Jewish pogroms: Why most of them happened on the territory of Ukraine, and how the oppressed took revenge

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Most of the Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire took place on the territory of modern Ukraine. But regular attacks on Jews have happened before. The people perceived them as a suspicious stratum, unwilling to engage in peasant labor, but striving for the exploiting class. For these reasons, the Jews were for a long time subjected to maximum restrictions against the background of other peoples of the Russian Empire. It is not surprising that when they had the opportunity, they tried to take revenge on the organizers of the pogroms.

Why Bohdan Khmelnitsky became the second Hitler for Jews

In modern Israel, the figure of Bogdan Khmelnitsky is often placed next to Hitler. For example, a Ukrainian-born publicist V. Bader claims that the hetman is the instigator of the most massive Jewish pogrom. In his opinion, Hitler surpassed the Ukrainian in the scale of atrocities only because at that time he possessed more power, resources and modern technical capabilities.

Bright moments of the Jewish pogroms of the times of the hero of the liberation movement and the initiator of the Pereyaslavskaya Rada are described in the story of N. Gogol "Taras Bulba". The author unambiguously describes the hatred of the Ukrainians and, in particular, the Cossacks towards the representatives of the Jewish nation. Various sources indicate that during the time of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, from 50 to 100 thousand Jews were exterminated in Ukraine.

The forged Catherine's letter and the Uman massacre

In the 18th century, the Haidamak movement in Ukraine resulted in the Koliivshchyna. Records of those years tell that the Haidamak riot in the Ukrainian village of Jabotin took the lives of seventy Jewish residents in one fell swoop, including the murder of the rabbi's wife. Further, a devastating wave covered the rest of the Ukrainian land.

The uprising was facilitated by the forged "Golden Letter" by Empress Catherine II, allegedly calling for the extermination of every single Jew and, along with them, the Poles. The Zaporozhets Zheleznyak headed the Koliivshchyna ‚the epicenter of the uprising fell on the area of the Motroninsky Monastery in the southern part of the Kiev Voivodeship.

The ideological inspiration of the revolt and the publication of a fictitious letter are attributed to the Orthodox monk Melchizedek Znachko-Yavorsky. However, it is impossible to reliably assess its role in prompting the people to revolt. Historians have not found direct evidence that Znachko-Yavorsky compiled a forged document. Everywhere the haidamaks came, they first of all quoted the letter, inciting the people to war with the Jews. Robberies and murders followed one after another, covered with the lofty idea of cleansing cities and villages from detractors of the national religion.

The city of Uman attracted the Gaidamaks especially, behind the walls of which the fugitives who had fled from everywhere hid. As soon as Zheleznyak approached the city, the Uman centurion Gonta, who commanded the Cossack militia, went over to his side. The city Jews, led by the governor Mladonovich, offered desperate resistance to the attacking forces of Gonta and Zheleznyak. But the Haidamaks took Uman, starting the massacre of the Jews. Having finished with the latter, the Cossacks took up the Poles.

In terms of the level of cruelty of the Haidamaks, the Uman massacre ranks among the bloodiest episodes of mass crimes in history. The corpses, on the orders of Gonta, were not buried, but thrown into wells and even given to the dogs. In those days, more than 10 thousand Jews and Poles were killed in Uman.

The first Odessa pogrom in the history of the empire

In 1793, after the repeated division of the Commonwealth, the Ukrainian lands of the right-bank Dnieper, where about 200 thousand Jews lived, were transferred to Russia. Most of them were merchants, artisans and unskilled workers, and only 2% were merchants.

Until the second half of the 19th century, Jews were not allowed to acquire land, and therefore they almost did not engage in agriculture. During this period, anti-Semitic trends were especially strong in Slavic society: Jews were accused of everything, including ritual murders.

The first Jewish pogrom in the chronicle of the Russian Empire took place in Odessa in 1821. Violent persecution was carried out by local Greeks due to trade competition and under the guise of the likely involvement of Jewish representatives in the assassination of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople. The wave of pogroms resumed in southern Russia after the assassination of Alexander II by the Narodnaya Volya in 1881. There was a version that, in revenge for his father, allegedly Alexander III gave a secret order to kill Jews, but many historians have conclusively debunked this myth. The wave of violence, most likely, arose spontaneously in the context of the tense political situation and the prevailing anti-Semitic sentiments of the local population.

The pogrom campaign that spawned Jewish self-defense

After the publication in 1905 of the tsarist manifesto of Nicholas II, promising expanded rights for the citizens of Russia, many Jews took part in anti-government demonstrations. Local supporters of the current government took this as a signal for action, which resulted in another pogrom wave. As a result of widespread clashes, according to the most conservative estimates, more than one and a half thousand people died, and another 3500 were injured.

This situation laid the foundation for Jewish associations in Europe. The pogroms became a pretext for the formation of Jewish self-defense, accelerated the process of emigration to Israel and prompted activists to create one of the first paramilitary groups of Jews "Hashomer".

The atrocities of 1917 and a high-profile murder in revenge for the Jews

1917 brought Russia a Bolshevik coup and anarchy. All possible forces began to fight for influence on Ukrainian territory. During the outbreak of the civil war, widespread Jewish pogroms intensified. The homes and property of Jews are being destroyed, and Jewish women are robbed and raped.

By the end of the war, up to 50 thousand Jews were exterminated on the territory of today's Ukraine, among whom were the relatives of Samuil Schwarzbard - later the murderer of Petliura. At the trial, Schwarzbard explained his act by the desire to avenge the Jewish pogroms organized by the Petliurists during the civil war. After the trials, Schwarzbard was acquitted.

Later, already under Soviet rule, the pogroms stopped. You can see how Jews lived in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s here.