Note (return) — Chapter V

Such disinterested efforts on their behalf would have evoked the gratitude of Jews at any time and in every country, how much more in Russia, and following close upon the darkest period in their history! The struggle for liberty all over Europe in 1848—the spring of nations—had confirmed Nicholas in his policy of exclusion. The last five years of his reign had surpassed the preceding in cruelty and tyranny. The "Don Quixote of Politics," finding that his attempts to quarantine Russia against European influences had proved futile, that the nationalities constituting the empire remained as distinct as ever, and the desired homogeneity was still far from becoming a reality, finally had lost patience and had determined to execute his conversionist policy at all hazards. He had increased the conscription duties, already unbearable (January 8, 1852; August 16, 1852), restricted the study of Hebrew and Hebrew subjects still further in the Government schools, and, as if to embitter the lives of the Jew by all means available, insisted on the use of the Mitnaggedic ritual even in communities exclusively or largely Hasidic.4 Even the blood accusation had been revived, and the statements in the pamphlet entitled Information about the Killing of Christians by Jews for the Purpose of Obtaining Their Blood, which Skripitzyn, "the manager of Jewish affairs in Russia," published in 1844, found many believers in Government circles, and caused the Saratoff affair which, though suppressed, ruined numerous Jewish families, and made the breach between Jew and Gentile wider than ever.5