Pogroms · Russia · 1881–1903
Rumour and political hostility helped turn upheaval into attacks on Jewish neighbours.
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1881–1903
Pogroms · A national crisis acquires a minority villain
Rumour and political hostility helped turn upheaval into attacks on Jewish neighbours.
After the assassination
Following Tsar Alexander II’s assassination in 1881, anti-Jewish attacks spread across parts of the empire. Rumours assigned Jews collective responsibility for instability. The victims were targeted for belonging to a community, not because evidence linked each of them to the assassination.
Violence needs an opening
Pogroms involved attacks on people, homes and businesses. Incitement and failures of protection helped make violence possible, although the role of authorities varied by event. Calling a pogrom spontaneous can hide how an existing climate of exclusion prepared its targets.
Kishinev, 1903
The 1903 Kishinev pogrom took place in a city now in Moldova, then part of the Russian Empire. A false ritual-murder accusation helped inflame hostility. Its international impact exposed a pattern: local violence could draw on a myth that had already travelled through religious and political cultures.