Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History

Three major waves of anti-Jewish rioting swept Southern Russia and Russian Poland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this book, distinguished scholars of Russian Jewish history explore the origins and nature of these pogroms, which were among the most extensive outbreaks of antisemitic violence before the Holocaust. Using new approaches to the study of Russian history, the contributors examine each wave of violence in turn. They look at the role of violence in Russian society; the prejudices, stereotypes and psychology of both the educated society and the rural masses; the work of the tsarist regime, especially the police and the army as agents of order and control; and the impact of the pogroms on the sense of Jewish identity and security in the Empire. In his conclusion, Hans Rogger reflects upon pogroms in Russia and then broadens the study by comparing these riots with both pogroms in Western and Central Europe and outbreaks of anti-Negro violence within the United States during the same period. Pogroms: anti-Jewish violence in modern Russian history is the first comprehensive study of the pogroms in tsarist and revolutionary Russia. It brings together important new research and challenges many of the misconceptions which have continued to characterise the secondary literature on the pogroms. Moreover, this volume appears at a time when inter-ethnic violence and, in particular, anti-Jewish threats have reappeared in the Soviet Union and this recent violence has striking analogies to the events described here. This book will therefore be of interest to students and specialists of Russian, Jewish and Polish history as well as of the history of mass movements, modern antisemitism and ethnic group relations.