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Ferenc Laczó on Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History

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Ferenc Laczó on Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History Steven J. Zipperstein. Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. New York: Liveright, 2018. 288 pp. $27.95, cloth, ISBN 978-1-63149-269-3. Reviewed by Ferenc Laczó Published on H-Nationalism (May, 2019) Commissioned by Cristian Cercel (Ruhr University Bochum) Steven Zipperstein’s newest book contains prior to 1903 and the ffth-largest in the empire erudite essay-like chapters that combine micro‐ but it had remained rather obscure, so its name historical explorations of the Kishinev pogrom of could subsequently be immediately associated 1903 with broader reflections on transnational with deadly anti-Jewish violence. Zipperstein sug‐ currents impacting the course of global history. gests that there was in fact little in the daily life of While forty-nine Jews were murdered and many this far-flung and only recently acquired province more raped and beaten in Kishinev, the book is of the Russian Empire that could have predicted interested not only in how and why this tragedy the eruption of such a massive—and therefore all unfolded but also in how and why the impact of the more shocking—wave of violence. At the same the stories surrounding the pogrom in some sense time, even by Russia’s own standards, the city and outgrew the scale of the gruesome events. As Zip‐ its surrounding region were characterized by perstein demonstrates particularly in the second sharp contrasts and thus, as Zipperstein percep‐ half of his book, the Kishinev pogrom cast an ex‐ tively notes, amicable day-to-day relations be‐ traordinary shadow, with many oddly mis‐ tween Jews and non-Jews coexisted uneasily with matched residues in different corners of the a sense of exploitation and various forms of re‐ world. Intriguingly for our own times, despite the sentment. wealth of readily available information, various Having set the stage, the book proceeds to re‐ distorted interpretations of it have proliferated construct in minute detail the unusually well-doc‐ ever since. One of the main aims of Zipperstein’s umented pogrom of Kishinev. As the author high‐ stimulating book is therefore to study the uneasy lights, the violence was characterized by a fright‐ interplay between truth and fction surrounding ening interplay of familiarity and ferocity. In his this most infamous and consequential pogrom in account, the pogrom was fueled by the relentless the Russian Empire and thus to ultimately grasp mobilization conducted by some six to seven local “how history is made and remade, what is re‐ antisemites gathered around Pavel Krushevan’s tained and elided, and why” (p. 23). newspaper Bessarabets (which, it ought to be not‐ The book begins with a lively portrait of ed, Krushevan had already sold by the time the Bessarabia and its largest city, Kishinev, on the pogrom erupted) and, more specifically, by a ritu‐ eve of the pogrom. As Zipperstein explains, al murder charge right before it and various Kishinev may have been a rapidly growing city malevolent rumors during its unfolding. As the vi‐ H-Net Reviews olence erupted, a mob of villagers joined the core journalism had a slightly different agenda: to group consisting of fanatical antisemites and local warn of the likely catastrophic future of Russian seminary students. On day one, when around two Jews and emphasize how essential their emigra‐ hundred people participated in the riot, many tion from the Tsarist Empire would be. Intriguing‐ adolescent Moldavians from surrounding areas ly, acts of Jewish self-defense, which doubtlessly were among them. By day two, the violence had accompanied the horrific attacks, tended to be greatly escalated and resulted in the murder of sidelined in such pro-Jewish accounts, whereas forty-nine individuals as well as widespread rape descriptions inimical to Jews recurrently high‐ and theft, with nearly two-thirds of the city direct‐ lighted what they self-servingly depicted as the ly affected. The Russian state authorities and, militancy of local Jews (p. 87). most particularly, the poorly prepared military re‐ The book’s subsequent chapter analyzes, in acted inadequately to the unfolding violence, but an equally intriguing manner, the close connec‐ they jailed some nine hundred of its perpetrators, tion between the Kishinev pogrom and the release thereby revealing their rather agreeable inten‐ of the frst version of The Protocols of the Elders tions. All of the above is also meant to imply that, of Zion. As Zipperstein phrases it without suggest‐ contrary to popular belief, the pogrom was not in‐ ing false equivalences, “much as the pogrom stigated by the central Russian government. The proved to many Jews and their supporters that so-called Plehve letter, which surfaced a month the long, wretched arm of the Russian govern‐ after the pogrom and was meant to demonstrate ment was behind it all, The Protocols provided no the government's involvement, was in all likeli‐ less conclusive proof to antisemites of the limit‐ hood an inauthentic document (its exact origin re‐ less power of worldwide Jewry” (p. 16). As the mains unknown). book shows, Pavel Krushevan—the main ideolo‐ Zipperstein’s next chapter is devoted to an ex‐ gist behind the pogrom who was not personally ploration of how the pogrom was represented in present in Kishinev during its days though—in the two most influential works responding to it, fact published the frst version of the Protocols in namely Hayyim Nahman Bialik’s poem “In the his newspaper Znamia in 1903. In response to the City of Killing” (published in Hebrew in 1904, frst manifold condemnations in the wake of the translated into English in 1906) and Michael pogrom, Krushevan almost certainly authored or Davitt’s book Within the Pale: The True Story of at least coauthored this largely plagiarized Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia (1903). The forgery, and most certainly penned both its intro‐ two authors, both with concrete and precise duction and afterword. The recent discovery of a knowledge of the pogrom, identified Kishinev as a cache of his personal papers fnally allows re‐ major historical turning point: the sudden erup‐ searchers to more fully reveal the odd career of tion of mass violence was meant to capture the this rather distinguished intellectual and rank experience of Russian Jewry more generally and pogrom-monger. Having embraced a pro-auto‐ reveal the utter vulnerability of their situation. As cratic brand of conservatism in the 1890s and Zipperstein argues, having spent some fve weeks with a maniacal focus on antisemitic ideas, in the in the city exploring uncomfortable details, Bialik immediate aftermath of the 1903 pogrom, Krushe‐ recast his own earlier humiliations as rage direct‐ van came to identify the Zionist movement’s ed at the Jews of the city. His famed poem pointed Kishinev-based correspondence bureau—which to the failings of Kishinev’s Jewish men and aimed had successfully transmitted news of the deadly to provoke Jews to fnally take action. Zipperstein violence abroad—as the headquarters of a care‐ subsequently shows that Davitt was less con‐ fully coordinated Jewish effort to harm the Rus‐ cerned with Jewish passivity and his frst-rate sian Empire. More specifically, the head of the lo‐ 2 H-Net Reviews cal bureau, journalist and philanthropist Jacob thor is admittedly less concerned with the impact Bernstein-Kogan, “an overweight, underpaid, mi‐ of the pogrom on the Left in the Russian Empire dlevel political activist” and someone whom Kru‐ or on the Jewish national movement, this well-re‐ shevan had known since their boyhood days in searched and intriguing series of essays shows the same gymnasium, became, in Zipperstein’s how “Kishinev” would not only “come to serve as memorable phrase, “his unlikely inspiration for the bedrock for so much subsequent knowledge— the most terrifying Jew on the planet” (p. 182). accurate and inaccurate—about pogroms and The closing chapter of this vivid book of de‐ their origins and significance” (p. xvii), but for mystification gauges the impact of the pogrom in various major political forces it would respective‐ the United States. The author’s primacy focus here ly constitute “the fnal nail in the coffin for the is on the lessons concerning the confluence be‐ prospect of Russian Jewish integration, the ulti‐ tween Russian pogroms and antiblack riots and mate verdict on the necessity for emigration to lynching in America. As Zipperstein shows, after the United States or Palestine, the clearest of all the Kishinev pogrom, the critique of Russia’s sins clarion calls for revolution, and the starkest of all would return to the front pages of American proof regarding Jewry’s uncanny worldwide infu‐ newspapers and such discussions of Russia would ence” (p. 206). In short, Zipperstein succeeds at of‐ often bring to the surface embarrassing questions fering a captivating exploration of how history regarding comparable racial oppression in the has been made and remade and what has been United States. While complaints about how ex‐ retained and elided in the process. He also offers tended and sensationalistic reports on Russia several key insights into why exactly the deadly tended to overshadow critical confrontations with riot in a relatively obscure place like Kishinev local riots and instances of deadly lynching were would have such global repercussions, however, recurrently and not unjustly made, as the author without fully accounting for the (admittedly mys‐ argues, the American reception of the Kishinev terious) inverse relationship between lack of pre‐ pogrom also helped develop a new sensitivity to vious familiarity and subsequent importance at‐ such grave injustices. William English Walling tached. and Anna Strunsky, a married leftist couple, did perhaps the most to directly connect the widely publicized persecution of Russia’s Jews to the is‐ sue of racial justice in the United States.
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