As far as I know, aside from vodka, the only word in the English language which comes from Russia is pogrom. Pogrom in Russian means to break. [inaudible] is to break up, to break. The idea of pogrom, we associate with the Russian Empire, and indeed, which had a series of pogroms. Now, in the historical literature, in the early days, it was assumed that the government was actually sponsoring these affairs in as much as to take away attention from other problems which the government faced. But I think most scholars who deal with these subjects would argue that any kind of disorder, which, pogrom, by definition meant, in contrary, go against the nature and interest of the regime, which any kind of disorder was a threat. Well, what were these pogroms? Greatly different from one another. They took place quite spontaneously, mostly. At times, Easter was a good occasion for pogroms. Pogroms usually took place in little towns rather than in the countryside. The Russian peasants would come into the little towns in order to participate in the pogrom, of beating up Jews, taking their property. We have a series of pogroms, and on occasions, had something to do with political events which were happening, such as the assassination of Alexander II, who was the most liberal of the Russian rulers in the course of the 19th century in 1881. There was one Jew who was participating in the revolutionary movement, which organize that assassination. Consequently, the assassination could be blamed on the Jews because there was one Jew who was participating in the movement which led to the assassination. Then the series of revolution events which took place in 1905, was also accompanied by a series of these pogroms. The number of victims, we are talking about the few hundreds. Now, what were the causes, why these pogroms happened? That takes us to the question of anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is a large issue, is a large concept which requires further analysis and further thinking what it means. Because anti-semitism come in different varieties. And what anti-semite is not necessarily like another anti-semite. The sources, the time period, the causes which brings this about can differ greatly from one another. Now, for me, on my understanding, there's a great deal of difference between anti-Semitism before 1800 and after 1800. That before 1800, anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic acts, including small-scale attacks on Jews, we can call them pogroms, took place, but these were usually religiously inspired. Religion played a role. Jews were attacked, obviously, for the presumed death of Christ, which need not go into the actual event which happened at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. And also attributing the Jews characteristics and events religiously inspired, which did not really exist, and that is most significantly is the blood libel, namely, Jews use Christian blood for different religious occasions. But this goes back to the 13th century. Obviously, the face of it is absolute nonsense, given our well-known attitude to Jewish use of blood, which is separate but connected issue. It seems to me that what happens after 1800, anti-Semitism becomes, how should I put it? More multifaceted. That is, Jews now can be blamed and were blamed for being subversive. Indeed, they were. I would like to talk about a different occasion, the disproportionate participation in any revolutionary movement. Of course, most significantly, as exploiters. Now, exploiters also come in many varieties because it's one thing that we talk about Jews as controlling the world economy. But it's another from the point of the Ukrainian peasant who sees the Jew as giving an advance because in the Jewish karczma, I don't know how we say that in English, for drinking vodka, and then because he owes money, he wants to get something back. Therefore, from the point of view of the Ukrainian peasant, the Jewish is an exploiter because he gives [inaudible] to you on credit, because he gives you vodka on credit. The Jews, by the way, rent this ability to sell vodka from the state or from individual landowners who have this concession from the state. The Jews are in the second or third renters of this particular privilege. But they indeed played a significant role in the sale of alcohol in the course of the 19th century in the Russian Empire. I want to stop for a moment. What you're describing is again, a multicultural situation. The Jew who doesn't drink the vodka, sells it to the peasant and rents the right to make the vodka from the landowner, and it's, if you will, three different processes. One of the easiest thing to do in a multicultural situation, which is a complicated situation, is to beat up somebody who doesn't have the power of the state or the police to protect her or him? Yes, when we talk about pogroms and the state participation in it, it seems to me that it can be definitely shown that the state did not organized pogroms. On the other hand, the state made these pogroms possible in two different ways. One is that the court was explicitly anti-Semitic and created an atmosphere in which these pogroms could take place. The evidence is overwhelming. We have statements from Alexander the Third, who did not organize pogroms, but said, when Jews are killed, it makes me feel good. Also Pobedonostsev, who was a major figure in the reign of Alexander III and Nicholas II, who was a tutor of Nicholas and leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, who said, "Well, what should we do with the Jews? Well, one-third of them will emigrate, one-third of them we can perhaps integrate, and one-third of them will just die." The court giving the impression that getting Jews well, it's okay, it's all right. But to return to this question of anti-Semitism, that is, the anti-Semitism of the Ukrainian peasant comes from hostility to a neighbor who is completely unknown to you, whose ways are mysterious and therefore frightening and therefore unpleasant. This comes about because this complete lack of understanding, complete lack of integration of Ukrainian and Jewish lives. Now we come to the pogroms, I should mention that of course is take place in revolutionary times. I've mentioned already in 1905. I also mentioned blood libel, one of the most famous glazes, which took place in 1911, where a Jew by name of Beilis was accused of killing a Ukrainian male child, and then there was a great court case. The Russian court found Beilis innocent. There is a great novel called The Fixer, which tries to deal with this and with the problem of the Jew. Not only Beilis, but Jews after this. Yes. The significance originally found it worthwhile. I mentioned the Bailey's case because after all he was found innocent by the Russian court is because Tsar took an interest in the matter. This is Nicholas II we are talking about, and the Tsar said, well, the case was really very flimsy and indeed Beilis was innocent. However, that does not mean that the Jews do not murder children for religious. To use their blood, so we have not just secular politics, we have mythic politics, because this is vampire. Now we come to the most interesting part of this anti-Semitic story is the ancients of Zion. That is a famous forgery which has an interesting history. It was published by a Russian churchman in 1903 and published in Russia journal. Which purported to be the protocols of a meeting which was which was presumed to take place in Basel in 1898. Then simply the publication of these protocols, which of course was made up. It's a very interesting protocols because of the extreme absurdity of the events which are described here. In which the Jewish leaders, these Jewish ancients, get to get the Jewish representatives and they argue how to take control of the world. What are the methods? One method is internationalism. One method is to make different countries fight against one another. These makes sense. One of the lesser one, which makes very little sense, withhold vodka from the Russian peasants, and the Russian peasants would get so discouraged and so upset that they will join the revolution to overthrow the order and would allow us to take charge of the world economy. I want to say that this, it's called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is the mother of all conspiracy theories in the modern world. Yes, indeed. What I would like to add here is that, the pre-history of the protocols and the post-history of their protocols. The pre-history of the protocols is that, it's clearly a copy of something which was produced earlier. The first one was supposed to be a conversation between Machiavelli and Montesquieu. The second one was produced in France against the Jesuits. Then the third was written by a German anti-Semites, by the name of Goedsche, who was then translated into Russian. The Russian novelist who published the Protocols, took matters from him. By the way the German original was considered a funeral in the cemetery in Prague. They were not even original, but nonetheless, it came to be associated with the Russian version, which then became world famous and went around lasting too pretty much in our days. Henry Ford took it up. Of course the Nazis took it up. The question is, how come that really such self-evidently absurd ideas could take hold? It was first published and came to be associated with the Russian state, and the irony is that where if there was one place where the Jews were not about to be able to take over anything was in Russia. I mean that it would come out of the Russian environment and the Jews are the conquerors of the world, has a particular ironic nonsensical flavor to it. But this then becomes the charter, if you will, of branches of Nazism and of the Ku Klux Klan. We have to pose the question, why is that there is such power? Because after all there were many other persecuted minorities and many other greatly dislike minorities, but it would not fit. But we could not have protocols of the ancients of the Gypsies. This would not have an enact code, it would not reverberate. But when we talk about Jews, the internationalism of the Jews, Jewish role in finances which is genuine, Jewish role in the world economy, which is really disproportionate giving the size of the jewelries of Western Europe and the United States. Now it seems to me that actually the fact that the protocols had an echo in a place like Germany, had a great deal to do with Nazi anti-Semitism. That is, it was believable enough that it could be taken up as a weapon against the Jews. I want to say that this is a case of people who didn't have only an immediate grievance. Although you mentioned that the whole problem of vodka. The Jew who let the Russian peasant drink vodka on credit. The grievance was that on occasion, Ukrainian landlords would hire Jews. Collect the rent and collect the taxes. Then from the point of view of the Ukrainian peasant, it was the Jew was actually taking their money. We have a situation in which it's not a grievance over land. It isn't the Jew and the peasants were fighting over land. But what I want to emphasize again and again is one anti-Semite is not like another. That is, it is an anti-Semitism of the Lord who has disdain for Jewish ways and the Jewish behavior and Jewish looks, and then other, the Ukrainian peasant who has close contact with the Jew who is selling him vodka, and another who is concerned about the Jewish subversion. So all these takes us in different direction, and when we say he's an anti-Semite, we did not explain everything. That needs further qualification. But it's a witch's brew. It's so big and so vague and so general that it can take many different perspectives. Yes, but it is our task to attempt to understand human behavior. As historians. Well as human beings. As human beings. Consequently, we should ask, well, of course, I don't want to get into a very different topic that the anti-Semite of the poor Palestinian peasant versus the Henry Ford varies about the Jewish control and Jewish control of Hollywood. We are talking about apples and oranges. But they have companies, they don't like Jews. Right and therefore, you can pick on the Jew and say, the Jew is the boogie man. I would like to add one more thing is that the Jews had no defenders. That is, by this, I mean, is that the liberal Russian intelligentsia did not take much interest in the Jewish question because they were committed to the cause of the poor. They were committed to the cause of the lower classes, which meant in the Russian case, serfdom, and to the extent the serfs were perceived exploited by Jews. We take the past. Prominent Russian writers with few exceptions, show very little interest. Lenin by the way, was among the few who recognized Jewish oppression as something special. But the other great writers did not make much of it. Dostoyevsky famously did not, and even Chenghao Fu. Tolstoy? Well, they had other concerns. This is the absence of a counter voice. No philosemitism. No philosemitism. Whereas in Western Europe you will find Zola speaking out or in the United States or in other places. Well, it takes Zola's side in this. It becomes a map for justifying anti-Semitism. That's ours and the government's buried. There were better periods and worst periods, and as I say, Alexander III and Nicholas II were more passionately anti-Semitic than Alexander I or Catherine or Alexander II. Since I am interested in Babel, you can see in Babel's famous story called The Story of My Dovecote. He has pigeons, he's raising pigeons as a hobby, and the pogrom takes place there and ends up with his grandfather being killed. The reasons are very vague and very hidden. Babel writes about this, and he's a Russian writer who's writing about a pogrom. But he doesn't have a wide audience, if you will, for this, and no other writer writes about this. It becomes very different. In a chaotic situation, he has the ability to write about this issue and other issues, and that's part of his greatness as a writer. Babel is special. Babel is special. Yes.
