Gold | Pogroms and Options: 1881-1914 | 06.28.22

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

- Good evening, everyone, and having… I’m now following on from William’s presentation where he began to look at the life of Alexander III. So shall we, can we put the first slide on the screen, please Jude? If you don’t mind? Yes. Again, I want you to see the Pale. It’s important that you understand that this particular area, 12% of the population were Jewish, but apart from those special categories that have been allowed out of the Pale by Alexander II, the bulk of the Jewish community is living in this huge area of land, and I have to reiterate, it’s about the size of Europe, it’s huge, but it only makes up 4% of the Russian Empire. And the other point to make is, of course, the overcrowding in the Pale in the Jewish areas because at the beginning of the 19th century, the Jewish population was under one and a half million. By the time you get to 1900, it’s five and a quarter million. There’s an incredible population explosion. And, of course, some of the events that I’m going to recount today are going to exacerbate the problem of the Pale of Settlement.

Now, it’s between 1881 and 1914, a date you all know. You all know about this because, as I said, I’m sure that about three quarters of you, we’re now going to be talking about your families and it doesn’t matter whether they came from Lithuania or Poland or the Ukraine or little Russia or Belarus, whatever, they are subjects of the Russian Empire, and it’s between 1881 and 1914 that you have the largest exodus in modern history, in modern Jewish history, where 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe are going to leave. And, of course, the bulk of them are going to leave for America, the second largest to England. but it’s the basis of the Canadian, the big Canadian settlement. The hundred thousand are going to settle in South America, South Africa of course, and of course, Palestine, but Palestine is an ideological settlement. But 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe are going to leave and the majority of them are traditional Orthodox. So, what were the push and pull factors that made this happen? Up until the reign of Alexander III, existence in the Pale was barely tolerable. It was certainly better than that of the Russian peasants.

There was no notion at this stage of any political or social protest being seriously entertained by anyone. The majority of Jews lived a deeply traditional life, and although the Haskalah worried about it, the Haskalah movement saw it too primitive, saw it too superstitious, nevertheless, particularly in those deep winter nights, and I’ve travelled all over Eastern Europe and believe me, in a February, in January and February, it can go 40 degrees below, and I want you to imagine the wooden houses, they lived in wooden houses, the majority were poor in the shtetel, in the little towns, and religion though was their major source of consolation. If you think of the life of women, for example, who do you think, particularly in the households where the man studied, who do you think ran the store and all the chores of looking after the children? But on the Shabbat, she is queen of the Shabbat. So despite the superstition, despite everything that the Haskalah criticised, nevertheless, for the majority, it did give them a certain sense of security.

I’m now going to quote from Shmaryahu Levin, of course, a very important commentator: “The relations between Jew and Gentile in our town were friendly enough. True, we lived in two different worlds, but it never occurred to us that their world was the more secure one whilst the foundations of ours were shaky. On the contrary, we accounted our world nobler, finer and higher. Of course, we learned even as children, that we Jews as a people were a nation in exile.” Can we turn to the picture of Alexander III? What a big bear of a man he was. And, of course, he is going to reign from 1881 on the assassination of his father until 1894. Now, both Nicholas I and Alexander II had been really concerned with trying to amalgamate the Jews into the Russian empire. Nicholas confused apostacy with amalgamation, you will remember, with the various moves that he tried and of course the wicked cantonist system, and as a result, he failed to ratify the Jews. Alexander, in the early years of his reign, as we’ve already discovered, his emphasis on secularisation and toleration, it’s more enlightened and it was on the outer edges, more successful.

But don’t forget, in the latter part of his reign, he lapsed back into reaction and slavophilism, because the question I have to pose to you, how on earth do you control the largest empire in the world? Sixth of the surface of the globe, of the land surface of the globe. Okay, you’ve freed the peasants. You haven’t given them any money to buy their land. You’re industrialising. Remember in the reign of Alexander II, he begins that incredible industrialization process. By 1900, Russia is the fifth industrial power in the world. Can you just imagine the horror that that meant for the majority of ordinary folk? Because there’s no poor law reform, there’s no social, beginning of social justice for the Russian peasantry, for the Russian worker, whereas if you look at England, you will see that, if you look at Victorian England, yes, paternalistic, but there is a beginning of change. Now his son, Alexander III, he comes to the throne because his father was assassinated by the People’s Will party. Within six weeks of the assassination, pogroms begin, and I told you, they began in Elizabeth Thetagrad in the province in the South. Now, you will recall that she was the Zarina who was particularly anti-Semitic, and it’s followed by others in Kiev and Odessa.

And soon, and I’m going to talk about the reasons for the unrest in a minute because it’s quite controversial, it soon followed by further pogroms in Kiev and in Odessa. The unrest spreads. There were 259 separate pogroms in 1881 to 1882, 219 in villages, 36 in small towns. The violence is going to continue intermittently until March, 1882, and the final pogrom of this particular phrase was in Nizhny Novgorod on the 7th of June, 1884, and in this particular ghastly pogrom, it was the accusation of ritual murder, the notion that the Jews used the blood of babies for their Passover that actually stirred the mob and 10 Jews were hacked to death with axes. So, but in the whole of the pogroms of that year, a total of 45 Jews lost their lives, including 35 in the pogroms before Nizhny Novgorod, but of course many were injured. It engendered a incredible amount of fear and very much material damage. And it was certainly, I think we have to say it’s the worst outbreak of Jewish violence in Europe since the Kosack revolts in the Polish Ukraine in the late sixties, 1760s, when Poland was disintegrating to be finally taken over by Russia, Austria and Germany, the Kosacks used it an excuse to go on the march and of course, thousands of Jews again were murdered.

Now, the Austrian consult in Kiev who witnessed the pogrom in Kiev, he said, “The disturbances are abetted by the authorities. There was an international outcry, there were meetings all over the western world. There were meetings in London, there were meetings in Liverpool, there were meetings in New York. They were called the Southern Temples.” Now, these pogroms and the fear of the awaiting of the next pogrom, what caused them? Now, there was once the view that it actually, as the Austrian consulate suggested, been planned by the authorities, but the majority of historians do not now believe that is so, but they do believe that there was tacit support by local authorities. Now, the assassination of our father, Tsar, you’ve got to remember that at this stage, the autocracy was taken on by the bulk of the Russian people. The Tsar ruled by the divine right, and of course, the right-wing press stirred up the notion that in fact, because one of the assassins was Jewish, it was a Jewish plot. In fact, and I mentioned this to you last time, Hesya Helfman was not at the front rank of the assassin. She had a safe house, and as I mentioned, she died in prison. She was pregnant. The birth wasn’t taken care of at all. Both she and the baby died in prison, but that was used to stir up antisemitism.

Also, Jews are seen as foreign agents. The peasants, now this is where we come to the crux of the matter. The peasants, when they’re freed, they have no money to buy land and the conditions are intolerable, and of course, some of them were in debt to small Jewish money lenders. The other point, many of the perpetrators were itinerant railway workers and who had built the majority of the railways in Russia? Well, they were Jewish financiers. So the point was, instead of attacking the landowners, instead of attacking a corrupt reaction regime, the Jew is the easy target. 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe were below the poverty line, but as I said, you have the railway plutocrats in Kiev. The richest man in Kiev was a man called Israel Brodsky. He was the sugar baron. And the last, there was another pogrom again in 1884, which is Eastern Orthodox Easter ritual murder charge. The authorities in this case actually stamped it out. Now, what happens though is the authorities believe that the pogroms, very reactionary new tsar, he believes as do his main advisors so I’m going to talk about in a minute, that it was actually caused by the quote unquote from the act, “the injurious economic oppression of the people”. So consequently, the Tsar enables Count Ignatieff to put in place certain conditions to restrict Jewish life.

Now before that, I want to read a statement. This is October, 1881. This is the executive committee of the revolutionaries, People Will party. Now, this is the party that had assassinated Alexander II. They excused the pogromists, and one of the things I’m going to be looking at with you later on when I look at international socialism is that in its baggage, it had a lot of antisemitism. This is one of the problems of Jewish identity. We either identify as individuals, but how does the outside world identify? Because a lot of those people who are at the forefront of modernity, particularly in creating the modern cities, the modern towns, the railway networks, modern industry, many of the pioneers were Jews. The other side, from the reactionaries, you’re going to see that many of the leadership later on of the revolutionary parties are going to be Jewish. So consequently, the Jew becomes everything you don’t want to be, and please don’t forget, we are living in a very, very religious age. Alexander III was a very pious Eastern Orthodox Christian and the Russian Orthodox church was deeply traditional and deeply, deeply anti-Jewish. Now this is, though but this is from the other side.

This is now from the revolutionary People’s Will. “Our estrangement from the culture of the Russian Jews and our negative assessment of their religious and bourgeois leaders regarding the Jewish lower classes, we thought that liberalism of the whole of Russia would bring alongside the liberation of all the nation’s living there. One has to admit that Russian literature has installed in us a view that jury was not a nation but a parasitic class.” And this was one of their slogans, “The left, the kike curses the peasant, cheats him and drinks his blood. The kikes make life unbearable. Don’t forget that most of the inns in the Pale of Settlement are Jewish in keepers just as the vodka trade is in Jewish hands.” So basically, you’re making the peasants drunk and not only are you stealing all their money, you are drinking their blood. So, this is also going to be true of much of the left, ironically, in Europe, the nexus between international jury and late 19th century imperialism, especially in Egypt in the South Africa.

You know, the leftist in London actually blamed the Jews for the outbreak of the Bur war. Anyway, what is going to happen is the drafting of the May laws. Can we go on quickly and have a look at Alexander’s wife? There you see the Alexander’s wife, Princess Dagmar of Denmark who changes her name to Maria, adopts the Russian Orthodox Church. As I said, it was always better to find a Protestant. You couldn’t find a Catholic to become Empress of Russia. You would find your bride amongst the Catholics, and of course, this marriage, her sister was Princess Alexandra of England. One sister marries Tsar, Alexander III, the other sister marries the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. So basically, you have two sisters marrying into the royal houses. Now, who was the man who is going to put together the infamous May laws? The Tsar and his advisors think that the pogroms were the result of the injurious activities of the Jews. So, enter the scene, can we now see Count Ignatieff? That is Count Ignatieff. His dates are 1832 to 1908. He was a Russian statesman. Of course, he came from the aristocratic class, and it’s important to remember that, and I’m sure many of you have read Tolstoy and read much of the Russian literature with Professor Pima has been talking about, and it will give you the impression of a state the size of English counties.

So, he comes from a wealthy aristocratic background. His career actually began at the end of the Crimean War. and of course, the terrible defeat of Russia at the hands of the British and the French. He was a Slavophile who believed passionately in Russian expansion. I’m going to put more meat on the bones of Slavophile for you in a minute. He was very active in securing a large area of Chinese territory at the preachy of peaking in 1860, Russian expansionism in the East. He was then the Russian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1864 and 1877. He stirred up Pan-Slavism and Russian nationalism against the Ottomans and has some responsibility in the Bulgarian uprisings in 1876, and he was the one who encouraged his country to declare war in Turkey, and after the Russian victory against Turkey, he negotiated the Treaty of San Stefano. Enter Disraeli. Disraeli wanted the balance of power in Europe or did Disraeli just hate Russia? Anyway, the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Disraeli and Bismarck forced the retraction of the treaty and he had a passionate hatred for Jews and a particular hatred for Benjamin Disraeli.

He becomes minister of the interior 1881 to ‘82, and of course, he is an ultraconservative. And these are the May laws he draughts and ironically, it is his great grandson who is Michael Ignatieff, who is an extraordinary man. Not only is he a, he was a politician in Canada, but he’s also a Greek historian and a biographer and he wrote a mastery biography of Isiah Berlin, absolutely fascinating character. But this is his great-grandfather and of course, nothing much to do with his rather magnificent great grandsons. So as I said, the preamble, it’s because of the end injurious economic activities of the Jews. So, Jews are forbidden to settle anew outside of the towns and boroughs. You cannot create any new settlements in the Pale. The only exception is Jewish agriculture, and remember, the towns and villages are becoming more and more overcrowded. The Jews were temporarily forbidden from taking out any mortgages, so no new mortgages. They are forbidden to transact business on Sundays and on major Christian holidays. Now, of course, in the deeply religious Pale of Settlement, Jews could not work on Shabbat.

Now the May laws are saying you can’t work on a Sunday, you can’t work on Christian holidays, so this really undercuts all the economic activity. And later additions to the May laws could be quotas limiting Jews to high schools and universities. 10% in the Pale is reversing the early years of Alexander II, 5% outside the Pale, 3% in Moscow and St. Petersburg. What that meant, ironically, in the Pale, that there’s a significant, particularly in a village or town, in a town rather with a significant Jewish population, half-empty schools, and many Jews therefore could not complete their education where they were born. Now ironically, in this industrialization process, a class division is being built within the Pale. I’ve already talked to you about the wealthy plutocrats, most of whom who are still allowed to live in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Jewish professional class, that is now being reduced because say for example, Jewish doctors in the army were limited to 5% and any Jew who wanted to go to the bar now needed the express permission of the Minister of Justice, but let’s say you are a middle-class Jew, you’re making money maybe as a lumber merchant and you can afford for your children, one of your children at least to go to university in Europe.

So, you begin to see Jews from wealthier families going to universities in Switzerland, in Germany and sometimes in France, and that’s going to slightly alter the outlook of many of these young Jews. Now, what about the reality of this? A peddler who left his village for more than three days does not have a right to reentry. Say you went to visit an agent or sick relative in another village and you had to travel, if you were away for longer than three days, you weren’t allowed back in. The town councils, the village councils were completely revamped against the Jews. The aristocrats and the upper middle-class, which is quite small in Russia, are taking over. So, in a village that was 90% Jewish, there’s no Jewish representation anymore, and that meant, whenever the authorities wanted to stir up trouble, they could just give the nod. So, it’s making life almost unbearable. Economically, it’s absolutely horrific. And then the Tsar chooses the first day at the pacer to celebrate the appointment of his brother, Grand Duke Sergei. Grand Duke Sergei, the brother of the Tsar, who’s going to become the beloved advisor to Nicholas II, violent antisemite, ironically married to the Empress Alexander’s elder sister.

As he’s present in Moscow, he is governor of Moscow, he expels over 50% of the Jews of Moscow. They had 24 hours to leave and get back into the Pale. They had to sell their properties, but how do you do it in 24 hours? They had to take their movables, men, women, children summarily rounded up, taken off to the railway station in chains for shipment back to the Pale, about 10,000 people. The synagogue was closed, the synagogue of course that had been built by wealthy Jewish entrepreneurs. They were allowed to stay. You see the Russian government, although it’s got this terribly antisemitic policy, people like the Polly , they’re useful, the Kronenbergs, they’re useful to the state, almost court Jews, and similar expulsions are going to be enacted in St. Petersburg and in Karkoff. And just to reiterate, the poverty is becoming harder and harder to bear. There’s also internal migration. So, Jews moving from outside the Pale back into the Pale, Jews moving from town to town, village to village, plus that incredible population explosion, and this now… Can we come to the next slide please? This is Simon Frug.

He was a poet of the Jewish community. He’d been born in the Ukraine, came from very religious background. He published poetry in Rasvet, “Remember the Dawn”. He moved to St. Petersburg where he became an important literary figure. He wrote in Yiddish, in Russian and in Hebrew, and can we see the poem he wrote? “Neither storm nor wind nor star shine by night and the day neither cloudy or bright. Oh my people, how sad is thy state? How grey and cheerless thy state?” Let’s say it again. “Neither storm nor wind nor star shine by night and the day neither cloudy or bright. Oh, my people, how sad is thy state? How grey and cheerless thy state.” When he died in Odessa in 1916, 100,000 people actually came to his senate, to his funeral. Now, after the expulsions from Moscow, and it’s important to note that these are recorded in the press, this is President Benjamin Harrison in his speech to the Congress. “This government has found occasion to express in a friendly spirit, but with much earnestness to the government of the Tsar, its serious concerns because of the harsh menaces being enforced on the Hebrews.” And as I said before, during this period, there are more and more protests in the West.

In fact, the Max Nordal’s mistress who was a Russian aristocrat and a violent antisemite, she would be at the Savoy in the winter months in Russia and she would do everything she could to create the salon explaining to the English, the English upper classes, just how bad it was in Russia to have so many Jews. Now, the other backdrop to all of this is, of course, the growth of Pan-Slavism, the really strong growth of Russian nationalism. Now, there are so many parallels between this period and what we are seeing now. The need for the autocrat, the need for the strong leader, the following, I think it’s important to remember when you think about Russian history, Russia had six months, six months in 1917 of an attempt at democracy. Then you had the Soviets and then 1991 and really, the taking over of the plutocrats. So, the democratic tradition as we know it, and believe me, I think it’s under threat in the West, is, that’s another story, it just doesn’t exist in Russia, and I think it’s one of the great tragedies of our times. Now, Pan-Slavism was a movement that grew up in Russia, really as a response to everything that happens in the West.

It has its first roots in the defeat after the Crimean war, and some intellectuals began to say, is it because we, military failure and everything that’s gone wrong with Russia could actually be attributed to the… What are we doing? We’re aping the west. And they went on to say that the introduction of the democratic condition of the democracy, the constitutions could destroy their own civilization. The man who is going to be the architect of all of this, and shall we see him, the ghastly. I shouldn’t prejudge, but he was. He looks a bit like a ghoul, doesn’t he? That’s Pobedonostsev. He was the late procurator of the Russian Orthodox Church and his dates are 1827 to 1907. He had been the tutor to Alexander III, and I’m going to talk about his biography in a minute, but he really was the of, really, Russian politics. And in his reflections of a Russian statesman written in 1896, he actually condemned elections. He condemned democracy, he condemned the jury system. He condemned a free press, free education and social reform. He said, “Western institutions and education were radically bad in themselves. They are totally inapplicable to Russia as they do not correspond to the condition and the feeling of the spirit of the Russian people.” And this is how he referred to democracy, “The insupportable dictatorship of a vulgar crowd.”

He wanted Russia, if you like, to be frozen in time. He saw Russia. He believed strongly in autocracy. He, the Tsar is given by God to rule and the Russian people must treat him almost as a God here. He was absolutely antisemitic to his bones. He was once visited by a British author, Arnold White. Himself, he was a very suspect character. He was a writer. He was very against anti, he was very against Jewish immigration into Britain, and he said, he actually wrote to Lord Salsbury. He was part of the milieu of the upper classes in England and he wrote to Lord Salsbury, “An undue proportion of the dangerous anarchists of foreign Jews.” He actually went to Russia as an agent for Barrinder Hirsch. You will recall that Barrinder Hirsch was buying land in South America in Argentina for Jewish settlement, and he wanted the, he wanted the Russian government to help him with this. He was a eugenicist. He believed that Jewish immigration was reducing England to the world’s rubbish heap and so, when he spoke to Pobedonostsev, they had a lot in common, and this is what Pobedonostsev said to him. “The characteristics of the Jewish race are parasitic, for their substance they require the presence of another race as host, although they remain aloof and self-contained.” Let me repeat that. “The characteristics of the Jewish race are parasitic, for their sustenance, their food, they require the presence of another race as host although they remain aloof and self-contained. Take them from the living organism, put them on a rock and they die. They cannot cultivate the soil.”

Now, violent anti-Semites, huge influence in Russia, as I believe William’s already told you, the Tsar was not the brightest of men. Yes, he believed in the total autocracy. He believed in being father Tsar to the Russian peasantry, this great bear of a man, hugely strong, given to great bouts of temper, he allowed Pobedonostsev to, who was an intellectual, to really, if you like, pay the way in terms of his views on most things. So, what Pobedonostsev wanted was to stamp out all opposition. He wants very, very drastically to stop liberalism, socialism and any other form of nationalism. Slavism is the love of the Slav. Just as in Germany, in the insecure nationalism of Germany, you have the rise of what? You have the rise in Arian philosophy. In Russia, you have the rise of Pan-Slavism and the Ukrainians, they decided that the Ukrainians were in fact Slavs. So, all the judicial organisations were revamped in favour of the aristocracy, completely strict censorship. The Acrama, the Russian secret police could exile liberals or execute without trial. So, all the horror of Nicholas I is back under the watch of Pobedonostsev, who is going to become after the death of Alexander III, the main minister of his rather pathetic son. And also a Russification programme for the minorities, their own language, the Pols, the Fins, the Estonians, the Armenians, they’re not allowed to use their own language in schools, courtrooms, public life. Who matters in the state?

The Russian Orthodox people living under our father Tsar. He really, if he could, would’ve gone back to Serfdom. This is the kind of world of Russia now. So, what has happened is in the early part of Alexander II, you have the opening up of the pressure cooker and then it’s slammed tightly back by Alexander II and now by his son who had a horror of revolution, who had a horror of any kind of, any kind of liberalism and a great horror of the Jews. Now, this is a poet of the Slavafile idea, a man called . These poor villages, this sterile nature, homeland of patience, land of the Russian people, the proud glance of the foreigner can neither see or observe that which pierces through and shines hidden in its humble nakedness, if you like, the reverence for the Russian peasant, but no chance to give them any help because what is happening is many of the peasants are now moving from the villages into the overcrowded towns and they can’t get work. This is the Moscow correspondent of the London Times. One must go to Moscow to comprehend the strength of this feeling and the tremendous fascination it has for the Russian mind. A dozen years ago, it seemed that the exclusive, it seemed to be the exclusive property of a small though influential group of reactionary thinkers.

Today, it is literally possessed the nation. The sign of this reaction forced this reaction, forces themselves upon the attention at every corner in inner Russia, gentlemen and officers who 15 years ago, affected rationalism in religion and left the demonstrative part of the church ceremonial to the monks now halt ostentatiously before every shrine and church editors to bow and cross themselves. Another indication, perhaps even more significant, is found in the immense proportional increase of books printed in the Russian language. So basically, this is a real resurgent Russian nationalism. We have been hurt by the west. The ideas of the West are absolutely bound. We want nothing to do with it. We will go our own way as Russians and the problem is that the most hated group in Russia, hated theologically because it’s autocracy and church, hated theologically and hated as “parasites” in inverted commas. I have a real problem with this because I think tragically, this notion is going to be taken on by some Jews who have felt themselves, that you know, this whole notion of switching into agriculture, that there’s something wrong with the pattern rather than blame the outside world for what it had done to the Jews in terms of artificial occupation patterns. Anyway, there had been an assassination attempt on Alexander’s life in 1887, and then of course you had, he dies suddenly, leaving his 26 year old son, Nicholas II, the last of the Tsars as the new Tsar of Russia. And shall we please have a look at Nicholas II?

You know, Saint Nicholas, in the year 2000, he was made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church. He’s the image of course of George V of England, who was his first cousin. He married the beautiful, let’s see her, Alexandra. Alexandra, she was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and of course, converted to orthodoxy when she married. Evidently, it was a love match and you know, there’s a lot of sentiment talked about this particular couple, and of course, they do meet a terrible end, but having said that, they were both totally imbued with Jew hatred. They were reactionaries. Alexandra becomes an absolute fervent acolyte of the Russian Orthodox Church. They do have a family tragedy. Shall we have a look at the family? And you will get much more detail of this from William. Here, you see Alexandra and Nicholas with their four rather beautiful daughters and the Zaravic. Having produced four children, she finally produces the long awaited son, Alexi. Tragically, he suffered from the family disease of haemophilia. There was no cure at that stage and it had been inherited from Queen Victoria’s family, and it was a secret.

The family, as the family became more and more obsessed with this terrible tragedy, they were isolated not just really from the Russian people, they also isolate themselves from the aristocracy, and Alexandra surrounds herself with all these crazy faith healers because she dreams that someone will be able to cure Alexi and unfortunately, she’s going to fall under the sway of a mad Russian monk called Rasputin, but you’ll get more of that from Nicholas, from William. You know, it’s almost like, you couldn’t have made it up, actually. Can we see the next slide, please? 'Cause I thought it was interesting for you to see a picture of Queen Victoria and her family, because of course, Victoria who married Prince Albert had nine children and all those grandchildren and brilliant dynastic figure, they married into the majority of the royal families of Europe. One of her grandsons, of course, was the Kaiser. Her granddaughter was married to the Tsar. They were all interrelated. And you can see to the left of the picture, her son-in-law, who was of course, he was the Kaiser of Germany and it’s his son, Kaiser Wilhelm, who wanted to be her favourite grandson, who didn’t. So, it’s fascinating. She was always irritated with him, and you can see of course in the background, her son Edward VII, later Edward VII.

So, it’s interesting how this one family really spawned most of the houses of Europe and also what is fascinating is at the end of the First World War, what was the dynasty that remained? It was Britain. The Germans were gone. The Russians were gone, the Habsburgs were gone, not related actually but the Habsburgs were gone and Victoria goes on. In fact, we’re going to be having, in our challenging conversations, we are going to be having a debate on the monarchy and I know later in the year, William will be talking, giving a lecture on the royal family because a lot of you have expressed quite a lot of interest. Anyway, so let’s go back to having a look at Nicholas. Can we go back if you don’t mind, Jude? Let’s go back to Nicholas the Tsar. Yes. Okay. So, he was the eldest child of Alexander III. He had five younger siblings. Ethnically, he was primarily German and Danish. His last Russian ancestor was in fact the daughter of Peter the Great. Now, he was not too bright and his father had kept him out of state councils. He’d married Alexandra and made an absolutely ridiculous mistake because in the coronation ball, the story was that you feed the poor of Moscow. The rumour went around that there wasn’t enough food and consequently, the mob went on the the rampage.

Over 3,000 people were moaned down on that day, Sunday, bloody Sunday. He continues his policy of repression against the Jews. He continues his policy of total repression. His advisors are, Pobedonostsev in the early years, that he is a total reactionary, and it’s in his reign in 1903, that one of the most horrific pogroms breaks up and that of course is in Kishinev. Now, pogroms went in waves and the question I have to ask you is how bad does it have to become before your families made their mind up to get out? The other point to make is Russia, you think about industrialization. Think about the development of the postal services. Think about the development of the shipping lines. You know, Russia is huge. It is not an island. Ideas are seeping into Russia in the reign of Nicholas II. What are these ideas? Socialism, liberalism. They are coming into this totally repressive regime and what is going to be the outcome? Kishinev was a town in Bessarabia and it was a garrison town. It was also very near the Telegraph, and what happens at Easter, and there’s a brilliant book on the Kishinev, book rom by Steve Zipperstein. I should recommend to you, and it was 50% Jewish. The editor of the local paper, the Bessara Bits, was a man called Krishivan.

He was probably an agent of the Acrama and he was certainly involved in the creation of the protocols of the elders of Zion, which I’m going to devote a whole session to because this appalling forgery is going to come out of Russia in the reign of Nicholas II, and in fact, when the Empress Alexandra was taken away at Katherine Burg, it was one of the books on her bedside. Now, Kishined Easter, a ritual murder accusation, Krishivan his newspaper, the Bessara Bits, kept on pushing the notion of Jewish ritual murder, Jewish plots. He’s a violent, violent antisemite. And also, there are… You’ve also got to remember that in the Russian government, in the Russian bureaucracy, there’s tension between the extremist elements, some who want Russia to moderate to save itself and those who want the Tsar to be even stronger. The problem with the strong Tsar is you are looking at one of the weakest men in history. He was so ill-equipped to rule Russia. Can you imagine if he’d had the same role as George V, he might have been fine. He had little aims and little dreams. We know an awful lot about him because he and Alexandra kept a joint diary, and in the diary, they wrote little notes. You know, appallingly important events are swirling around their heads and they talk about who comes to tea. It’s absolutely extraordinary.

Anyway, what happens is, whipped up by the mob, it’s Easter, ritual murder, the mob goes on the rampage and you have one of the most appalling pogroms in the whole terrible story of the pogrom, and what makes it worse is it’s a garrison town. And finally, with 16,000 soldiers there, and finally, when they are allowed in, allowed in, finally when they go in, they clean us up within an hour. So, one can say that the authorities allowed it to just run on, and this is a letter, and of course they spread. And this is a letter that Nicholas sent to his mother. “My dearest mamma, I’ll begin by saying the situation is better than it was a week ago. In the first days, the verses raised their head.” He’s writing this, by the way, after other pogroms in 1905 which I’ll talk about probably next week now, sorry, on Thursday. “In the first days, the subversives raised their head, but a strong reaction set in quickly and a whole mass of loyal people suddenly made their power felt. The results were obvious. What would one expect in our country? The impertinence of the revolutionaries has angered the people once more and it’s because nine tenths of the troublemakers are Jews.

The people whose anger is turned against them, that’s how the pogroms happen. It’s amazing how they took pace simultaneously in all the towns of Russia and Siberia. Cases as far as part as Toms, and Odessa show clearly what an infuriated mob can do. They surround the houses where the revolutionaries have taken refuge, set fire to them and kill everyone.” Now, that is Nicholas on the appalling loss of life because what happens in Russia, having completed the trans Siberian railway, Russia gets involved in the disastrous Russia-Japanese war, and it’s in that war, can you imagine, you are having to feed an army, the other side of Russia, the starvation in the capital, and what happens is Father Gapon… Can you go on with the slides now, Judy? If you don’t mind. Father Gapon who is a Russian priest, he leads, this is slides from Kishinev. Could you go on? That’s Father Gapon, keep it there. Father Gapon, what he does is he leads a demonstration in February, 1905, to the Tsars Palace, the summer palace, begging for bread for the people. The problem was the people, the Tsar wasn’t there. He’d already gone to another palace. This is in St. Petersburg. So, what happens is the Kosacks are turned on the mob and thousands of men, women and children are blown down, and this is the signal for revolution in 1905, the revolution and as the forces of reaction come in, this is when more and more pogroms occur.

So, this is Father Gapon issuing a letter to Nicholas Romanoff, formerly Tsar and a present soul murder of the Russian Empire. The Tsar as seen as a response to the horror, he rhymes here but Donald, the Tsar is a bloodstain creature and a common murderer. So, in the whole mayhem of Russia, you begin to see the star authorities at this stage deliberately turn the, to try and turn the people against the Jews and what is created is an organisation called the Black Hundreds and the Tsar becomes the president. It’s an organisation of right-wing fanatics who want to keep autocracy and the Russian Orthodox Church. You see, industrialization, a weak Tsar, ideas creeping into Russia, how bad does it have to become? And what I’ve been telling you now, what you see, and next on Thursday, I’m going to show you a map of, I’m going to show you a chart of Jewish immigration, and the pogroms, when there’s a horrible spate of pogroms, more Jews decide to get out, and the question is that you have to think about because after all, it’s your families, what does it take to make them make that final decision to get out? Don’t forget, they could live in a village where the authorities could reclassify it a town which meant the Jews had to leave anyway, and that’s immortalised, of course, in Fiddler on the roof or economic hardship. They just can’t make ends meet, or there’s been a pogrom in the next village. What on earth you’re going to do? Internal migration, the push-pull and where can they go? And of course, the letters.

Already, there’s a small percentage of Russian Jews who have made it to America. After the American Civil War, America’s absolutely advertising for immigrants, so the push-pull, the options. So, what I’m going to continue with on Thursday, I’m going to continue with Nicholas I, Second’s reign and I’m also going to talk about other Jewish options because of course, 40% get out and the majority of the hostage just go deeper into themselves, but there were other responses. One of those responses of course, was international socialism. It was the tiniest response, but a small group of young Jews said the Russians suffer along with all of us. In the main, they’d had Haskalah parents exposed to the west. They can’t go into the Jewish world. It’s too superstitious for them. They’ve thrown away religion, they’ve read marks, and they believe that it’s their duty to change the world for everyone, like Rosa Luxembourg, for example, who was born in Zamor. She said, there is no room in my heart for Jewish suffering. She said, I’ve got to bleed for everybody. So many, the problem was, a disproportionate number of these leaders are going to be Jewish from country to country.

I’ve said this to you before. So, you’re going to have the image of Jews as capitalist and Jews of communists, so international revolution. Also, there’s going to be an authentic Jewish revolution, and that, of course is the bond, and I’m going to talk about the bond and I’m also going to spend a whole session on Russian Zionism because it is important. Please don’t forget that one of the responses is Zionism, and there’s an incredibly powerful poem after the Kishinev pogrom written by the wonderful poet, Bialek. Many of you know this poem, and I will, I’m going to put it up for next week because I think it’s important. Bialek goes into the city of slaughter, as he calls it, and this poem was later translated into Russian by Jou Budinski and Odessa. The kitchenette pogrom and the Odessa pogrom of 1903 had incredible impact on many people. It made a huge impact on Trotsky, It made a huge impact on Jou Budinsky. Trotsky’s going to save everybody. Jou Budinsky is going to save the Jews.

So, the events in the reign of that silly little non-entity, Nicholas II, because he was, although he had such a tragic end, you know, not only is he canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church, but there has been conferences, there was one in 2017, to decide whether in fact his murder was a ritual murder. They don’t mention Jews but they do talk about ritual murder, and of course the implication was, was it a Jewish conspiracy? What is actually fascinating, and this is research, the man who led the firing squad, probably it seems likely that he was a Jew and who gave the order, but the order, he gave the immediate order but it obviously came from Lennon, was also Jewish. But what can you say? But this, one of the most important speakers at the conference was the man who is the priest to Vladimir Putin. So, history goes around in circles and circles and circles. So, let’s stop there. I’m sorry I missed time. There’s so much to say about the last two Tsars and the Jews, but hopefully on Thursday, we can continue with Nicholas.

So, thank you very much Judy. And should we have a look at questions?

• Yes.

Q&A and Comments

• Oh, Peter, why does Henry Regutter remind you of Germany in the '30s? Because it is the '30s in England. It’s just everyone’s sunning themselves just before the storm.

Q: What caused the Jewish population or the population in general to expand so much? A: It’s a fascinating question and really, and the only two countries that didn’t sort of quadruple were the French and the Irish in Europe, and what can we put it down to? Better medicine even in these primitive areas? We must do. It’s a huge debate this and it’s very interesting.

Ah, I’m talking about the great wave of 1881, David. Of course there were previous pogroms. Pogrom is the Russian word for riot. There were many pogroms before in Odessa 1871, but it’s this big wave of them on the assassination. Yes, Debbie. I had the new… She’s mentioning in the midst of civilised Europe by Jeffrey Weidlinger. I had the privilege of interviewing him, and this was last year. He was on lockdown. Trudy, thank you so much for, this is from Wilma, for explaining to me why my great-grandmother left Odessa with the family for in the 1880s. I’ve always wondered what makes them leave such a vibrant city. Yep. By the same token, I didn’t understand then why my grandfather’s family stayed. He was born in, I think 1885, one of four brothers. You see, it depends where, it depends on family circumstances also. Jules, the Jews were not expelled from Odessa as they were from Moscow. Nevertheless, Jules, I think the point was there’d been pogroms. The repression of the regime and can you make a better life somewhere else? America’s advertising for immigrants, remember? The Union castle line was pitching up in Lithuania. What creates a movement to get out? That’s the point.

Q: How bad does it have to be? And what makes people leave? What makes people stay? A: You’ve got a sick mother who can’t travel with you or you think it might get better. You can’t predict the future, remember? And also, you did have the feel of community.

They came to Canada. Yes. Monique, can it be said that current western left anti-Zionism that sees Israel as a colonial-occupying state as a antecedence in the leftist antisemitism from Russia? Monique, that’s a brilliant question and actually, I’m giving myself a terrible task. When I look at Stalin, I’m actually going to spend probably two sessions on how antisemitism really infects the left. It begins here but it gets much nastier after Stalin after 1948, much nastier. Stalin actually spoke out against anti-Semitism but we’re going to deal with it stage by stage. My mother was from Elizabeth going to South Africa at the age of 16. She remembers being my servant during the pogrom.

Now this is… Okay. Barbara, you are talking also about what would’ve happened in independent Lithuania. You’ve got to remember, the end of the, in 1917, there is two revolutions. After the Russian, and we’re going to cover it all, the revolutions and the Jews, and what happens is that the Soviet army under Trotsky holds much of it, but Lithuania becomes independent, so does Poland, so does Estonia, so does Latvia. Part of the Ukraine moves into Poland, the other part into Russia. Is Ukraine really an independent state at this stage? Discuss please, and you know, and so basically we will be looking at what happened in Lithuania in the '20s, because you can imagine violent reactionary politics and the Jews, again, are being targeted. You know that, another little irony of history, the President of the Ukraine, many of the medals of honour he gives to his soldiers, it’s the medal. Go figure.

Q: How did the Pan-Slavism affect the ethnic groups in Asian-Russia? A: Well, it didn’t. The point was their native languages were banned in any official documents. You’ve got to understand though, Russia is huge and it’s inefficient, Shelly, so…

Q: Weren’t Alexandra and Nicholas first cousins? A: No, let’s be careful here. They’re second cousins.

Q: Who else of Victoria’s children had haemophilia? A: I know one of her sons did. I’ll check that for you, Joan.

Jackie, I saw a very interesting programme a couple of years ago about the birth of Wilhelm. His mother, Vicky Victoria’s daughter, had a difficult birth. Yes, this is a very, very interesting idea, Jackie, that Wilhelm, the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria through her daughter Vicki who was married to the crown Prince of Russia, later Emperor of Germany. he had a, his birth was very complicated. His arm was withered and she wanted the perfect child, and there was mother rejection, it seems. Yes, Alan Morman. Alexandra was paid by the Jewish actress, Janet Suzman, in the famous film. I’ve got some very good news for you, Alan. In August, we’re going to be much more lighthearted in our presentations. We’re not going to try and run, you know, sort of a special series. We’re just going to be running one-offs. Most of our lecturers will be giving their favourite sorts of lectures on much lighter subjects, and I’ve invited Janet Suzman who listens to lectures sometimes and has actually given some presentations. I’m going to interview her about Nicholas and Alexandra and about her time in Hollywood. She’s an extraordinarily wonderful lady.

Jules, Gu Elroy in the quiet revolution shows there was much greater immigration from Lithuania and Poland, where there were few programmes than from Ukraine and Beth Arabia where there were poms. Poverty was a greater cause of migration than the pogroms. Yes, Jules. That’s very, very important as well. Yes, I’m trying to give you the balance here. 40% of Jews by 1900 are on poor relief from Jews who’ve made it to America or England, and you know how poor the majority of those were, so yes. And also, you’ve got to remember that the Hasids did not leave, so you need to look at the centres of Hasidism, What you do with the outside world? The outside world is evil. To get out, you have to have somewhere to go. Shelly, at this stage, America was advertising for immigrants, so was South Africa. After the American Civil War, America just couldn’t have enough people to service industry. I think some wanted go to the Golden Medina America where they expected a better life. Yes, of course, the dream of America. The book, “Land of our Fathers”, wonderful book by Irving Howe. You know, the rabbis were worried. America’s a land. They’ve heard that the boys cut off their payoff. They want to be American.

Q: How could the Jews afford to get out? Russia is huge and if they weren’t near poor, how could they transport or pay for it? A: Well, that’s the problem. They left with very, very, very little money. They would go steerage. We know that when they arrived in New York, many of them had scurvy because you know, you can imagine the conditions. Herrings were thrown down at them, were thrown down the hold for them to eat, and you know, families just skimped and saved to send usually a male, either the father or the elder brother, to come to send for them. Sometimes they did, sometimes there were desertions. It’s not all beautiful story, but I think the other point was, you have to, it’s a tipping point, isn’t it? Was it pogrom? Was it fear of huge poverty? Was it they just couldn’t manage anymore? Was it the dream, the lure of America, new worlds? You know, you think of the newspapers, they hit the Pale. You know, in America, even a beggar can become a king in America. You know, America, the land of dreams, the golden opportunities. Don’t forget, in the end, if you look at Hollywood which is the land of dreams, it was created by Jews from the Pale. You know, if you think of the moguls, they all came from this world. Louis B. Mayor from Mince, Sam Goldwin from just outside Warsaw, they were extraordinary individuals and they had a lot of get up and go and they had a lot of courage and they took America by the throat. It’s extraordinary. They created the dream that America had of itself.

Also, in the world of popular music, most of the great, if you think of the American Song book, majority of the guys who wrote it were the first or second generation Eastern European Jews. Think about Irving Berlin who wrote his most famous song, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”. This is from June. My grandparent went with two little girls smuggled under a hay cart. One set of grandparents left Moscow in 1899 and did well buying a plot in Eloff street, then granny hated the dust and longed for home. They got back in 1905 in time for the pogroms and left again penniless settling in Eastern Cape. Aye, aye, aye, but they made it. For Gene, for one set of grandparents, it was the death of two children due to measles that pushed them to immigrate. They went to South Africa. You know, it’s interesting. Those of you who know your family stories.

Slides next time, please. There were slides, Paul. Oh, it was unfortunate for everyone. what they hoped for and miss the heim. You know, it’s interesting. I don’t think, I don’t think they ever had the affection for Eastern Europe. For example, if you look at Irish Americans or Italian Americans, Jewish Americans, they didn’t have much affection for the Russian Empire, you know? The Russian Empire was an evil place. Oh yes. Whether or not to leave, surely a major is possible.

Q: How do you travel? Does it need resources? A: Oh yes, some would’ve been too poor to leave, but 40% of them did get out. That’s the point. They did somehow manage it, and look, the struggle and the war, just imagine they walked miles and miles and miles. Could you leave if you’ve got an elderly or sick parent or a very young child who said… Are you frightened of leaving this security of the community? You see, that’s the issue isn’t it? Yes, the pogroms were horrific, but many historians believe it’s really the poverty that was the overriding thing. Joan, it’s a permanent Jewish question. When do we move on? Same question after 33 in Germany. Some question are in certain countries, track waves of immigration to Israel. Yes, of course Joe. It’s very, very interesting. The wandering Jews.

Q: Trudy, will you be talking about the pogroms in Romania and Poland? A: I would definitely be looking at Poland. Not sure about Romania, but I have a colleague who will. Many of my parents friends in Warsaw, mainly Bundes in pre-war years were immigrants from Russia, speaking Russian and Yiddish. Yes, Vladka.

Q: Were there any pogroms in Kamenets Podolsk? A: I believe so. I will check that.

Oh, this is from Jennifer. That’s very sweet. Oh, thank you. That’s so lovely of you, Jennifer. My dad relates to this little polish . Loved the coming of the Germans in World War I. Yes. You see, that was the problem. When World War I breaks out, the Tsarist Authorities, think the German lines, it’s the Pale and the Germans could, and how could the Jews be trusted? So, in the winter of 1914/1915, a hundred thousand Jews, mainly old men, women and children 'cause the men were drafted, were pushed into the Russian interior. Sorry, it was half a million. Half a million were pushed into the Russian interior and about a hundred thousand of them died. I mean, it’s a terrible dark period of Jewish history. Shelly, my grandfather came to New York with his father as a single man. The streets were traifs and they went back to Kabrin. My grandfather married in Kabrin, had two children, went back to the US to Wisconsin and World War I broke out, leaving my grandfather and two aunt two aunts stranded in Eastern Europe during the war. Yeah, there are so many extraordinary stories aren’t there? Family stories of adversity and how people made it.

This is from Wilma. My grandmother told me that when the soldiers rode into in 1897 at five years old, she had to lie down on the ground and pretend she was dead because they were shooting everything that moved, even the dogs. Aye, Wilma. You know, , in her autobiography, she said her first memory was them boarding up the windows in mints because there was going to be a pogrom. It’s Jen from . She came from a family with governess and wealth. Irrelevantly, isn’t this the second picture on your right that looks as it’s based on Leonardo’s last Supper? I’m afraid it is and it’s very naughty, Anne. It’s very naughty of me. Thank you. Thank you. Motty Pessie, “The Husband’s Son” by describes comedically, effects of a family to lead Russia and then the efforts to make a living in New York. The struggle was understood by his audience, Faina and Rafael founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to assist Jews fleeing pogroms. HIAs has touched the life of nearly every Jewish family in America and now welcomes all who have fled persecution. Yes, it’s a wonderful organisation, the HIAs. You know, that’s one thing about the communities, they did try. In England, unfortunately, there were some Anglo Jews who felt that Eastern European Jews would rock the boat so they paid them to go to America. This is from Debbie. My great-grandfather escaped from Grodno, escaping in a cart and then running over the boarder, but we believe he left at 18 because he was about to be conscripted.

Q: What were the rules about conscription and conditions for Jews in the Army? A: I need to know when. Was it First World War or before? It was getting… Look, in the latter years of Nicholas II’s reign, there’s war, the Russia-Japanese war. There’s the bloody revolution of 1905/6 and it escalates and things are going to get worse. You’re going to have the Balis trial, a blood Libel trial, the Kishinev pogrom, which I’ve really just begun to talk about, so it’s, and of course, the infamous protocols of the elders of Zion. So, the condition for Jews was just getting worse and worse and worse. Now, how much, how bad does it have to become? That’s the question I keep on asking you. How bad? You know, there’s a great line of Isiah Berlin, he said on the subject of antisemitism, “Before the show, we were sleepwalkers. Now we’re insomniacs.” I’m just giving you a quotation. Thank you.

And Monica, I’m interviewing a survivor of Lubnia. What horror stories. Eileen, thank you.

Q: How can I find out more about my grandparents who left Odessa arrived in Charleston in approximately 1904? A: Okay. Jewish Genealogy Society, Arlene Bear is on. I know she listens quite often. She’s the person I would contact. Get in touch with your local Jewish Genealogy Society. They’re brilliant.

Thank you, Jennifer . Anyway, I think that’s it, Judy. So, thank you very much everyone, and I will see you on Thursday.