History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume I Part 20

To this pet.i.tion of the Jews, who cla.s.sed themselves as "members of the Polish nation," and were ready to renounce their own national characteristics, the Senate replied by presenting the Duke with a heartless report, in which it was pointed out that the Jews had brought upon themselves the "curtailment of their rights" by their "dishonest pursuits" and by "their mode of life, subversive of the welfare of society." It was necessary first to reform the life of the Jews and to appoint a committee to elaborate plans of reform. It may be remarked parenthetically that a committee of this kind had been in existence since the end of 1808, and had worked out a "plan of reform" akin in spirit to the projects of the Quadrennial Diet and the Parisian Synhedrion. But all these committees were in reality nothing but a decent way of burying the Jewish question.

At the very time when the Government of the Varsovian Duchy rejected the Jewish appeal for equality, under the pretext that the Jews lacked patriotism, there lived and worked in Warsaw a s.h.i.+ning example of Polish patriotism, Berek Yoselovich, the hero of the Revolution of 1794. After roaming about for twelve years in Western Europe, where, having enlisted in the ranks of the "Polish legions" of Domvrovski, he took part in many Napoleonic wars, Berek returned home as soon as the Duchy was established, and received an appointment as commander of a detachment in the regular Polish army. The dream of the old fighter had failed to come true. In vain had his "Jewish regiment" filled the trenches of Praga with their dead bodies. Twelve years later the brethren of those who had sacrificed their lives for their fatherland had to beg for the rights of citizens.h.i.+p. But Berek seems to have forgotten his former ambition on behalf of his fellow-Jews, having in the meantime become a professional soldier. It was solely Polish patriotism and personal bravery that prompted the last military exploits of his life. When, in the spring of 1809, war broke out between the Duchy and the Austrians, Berek Yoselovich, at the head of his regiment, rushed against the enemy's cavalry near the town of Kotzk.[233] He fell on May 5, after a series of heroic deeds.

The papers lamented the loss of the hero. A representative of the Polish aristocracy, the proud Stanislav Pototzki, devoted a special discourse to his memory at a meeting of the "Society of the Friends of Science" in Warsaw.

Thou hast saddened--thus spoke the orator--the land of heroes, thou valiant Colonel Berek, when unmeasured boldness drove thee into the midst of the enemy.... Well doth the fatherland remember also thy old wounds and thy former exploits, remember eternally that thou wast the first to give thy people an example, an example of rejuvenated heroism, and that thou hast resuscitated the image of those men of valor over whom in days gone by wept the daughters of Zion.

The Polish nation remembered, and that for a short time only, the one Berek; but the thousands of his oppressed brethren were forgotten. The only way in which the grat.i.tude of the "fatherland" manifested itself was a special order of the Duke granting permission to Berek's widow, who found it difficult to live and bring up her children on her scanty pension, to reside in the streets of Warsaw from which the Jews were barred, and "to engage there in the sale of liquor." Other civil privileges the Jews could not hope for, even by way of exception.

This state of affairs could not very well inspire the Jewish population with a great love for military service, although the Jews had been graciously permitted to discharge it in person. With few exceptions, the Jews preferred to pay an additional tax rather than spill their blood for a country which offered them obligations without rights. The decree of January 29, 1812, legalized this subst.i.tution of personal military service by a monetary ransom, the grand total of which amounted to 700,000 gulden a year.

On the brink of destruction, during the war tempest of 1812, the Duchy of Warsaw still found leisure to strike an economic blow at the Jews. At the suggestion of Minister Lubenski, a ducal decree was issued on September 30 forbidding the Jews, after the lapse of two years, to sell liquor and keep taverns, which meant, in other words, that tens of thousands of Jewish families were to be deprived of their livelihood.

Secretly the Government justified this measure by the impending augmentation of the territory of the Duchy and the restoration of Old Poland, where strict economic measures were necessary to keep the returning Jewish population in bounds. But the confidence reposed in the power of Napoleon was not justified. The idol was overthrown. The Duchy of Warsaw, the pale specter of an independent Poland, vanished into air, and the fate of the country again lay in the hands of the three Powers that had divided it, particularly Russia. The millions of Jews in Russian Poland were well aware of what they had to expect at the hands of their new rulers.

FOOTNOTES:

[215] [On this expression see p. 88, n. 1.]

[216] [It consisted of the present Governments of Moghilev and Vitebsk.]

[217] [After the first part.i.tion of Poland the Government of the country was placed in the hands of a Permanent Council consisting of thirty-six members, who were to be elected by the Diets, and were to take charge of the five departments of the administration: foreign affairs, police, war, justice, and finance. The king was to be the president of the Council. The Diet, which a.s.sembled on October 6, 1788, abolished this Permanent Council, and set out to elaborate a modern Const.i.tution, which was finally presented on May 3, 1791. While, according to Polish law, the Diets met only once in two years for six weeks (see above, p. 76, n.

1), the Diet of 1788 declared itself permanent. It sat for four years--hence its name, the Quadrennial Diet--until the adoption of the new Const.i.tution in 1791 led to civil war and to the intervention of Russia.]

[218] [Popular Polish form of the Jewish name _Hirsch_.]

[219] [See p. 85.]

[220] See p. 280.

[221] [Kollontay (in Polish, _Kollontaj_) was a radical member of the Polish Chamber. See p. 291.]

[222] See p. 272 and p. 273.

[223] [Lukov (in Polish, _Lukow_) is a district town in the province of Shedletz, not far from Warsaw. Castellan is the Polish t.i.tle for the head of a district.]

[224] Chatzki's project is reproduced in his famous book _Rozprawa o Zydach_, "Inquiry Concerning the Jews" (edition of 1860), pp. 119-134.

[225] The Jewish communities of Poland were burdened with enormous debts, representing loans made by them in the course of many years, to pay off their arrears in taxes, to meet extraordinary expenditures, and so on. The creditors of the Jews were the munic.i.p.al magistracies, the Catholic monasteries, as well as private persons. The question of liquidating these debts cropped up time and again at the sessions of the Polish Diets during the latter half of the eighteenth century.

[226] [In Polish, _Targowica_, a town in the Ukraina.]

[227] [See p. 243, n. 1.]

[228] [More exactly, _Kosciuszko_, p.r.o.nounced _Koshchushko_.]

[229] [_Berek_, or _Berko_, popular Polish form of the Jewish name _Baer_.--Yoselovich, in Polish _Joselowicz_, son of Yosel, or Joseph.]

[230] In the province of Zhmud [or Samogitia, corresponding practically to the present Government of Kovno.]

[231] That the habits of the Shlakhta were but little changed by the revolution may be gauged from the fact that in 1794 the revolutionary Central Council pa.s.sed a law ordering the sale of crown lands for the purpose of paying the national debt, but limiting this sale to persons of the Christian faith.

[232] [See p. 85, n. 1.]

[233] [In Polish, _k.o.c.k_, near Warsaw.]

CHAPTER IX

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN ReGIME

1. THE JEWISH POLICY OF CATHERINE II. (1772-1796)

The quarantine which Russia, prior to Catherine II., had established for the "enemies of Christ," was broken through in 1772 by the first part.i.tion of Poland. At one stroke the number of Russian subjects was swelled by the huge Jewish ma.s.ses of White Russia. The Russian Empire was augmented by a new province adjoining its central possessions, and together with the new region and its variegated population it acquired hundreds of thousands of subjects of the kind it had hitherto ruthlessly driven beyond its borders.

What was to be done with the unwelcome heritage bequeathed by Poland?

The primitive policy of an Elizabeth Petrovna might have dictated some barbarous measure, such as the wholesale expulsion of the Jews from the newly-acquired territory. But the statesmanlike intellect of a Catherine could not, during the formulation of the liberal "Instructions,"[234]

admit such barbarism, which moreover would have been incompatible with the new pledges the Russian Government had found it necessary to give to the heterogeneous population of White Russia at the time of annexation.

In the "Placard" issued on this occasion by Count Chernyshev, the first Governor-General of White Russia, all residents, "of whatever birth and calling," were "solemnly a.s.sured by the sacred name and word of the Empress," that their religious liberty as well as their personal rights, and the privileges attaching to property and estate, would remain inviolate.

This "a.s.surance" included the Jews, though not without qualification, as is shown by this pa.s.sage:

From the aforesaid solemn a.s.surance of the free exercise of religion and the inviolability of property for one and all, it follows of itself that also the Jewish communities residing in the cities and territories now incorporated into the Russian Empire will be left in the enjoyment of all those liberties which they possess at present, in accordance with the [Russian]

law and [their own] property. For the humaneness of her Imperial Majesty will not allow her to exclude the Jews alone from the grace vouchsafed to all and from the future prosperity under her beneficent rule, so long as they on their part shall live in due obedience as faithful subjects, and shall limit themselves to the pursuit of genuine trade and commerce according to their callings.

To be sure, the Jews, in contradistinction to the rest of the population, are promised the high Imperial favor on condition of "due obedience." Yet the inviolability of their former rights was solemnly guaranteed, and Russian politics had henceforward to be guided by it.

Immediately on the annexation of the new province a general census was ordered. According to the testimony of a contemporary, the number of Jews in White Russia was found to amount to over forty thousand families, about two hundred thousand souls. An ukase of 1772 imposed upon them a _per capita_ tax of one rubel (50c.). The annexed territory was divided into two Governments, those of Moghilev and Polotzk, or, as it is called at present, Vitebsk. In the interest of the regular collection of taxes, the administration from the very beginning gave instructions "to have all Jews affiliate with the Kahals and to inst.i.tute such [Kahals] as the governors may suggest or as necessity for them may arise."

The problems connected with the inner organization of the Jews were of a more complicated character. Far-reaching changes were taking place at that time in the provincial and the social organization of the Russian Empire. In 1775 was promulgated the "Regulation Concerning the Governments."[235] In 1785 was issued the "Act Concerning Munic.i.p.al Administration,"[236] and the authorities were confronted by an alternative: either to place the Jews under the general laws, according to the estate to which they belonged (in the cities the mercantile cla.s.s, the burghers, and the trade-unions), or, in view of their peculiar conditions of life and the Kahal autonomy inherited from Poland, allow them to retain their own inst.i.tutions as part of their communal and spiritual self-government. It was a difficult problem, and Russian legislation at first wavered between these two ways of solving it, with the result that matters became muddled. The interference of the local administration and the old rivalry among the various estates made confusion worse confounded.

The ukase issued by the Senate in 1776 sanctioned the existence of the Kahal, regarding it primarily as a fiscal and legislative inst.i.tution, which the Russian administration found convenient for its purposes. At the instance of Governor-General Chernyshev, the Jews of White Russia were set apart as a separate tax-unit and as an estate of their own.

They were to be entered on special registers in the towns, townlets, villages, and hamlets, wherever a census was taken. The instructions read that

in order that their taxes may be more regularly remitted to the exchequer, Kahals shall be established in which they [the Jews]

shall all be enrolled, so that every one of the "Zhyds,"[237]

whenever he shall desire to travel somewhere on business, or to live and settle in one place or another, or to take anything on lease, shall receive a pa.s.sport from the Kahal. The same Kahal shall pay the head-tax, and turn it over to the provincial exchequer.

Thus, as regards the payment of taxes, and the rights not only of transit but also of business, every Jew was placed in the same position of dependence on his Kahal as under the old Polish _regime_. At the same time the Kahal was endowed with certain judicial functions. District and Government Kahals, the latter conceived as courts of appeal, were established for cases between Jews, each of these Kahals being a.s.signed a definite number of elective judges. Only lawsuits between Jews and non-Jews were to be brought before the general magistracy courts.

But a few years later the Government was shaken in its resolve to uphold the former Kahal organization to its full extent. In 1782 an inquiry was addressed by the Senate to Pa.s.sek, the new Governor-General of White Russia, as to the legality of establis.h.i.+ng special Jewish law courts. A year later the Government took a decided step in the opposite direction.

It recognized the rights of Jews registered in the merchant cla.s.s to partic.i.p.ation in the general city government, to elect and to be elected on equal terms with the Christian members of the magistracies, town councils, and munic.i.p.al courts. The realization of this reform was greatly hampered by the opposition of the Christian merchants and burghers, who hated the Jews, and could not reconcile themselves to the munic.i.p.al equality of their compet.i.tors. Having accustomed themselves to look down upon the Jews as citizens of an inferior grade, the Christian city officials a.s.sumed a hostile att.i.tude towards their Jewish colleagues who had been elected to public posts, and by electioneering methods managed to reduce their numbers in the city corporations to a minimum. The interests of the Jews were bound to suffer, particularly as far as the administration of justice was concerned.

On the other hand, the administration itself began to oppress them. The liberal Chernyshev was superseded by the anti-Jewish Pa.s.sek, who did his utmost to restrict the Jews in their economic activities, to the obvious advantage of their compet.i.tors in the ranks of the Shlakhta and the Christian merchants.