In the Russian Empire Pale of Settlement In
Russian Empire until the
partitions of Poland Jewish communities were not officially recognized. However, as a result of the partitions, between 1772 and 1795 around 750,000 Jews in Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania became subjects of the Russian Empire, followed by Jews of
Central Poland, which also came under Russian control as a result of the
Congress of Vienna. As a result, Imperial Russia became home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Empress
Catherine the Great (1762–1796), a follower of the European
Enlightenment ideas, initially provided the Jews equal rights with the rest of her subjects, categorizing them as
burghers. In 1764 Jews were permitted to settle in
Novorossiya Governorate, and a decree from 1785 granted them equal rights with Christians.
Paul I allowed Jews to settle in Kyiv and
Kamianets-Podilskyi, but introduced double taxation for Jewish merchants. Starting from 1804, the government promoted Jewish settlement on land, establishing
Jewish agricultural colonies in
Southern Ukraine. As of 1870, 56 Jewish agricultural colonies housing 14,000 people existed in the territories of
Volhynia,
Kiev and
Podolia Governorates. According to decrees from 1804 and 1835, Jews were allowed to receive general and special education, but by the end of the 19th century
Jewish quotas of 3-6% were introduced at middle and high schools. In 1826 the first Jewish
public school was established in Odesa. Special schools for Jewish children were established along with a school for
rabbis, which opened in Zhytomyr. In order to finance those establishments, Jewish communities were obliged to pay additional taxes. An exception were Karaites, who in 1863 were granted equal rights with the Christian population. Those Jews who agreed to convert received equal rights with Christians, but the number of such people remained insignificant. The city also became known as a centre of publishing and education, with the first Jewish magazines in Russian (
Rassvet, 1860) and Yiddish (
Kol Mevasser, 1863) being published there.
Pogroms and persecutions During 1821 anti-Jewish riots in
Odesa after the death of the
Greek Orthodox patriarch in
Constantinople, 14 Jews were killed. Some sources mark this episode as the first
pogrom, while according to others (such as the
Jewish Encyclopedia, 1911 ed.) the first pogrom was an 1859 riot in Odesa. The term became common after a wave of anti-Jewish violence swept the southern Russian Empire (including Ukraine) between 1881 and 1884, after Jews were blamed for the
assassination of Alexander II. Major pogroms during that time took place in
Yelysavethrad,
Kiev and
Volhynia.
Political activism and emigration The latter decades of the Russian Empire's existence were marked by a significant generational break in the Jewish community. During that period many Jews entered the
workers' movement, while others participated in
Zionist organizations, adopted
Orthodox Judaism or took part in
liberal politics. Although Jews were a minority among members of the
revolutionary movement, the number of their representatives in respect to the general population was unproportionally high. This could be caused by the traditional role of Jews as intermediaries between the urban and rural population. The spread of the
Haskala movement in the Russian Empire during the 19th century led to the emergence of a Jewish
intelligentsia, which initially adopted liberal positions and a Russian civic identity, demanding the reformation of the traditional Jewish community and religious life, promoting publishing and education, and calling for the provision of equal rights to the Jewish population of the empire. As a minority with a higher-than-average level of
literacy and a tendency to
multilingualism - many Jews would speak both Yiddish, their native language, as well as
Russian, the official language, along with the languages of their immediate neighbours, such as
Polish,
Ukrainian,
Latvian or
Belarusian - Jews had more chances to receive higher education and become active in publishing and political activities.
Leon Pinsker, a doctor from Odessa, became one of the founders of political Zionism with his
pamphlet Auto-Emancipation (1882), which called for the emergence of Jews as a separate political nation. Starting from the late 19th century, overpopulation, economic troubles and pogroms led to mass emigration of Jews across the ocean, mainly to
New York. At the same time, many Jews left villages and
shtetls and moved to big cities. In the late 19th century the Jewish population of Austria-Hungary reached about 2 million people and comprised the second biggest Jewish community in the world. In Galicia Jews formed around 10% of the local population, but in some cities, such as
Brody, their share stood at 90%. In
Lemberg during that time more than one third of the population was Jewish. Many localities in the region served as points of pilgrimage for followers of various Hasidic dynasties. Jews in Austro-Hungarian territories generally engaged in small-scale trade, finance and crafts; only 5 to 10% of the Jewish population was active in
agriculture. Many Jews served as intermediaries between peasants and landlords, especially in poorer mountainous regions. Jewish businessmen rented lands and inns, and also took part in the exploitation of
oil sources in the area of
Boryslav. The need to compete with Jews was one of the causes for the emergence of a
cooperative movement among the local Ukrainian population. At the same time, during the early 20th century, Jewish and Ukrainian politicians achieved a measure of cooperation between their parties, and after the
1907 election to
Vienna Parliament two Jewish deputies elected to the organ pledged to promote Ukrainian demands in the legislature. During the early 20th century Jewish
daily newspaper Chwila was published in Lviv. Some Galician Jews, such as
Wilhelm Feldman, adopted
Polonophile positions, while others sympathized with Zionist ideas. Austrian Bukovyna served as a major centre of Jewish culture, and its capital
Chernivtsi (Czernowitz) hosted the first
Jewish language congress organized by
Nathan Birnbaum. ==Early 20th century==