History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume I Part 22

This reform having been accomplished, the Kahals shall be dispensed with. To provide for the management of the spiritual affairs of the Jews, "synagogues," with rabbis and "schoolmen," are to be organized in the various Governments. A supreme ecclesiastic tribunal is to be established at St. Petersburg, under the name "Sendarin,"[244] which shall be presided over by a chief rabbi, or "patriarch," after the pattern of the Mohammedan mufti of the Tatars.

Suggestions of various repressive and compulsory measures supplement these positive proposals. The Jews are to be forbidden to keep Christian domestics; they are to be deprived of their right of partic.i.p.ating in the city magistracies; they are to be compelled to give up their distinct form of dress and to execute all deeds and business doc.u.ments in Russian, Polish, or German. The children shall be allowed to go to the Jewish religious schools only up to the age of twelve, and shall afterwards be transferred to the secular schools of the state. Finally the author proposes that the Government establish a printing-office of its own, to publish Jewish religious books "with philosophic annotations." In this way, Dyerzhavin contends, will "the stubborn and cunning tribe of Hebrews be properly set to rights," and Emperor Paul, by carrying out this reform, will earn great fame for having fulfilled the commandment of the Gospels, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you."

Such is Dyerzhavin's project, a curious mixture of the savage fancies of an old-fas.h.i.+oned Muscovite about an unfamiliar historic culture on the one hand, and notions of reform conceived in the contemporary Prussian barrack spirit and various "philosophic" tendencies on the other hand, a medley of hereditary Jew-hatred, vague appreciation of the historic tragedy of Judaism, and the desire to "render the Jews useful to the state."[245] And over it all hovers the spirit of official patronage and red-tape regulations, the curious notion that a people with an ancient culture can, at the mere bidding of an outside agency, change its position like figures on a chess-board, that strange faith in the saving power of _mechanical_ reforms which prevailed, though in less nave manifestations, also in Western Europe.

Dyerzhavin's "Opinion" was laid before the Senate in December, 1800, and together with the previously submitted recommendations of the West-Russian marshals and governors was to supply the material for an organic legal enactment concerning the Jews.

But the execution of this plan was not destined to take place during the reign of Paul. In March, 1801, the Tzar met his tragic fate, and the cause of "Jewish reform" entered into a new phase, a phase characterized by the struggle between the liberal tendencies prevalent at the beginning of Alexander I.'s reign and the retrograde views held by the champions of Old Poland and Old Russia.

FOOTNOTES:

[234] [In 1766 Catherine convened a Commission, consisting of representatives of the various estates, for the purpose of elaborating a new Russian code of laws. As a guide for this Commission Catherine wrote her famous "Instructions" (in Russian _Nakaz_), outlining the principles of government, largely in the spirit of Montesquieu.]

[235] [This law laid the foundation for the division of the Russian Empire into "Governments," in Russian _gubernia_ (the English term is a reproduction of the French _gouvernement_). The chief of a Government is called Governor, in Russian, _Gubernator_. There are also a few Governors-General, in Russian, _Gheneral-Gubernator_, placed over several Governments, mostly on the borders of the Empire.]

[236] [According to this new law, the city population is divided into merchants, burghers, and artisans. The burghers--in Russian (also in Polish, see above, p. 44, n. 2), _myeshchanye_--are placed below the merchants. The former are those possessing less than 500 rubels ($250); they have to pay the head-tax and are subject to corporal punishment.

The merchants are those who have a larger capital, and are privileged in the two directions indicated. The artisans are organized in their trade-unions. Each estate is registered and administered separately.]

[237] [See p. 320, n. 2.]

[238] It consisted of the Governments of Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversk (subsequently Poltava) and a part of the Government of Kiev.

[239] [The present Government of Kovno was const.i.tuted as late as 1872.

Its territory was up till then included in the Government of Vilna.]

[240] This was in direct violation of the pledge given by the Russian Government at the occupation of the Polish provinces. As recently as in January of the same year (1795) the Lithuanian Governor-General Repnin had replied to the application of the Lithuanian Jews, who pleaded for the maintenance of the Kahal tribunal, that the Jews "may retain the same rights they had been enjoying prior to the last [Polish] mutiny [of 1794]."

[241] [_Zhyd_, originally the Slavic form of the Latin _Judaeus_, has a.s.sumed in Russian a derogatory connotation. It is interesting to note that in Polish the same word has no unpleasant meaning, although in polite speech other terms are used.]

[242] [See p. 253, n. 1; for "propination" see p. 67, n. 2.]

[243] Dyerzhavin's statement, that he had "borrowed his princ.i.p.al ideas from Prussian inst.i.tutions," refers in all likelihood to the well-known Prussian _Juden-Reglement fur Sud- und-Neuostpreussen_ of 1797, which was at that time operative in the whole of Prussian Poland. There are numerous points of contact between Dyerzhavin's project and the Prussian enactment. The latter may be found in the work of Ronne and Simon, _Verhaltnisse der Juden in den sammtlichen Landestheilen des preussischen Staates_, ed. 1843, pp. 281-302.

[244] This is the way Dyerzhavin spells the word Synhedrion, or Sanhedrin, which he evidently had picked up casually.

[245] The following sentence in Dyerzhavin's "Opinion" is typical of this mixture of medieval notions with the new system of "enlightened patronage": "Inasmuch as Supreme Providence, in order to attain its unknown ends, leaves this people, despite its dangerous characteristics, on the face of the earth, and refrains from destroying it, the Governments under whose scepter it takes refuge must also suffer it to live; a.s.sisting the decree of destiny, they are in duty bound to extend their patronage even to the Jews, but in such wise that they [the Jews]

may prove useful both to themselves and to the people in whose midst they are settled."

CHAPTER X

THE "ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM" OF ALEXANDER I.

1. "THE COMMITTEE FOR THE AMELIORATION OF THE JEWS."

The liberal breeze which began to stir in the first years of Alexander I.'s reign sent a refres.h.i.+ng current of air through the stuffy atmosphere of the St. Petersburg chancelleries, in which Russian bureaucrats, undisturbed by their utter ignorance of Judaism, were devising ways and means of turning Jewish life upside down. It took some time, however, before the Jewish question was taken up again. In 1801 and 1802 the Government was busy rearranging the whole machinery of the administration. With the formation of the Ministries and of the Council of State the Senate lost its former executive power, and, as a result, the material relating to the Jewish question which had been in its possession had to be transferred to a new official agency.

Such an agency was called into being in November, 1802. By order of the Tzar a special "Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews" was organized, and the following were appointed its members: Kochubay, Minister of the Interior, Dyerzhavin, the "specialist" on Judaism, at that time Minister of Justice, Count Zubov, and two high officials of Polish birth, Adam Chartoriski, a.s.sistant-Minister for Foreign Affairs, an intimate friend of Alexander I., and Severin Pototzki, a member of the Senate. The Committee was charged with the investigation of all the problems touched upon in Dyerzhavin's "Opinion," concerning the curbing of the avaricious pursuits of the Jews in White Russia, with a view to "extending the amelioration of the Jews also to the other Governments acquired from Poland."

Rumors to the effect that a special Committee on Jewish affairs had been inst.i.tuted at St. Petersburg, and that its work was to follow the lines laid down in the project of Dyerzhavin, caused considerable alarm among the Jews of the Northwest, who knew but too well the anti-Semitic leanings of the former Senator and inspector. The Kahal of Minsk held a special meeting in December, 1802, which pa.s.sed the following resolution:

Whereas disquieting rumors have reached us from the capital, to the effect that matters involving the Jews as a whole have now been intrusted to the hands of five dignitaries, with power to dispose of them as they see fit, be it resolved that it is necessary to proceed to St. Petersburg and pet.i.tion our sovereign not to allow them [the dignitaries] to introduce any innovations among us.

A public appeal was made for funds to provide the expenses of the delegates. Moreover, a fast of three days was imposed on all the members of the community, during which prayers were to be offered up in the synagogues for averting the calamity which the Government threatened to bring upon the Jews.

When the Minister of the Interior, Kochubay, learned of the excitement prevailing among the Jews, he sent, in January, 1803, a circular to the governors, instructing them to allay the fears of the Jews. The Kahals were to be informed that "in appointing the Committee for the investigation of Jewish matters," there was "no intention whatsoever to impair their status or to curtail any substantial advantage enjoyed by them," but on the contrary it was proposed to "offer them better conditions and greater security."

This verbal a.s.surance was not nearly so effective in quieting the minds of the Jews as action taken by the Government at the same time. In the beginning of 1803, the "Jewish Committee" resolved to invite deputies from all the gubernatorial Kahals to St. Petersburg for the purpose of ascertaining their views as to the needs of the Jewish people, which the Government had planned to "transform" without its own knowledge. This was the first departure from the red-tape routine of St. Petersburg.

Towards the end of January, 1803, active preparations were set afoot by the Kahals for sending such deputies. During the winter and spring the Russian capital witnessed the arrival of Jewish deputies from the Governments of Minsk, Podolia, Moghilev, and Kiev, no information being available about the other Governments. The deputies soon had occasion to rejoice in Dyerzhavin's retirement from members.h.i.+p in the Jewish Committee, following upon his resignation from the post of Minister of Justice. Being a conservative of the "real Russian" type, Dyerzhavin was out of place in a liberal Government such as ruled the destinies of Russia in the early years of Alexander's reign. With his retirement his "Opinion" ceased to serve as an obligatory rule of conduct for the members of the Committee.

On arriving in St. Petersburg, the deputies from the provinces found there a small group of Jews, mostly natives of White Russia, who lived temporarily in the capital, in connection with their business affairs.

Though denied the right of permanent domicile in the capital of the Empire, this handful of barely tolerated Jews had managed to secure the right of dying there and of burying their dead in their own cemetery.

The opening of the cemetery in 1802 marks symbolically the inception of the Jewish community in St. Petersburg. In the same sign of death the provincial deputies met their metropolitan brethren at a rather strange "celebration" in the summer of 1803: at the suggestion of the deputies and in their presence the remains of three Jews who had been buried in a Christian cemetery were transferred to the newly-acquired Jewish cemetery.

Among the Jews of St. Petersburg there were several men at that time who, owing to their connections with high officials and because of their familiarity with bureaucratic ways, were able to be of substantial service to the deputies from the provinces. One of these Jews, Nota Shklover, who about that time received the family name Notkin, the same public-spirited merchant who in 1800 had submitted his reform project to Dyerzhavin,[246] acted, it would seem, as the official adviser of the deputies, having been invited some time previously to partic.i.p.ate in the labors of the Jewish Committee. While on the Committee, he continually insisted on his scheme of promoting agriculture and manufactures among the Jews, but he did not live to see the triumph of his ideas. He died shortly before the enactment of the law of 1804, in which his pet theory found due recognition. Another St. Petersburg Jew, the wealthy contractor and commercial councilor Abraham Peretz, took no immediate part in Jewish affairs. Yet he too was of some service to the deputies, owing to his business relations with the official world.

In the meantime the Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews, after scrutinizing the different projects submitted to it, had worked out a general plan of reform, and communicated it to the Jewish deputies.

After "prolonged indecision" the Jewish deputies announced that they were not in a position to submit their conclusions, without previous consultation with the Kahals by which they had been elected. They accordingly asked for a half-year's respite "for the purpose of consultation." The official Jewish Committee, on the other hand, could not agree to so protracted a delay in its labors, and resolved to submit, through the medium of the Government, the princ.i.p.al clauses of the project to the Kahals, with the understanding that the latter, "without making any changes in the aforesaid clauses," should confine themselves to suggestions as to the best ways and means of carrying the proposed reforms into effect.

The epistolary inquiry failed to produce the "desired effect."

Restricted beforehand in their free expression of opinion, and having no right to speak their mind as to the substance of the project, the Kahals in replying limited themselves to the request that the "correctional measures" be postponed for twenty years, particularly as far as the proposed prohibition of the sale of liquor and land-tenure was concerned, which prohibition would undermine the whole economic structure of Jewish life. The Committee paid no heed to the plea of the Kahals, which was tantamount to a condemnation of the basic principles of the project, and proceeded to work in the direction originally decided upon.

Nor was there perfect unanimity within the Committee itself. Two tendencies, it seems, were struggling for mastery: utilitarianism, represented by the champions of "correctional measures" and of a compulsory "transformation of Jewish life," and humanitarianism, advocated by the spokesmen of unconditional emanc.i.p.ation. To the latter cla.s.s belonged Speranski, the brilliant and enlightened statesman who might have succeeded in liberating the Empire of the Tzars a hundred years ago, had he not fallen a victim to the fatal conditions of Russian life. At the time we are speaking of he served in the Ministry of the Interior under Kochubay, and was engaged in elaborating plans of reform for the various departments of the civil service.

Speranski took an active interest in the Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews, and frequently acted as Kochubay's subst.i.tute. There was a time when his influence in the Committee was predominant. It was evidently under his influence that the remarkable sentences embodied in the minutes of the Committee meeting of September 20, 1803, were penned:

Reforms brought about by the power of the state are, as a rule, unstable, and are particularly untenable in those cases in which that power has to grapple with the habits of centuries. Hence it seems both better and safer to guide the Jews to perfection by throwing open to them the avenues leading to their own happiness, by observing their movements from a distance, and by removing everything that might turn them away from this path, without using any manner of force, without establis.h.i.+ng special agencies for them, without endeavoring to act in their stead, but by merely opening the way for their own activities. As few restrictions as possible, as many liberties as possible--these are the simple elements of every social order.

Since the Government had begun to dabble in the Jewish question, this was the first rational utterance coming from the ranks of the Russian bureaucracy. It implied an emphatic condemnation of the system of state patronage and "correctional measures" by means of which Russian officialdom then and thereafter sought to "transform" a whole nation.

Here for the first time was voiced the lofty precept of humanitarianism: grant the Jews untrammeled possibilities of development, give full scope to their energies, and the Jews themselves will in the end choose the way which leads to "perfection" and progress.... But even the liberalizing statesmen of that period could not maintain themselves on that high eminence of political thought. Speranski's conception was too tender a blossom for the rough climate of Russia, even in its springtide. The blossom was bound to wither. As far as the Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews was concerned, the hackneyed political wisdom of the age, the system of patronage and compulsory reforms, came to the fore again. The report submitted by the Jewish Committee to Alexander I. in October, 1804, reveals no trace of that radical liberalism which a year before had come to light in the minutes of the Committee.

The report begins by determining the approximate size of the Jewish population, computing the number of registered, taxable males at 174,385--"a figure which represents less than a fifth of the whole Jewish population." In other words, the total number of Jews, in the estimate of the Committee, approached one million. The report proceeds to point out that this entire ma.s.s is huddled together in the annexed Polish and Lithuanian provinces and in Little Russia and Courland, and is barred from the Governments of the interior--a statement followed by an historical excursus tending to show that "the Jews have never been allowed to settle in Russia." The Tzar is further informed that the Jews are obliged to pay double taxes, that, notwithstanding the fact that they are liable to the general courts and munic.i.p.alities, and that their Kahals are subordinate to the gubernatorial police, the Jews still keep aloof from the inst.i.tutions of the land and manage their affairs through the Kahals. Finally it is pointed out that the sale of liquor, the most widespread occupation among Jews, is a source of abuses, calling forth complaints from the surrounding population. Basing its deductions on these premises, the Committee drafted a law which in its princ.i.p.al features was embodied in the "Statute Concerning the Organization of the Jews," issued, with the sanction of the Tzar, soon afterwards, on December 9, 1804.

2. THE "JEWISH CONSt.i.tUTION" OF 1804

The new charter, a mixture of liberties and disabilities, was prompted, as is stated in the preamble, "by solicitude for the true welfare of the Jews," as well as for "the advantage of the native population of those Governments in which these people are allowed to live." The concluding part of the sentence antic.i.p.ates the way in which the question of the Jewish area of settlement is solved. It remained limited as theretofore to thirteen Governments: two in Lithuania, two in White Russia, two in Little Russia, those of Minsk, Volhynia, Kiev, and Podolia, and finally three in New Russia. A slightly larger area is conceded by the new statute to the _future_ cla.s.s of Jewish agriculturists projected in the same statute. They are permitted to settle in addition in two interior Governments, those of Astrakhan and Caucasia.

Economically the new statute establishes two opposite poles: a negative pole as far as the rural occupations of innkeeping and land-tenure are concerned, which are to be exterminated ruthlessly, and a positive pole, as far as agriculture is involved, which on the contrary is to be stimulated and promoted among Jews in every possible manner. Clause 34, the severest provision of the whole act, is directed not only against innkeeping but against rural occupations in general. It reads as follows:

Beginning with January 1, 1807, in the Governments of Astrakhan and Caucasia, also in those of Little Russia and New Russia, and, beginning with January 1, 1808, in the other Governments, _no one among the Jews in any village or hamlet shall be permitted to hold any leases on land, to keep taverns, saloons, or inns_, whether under his own name or under a strange name, or to sell wine in them, or _even to live in them_ under any pretext whatever, except when pa.s.sing through.

With one stroke this clause eliminated from the economic life of the Jews an occupation which, though far from being distinguished, had yet afforded a livelihood to almost one-half of the whole Jewish population of Russia. Moreover, the none too extensive territory of the Jewish Pale of Settlement was still more limited by excluding from it the enormous area of villages and hamlets.