Russians, Jews, and the Pogroms of 1881-1882

Description

Anti-Jewish pogroms rocked the Russian Empire in 1881-2, plunging both the Jewish community and the imperial authorities into crisis. Focusing on a wide range of responses to the pogroms, this book offers the most comprehensive, balanced, and complex study of the crisis to date. It presents a nuanced account of the diversity of Jewish political reactions and introduces a wealth of new sources covering Russian and other non-Jewish reactions to these events. Seeking to answer the question of what caused the pogroms' outbreak and spread, the book provides a fuller picture of how officials at every level responded to the national emergency and irrevocably lays to rest the myth that the authorities instigated or tolerated the pogroms. This is essential reading not only for Russian and Jewish historians but also for those interested in the study of ethnic violence more generally.

John Doyle Klier (1944-2007) was latterly Sidney and Elizabeth Corob Professor of Modern Jewish History in the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department at University College London. His previous publications, Russia Gathers Her Jews (1985) and Imperial Russia's Jewish Question (1995), are standard works in modern Russian-Jewish history, along with Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (co-editor, 1992).

'Highly recommended.' Choice 'Lars Fischer, Francois Guesnet, and Helen Klier have done an excellent job in preparing the manuscript for publication. The book has an excellent chronological appendix and many vivid illustrations and contemporary cartoons. It will remain a landmark study.' Samuel Kassow, Slavic Review '... a solid and erudite foundation for other scholars to build on.' Patricia Herlihy, The Journal of Modern History 'Anti-Jewish violence was no novelty in the Russian Empire of the nineteenth century, but the extraordinary surge of attacks that broke out in 1881-82 became a watershed, both for imperial policy and for the Jewish response. Though these events seem to anticipate disorders and brutality of later decades, John Klier argues that they were distinctive, warranting attention on their own terms. He meticulously reviews primary and secondary sources to produce a comprehensive chronicle and critique both of the pogroms and of the reactions they provoked.' Robert E. Johnson, Canadian Journal of History