Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/524

 476

A N T I - S E

from above, and followed closely on the heels of the riots. It has been freely charged against the Russian Government that it promoted the riots in 1881 in order to distract popular attention from the Nihilist propaganda and from the political disappointments involved in the cancellation of the previous tsar’s constitutional project (Lazare, L'Antisemitisme, p. 211). This is an hypothesis which will not stand the test of investigation. It is true that the local authorities, both civil and military, favoured the outbreak, and took no steps to suppress it, but this may be accounted for by the fact that the feudal bureaucracy had just escaped a great danger, and were consequently not sorry to see the discontented populace venting their passions on the Jews. In the higher circles of the Government different views prevailed. The tsar himself was at first persuaded that the riots were the work of Nihilists, and he publicly promised his protection to the Jews. On the other hand, his ministers, ardent Slavophils, thought they recognized in the outbreak an endorsement of the nationalist teaching of which they were the apostles, and, while reprobating the acts of violence, came to the conclusion that the most reasonable solution was to aggravate the legal disabilities of the persecuted aliens and heretics. To this view the tsar was won over, partly by the clamorous indignation of Western Europe, which had wounded his national amour propre to the quick, and partly by the strongly partisan report of a commission appointed to inquire, not into the administrative breakdown which had allowed riot to run loose over the western and southern provinces, but into the “ exploitation ” alleged against the Jews, the reasons why “ the former laws limiting the rights of the Jews ” had been mitigated, and how these laws could be altered so as “ to stop the pernicious conduct of the Jews” (Rescript of 3rd September 1881). The result of this report was the drafting of a “ Temporary Order concerning the Jews ” by the Minister of the Interior, Count Ignatieff, which received the assent of the tsar on the 3rd May 1882. This order, which was so little temporary that it has not yet been repealed, had the effect of creating a number of fresh ghettos within the pale of Jewish settlement. The Jews were cooped up within the towns, and their rural interests were arbitrarily confiscated. The doubtful incidence of the order gave rise to a number of judgments of the Senate, by which all its persecuting possibilities were brought out, with the result that the activities of the Jews were completely paralysed, and they became a prey to unparalleled cruelty. As the gruesome effect of this legislation became known, a fresh outburst of horror and indignation swelled up from Western Europe. It proved powerless. Count Ignatieff was dismissed owing to the protests of highplaced Russians, who were disgusted by the new Kulturkampf, but his work remained, and, under the influence of M. Pobyedonostzeff, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, the policy of the “ May Laws,” as they were significantly called, was applied to every aspect of Jewish life with pitiless rigour. The temper of the tsar may be judged by the fact that when an appeal for mercy from an illustrious personage in England was conveyed to him at Fredensborg through the gracious medium of the tsaritza, his Majesty angrily exclaimed within the hearing of an Englishman in the ante-room who was the bearer of the message, “Never let me hear you mention the name of that people again ! ” The Russian May Laws are the most conspicuous legislative monument achieved by modern anti-Semitism. It is true that they re-enacted regulations which resemble the oppressive statutes introduced into Poland through the influence of the Jesuits in the 16th century (Sternberg, Gesch. d. Juden in Polen, pp. 141 et seqq.), but their

M I T I S M orthodox authors were as little conscious of this irony of history as they were of the Teutonic origins of the whole Slavophil movement. These laws are an experimental application of the political principles extracted by Marr and his German disciples from the metaphysics of Hegel, and as such they afford a valuable means of testing the practical operation of modern anti-Semitism. Their result was a widespread commercial depression which was felt all over the empire. Even before the May Laws were definitely promulgated the passport registers showed that the anti-Semitic movement had driven 67,900 Jews across the frontier, and it was estimated that they had taken with them 13,000,000 roubles, representing a minimum loss of 60,000,000 roubles to the annual turnover of the country’s trade. Towards the end of 1882 it was calculated that the agitation had cost Russia as much as the whole Turkish war of 1877. Trade was everywhere paralysed. The enormous increase of bankruptcies, the transfer of investments to foreign funds, the consequent fall in the value of the rouble and the prices of Russian stocks, the suspension of farming operations owing to advances on growing crops being no longer available, the rise in the prices of the necessaries of life, and lastly, the appearance of famine, filled half the empire with gloom. Banks closed their doors, and the great provincial fairs proved failures. When it was proposed to expel the Jews from Moscow there was a loud outcry all over the Sacred City, and even the Orthodox merchants, realizing that the measure would ruin their flourishing trade with the south and west, petitioned against it. The Moscow Exhibition proved a failure. Nevertheless the Government persisted with its harsh policy, and Jewish refugees streamed by tens of thousands across the western frontier to seek an asylum in other lands. In 1891 the alarm caused by this emigration led to further protests from abroad. The citizens of London again assembled at Guildhall, and addressed a petition to the tsar on behalf of his Hebrew subjects. It was handed back to the Lord Mayor by the Russian Ambassador, with a curt intimation that the emperor declined to receive it. At the same time orders were defiantly given that the May Laws should be strictly enforced. Meanwhile the Russian Minister of Finance was at his wits’ ends for money. Negotiations for a large loan had been entered upon with the house of Rothschild, and a preliminary contract had been signed, when, at the instance of the London firm, M. Wyshnigradski, the Finance Minister, was informed that unless the persecutions of the Jews were stopped the great banking-house would be compelled to withdraw from the operation. Deeply mortified by this attempt to deal with him de puissance a puissance, the tsar peremptorily broke off the negotiations, and ordered that overtures should be made to a non-Jewish French syndicate. In this way anti-Semitism, which had already so profoundly influenced the domestic politics of Europe, set its mark on the international relations of the Powers, for it was the urgent need of the Russian Treasury quite as much as the termination of Prince Bismarck’s secret treaty of mutual neutrality which brought about the Franco-Russian alliance (Daudet, Hist Dipl, de VAlliance Franco-Russe, pp. 259 et seqq.). For nearly three years more the persecutions continued. Elated by the success of his crusade against the Jews, M. Pobyedonostzeff extended his persecuting policy to other non-Orthodox denominations. The legislation against the Protestant Stundists became almost as unbearable as that imposed on the Jews. In the report of the Holy Synod, presented to the tsar towards the end of 1893, the procurator called for repressive measures against Roman