Stephen D. Corrsin, Warsaw before the First World War

Summary

This valuable study is composed of two parts of unequal character and significance. The first-7 5 per cent of the whole-contains a description of the town of Warsaw at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, with specific consideration given to the situation of the Jewish population. Considering the number of Jews in Poland's capital (their highest concentration in Europe) and their economic potential, this subject will certainly interest the Jewish reader. It does not, however, introduce new facts to a Polish audience. The second part, much shorter, explores the Polish-Jewish conflict in Warsaw during the years 1905-13, the culmination of which was the election to the Russian Duma in 1912. This episode has not hitherto been treated in a scholarly manner, and this part of the book should also arouse attention in Poland.

The author has prepared himself well for his task. He is well acquainted with Polish secondary literature on the political and economic history of the Kingdom of Poland (the ‘Congress Kingdom’) in this period; he also has the advantage over Polish historians of having made use of Yiddish material. Apart from memoirs and government publications, he has reviewed a large amount of the contemporary Warsaw press, both Jewish and Polish. He did not use archives.

In the second half of the nineteenth century Warsaw grew faster than other cities of central Europe. There was a jump from 200,000 inhabitants to almost a million (excluding the suburbs). The city was enriching and modernizing itself in a market favourable to capitalism, in spite of the difficult political conditions of the backward Tsarist regime. There was also a significant rise in the population of Warsaw Jews (from 73,000 to 337,000) and a slight increase in the proportion of Jews in the town (from 32.6 to 38.1 per cent). The increase in population, both Christian and Jewish, was due in large part to migration. The somewhat higher natural increase of Jews is probably correctly attributed by the author to the fact that the Jewish middle class came to Warsaw in families, whereas the migrating Polish youth were boys going to work in factories and girls occupying domestic positions. Hence, there was a weaker family structure among the Christians and a higher infant mortality rate. The author is unable to estimate the size of the influx of Jews from Russia (pp. 34, 123).