Michael Stanislawski Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia 1825-1855

Summary

There can be few modern societies which are not tempted by the cynical injunction ‘when history and legend diverge, print the legend'. Michael Stanislawski's study is a bold, often provocative attempt to penetrate the self-serving legends of the period 1825-1855 to discover the true nature of Russian Jewish society and its crucial relationship with the regime of Tsar Nicholas I. His achievement in the exercise of historiographical reevaluation is impressive, exhibiting a richness of content which is taxing to encapsulate in summary. His careful examination of the policy of the tsarist government towards its Jewish population certainly has the effect of exploding a variety of established myths. Rather than simply assuming that the administration was oppressively and irredeemably anti-semitic, Stanislawski sets out to reveal the precise dynamics of tsarist Jewish policy, eventually reaching the conclusion that its attitude was less anti-semitic than dictated by ‘a myopic perception of raison d'etat'. Despite a jacket blurb which promises comparison with tsarist policy towards other minority groups, the study adheres resolutely to a purely Jewish dimension, inferring that the tsarist treatment of the Jews was ‘largely spontaneous’, not ‘anomalous’ and therefore that it can only be ‘egocentric’ to see the Jews as objects of tsarist ‘victimization'. While Nicholas I had a personal interest in the Jewish question, he appears less as a rabid antisemite than as a dynastic victim, promoted by political mischance well above his capabilities, responding vigorously but unimaginatively with crude military solutions, the only kind he could understand. No unanimity or solidarity prevailed within the Council of Ministers on the Jewish issue, with some ministers defending the pre-1827 ‘privileged’ status of Jewry and others demanding a radical new departure geared to integration or even assimilation. Stanislawski endorses the recent view point of such specialists as Flynn and Whittaker that Uvarov, the Minister of Public Enlightenment, was not the caricature reactionary of legend but the leading moderate reformer of the government. With regard to the Jewish question, Uvarov showed himself to be both a persistent eminence grise for reform (most notably behind Kiselev) and an enterprising negotiator with maskilic leaders (like Lilienthal), who were encouraged to entertain hopes that the Russian Tsar might become a latter-day Enlightened Despot. The spectrum of opinion evident within the government (and generally tolerated by Nicholas I) on the Jewish issue totally undermines the contemporary view of a monolithically reactionary tsarist regime.