the Alliance came in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin, as the Great Powers pre-
pared to recognize the independence of Romania and other Balkan states from
Ottoman rule. At the urging of the Alliance, the Great Powers required these
states to grant civil rights to Jews as a condition of political recognition. This
moved the eastern edge of emancipated Jewry eastward into the Ottoman
Empire, leaving Russian Jewry as the only Jewish population untouched by
emancipation and enlightenment.
The Pale of Settlement
Russian society and politics, though Christian, differed from those found in the
rest of Christian Europe. In Europe, a tradition of individuals other than the king
having rights had emerged as early as the thirteenth century with the granting of
the Magna Carta in 1215 to the English nobility and the (only slightly lesser
known) Aurea Bulla to the Hungarian nobility in 1222 – pivotal moments in the
development of feudalism. Henceforth, other social castes would apply for and be
granted rights, including Jews. Jewish emancipation in Europe culminated cen-
turies of extending rights to a broader segment of the general population.
By contrast, there was no tradition of rights in tsarist Russia. Until the
1860s, the notion of Jewish emancipation in Russia made no sense in a coun-
try where only a tiny minority of the population had any rights. In general,
historians point to the fact that, prior to 1881, there was no coherent or con-
sistent Jewish policy aimed specifically at persecuting Jews, with one notable
exception (to be discussed presently). Rather, laws regarding Jews reflected
other overriding tsarist concerns.
Russian Jewry, moreover, came into existence almost overnight. Prior to
1772, there were virtually no Jews in the tsarist empire, owing to a pervading
Judeophobia on the part of the tsars and the Russian Orthodox Church. The
three partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795 abruptly brought tens of
thousands of Jews under tsarist rule. Rather than expel the Jews or admit
them into the Russian interior, Catherine the Great confined them to the
provinces that had been annexed by Russia, which became known as the Pale
of Settlement. This would be the defining tsarist policy regarding Jews from
1772 until the abolition of the Pale of Settlement in 1917.
Historians disagree as to the impact of this policy on Russian Jewry. Some
argue that because the Pale of Settlement was roughly the size of France, con-
fining Jews to the Pale was not a particularly harsh restriction. Moreover, since
Jews had virtually unimpeded mobility within the Pale, they had greater
mobility than 85 percent of the Russian population, who were confined to
their own village or town. During the reign of Alexander I, the Pale was
expanded to include Novorussia, a newly conquered and underpopulated
region. Alexander, in a brief foray into European Enlightenment, encouraged
Jews to settle there by allowing them to acquire land and live tax-free in
exchange for a commitment to stay for ten years.
The age of enlightenment and emancipation, 1750–1880 173