Jews, who had comprised an insignificant portion of Kiev's population prior to 1861, had by 1874 become the largest religious minority in the city: 13,800 individuals, or 11 percent of the total population (the second-largest, at 8 percent, were Catholics); this proportion did not change significantly until the outbreak of the First World War. Some observers began to complain about the increasingly Jewish character of Kiev, citing the influence and conspicuous consumption of Jewish merchants, the perception of Jewish traders "taking over" commerce in the city, and the visibility of Jewish brokers in front of the exchange on Kreshchatik. As early as 1864, Kievlianin was grumbling that all the newly opened groceries, stores, and public houses were owned by Jewish first-guild merchants.137 The impression of a "Jewish Kiev" may have been due in part to the fact that there were undoubtedly large numbers of Jews living illegally in the city, bringing the true percentage of Jews closer to 15 percent (a Kievlianin journalist confirms this estimate, stating that the Jewish population exceeded 20,000 in 1873).138 Traditional accusations against the Jews of Kiev were heard repeatedly over the decades: they were bent on corrupting the Christian Orthodox and working population of the city by selling them liquor; traded mostly in contraband and stolen goods; wanted to take control of the meat trade; engaged in unwholesome speculation, brokering, and usury; and drove up the prices of goods.139 Some of these charges were cited by members of the commission established to examine the Jewish question in Kiev after the 1881 pogrom, as part of an attempt to lay the burden of blame for the pogrom at the feet of the city's Jews. These commission members were of the opinion that "a significant number of Jewish traders does not engage in honest trade, but rather speculation—in the negative sense of the word, and they stop at nothing [to achieve their goals]." They suggested that Jewish traders and all those involved in intermediary [posrednicheskii ] activities be restricted and encouraged to move into more "productive" occupations and menial labor.140
The attack on growing Jewish economic roles was not limited to Kiev, but was actually a rather widespread phenomenon within the Russian intelligentsia beginning in the late 1860s, as various streams within Russian society began to identify the evils of capitalism and industrialization with the received notion of Jewish "exploitation" and the newly visible Jewish railroad magnates and other parvenus.141 Kievlianin played a leading role in the national debate, passionately denouncing post-emancipation Jewish economic roles, especially leaseholding and trading in liquor, and claiming that most Jews were unproductive leeches on the Russian body economic.142 The role of Jews in Kiev was particularly sensitive since, in addition to being a stronghold and symbol of the Russian imperial government, Kiev was also a bastion of Russian Orthodoxy, the "Jerusalem of Russia," second in religious importance only to Moscow. With seven monasteries, sixty churches, and 1,500 members of the clergy, it is no wonder a traveler in the 1880s dubbed the city "the Russian Rome."143 Pious Russian Orthodox believers saw Kiev as the cradle of Holy Rus’. A guide to Kiev's Orthodox sights asked in 1861, "How can people who are totally alien to Kiev, unconnected to it by any patriotic memories, whose hearts have never beat fast at the sound of the Lavra's bell, ringing in the depths of the caves. . . hope to master Kiev? Its name and memory are alien to those who do not carry the name Russian."144
It was not uncommon to identify the fast-paced and bewildering changes that Kiev was experiencing as it entered the modern world of industry and commerce with the newly arrived Jews; as one writer put it, the "Jewish plague" that had infected the city was "growing. . . not by the day but by the hour."145 Andrei Nikolaevich Murav’ev, a conservative nobleman and author of Travels to the Russian Holy Places, blamed holy Kiev's increasing secularization on its new role as a center of business and commerce, on the city fathers and new economic elite who cared little about the Church—and on the growing numbers and influence of Jews. Many poor people are in debt to Jews, he wrote in the early 1870s, and the greediness of Jewish and Polish lawyers has caused Kiev to become littered with signs advertising their services. Even worse, the naivete of the local authorities has enabled the despotic Jewish kahal to subjugate Kiev as it has other cities and towns, and to "suck out the last juices from the Christians who have been given over to it."146 Jews have taken over Kiev's industry, set about to corrupt the Russian Orthodox population with their numerous taverns, and acquired property in the very heart of the city. In short, Kiev is undergoing a transformation from the holy center of Christianity to "the capital of the zhids." To be sure, this charge was nothing new: in 1827, a petition urging the expulsion of the Jews had claimed that "Jews are transforming the ancient Russian capital into the capital of the Jews, who in their obstinate fanaticism are attempting to create temptations as regards religion (v religioznom otnoshenii) for the Orthodox nation."147
Echoing many of Murav’ev's charges, a correspondent in Kievlianin wrote in 1873 that Kiev was the Jews' "Promised Land," so dominant had they become.148 Another writer claimed that the city had become so Jewish that most of the shops on Kreshchatik were closed on Saturday! A fear that seemed to lurk in the hearts of not a few Kievans was that their city might become "a second Berdichev"—all the more interesting when we consider that one of the reasons for lifting the ban on Jewish settlement in Kiev was the very real possibility that, due to its vigorous Jewish element, Berdichev would overtake Kiev in commercial importance.149 It had seemed that Kiev could not live without Jews—but some now felt that it could not live long with them, at least not as the champions of "holy Kiev" knew it.
Not surprisingly, church officials were concerned about the influx of Jews into holy Kiev as well. When the merchant Vainshtein requested permission to purchase a house in Podol located next to the Church of the Nativity, the highest Orthodox prelate in the region, Metropolitan Arsenii petitioned against the sale, claiming that enabling Jews to settle only eight or nine yards from the very church altar "would be too burdensome for the Christian sensitivities of the parishioners and the entire Orthodox population
Of such an ancient holy place as Kiev." He even hinted darkly at the consequences of such a move, predicting that it "may lead to incidents unbecoming to the ruling Orthodox Church and that are impossible to foresee at the present time."150 Vainshtein rescinded his request before any further complaints could be registered. A few years later, Arsenii's successor Filofei fulminated against the possibility of a Jewish school in Kiev, arguing that it would encourage "Talmudism" among Jews and thus hatred of Christian society.151
The authorities were aware of the complaints about Jews settling throughout Kiev, and agreed that Jews should be kept at a distance from the holy places of the city. In 1872, A. M. Dondukov-Korsakov, the governor-general of Kiev, Podol, and Volhyn provinces, wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs, stating that several Jews had indeed been granted permission to settle outside of the Jewish districts of Ploskaia and Lybed, but that such a choice was limited to only those "Jews with whom the administration is acquainted to its satisfaction khoroshei storony], . . . quite educated and in general the kind of people whose presence in various districts of Kiev, judging from their lifestyle and occupation, leaves no expectations whatsoever of bad consequences." Because of Kiev's unique character as a religious pilgrimage center, however, Jews would not be granted blanket permission to settle throughout the city; after taking up residence near important Orthodox religious sites, their "fanaticism, religious intolerance, and arrogance" would inevitably lead them to ridicule Orthodox worshipers, and thus to confrontations with the tens of thousands of pilgrims arriving in Kiev annually.152 It is clear that Dondukov-Korsakov also shared the opinion that, given the opportunity, Jews would pour into the city and virtually inundate it. In 1876, weighing in on the long-contested question of Jewish artisans' right to settle outside of the two Jewish districts, Dondukov-Korsakov again referred to the risk of confrontation with pilgrims, and added that if the issue were decided in the artisans' favor,
All Jews, without exception, will reside throughout Kiev on the pretense of being artisans, and will flood the city to such a degree that the police will in no way be able to ensure order and tidiness. Jews have long been attempting to settle here under various pretenses. . . .153
Anxiety about the influx of Jews reached such a pitch that, in the early 1870s, the city council entertained the notion of establishing a quarter outside the city for undesirables: Jews, with or without residence permits, and pilgrims. Kiev, the project stated explicitly, would thus be protected from an influx of dirty and infectious pilgrims; implicit in the proposal was the defense that the suburb would provide against the deleterious influence of Jews.154
In 1880 and 1881, anti-Jewish sentiment was running especially high in Kiev, reflected in or perhaps encouraged by Kievlianin's series of articles about the increasing menace of the local Jewish population. One of those articles was actually a reprint of a memorandum on the Jews in Kiev by the new governor-general of the southwest region, M. I. Chertkov, submitted to the imperial Commission for the Reorganization of Jewish Life in January 1880. Chertkov argued that current law, far from protecting Kiev from Jews, actually exposed it even further to their harmful influence. Kiev, as the last bastion of Russianness and Orthodoxy in a region that Jews had come to dominate, was in need of stricter protections against Jewish inroads so that Jews could not "conquer" Kiev the way they had the other cities of the western provinces. Not only had the official policy of russification and the attempt at the "merger" [sliianie] of the Jewish and Russian populations not succeeded, but just the opposite had come to pass: Kiev, once a pure Russian city, was becoming judaized (the Russian verb was ob”evreivat’sia).155
Using data from the 1874 census to back his argument, Chertkov argued that Kiev, once a "purely Russian city," was now well on its way to becom-ingjust like all the other cities of the western provinces in its subordination to Jewry. Only one-third of Kiev's Jews worked in industry, crafts, and trade, while more than 60 percent were engaged in "the customary Jewish exploitation of the passions, ignorance, and gullibility of the surrounding urban population."156 The "native Russian" population, for historical reasons much more vulnerable to the advances of the Jews than their coreligionists in Russia's interior cities, had to be protected from abuse by the law. In a short period of time, Jews had managed to become owners and managers of private banks and joint-stock companies, and leading players in the sugar-beet trade. They had also taken over petty commerce and especially trade in alcohol,
Introducing a spirit of hot-tempered speculation and exerting a demoralizing influence everywhere. . . . In their attempt to seize the most profitable branches of trade and industry, Jews are spreading out through the entire city. The places of industry and the central districts of the city fill up with more and more Jews every year. From Podol and the outskirts they have penetrated into the very center of the city, everywhere occupying the best spots, purchasing houses there and settling with their large families, surrounded by an entire swarm of dependents under the name of relatives, clerks, agents, and servants; but they always remain closed off in their own world, alien to the population and the interests of the city, without any ties to the surrounding Christian milieu, from which they are separated by language, fanatic religious prejudices, differences in upbringing, and family life.157
Soon, as had already occurred in the other cities of the region, the Russian element in trade and industry would be "suppressed by the Jews," and the "'mother of Russian cities,' so dear to the Russian people by virtue of its religious and historical relics," would become a Jewish city like all the others in the western borderland region.158 Like his predecessor, Chertkov also referred to the danger of conflict between Jews and Christians, especially pilgrims; reviewing his memorandum, however, several members of the all-imperial Commission on the Reorganization of Jewish Life commented somewhat cuttingly that he had failed to specify any actual incidents of such hostility.159
Other articles published in 1880 and 1881 stressed the recent influx of Jews into Kiev's schools. So-called "native" (korennye) Kiev children were in danger of being pushed out of their schools by Jewish children, who were receiving free education at the expense of the age-old inhabitants of the city.160 A Kievlianin article entitled "More on the Subject of the 'Zhid Invasion'" warned that restrictions had to be placed on the number of Jews in Russian educational institutions, lest the Russian intelligentsia come to be constituted solely of "aliens" (chuzherodtsy).161
The articles seem to have had an effect on local attitudes. In May 1881, the city council appointed a commission to study the Jewish question and the influence of Jews on the city's economy. In June, after rumors started to circulate that Jews were poisoning flour and other foodstuffs, the provincial governor announced the establishment of a commission to study Jewish grocery stores.162 Reports of police requests for a precise delineation of the categories of Jews permitted to reside in Kiev suggest that a crackdown on Jewish illegal residents was in the works.163 The pogrom of 1881, one of a wave of violent attacks on Jews that swept the southern provinces of the Russian Empire following the assassination of Alexander II, showed even more poignantly the extent to which articles such as the ones in Kievlianin reflected— or perhaps influenced—the beliefs and opinions of the poor Christian population of the city. That they were mostly illiterate does not mean that they could not pick up the rumors spread by Kievlianin from those who were able to read. The report submitted by the Kiev Jewish community on the pogrom of 1881 testified that throughout the three-day ordeal, the mob could be heard crying that the Jews had illegally taken over all the commerce and trade in the city—whether the crowds were looting the wealthy shops on aleksandrovskaia (the main thoroughfare of Podol) or the wretched shacks of Jews in the slums beyond the canal.164 The belief that Jews had set out to "conquer" Kiev and make it their own was clearly not limited to aristocratic or literate circles. Moreover, the fact that the pogroms of 1881 and 1882 were mostly limited to the southern provinces of the Pale of Settlement suggests that the intensive Jewish in-migration of the kind experienced in Kiev contributed to the animosity felt by many Christians throughout the region.
Paradoxically, Kiev's Jews came under attack both for remaining isolated from the rest of the population and for insinuating themselves into the fabric of the city. Critics often bemoaned the fact that Kiev had separate Jewish neighborhoods, a sign of the size and permanence of its Jewish population. Critics also—and sometimes at the same time—wrote angrily about the fact that Jews also lived throughout the city, even in its finest districts.165 On his travels through Ukraine (or Little Russia, as it was known) around 1880, a Frenchman was told by the hotelkeeper on his arrival in Kiev that the city consisted of three parts: the Old and New Town (the upper city), Pechersk (the center of religious life), and Podol—the Jewish quarter and the industrial and commercial center of the town.166 There was no mystery to why certain areas of the city—the port area (Ploskaia and part of Podol) and Lybed, a southern neighborhood—became known as Jewish quarters: most Jews living in Kiev were restricted by law to residence in precisely those districts. As early as 1873, Podol was being called "a second Berdichev."167
The law forced the authorities into a contradictory position about the desirability of Jewish acculturation in Kiev: government decrees had created two heavily Jewish neighborhoods, ensuring that they would continue to be relatively isolated from the non-Jewish population. At the same time, city and provincial authorities forbade Jews from establishing formal associations of various kinds for fear that they would encourage Jewish isolation and selfsegregation: it was feared that an 1880 proposal to establish a mutual-aid society for Jewish clerks in Podol would lead to "open segregation on the basis of nationality" (obosoblenie otkrytoi natsional’nosti), and the establishment of more prayer houses would "aid in the inordinate development of isolation, fanaticism, and superstition among the Jewish masses."168 Reviewing the contradictions in the regulations on Jewish settlement in Kiev, several members of the Commission for the Reorganization of Jewish Life, established to eliminate Jewish "segregation," implicitly acknowledged that maintaining separate Jewish neighborhoods was inconsistent with the idea of progress and a modern Russian Empire. Forcing Jewish artisans and soldiers to move into Ploskaia and Lybed, they opined, "would be equivalent to establishing a special Jewish quarter (ghetto) in the city—a measure that has been abolished throughout Russia for its most injurious consequences, even from the hygienic point of view."169
According to publicist A. E. Kaufman, the restrictions that kept most of Kiev's Jews concentrated in the densely populated Ploskaia and Lybed ensured that the two neighborhoods would be "a miniature Pale of Settlement." Not only was the environment of the big city unfavorable for the acculturation of the Russian language and "Russian morals," wrote Kaufman, but Kiev Jews were actually among the least modernized of all the city's religious groups: fewer Jews than any other religious group spoke Russian or another European language, Jewish literacy rates were low, and few Jewish children were receiving a general education. The circumstances in which Kiev's Jews lived were serving to keep them chained by the fetters of ignorance and fanaticism, alienated and isolated from the Russian nation.170
Kaufman was not the only one who considered Kiev's Jews to be isolated from the rest of the population. In a spat between Kievlianin and the prominent Kiev Jewish merchant A. A. Kupernik in 1871, the latter apparently protested the newspaper's lack of reportage on the Jewish Hospital and its special cholera wing, claiming that the newspaper was actually reinforcing the Jewish isolation that it so abhorred. Kievlianin responded that it saw no need to pay special attention to the Jewish Hospital, since mortality rates there were no different from those elsewhere; indeed, Jews were only ignorant of this plain fact because of their very segregation from larger so-ciety.171 In his memorandum in 1880, Governor-General Chertkov agreed that Jews were keeping to themselves, but offered a different solution: rather than lifting restrictions on residence to encourage russification, he recommended that the existing regulations be enforced more severely or even that Jewish settlement in Kiev be banned outright, because Jews had shown that they had not yet learned to intermingle with, and stop exploiting, the native population.172
World History
