Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T10:36:21.542Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Competing with entrepreneurial diasporians: origins of anti-Semitism in nineteenth-century Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Pål Kolstø
Pål Kolstø*
Affiliation:
Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo, PO Box 1003, Blindern, N-0315 Oslo, Norway
*
∗Email: pal.kolsto@ilos.uio.no
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The popular, stereotype perception of Russian anti-Semitism is marred by a number of misconceptions. It is generally believed that it originated among the peasants, partly as a result of religious bigotry and partly as a reaction against an alleged Jewish exploitation. In actual fact, pogroms almost invariably started in towns and cities, and the main instigators were artisans and merchants and other people who plied the same trade as the Jews, later also professionals such as lawyers. Hence, economic competition rather than exploitation was the most important driving force. This is reflected in the writings of Russian anti-Semites and is also how most contemporary Jews understood their causes behind their ordeals. The Jews could be targeted for persecution because they were a diaspora group and did not enjoy the same protection as the indigenous population. Thus, even though the tsarist regime can be cleared of any suspicion that they deliberately whipped up the pogroms, they contributed to them by failing to give the Jews the same rights as other subjects of the empire.

Keywords

anti-semitismethnic competitionJewsdiscriminationpogroms
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , July 2014 , pp. 691 - 707
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armstrong, John A. 1976. “Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas.” The American Political Science Review 70 (2): 393–408.Google Scholar
Aronson, I. Michael. 1990. Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Aronson, I. Michael. 2004. “The Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia in 1881.” In Pogroms, edited by Klier, J. D. and Lambroza, S., 44–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Avrutin, Eugene M. 2010. Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Benz, Wolfgang. 2004. Was ist Antisemitismus? Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag.Google Scholar
Bronner, Stephen Eric. 2003. A Rumor about the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Budnitskii, Oleg. 2002. “Jews, Pogroms, and the White Movement: A Historigraphical Critique.” Kritika 2 (4): 751–772.Google Scholar
Chernoiarov, Ivan. 1890. Zhidy. Ocherk ikh proiskhozhdeniia, izvrashchenie verovaniia, tsel’ i tainy. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia Doma prizreniia Maleletnykh Bednykh.Google Scholar
Chua, Amy. 2003. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Cohen, Robin. 1997. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Demidov San-Donato, Pavel. 1883. Evreiskii Vopros V Rossii. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia M.M. Stasiulevicha.Google Scholar
Dubnov, S. M. 1975. History of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Vol. 2. New York: Ktav Publishing House.Google Scholar
Frederickson, George M. 2002. Racism, a Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University press.Google Scholar
Gatrell, Peter. 1986. The Tsarist Economy 1850–1917. London: B.T. Batsford.Google Scholar
Gessen, Iulii. 1906. O Zhizni Evreev V Rossii. Saint Petersburg: No publisher given.Google Scholar
Gobineau, Arthur de. [1854] 1999. The Inequality of Human Races. New York: Howard Fertig.Google Scholar
Gutwein, Daniel. 1994. “Russian “Official Antisemitism” Reconsidered: Socio-Economic Aspects of Tsarist Jewish policy, 1881–1905.” International Review of Social History 39 (2): 197–221.Google Scholar
Hüttermann, Jörg. 2000. “Der Avancierende Fremde: Zur Genese Von Unsicherheitsfahrungen Und Konflikten In Einem Ethnisch Polarisierten Und Sozialräumlich Benachteiligten Stadtteil.” Zeitschrift Für Soziologie 29 (4): 275–293.Google Scholar
Iarmonkin, V. 1894. Evreiskii vopros. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia ministerstva putei soobshcheniia.Google Scholar
Judge, Edward H. 1992. Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Kappeler, Andreas. 1993. Russland Als Vielvölkerreich. Entstehung, Geschichte, Zerfall. Munich: C.H. Beck.Google Scholar
Kel'ner, Viktor. 2004. “Russkaia Intelligentsiia i ‘Evreiskii Vopros’ V Nachale XX v. (Antisemitizm, Iudofiliia. Asemitizm).” Paralleli 4-5: 73–86.Google Scholar
Kenez, Peter. 2004. “Pogroms and White Ideology in the Russian Civil War.” In Pogroms, edited by Klier, J. D. and Lambroza, S., 293–313. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klier, John Doyle. 1986. Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the “Jewish Question” in Russia, 1772–1825. Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Klier, John Doyle. 1998. Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 1855–1881. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klier, John Doyle. 2004. “Russian Jewry on the Eve of the Pogroms.” In Pogroms, edited by Klier, J. D. and Lambroza, S., 3–12. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klier, John Doyle, and Lambroza, Shlomo, eds. 2004. Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kolstø, Pål. 2008. “Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Job Competition: Non-Russian Collective Action in the USSR under Perestroika.” Nations and Nationalism 14 (1): 151–169.Google Scholar
Kolstø, Pål. 2009. “Sources of Russian Anti-Semitism in the Late Nineteenth Century: A Socio-Economic Explanation.” Scando-Slavica 55 (1): 43–64.Google Scholar
Kosven, M. 1904. “K Voprosu O Vysshem Obrazovanii Russkikh Evreev.” Evreiskaia Zhizn 7: 161–169.Google Scholar
Lambroza, Shlomo. 2004. “The Pogroms of 1903–1906.” In Pogroms, edited by Klier, J. D. and Lambroza, S., 195–247. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Laqueur, Walter. 2006. The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism. From Ancient Times to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Robert A., Rowland, Richard H., and Clem, Ralph S. 1976. Nationality and Population Change in Russia and the USSR: An Evaluation of Census Data, 1897–1970. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Liutostanskii, Ippolit. 1880. Ob Upotreblenii Evreiami Khristianskoi Krovi Dlia Religioznykh Tselei. 2 vols. Saint Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia Pol'za.Google Scholar
Löwe, Hans-Dietrich. 1978. Antisemitismus Und Reaktionäre Utopie: Russischer Konservatismus in Kampf Gegen Den Wandel Von Staat Und Gesellschaft, 1890–1917. Hamburg: Hoffmann Und Campe.Google Scholar
Mindlin, Alexander. 2003. “Pleve i Evrei.” Paralleli 2-3: 79–96.Google Scholar
Mordvinov, V. 1880. Tainy Talmuda i ievrei v otnoshenii k khristianskomu miru. Moscow: Tipografiia F. Iogansona.Google Scholar
Morgulis, M. G. 1910. “Bezporiadki 1871 Goda V Odesse.” Evreiskii Mir 2-3: 42–46.Google Scholar
Nathans, Benjamin. 2004. Beyond the Pale: ‘The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley: California University Press.Google Scholar
Orbach, Alexander. 2004. “The Russian Jewish Community.” In Pogroms, edited by Klier, J. D. and Lambroza, S., 137–163. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Orshanskii, I. G. 1877. Evrei v Rossii- Ocherki Ekonomicheskago i Obshchestvennago By ta Russkikh Evreev. Saint Petersburg: Tipografiia O.I. Baksta.Google Scholar
Pinkus, Benjamin. 1989. The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dennis, Prager, and Telushkin, Joseph. 2003. Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism. New York: Simon and Shuster.Google Scholar
Rogger, Hans. 1986. Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rossov, S. 1907. Evreiskii vopros. Saint Petersburg: No publisher given.Google Scholar
Shanin, Teodor. 1985. The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of Century. Basingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Shmakov, Aleksei. 1897. Evreiskie rechi. Moscow: Tipografiia A.I. Mamontova, 1897.Google Scholar
Shmakov, Aleksei. 1906. Svoboda i Ievrei. Moscow: Moskovskaia Gorodskaia Tipografiia.Google Scholar
Slezkine, Yuri. 2004. The Jewish Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sombart, Werner. 1913. The Jews and Modern Capitalism. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, Facsimile Edition.Google Scholar
Suhr, Gerald. 2003. “Ekaterinoslav City in 1905: Workers, Jews, and Violence.” International Labor and Working-Class History 64 (Fall): 139–166.Google Scholar
Tutkevich, D.V. 1906. Chto Takoe Evrei. Kiev: Tipografiia I.I. Gorbunova.Google Scholar
Vishniak, Mark. 1942. “Antisemitism in Tsarist Russia: A Study in Government-Forstered Antisemitism.” In Essays on Antisemitism, edited by Koppel S. Pinson, 79-110. New York: Conference on Jewish Relations.Google Scholar
Weinberg, Robert. 2004. “The Pogrom in 1905 in Odessa, a Case Study.” In Pogroms, edited by Klier, J. D. and Lambroza, S., 248–289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weinerman, Eli. 1994. “Racism, Racial Prejudice and Jews in Late Imperial Russia.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 17 (3), 442–495.Google Scholar