Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History

239 Pages·2010·2.52 MB·English

by  Jonathan Dekel-Chen

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EditEd by Vladas Sirutavičius
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Pogrom Jonathan Dekel-Chen, David gaunt,
in Kiev, 1919 University Press Arkadi Zeltser
Jacket illustration: Issachar Ber Ryback, INDIANA natan m. meir, and israel Bartal
, collection of the Mishkan LeOmanut,
Bloomington & Indianapolis
Museum of Art, Ein Harod, Israel.
www.iupress.indiana.edu
1-800-842-6796
AntiJewishViolence MECH.indd 1 9/7/10 9:35 AM
Anti-Jewish Violence

Anti-Jewish Violence
Rethinking the Pogrom

in East European History
Edited by
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN
DAVID GAUNT
NATAN M. MEIR
ISRAEL BARTAL
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington and Indianapolis

CONTENTS
Preface: A Tribute to John D. Klier ix
Ac know ledg ments xiii
List of Abbreviations xv
Map: Sites of Major Pogroms xviii
Introduction 1
David Gaunt, Jonathan Dekel- Chen, Natan M. Meir,
and Israel Bartal
1 What’s in a Pogrom? Eu ro pe an Jews in the Age of Violence 19
David Engel
Part 1. Twentieth- Century Pogroms
2 1915 and the War Pogrom Paradigm in the Rus sian Empire 41
Eric Lohr
3 The Role of Personality in the First (1914– 1915) Rus sian
Occupation of Galicia and Bukovina 52
Peter Holquist
4 Freedom, Shortages, Violence: The Origins of the
“Revolutionary Anti- Jewish Pogrom” in Rus sia, 1917– 1918 74
Vladimir P. Buldakov
Part 2. Responses to Pogroms
5 Preventing Pogroms: Patterns in Jewish Politics in Early
Twentieth- Century Rus sia 95
Vladimir Levin
6 “The Sword Hanging over Their Heads”: The Signifi cance
of Pogrom for Rus sian Jewish Everyday Life and Self-
Understanding (The Case of Kiev) 111
Natan M. Meir
vi CONTENTS
Part 3. Regional Perspectives
7 The Possibility of the Impossible: Pogroms in Eastern Siberia 131
Lilia Kalmina
8 Was Lithuania a Pogrom- Free Zone? (1881– 1940) 144
Vladas Sirutavicius and Darius Stalivnas
9 The Missing Pogroms of Belorus sia, 1881– 1882: Conditions
and Motives of an Absence of Violence 159
Claire Le Foll
10 Ethnic Confl ict and Modernization in the Interwar Period:
The Case of Soviet Belorus sia 174
Arkadi Zeltser
11 Defusing the Ethnic Bomb: Resolving Local Confl ict through
Philanthropy in the Interwar USSR 186
Jonathan Dekel- Chen
Glossary 205
List of Contributors 207
Index 209

John Doyle Klier (1944– 2007)
PREFACE: A TRIBUTE TO JOHN DOYLE KLIER (1944– 2007)
John Doyle Klier was the Sidney and Elizabeth Corob Professor of Mod-
ern Jewish History at University College, London. He began his univer-
sity teaching career at Fort Hays State University, Kansas. John moved to
University College, London in 1990 and r ose to the rank of Professor in
1996.
For anyone engaged in the study of modern Eu ro pe an history during
the past two dec ades, familiarity with John Klier’s scholarship was a rite of
passage. His seminal works—Russia Gathers Her Jews (DeKalb, 1986) and
Imperial Russ ia’s Jewish Question, 1855–1 881 (Cambridge, 1995)—a re re-
quired reading in university courses around the globe. Scholars in the fi eld
had been waiting anxiously for the publication of his newest (and tragi-
cally, last) monograph. In the last few months of his life, John neared the
completion of the manuscript for this book, titled “Rus sians, Jews and the
Pogroms of 1881-1 882,” to be published by Cambridge University Press.
Following his death, Lars Fischer, François Guesnet and John’s widow,
Helen Klier, took up the completion of that long- awaited project.
John was fond of saying that the work of Hans Rogger sparked the
reassessment of relations between the late Imperial Russ ian state and its
Jews. It is equally true for anyone who knew his work that John Klier gave
this revision its scholarly “teeth.” He was among the fi rst pioneering West-
ern scholars to work in the Soviet archives in the 1980s. As a result, John
quite literally reshaped the way that scholars and laypeople thought about
the behavior of the Russ ian state and its peoples toward their Jewish sub-
jects and neighbors during the nineteenth century. Most notably, he
helped to change the way recurring anti- Jewish violence was understood
and allowed other scholars to question many assumptions about the con-
nection between the Imperial Rus sian regime and the pogroms. The im-
portance of this cannot be overstated, given the centrality of anti- Jewish
violence in the varieties of national narratives of the Jewish people and the
mark these have left on the popu l ar memory about the Russ ian Empire.
John helped to turn the study of pogroms and anti-J ewish violence into a
fi eld of study in its own right.
For anyone who had the good fortune to know him, from the fi rst
meeting it was obvious that John was much more than a brilliant scholar.
His unique blend of intellect, earthly common sense, and warmth made it