Jewish roots. Behind the line. Where did settled life come from and what does it mean

The Pale of Settlement is the boundary of a territory beyond which Russian Empire Jews were forbidden to live. In the country, these rules were officially in force from 1791 to 1917, although in fact the law ceased to apply in 1915. The only exceptions were certain categories of Jews, in which different time persons could enter higher education, merchants of the first guild, recruits who served in the army, Karaites, artisans who were assigned to specific craft workshops, as well as Bukhara and Mountain Jews. The total area of ​​the territory was more than 1 million 200 thousand square kilometers.

Concept definition

The Pale of Settlement is a concept that was also called the Permanent Jewish Pale of Settlement. This law was formed during the reign of Empress Catherine II. She signed a corresponding decree, which strictly defined where Jews had the right to settle and work.

The Pale of Settlement is, in fact, a territory that covered predetermined settlements belonging to the urban type. They also included shtetls, since in countryside Jews were also forbidden to live. As a result, it included significant territories of modern Belarus, Lithuania, as well as the Kingdom of Poland, Latgale, Bessarabia, some regions of modern Ukraine, which at that time corresponded to the southern provinces of the Russian Empire.

As a result, it is believed that the Pale of Settlement is one of the most shameful pages in Russian history before the October Revolution, when citizens of a certain nationality and religion were actually infringed on their rights.

History of appearance

The actual beginning of the Jewish Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire was laid by the decree of Catherine II. It was signed in December 1791. This was the formal reaction of the government to the appeal of the Jewish merchant from Vitebsk, Tsalka Faibishovich.

According to this decree, the Jews were allowed to live permanently in the territories of Belarus and New Russia, at that time quite recently annexed to Russia. At the same time, they were forbidden to enroll in the merchant class, for example, in Moscow. In particular, this was demanded by merchants, who feared that competition would increase significantly.

Heinrich Sliozberg, a specialist in Jewish history, emphasized that the decree of the empress was evidence that it was decided for the Jews not to make any exception. The fact is that restrictions on the right to freely choose one's place of residence and on the right to free movement existed for everyone. To some extent, this applied even to the nobles.

In fact, the Jewish Pale of Settlement arose after the Second Partition of the territory of the Commonwealth. As a result, its territories in the east were ceded to the Russian Empire along with all the local Jewish residents.

When the third partition of Poland took place in 1795, the Grodno and Vilna provinces were included in the Jewish Pale of Settlement, in which a large number of Jews.

Legal registration

Although it all started with the decree of Catherine II, this situation was formally formalized only in 1804, when the "Regulations on the organization of the Jews" were adopted. It listed in detail all the territories and provinces in which they were allowed to live and trade. Until 1835, Caucasian and Astrakhan were included in such provinces.

In particular, this document clearly defined what the Pale of Settlement meant. It strictly ordered all Jews to enroll in one of the estates. They could become manufacturers, landowners, merchants, artisans or philistines.

It is noteworthy that this "Regulation" was based on the "Opinion" of Senator Gabriel Derzhavin, who formulated the reasons for the food shortage on the territory of Belarus, as well as on existing Polish bills dating back to the 18th century.

The term itself was first used in the new edition of the Regulations on the Jews, which was published in 1835.

Causes

It is believed that there were several factors that led to the emergence of the Jewish Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia. One of them is the unwillingness of Russian merchants to compete with them, since they suspected that they would suffer inevitable defeat. Jews have always been famous for their ability to successfully trade.

As a result, economic aspects and religion became the main reasons for the Pale of Settlement. Catherine II considered them dangerous opponents for the current church, besides, people who represent an unproductive nation, she dreamed of turning them to useful labor for society and the entire state.

Moreover, some historians are sure that Catherine was afraid that Masonic ideas and sentiments of the French Revolution would spread throughout the country with the Jews.

Geography

As a result, the Pale of Settlement in tsarist Russia included specific townships that existed in a number of provinces. These are Vilna, Bessarabia, Volyn, Vitebsk, Grodno, Kiev, Yekaterinoslav, Minsk, Kovno, Podolsk, Mogilev, Poltava, Kherson, Taurida and Chernigov provinces.

In addition, all ten provinces of the Kingdom of Poland fell into the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire. At various times, Kyiv was excluded (at that time Jews were allowed to settle only in a few parts of the city), as well as Yalta, Nikolaev and Sevastopol.

Also, Jews made up more than one percent of the local population in Riga, Novgorod, Smolensk, Bryansk, Kharkov, Valk, Toropetsk, Roslavl, Kharkov counties, Courland province, in many regions of Siberia and in the Rostov district of the Don Army Region.

Application practice

Of course, over the years of the existence of such a law on the Pale of Settlement in Russia, the practice of its application has changed. For example, by the end of the 19th century there were about five million Jews in Russia, they were the fifth largest nation in the country. At the same time, only about 200 thousand of them could live in cities that did not fall into the Pale of Settlement.

Even a temporary exit was complicated, besides, they were forbidden to live in the countryside. As a result of these restrictions, as well as the limited choice of professions in which they could practice, there was severe poverty and overcrowding in these places. Back in the 1880s, most Jews fared much worse than even the poorest Russian workers and peasants. At the same time, the bulk was actually doomed to a slow death from starvation.

Before the accession to the throne of Emperor Alexander II, none of them could permanently live outside the Pale of Settlement in Russia. The Jews suffered greatly because of this.

Relaxation policy

The first concessions were made in 1859. The government decided that this ban would not apply to merchants of the first guild. To obtain permission to live outside this line, one had to become a merchant of the first guild within its borders, at least two years before the decree was issued. Or live five years in this status after signing the document.

At the same time, this relief did not apply to cities located 50 versts from the borders of the Bessarabian and western provinces, as well as cities in the Cossack regions, in Finland and some other settlements. For living outside the Pale of Settlement, Jewish merchants of the first guild had the right to take with them one clerk, as well as four household servants.

At the same time, joining the first guild was not easy. Two conditions had to be met. Firstly, to obtain a trade certificate of a specific category - its cost at the beginning of the 20th century ranged from 500 to 1500 thousand rubles a year. Secondly, to become the owner of a guild certificate for 75 rubles a year. At the same time, the actual obtaining of the consent of the guild itself to join or engage in certain commercial or industrial activities was not required.

In fact, the entry of the Jews in allowed them to remove restrictions on their residence by paying a fairly high tax and waiting for five years. For most representatives of this people, this was unrealistic, so that concessions affected an insignificant part of the Jews.

Educated people

In the future, they began to gradually introduce the abolition of the Pale of Settlement for educated Jews. In 1861, the ban ceased to apply to college-educated individuals who had diplomas of doctors of surgery and medicine, as well as to anyone with degrees of masters, doctors or candidates from other university departments.

Since 1865, for three years, laws have been passed that finally lift the ban on doctors who do not have any degree at all.

In 1872, this ban was officially lifted from Jews who managed to graduate from the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology.

By 1879, the right to freedom of movement and choice of residence was given to Jews who became graduates of higher educational institutions, including medical ones, as well as dentists, pharmacists, midwives, paramedics.

Soon, this ban ceased to apply to guild artisans, as well as retired lower ranks who entered the military service by recruitment. Craftsmen were issued temporary residence permits in specific settlements. In most cases, they were under close surveillance by the local police.

Getting an education or joining a craft workshop for Jews was associated with certain difficulties. Since the 1880s, universities had a percentage rate that allowed them to accept no more than three percent of Jews in the capitals, no more than 5% in other cities, and no more than 10% in the very line. And craft workshops were dissolved almost everywhere. In the Pale of Settlement, they remained only in Odessa.

Domestic statesman At that time, Count Ivan Tolstoy noted that the authorities, while maintaining this law, always had in mind that the Jews remain a dangerous, criminal and practically incorrigible people.

In the second half of the 19th century this concept actually turned into a synonym for anti-Semitism, approved at the state level. He was based on religious intolerance, mostly not extending to baptized Jews.

Consequences

This state policy, in fact, included restrictions on admission to gymnasiums and universities, a ban on farming, treating Jews as people with limited rights, and pogroms approved by the authorities.

All this led to an increase in the migration of representatives of this nation to the United States, followed by its colonization of Palestine and Argentina. On the other hand, it provoked some of them to radicalization, participation in revolutionary parties and organizations.

The prohibition policy was criticized by many cultural figures of the time. For example, the writer and publicist Vladimir Korolenko, who wrote in the story "The Brothers Mendel" that this trait was already perceived by others as a given. Some even compared it with the Pale of Settlement of animals, that is, their range, the area of ​​\u200b\u200bdistribution, beyond which they, as a rule, did not go.

As a result, from 1881 to 1914, about one and a half million Jews left Russia for America alone.

Pogroms

In fact, Jewish pogroms sanctioned by the authorities (at least, law enforcement agencies did not interfere when representatives of radical political organizations arranged them), became a striking consequence the existing Pale of Settlement at the beginning of the 20th century.

It all started in Chisinau back in April 1903. Over time, they became the subject of not only external, but also domestic policy Russian Empire. In negotiations with foreign powers on requests to issue more borrowed funds to the country, it was pogroms that became one of the main reasons why regular problems arose with these loans.

As early as 1904, American President Roosevelt put forward stringent demands for changes to the Jewish question, as well as strict adherence to the agreement on navigation and trade concluded between the countries in 1832. But in the minds of Nicholas II, as most historians note, a surrealistic scheme lived. He believed that since the treaty provided for the subordination of Americans in Russia to domestic law, then the regime of the Pale of Settlement became applicable to American Jews. After much wrangling and bickering, America denounced the 1832 agreement in 1911.

It was the pogroms that provoked many representatives of the Jewish youth to massively join the revolutionary organizations and movements, which at that time were extremely numerous in the country. The authorities are accustomed to perceive the Jews as cowardly and submissive citizens, so it was not ready for such selflessness and struggle, like self-sacrifice, contempt for one's own death.

Calls for its abolition were constantly heard. Moreover, not only representatives of the Jews themselves demanded equal rights, but also outstanding humanists of that time, high-ranking domestic officials. It began at the beginning of the 19th century, when Speransky spoke about the need to abolish the Pale of Settlement. He was followed by Witte, Stroganov, Milyukov, Stolypin, and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy with similar initiatives. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the clause on the abolition of the Pale of Settlement was included in the programs of most political parties, with the exception of the Black Hundreds.

Cancel

In fact, the Pale of Settlement ceased to exist in August 1915. It was then that the decision was made in the Ministry of the Interior to allow Jews to live in cities outside the notorious line due to the emergency circumstances of wartime. Capitals, as well as areas under the jurisdiction of the ministries of the military or the imperial court, continued to be banned. These included the palace suburbs of St. Petersburg, as well as the frontline zone.

The abolition of the Pale of Settlement had no effect on softening public policy about this nation. Moreover, a significant part of the Jews ended up in the frontline zone, they began to be considered by the government as unreliable elements, it was believed that in other areas they would pose a lesser danger.

The abolition of the Pale of Settlement is finally connected with the Russian Revolution. This was done by the Provisional Government after the events of February 1917. At the same time, according to historians, since the beginning of the First World War, from 250 to 350 thousand Jews were deported from the western front-line provinces. They were resettled in Yekaterinoslav, Poltava and Tauride provinces. Up to 80 thousand representatives of this nation were expelled from the Kingdom of Poland, most of them immediately fled to Warsaw.

Together with the Pale of Settlement itself, the Provisional Government lifted the ban on Jews for officer service in the army. This was also caused by the conditions of martial law in which the country was.

Pale of Settlement- this was the name of the territories of the Russian Empire, outside of which Jews were prohibited from permanent residence (full name - "Pale of Permanent Jewish Settlement" or "Jewish Residential Trait"). Today, most of these lands are located within modern Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland. The ban on Jews living beyond the Pale of Settlement was introduced at the end of the 18th century. Catherine II and officially acted until the February Revolution of 1917. An exception was made at various times for several categories of citizens, such as: merchants of the 1st guild (since 1859); assigned to craft workshops; Mountain and Bukharan Jews; some other categories.

It was within the boundaries of the Pale of Settlement that the unique Jewish culture of life finally took shape, the indispensable symbols of which are the Yiddish language, klezmer music and the Jewish shtetl, and which was sung in their works by people from the Pale of Settlement Y. Pen, M. Chagall, Sholom Aleichem and others. But most importantly, it was here that the spiritual centers of the Jewish people were located - the centers of the Torah, such as, for example, the famous yeshivas of Volozhin and Mir; it was in the Pale of Settlement that many spiritual leaders of the Jewish people were born and matured, such as Hafetz Chaim, Alter Rebbe, Rabbi J.-D. Soloveichik from Brisk, Rabbi Nachman from Braslav and many others.

History of the Pale of Settlement

For several centuries, Jews have lived in the Commonwealth. In the second half of the XVIII century. The Polish-Lithuanian state was divided in three stages between Prussia, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Vast lands inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Jews were ceded to the Russian Empire. In 1791, Catherine II issued a decree that determined those areas and cities in which Jews were allowed to live and trade.

The Pale of Settlement included small towns and urban-type settlements - the so-called. "towns", and living in the countryside and owning land, even within the boundaries of settled life, was prohibited. Some large cities at different times were also excluded from the Pale of Settlement. In most areas of Kyiv, for example, it was forbidden to settle.

The undisguised Judeophobic policy of both central and local authorities, frequent pogroms, all kinds of restrictions on rights, taxes and taxes almost doubled compared to ordinary citizens - this is an approximate picture of the infringements that Jews suffered in the Pale of Settlement. After some time, recruitment duty was added to this - young Jewish boys were taken to cantonists, tearing them away from their families, from the community and from Judaism. Widespread poverty among the Jews became commonplace.

In the era of Alexander II, laws began to be adopted that gradually made life easier for Jewish cities and towns. Not immediately, step by step, it was allowed to settle beyond the line of large merchants, Jews with higher education, doctors. However, after the assassination of the emperor, his son, Alexander III, stopped liberalization. Firstly, there were already quite a few Jews among the revolutionary movements, and secondly, the emperor himself and his entourage held anti-Jewish views.

Revolution 1905-1907 did not fundamentally change the situation. On the one hand, with varying success, slightly more liberal laws began to be adopted, on the other hand, the “Black Hundreds” and similar parties gained strength, anti-Semitism intensified in society, pogroms became more frequent, which sometimes - with the connivance of the authorities - took on a simply terrifying scale. In 1911, the famous Beilis affair began. With the outbreak of World War I, unsubstantiated accusations of espionage and treason against Jews became not uncommon, which again led to pogroms and executions.

Only in 1917, after the February Revolution in Russia, the Provisional Government lifted all restrictions.

The town and the spiritual life of the people

Despite poverty and pogroms, this period gave a huge impetus to the development of the Jewish community and spiritual life. The shtetl phenomenon contributed to the cohesion of people and mutual assistance among the Jews.

There is a command in the Torah - kdoshim tihyu", which can be translated as "Be holy". This command is interpreted in a broad sense as a prohibition of "unholy" pleasures. It mainly refers to the relationship between the sexes and food. But, in terms of the world of ideas, on the one hand, and simple pastime, on the other, there are also limitations. These restrictions create in the soul of a Jew kdusha u-tahara- the correct proportion in the "consumption" of the material world and spiritual purity, and the violation of these restrictions leads to excessive attachment to this world and spiritual impurity.

From time immemorial, Jews have sought to limit the "unholy" influence on themselves and their offspring. For, as experience has shown, wherever these boundaries have not been established, the influence external environment, the peoples of the world, who do not have these restrictions, gradually increased and after a certain time the Jewish life there disappeared.

It is the same in our era, when most of the Jewish people began to live according to the laws of the peoples of the world, not observing in any way and not even suspecting the restrictions kdusha u-tahara there is a great danger of their influence on Jewish life. Therefore, religious Jews try to isolate themselves from this influence in every way.

Unfortunately, recently the high fences of the religious society have been pierced by modern media, so there are more openings than a fence. Spiritual impurity and excessive earthiness became palpable here and there.

The Jewish shtetl carried the idea of ​​isolation, protection from external non-Jewish influence. Right now this is sorely lacking. The high fences of a religious society are breached modern means information.

And although in terms of the number of Jews who devote themselves to the study of the Torah - now there is a flourishing, but in terms of quality - the situation leaves much to be desired.

In the old days, cobbler and tailor artels completed the study of the entire Talmud and knew it. Now even those who study all day in the yeshiva cannot boast of such success.

Previously, it was clear and obvious to ordinary Jewish workers that they should have a rabbi and that they should accept his rulings and support him. Therefore, an elected committee in every place was looking for the most knowledgeable rabbi, and without him they did not see the possibility of Jewish life, both private and communal. Naturally, there were people here and there who did not fit into the general framework and did not accept rabbinical requirements, but in general, in the past, rabbis had unquestioned authority.

As a rule, warm relations and mutual assistance reigned within the community. It was so, if only because animal anti-Semitism united the destinies of all Jews.

The so-called "galut" reality obliged to live a communal life, and this created more opportunities for people to fulfill the "commandments between man and man" - their duties towards their neighbors. And it's worth remembering...

Pale of Settlement

Prior to the First World War, at least eight systematic reviews of the government's current legislation on Jews appeared in Russia. Among them are the works of M. Mysh (1904, 1910), I. Gessen (1904), I. Friede (1909), L. Rogovin (1913), G. Vetlugin (1913), J. Gimpelson and L. Bramson (1914 ). These are thousand-page collections containing a selection of state laws, explanations to them by the Senate, requests and complaints to the Senate in connection with the implementation or non-compliance with laws in the field.
During the time of Peter the Great, statehood and Orthodoxy actually merged, in which state they remained until the February Revolution. And therefore, all the Gentiles were essentially considered doubtful people, there is nothing strange in such conditions. And all the restrictions imposed on the Gentiles were inevitable under such conditions - the rejection of them would already be a revolution, a change in the foundations of the state.

The Pale of Settlement appeared as a result of the division of the Commonwealth. At first, the Jews were actually equal in rights to all other citizens of the Russian Empire. I must say that the Russian Empire at that time was a very clearly structured country, everyone knew their place there and did not have any democratic freedoms. Most of the population are peasants, all serfs, state or landowners. Priests have not yet been exempted from corporal punishment. The nobles served the sovereign, and where they were told, and not by free will. The possibility of free movement of the townspeople and merchants can be judged by the mailing list about passports - they are also not so free. Cossacks were generally non-stop moved from place to place.
So, Russia has new lands, and with a population. Why do states seize new lands? To get rich. To receive taxes from the annexed territories and increase their state income.
In 1772 Russia, Austria and Prussia carried out the first partition of the Commonwealth. Latvia and the eastern Belarusian lands were annexed to the Russian Empire. According to this section, about 200 thousand Jews turned out to be on the territory of Russia. Of course, not only Jews lived in this territory, Latvians and Belarusians were also present there, but Jews were the most unusual acquisition for Russia. They retained the right to exercise their faith in public and to own property. The Senate decree of 1776 legitimized the existence of the kahal.
The accession manifesto retained the former rights of the Jews that they had in Poland. For the first time, taxes were firmly established. The division of the people into groups according to social status was introduced: philistines (having a capital of up to 500 rubles) and merchants, whose property exceeded this figure. As a rule, Jews turned out to be philistines, and only a small number fell into the merchant class (Decree of 1780).
According to a Senate decree of 1785, Jews were allowed to live in villages, take on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. The right of Jews enrolled in the merchant class to elect and be elected members of the magistrate, town halls and city courts was recognized. Religious matters were left to the Jewish courts.

The new, heterodox population, speaking a different language and accustomed to greater freedom of movement, to self-government and independence than the indigenous Russian population, found itself directly on the territory of Russia and began to upset the established balance. Even absorbing the Cossacks, the Russian Empire did not have such difficulties.

Catherine II decided to limit the mobility of Jews. By a decree of 1791, Jews, in addition to their usual places of residence, were allowed to settle in Belarus, the Yekaterinoslav viceroy and the Tauride region. The decree specifically noted that Jews did not have the right "to enroll in the merchant class in internal Russian cities and ports." Jews were forbidden to live in the central Russian provinces. Exceptions were made for non-Jewish Jews, for merchants of the first guild, dentists, pharmacists, paramedics, mechanics, distillers, brewers, and "masters and artisans in general", persons who graduated from universities, clerks of Jewish merchants of the 1st guild.
The second division of the Commonwealth was carried out in 1793. Under this section, right-bank Ukraine and the central part of Belarus were annexed to Russia. As a result of the third partition, the western part of Belarus went to Russia. Accordingly, the decree of 1794 legalized the extended Jewish Pale of Settlement.
In 1795, according to the third partition of Poland, the Neman basin - the Lithuanian Territory (Vilna and Grodno provinces) joined the Dnieper basin. This ended the formation of the Pale of Settlement at the end of the 18th century.
As it is written in encyclopedias, it included 15 provinces: Volyn, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv, Podolsk, Poltava, Tauride, Kherson, Chernihiv ( modern Ukraine), Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev (modern Belarus), Vilna, Kovno (modern Lithuania) and Bessarabia (modern Moldova). That is, it was not some narrow strip of uninhabitable land, it was large territory, where Jews already lived (together with Belarusians, Ukrainians, Latvians and Moldovans), that is, they were not driven from their place. This is not a reservation, not a ghetto. This is a whole country, and a big one, more than, for example, now separately Lithuania or Belarus, or Moldova. This, by the way, is the first Jewish state after a long break from biblical times, where, at first, not all Russian laws were in effect, cultural specifics were taken into account.
By the way, the Russian Empire was generally different in that the laws in different parts of the territory were different.

In 1804 Alexander I approved the Regulations on the Jews. Jews were forbidden to own pubs and inns in the countryside. The same Regulations allowed Jews to study in Russian schools and universities (but most of the Jews did not know Russian), to open their own schools, the double tax from manufacturers, artisans and farmers was abolished. Only those who spoke Russian, German or Polish(in my opinion, there is no discrimination in this, on some understandable language they should have spoken). Jewish farmers were allowed to live in 2 more provinces: Astrakhan and Caucasian. All those who traveled outside the Pale of Settlement, as well as pupils and students, were required to wear European clothes.
That is, the initial idea was that gradually the Jews should become the same citizens of the Russian Empire as everyone else - learn the language, start dressing like a European. Since the state religion of Russia was Orthodoxy, by converting to Orthodoxy, the Jew got rid of all restrictions, the criterion was precisely religion, and not nationality.
At the Congress of Vienna (1815), a part of Poland, which had previously belonged to Prussia, was annexed to Russia, under the name of the Kingdom of Poland with some autonomy, but under the control of the Russian tsar. There were also many Jews who enjoyed broad self-government. The Kingdom of Poland had its own constitution, its own parliament-Seim, its own army, its own monetary unit (zloty), customs borders with Russia. Until 1868, it was forbidden to settle within the "Pale of Settlement" for Jews from the Kingdom of Poland and vice versa. At the same time, I remind you, there were still problems with the Finns, who also had a special status, language and culture, and now also with the Poles, of course. The Finns and Poles, however, did not seek to move en masse to the central part of Russia, and the Jews did not want to assimilate and at the same time did not want to live quietly in one place and pay taxes.

From 1827, Jews began to be taken into the army, before that they were exempted from military service, it was replaced for them by a monetary tax. The quota for Jews was higher than for Russians, but at the same time, a quarter of the Russian army was in the position of military settlers. All other subjects of the Russian Empire served in the army, when they write about the terrible situation of Jews in the Russian Empire, they lose sight of the fact that Simply, in most cases, they tried to equalize their rights with the rest of the population. Since this was a worsening situation for them, they reacted rather violently.
Within the "Pale of Settlement" Jews were forbidden to live in villages, as well as in Kiev (since 1827), Nikolaev (in 1829-1866), Sevastopol (since 1829) and Yalta (since 1837).
In the "Regulations on the Jews" of Nicholas I (1835), all the existing laws on the Jews were presented and new ones were added. A norm has been introduced for their participation in zemstvo and city self-government. As a rule, all the norms and quotas introduced then and later were justified by the fact that the share of Jews in the population of Russia is low, which means that their share in the most various types activities practiced on the territory of Russia. There is a certain administrative logic in this. This is logical for a state that considers it its duty to directly regulate everything that happens on its territory.
In 1843 Jews were again evicted from Kyiv.
A decree of 1844 introduced fundamental changes in the system of Jewish education. State Jewish schools and rabbinical seminaries were opened along with cheders. To contain these educational establishments, a special tax on candles was introduced. Wealthy families began to send their children to the gymnasium. In the same year, kahals were abolished and general administration was introduced for the country. The participation of Jewish representatives in government bodies was limited.
In 1851, Nicholas I signed a decree on the division of the entire Jewish population into 5 categories: merchants, farmers, artisans, settled and non-settled petty bourgeois. Most of the Jews fell into the category of non-settled burghers. Can you imagine non-settled philistines among the Russian population? There was no such thing, they were all registered, rewritten and lived in one place. And for the Jews, the separation of the settled from the non-settled proved so difficult that the decree was soon canceled.

The Emperor has changed.
By decree of Alexander II in 1856, the requirements for Jewish recruits were equalized with the requirements for other nationalities, cantonist schools were abolished, and all cantonists under 20 were returned to their parents. Indulgences were also made in the policy of restricting the areas of residence allowed to Jews. Subsequent decrees allowed the admission to the civil service with academic degrees, allowed the residence of merchants of the 1st guild outside the Pale of Settlement, allowed the service of Jews in the guard, promotion to non-commissioned officers on a general basis, awarding orders was ordered to be carried out in the same way as for Muslim soldiers.
In 1859-1865, the prohibitions on living in the capital of retired Jewish soldiers were eliminated, it was allowed for those with scientific degrees to freely choose their occupation, it was allowed to settle beyond the Pale of Settlement to merchants of the 2nd and 3rd guilds with higher education, persons who had completed military service on the basis of recruitment charter, and their descendants and members of their families, pharmacists, obstetricians and dentists. Restrictions on career advancement were lifted. With the receipt of the rank of real state councilor, it was allowed on a general basis to assign hereditary nobility. Students, apprentices of artisans, merchants of the lower guilds could temporarily live.
From 1864, laws imposing restrictions began to be issued, but the real wave of restrictions began in 1881 - after the assassination of Alexander II and the accession of Alexander III. Back in 1880, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a circular forbidding the eviction of Jews who illegally settled there from the inner provinces, everything was developing in the direction of further liberalization, and now the reaction has begun. In general, it should be noted that our state policy has fluctuated all the time - from liberalization to tightening the regime and then back, and the tightening and liberalization of measures in relation to the Jews went in line with general changes politicians. It is impossible to consider the history of the Jews in Russia in isolation from the context.

In 1882, after the pogrom in Balta, a congress of representatives of the Jewish communities of Russia met in St. Petersburg. The government invited them to discuss the question of how "to thin out the Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement, keeping in mind that Jews will not be allowed into the inner provinces of Russia." In other words, the authorities offered the Jews a new alternative to assimilation - emigration. Many Jews left for Argentina
In 1882, the Provisional Rules were introduced through the Committee of Ministers, concerning the rights of the Jewish population of Russia. Later they were changed and supplemented.
The provisions were mandatory for 15 provinces of the Pale of Settlement, excluding the Kingdom of Poland. Jews were forbidden: to settle again in the countryside, to acquire real estate outside the towns and cities in the Pale of Settlement, to rent land, to trade on Sunday and Christian holidays. In fact, the Pale of Settlement was reduced without changing the borders - due to internal restrictions, the mobility of the Jewish population was again reduced. Often the provisions were interpreted arbitrarily in the direction of tightening, which the Senate fought against. The towns were renamed into villages in order to reduce the transfusion of the Jewish population there. In one Kherson province, sixty-three places were renamed into villages.
There is a lot of evidence online that living in the Pale of Settlement was terrible. The population density was so high that mobility was one way to survive. But to be honest, I don't understand why. Later, 1897 data are given on the number of Jews and their settlement, there were about five million of them. The territory of the Pale of Settlement was, as I said, very large. For example, 12 million people live in Moscow now, on a very small territory for such a large number of people, we, in fact, are sitting on each other's heads, but no one thinks that living here is unbearable, otherwise we would have left. It's not about population density. And in what? I don't know. Probably in culture. Probably, the Jews are simply not sedentary in their essence. Here, settle a gypsy camp in one place and do not allow them to move from place to place, they will go crazy. The Jews, of course, have a different culture, but, probably, it does not imply a settled way of life. And how they live in Israel, I do not understand. The area of ​​Israel is smaller than the area of ​​the Pale of Settlement. But these are all my fabrications, do not consider them an attempt to express the truth.
In addition, I wholeheartedly agree that this period - from 1881 to the February Revolution - was a terrible period in the history of Russian Jews, for some reason they terribly annoyed everyone and actively fought against them in various ways.
In 1882, the Minister of War ordered that in the Russian army there should be no more than 5% of Jewish doctors and paramedics from the general medical staff.
In 1886, a percentage rate was introduced for the admission of Jews to universities. Within the limits of the Pale of Settlement, the percentage rate for male gymnasiums and universities was 10% of all students, in the rest of Russia - 5%, in the capitals - 3%. Here, by the way, the administrative logic is violated - within the limits of the Pale of Settlement, Jews accounted for significantly higher percentage population than 10. This is already anti-Semitism. These circulars were also issued bypassing the State Council through the Committee of Ministers "until the revision of all laws on the Jews", and it was assumed that the rights of the Jews would not be reduced, but expanded.
In 1886, 2000 families were expelled from Kyiv, many settled on the Dnieper River, on rafts and barges, taking advantage of the fact that the temporary rules did not provide for a ban on this type of residence.
In 1887 Jews living in villages were forbidden to move from one village to another. In the same year, Taganrog and Rostov-on-Don were excluded from the Pale of Settlement.
In 1889 the Minister of Justice N. Manasein passed as a temporary measure a decree suspending the admission of "persons of non-Christian religions" to the number of sworn attorneys: until the issuance of a special law. In the secret part of the decree, it was emphasized that the Ministry of Justice would not issue a permit for enrollment in sworn attorneys to any Jew until an appropriate percentage rate was established throughout the country. This measure did not apply to Muslims.
In 1890, a new limited zemstvo reform was carried out, which deprived Jews of the right to participate in local self-government bodies. The new City Code of 1892 completely eliminated the Jews from participating in elections to the bodies of city self-government, both within and outside it.
In the late 80s - early. 90s the authorities began to purge the internal provinces of the Jews. The police actively carried out round-ups in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other cities forbidden for Jews to live. They caught not only those who settled illegally (many were fictitiously registered as apprentices to artisans, lackeys to people with higher education, etc.), but also all those who violated the law on the stay of artisans in the inner provinces. However, there is again an administrative logic in this - laws are issued in order to be observed, and not only the fact that these measures were carried out in anti-Semitic times led to cruel and inhumane actions. Right now, for example, people are starting to be evicted if they do not pay their rent for a long time, but they do not do this because they have no money. Of course, this is terrible and not humane. But you also have to pay for an apartment, that is, there is a legitimate reason to evict them. Laws are generally a terrible and inhumane thing.
But back to the Jews.
The right to permanent residence in Moscow, granted to the Nikolaev soldiers who served 25 years in the army, was taken away in 1891, then in general there was a mass eviction of Jews from Moscow. They then lived there 25-30 thousand, including a large number of illegally settled. On March 28, 1891, on the first day of the Pesach holiday, a decree was published abolishing the former privileges for Jewish artisans for Moscow and the Moscow province. The decree forbade Jewish artisans, distillers, brewers, and craftsmen and artisans in general, to settle again in Moscow and the Moscow province, and those who were there were to return to the Pale of Settlement. First, the illegally settled people were sent to hell. who lived on legal grounds ordered to leave Moscow in month. Those who did not have time to leave were sent by stage. Many did not have money for travel, and the Jewish Charitable Committee bought them tickets to the nearest station in the Pale of Settlement.
By 1897 there were 7.5 million Jews in the world. Approximately 5.25 million Jews lived on the territory of the Russian Empire, of which 3.837 million lived in European Russia. in the Caucasus, Siberia and Central Asia 105 thousand Jews lived. Jews made up over 50% of the urban population of Lithuania and Belarus. In the cities of Ukraine lived: Russians - 35.5%, Jews - 30%, Ukrainians - 27%.
43.6% of Jews were small craftsmen, 14.4% were tailors and seamstresses, 6.6% were carpenters, 3.1% were locksmiths, the rest were engaged in trade and other forms of service or did not have certain occupations. 24.6% of Jews spoke Russian to some extent.
In 1903-1906 there was a second wave of pogroms. The pogrom began in Chisinau and spread to many Jewish towns. The Odessa pogrom reached its greatest extent.
After the suppression of the revolution of 1905-07, the legislation concerning the Jews continued to be tightened, the percentage rate for Jews in various educational institutions was cut (with the exception of the conservatory, in which there were enough vacancies). Graduates of Jewish secondary schools were deprived of the right to enter state universities.
In 1912, the Senate banned Jews from holding the positions of assistant attorney at law, which they found themselves in after the earlier ban on the office of attorney at law. It was ordered to expel the Jews from all places outside the Pale of Settlement, who settled there illegally. This even affected the participants in the defense of Port Arthur. The principle "a baptized Jew becomes a Christian" was abandoned. That is, now anti-Semitism has already manifested itself at the state level, not only in the localities, and was related to nationality, and not to religion. The 1912 law contained a ban on the promotion of children and grandchildren of converts to the rank of officer. Some members of the Duma spoke in favor of a ban on burying converts in Christian cemeteries.
With the outbreak of the 1st World War, the areas inhabited by Jews found themselves in a war zone. A general eviction from the front-line areas began. As a result, the government was forced to temporarily abolish the Pale of Settlement in order to find shelter for the Jews evicted from the western provinces. They abolished the one-year passport obligatory for Jews and allowed them to receive an indefinite one. Jews were still forbidden to settle in the capitals, in the countryside, in the regions of the Don, Kuban and Terek Cossack troops, as well as in the resorts where royal family. Jews participating in the war and their children were allowed to enter higher and secondary educational institutions in excess of the percentage rate. It was partially allowed to accept Jews as lawyers.
The third wave of pogroms in the Pale of Settlement was the longest - from 1915 to 1921. They were not at all affected by the fact that after the abdication of Nicholas 2nd, the Provisional Government lifted all restrictions Russian citizens conditioned by belonging to a particular religion or nationality. The history of the Pale of Settlement ended there.
In theory, it would be necessary to come up with some sort of morality. Think of it as a story about the impossibility of changing a culture through administrative action. Perhaps, if there were no Pale of Settlement, Jews would have settled throughout Russia, assimilated, and there would have been no Jewish question. The scheme that worked with the Finns and Poles did not work with the Jews. And if it worked, the Jewish state might not be where it is now, and it would not be called Israel.
Lyudmila Biryukova

The phrase "Pale of Settlement" is familiar to many. We associate this concept with oppression in the Russian Empire, with restrictions on places of residence, and with other legally established restrictions on rights. The time span that separates us from this period allows us to consider the phenomenon in a historical perspective, not only through the eyes of a resident of the town. We open up a whole layer of a special way of life in small towns-shtetl, known among the Jewish community as a shtetl. Today we can comprehend events in their interconnectedness with political processes, with the survival of the people in the diaspora, with its historical memory of the homeland of their ancestors, with devotion to their precepts and, conversely, rejection of them.

background

In 1569, the united state of Poland and Lithuania was formed, which received the name of the Commonwealth. It was ruled by the king, who was elected by the gentry (noble) Sejm, in which the nobility had the right to sit. To manage large noble estates, competent financiers, craftsmen, craftsmen, merchants were required. Therefore, Jews who were famous for literacy and crafts were willingly taken to the positions of managers. Streams of those suffering from persecution in Western Europe poured into the young promising state.

The Jewish community was given broad autonomy in the arrangement of community life. Jews elected rabbis and activists, collected taxes for their needs and contributions to the state treasury. Thus, the communities grew, each formally subordinated to some landowner, whose lands they rented, and in fact became managers with great powers. It was possible to rent some industries Agriculture, hotels and many smaller establishments. For tenants, such entrepreneurial spirit of the Jews was beneficial - no worries, and the money was regularly received. In such conditions, Jewish "shtetls" were formed.

The power and privileges granted to the Jews were dissatisfied with the urban estate, the clergy and the Cossacks who remained “out of work”. Growing discontent led to the uprising of Bogdan Khmelnytsky and a great pogrom that claimed more than 13 thousand Jewish lives.

And a new king arose...

Torah chapter Shemot

In the middle of the 17th century, torn apart by internal political and economic problems, the Commonwealth began to weaken and by the middle of the 18th century it had become uncontrollable. This weakness was not slow to take advantage of the neighboring states: Russia, Prussia and Austria. Like hungry predators, they pounced on the exhausted victim, and piece by piece began to tear it apart. The division of the former powerful state took place in 3 steps in 1772, 1791 and 1793. As a result, Russia lost a huge territory with a large Jewish population.

The decree issued by Catherine II in 1791 was addressed to the attention of the entire population living in the territory included in Russia and limited the settlement beyond the line separating the new territories from the one that existed before the division of Poland. Subsequently, in 1804. this ban was established only for Jews by the “Regulations on the Organization of the Jews”, which listed 15 provinces of the Russian Empire where Jews were allowed to live.

"Jews laugh so as not to cry"

Sholom Aleichem

A peculiar sense of humor and sharpness of mind are characteristic of a Jew from the shtetl, because they represent a mixture of the Talmudic wisdom of the bearers of the spiritual gene of their ancestors with the drama of isolation. Jewish joke is the best scientific research tells about all the events of the life and life of the “shtetl”, about relationships with rabbis, about relationships with the authorities, about the ways being taken to circumvent restrictions, about longing for the promised land, and much more.

This humor is specific, according to the apt expression of one collector of Jewish jokes: “A Jewish joke with a Jewish accent is something that a non-Jew will not understand, but a Jew has already heard.” The Jew has already heard, because life, his communication with other Jews are this anecdote. When one Jew meets another and asks, "How are you?" they answer him: “we are spinning” (in Yiddish - men dreit zih).

This answer is the whole feature of Jewish survival. For a Jew, this expression, which does not have an exact translation, means some kind of adaptation to the conditions of persecution, restriction and infringement of rights, and a natural desire to get out of poverty. For a non-Jew, this symbolizes resourcefulness, cunning, greed.

In any case, the Jew remains misunderstood. First, they “drive him into a corner”, do not give him the opportunity to work on the land, limit the scope of his activities, leaving him, in fact, trade and some crafts, and then they are accused of trading and unwillingness to work physically.

“EARTH FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY,” WE SAY IN OUR SACRED WRITING. THE ONLY TROUBLE IS THAT PALESTINE IS IN PALESTINE, AND AS YOU SEE, I AM STILL HERE…”

Sholom Aleichem "Tevye the Milkman"

Inside the Yiddish-speaking Jewish township, a special closed "Yiddish" culture was created. Andrei Konchalovsky, an honest and sensitive film director and screenwriter, described this phenomenon in his book “Elevating Deception” as follows: “Sholom Aleichem, Chagall, Mikhoels were born in these shtetls and ghettos. And in Italy, and in America, and in France there are excellent Jewish writers, but there is no Jewish culture.

He, like many others, realized that this culture was born "due to the ostracism that Russian Jews were subjected to, their forced isolation."

“There is good and bad in everything,” summarizes A. Konchalovsky, and this is an axiom, because it determines the basic principle of evolution, which is expressed in the book “Zohar” by the phrase: “the advantage of light is learned from darkness.”

“WHEN WE HAVE DESTROYED, THEN THE WORLD WAS DESTROYED WITH US BECAUSE OF UNCAUSED HATRED, AND WHEN WE GO BACK TO CONSTRUCTION AND THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE BUILT WITH US THANKS TO UNCAUSED LOVE”

We learn from the sages that we must begin to correct the world (since the time of Ari - from the 16th century, we are already in the era of correction), but we must begin with ourselves, because only we, who have knowledge of the “return”, can transmit it everyone.

In our time " latest generation We must understand the cause of suffering. After another hit, we sort of dust ourselves off and continue looking for a place where we can better settle down. We are not looking for the root of troubles, but we are waiting for humanity to understand how good and talented we are and stop persecuting us. We see the result of such naive passivity, when not a single country with several satellites, but the whole world is full of Israel and Jews.

"Israel will not be delivered until they are all in one brotherhood"

The Jews have a duty. For the sake of it, we must unite on the "promised land" and build a system of state and public relations on the basis of higher laws, to set an example of unity to the whole world. This is what the peoples of the world are waiting for, who unconsciously assume that the people of Israel have a “secret weapon”.

GEOGRAPHICAL BORDERS OF THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT

Temporary boundaries of the Pale of Settlement

By decree of 1791, Catherine II outlined the territory where Jews were now allowed to live. It included the lands that went to the empire after the partitions of Poland (at that time the First, later the territories that merged after the Second and Third partitions were added to it), and also recently conquered (from the Turks and Crimean Tatars) New Russia. At first, the formation of the Line (the name itself officially appeared much later, in the 19th century) was not a discriminatory measure - Christians, including even nobles, also had restrictions in moving around the empire. Subsequently, tightening the rules year after year, the tsarist government made the life of the Jews in the Pale so difficult that the Pale of Settlement became associated with a discriminatory policy towards Jews. The line was abolished by the Provisional Government in 1917. In this article, in accordance with the title, we will consider only the geographical boundaries of the Line in different eras.

Partitions of Poland

The history of the modern Jews of Russia should be traced back to the partitions of Poland. There were Jews under Yaroslav the Wise and under Peter the Great, but by the second half of the 18th century there were no Jews in Russia - they were simply not allowed to live there. In contrast, more Jews lived in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (the Commonwealth) in the 17th and 18th centuries than in the rest of the world. The reason for this should be sought in the well-known folk wisdom - the fish is looking for where it is deeper. Compared to other European countries, Jews lived in Poland most comfortably. There are numerous examples friendly relations between Jews and Polish aristocrats. Jews sought for themselves such privileges, which sometimes even the native inhabitants of the country did not possess.

In the middle of the 17th century, the gradual decline of Poland began. The once powerful and largest state in Europe was suffocating in a tangle of political and economic problems. No important decisions could pass through the Sejm without the consent of all its members. Violent uprisings in the east of the country were wasting human and economic resources.

By the end of the 18th century, the Commonwealth was so weakened that its neighbors - Russia, Austria and Prussia, began to gradually divide it among themselves. In 1773, the troops of the three powers entered the territory of Poland and annexed a significant part of it. Russia got Eastern Belarus and the so-called Polish Livonia. On these lands, Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces were subsequently formed. That was the First Partition of Poland.

Despite the desperate attempts of Polish patriots to change the laws and save their country, in the 90s, the seizure of Polish territory by its neighbors continued. According to the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Russia received significant territories of Belarus and Ukraine, which later became part of the Minsk, Kyiv, Volyn and Podolsk provinces. In 1795, the partition of Poland was completed. The country ceased to exist, and Lithuania, the remnants of Belarus and Volhynia went to Russia. In addition, the semi-independent Duchy of Courland became part of Russia. The once highly developed state, which even owned colonies in the West Indies, weakened by the 18th century and became politically dependent on Poland and Russia. With the collapse of Poland, Courland ceased to exist as independent state and turned into a province of Russia, with the preservation, however, by its inhabitants of many privileges, for example, the absence of serfdom.

Thus, Russia, where before there were no Jews, suddenly began to have almost the largest Jewish population in the world. All lands received during the partitions of Poland became part of the Pale of Settlement. Vitebsk, Mogilev, Minsk, Kiev, Volyn, Podolsk, Vilna and Grodno provinces were formed on them. In addition, the Jews of Courland, which was not included in the Pale of Settlement, received a special status - they were allowed to live in Courland if they already lived there, but it was forbidden to settle it, including through marriage, or even return after living elsewhere.

Napoleonic Wars and the Kingdom of Poland

In 1807, Napoleon, who defeated Austria and Prussia, formed a semi-independent state in the territories he conquered - the Duchy of Warsaw, which earned the gratitude of the Poles. In 1815, when Napoleon's empire was divided, the Duchy of Warsaw passed to Russia. The Kingdom of Poland was formed on this territory. Bialystok region, however, became part of the "crown" Russia. Initially, it was assumed that the Kingdom of Poland would be a quasi-independent entity under the patronage Russian emperor like Finland. However, as a result of the continuous uprisings of the Poles, the tsarist government took away privileges from Poland, and by 1870, 10 provinces of the Kingdom of Poland were already ordinary provinces of the Russian Empire. However, these provinces (Warsaw, Kalisz, Kielce, Lomzhinsky, Lublin, Petrokovskaya, Plock, Radomskaya, Suwalki and Siedletska) were not officially considered part of the Pale of Settlement. Jews were allowed to live there without restrictions, but they were not allowed to move in the province of Crown Russia or back.

Novorossiya

This was the name of the lands that came under the control of Russia in the second half of the 18th century as a result of wars with the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Tatars. These areas were sparsely populated. Their active development began at the end of the 18th century. Ekateninoslav, Tauride, Kherson and Bessarabian provinces were formed. These provinces, as well as Chernihiv and Poltava, which passed to Russia in the 17th century, became part of the Pale of Settlement. Jews from the former Polish provinces, as well as representatives of other nations (Greeks, Bulgarians, Germans, Serbs) were interested in moving to the Novorossiysk provinces, both in cities and in agricultural colonies. The process, however, was uneven. If the Kherson and Bessarabian provinces turned out to be quite densely populated by Jews in the 19th century, then in the Chernigov, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav and Tauride provinces, the percentage of the Jewish population remained insignificant.

Mid 19th century

In 1842, there was a significant change in the administrative boundaries of the North-Western Territory. The Bialystok region merged into the Gdodno province, and the Kovno province stood out from the Vilna province. Several Belarusian counties were added to the Vilna province. If the Kovno province was mainly inhabited by Lithuanians, then the Slavic peoples - Poles and Belarusians - predominated in the Vilna province. Both provinces, at the same time, were densely populated by Jews. The most significant percentage of the Jewish population was in the Grodno province.

In 1868, on the site of the Augustow province, two provinces were formed - Suwalki and Lomzhinsky. However, this reorganization did not affect the position of the Jews. Quite a lot of Lithuanians lived in the Suvalka Governorate, especially in the northern half. It is characteristic that such decisions were made in St. Petersburg in the interests of the Russian administration, without the participation of the Poles, whose active resistance had been broken by that time.

World War I and the end of the Pale of Settlement

By the beginning of the 20th century, voices about the need to abolish the Pale of Settlement sounded louder, but Nicholas I could not decide on this step. Officially, the Pale of Settlement was abolished with the collapse of tsarism by the Provisional Government. However, already at the beginning of the First World War, it actually ceased to exist. Many thousands of refugees from the western provinces poured into the central provinces, where they were accordingly allowed to live.

Between World Wars

The post-war peace system divided the former Pale of Settlement between many countries. Latgale, or the former Polish Livonia, three districts of the Vitebsk province, inhabited by the Latvian majority, went to Latvia. In addition, the former Courland entered Latvia, except for Palanga. Lithuania was formed on the site of the Kovno province, with the exception of part of the Novo-Aleksandrovsky district, as well as the northern half of the Suvalka province (Volkovysh, Maryampol, Kalvary and Vladislav counties) and small sections of the Baltic coast (Palanga from Courland and Klaipeda from East Prussia). Romania got Bessarabia, as well as Bukovina, which previously belonged to Austria. Poland received the former Grodno, Vilna, partly Volyn and Minsk provinces and a small section of Kovno. Five voivodships were formed on these territories: Volynskoye, Polesye with the center in Brest (the southern part of the Grodno province and the Pinsk district of the Minsk region), Belostotskoe (the northern part of the Grodno province), Novogrudok (from parts of the Grodno, Vilna and Minsk provinces) and Vilna (mostly , from the Vilna province).

Other territories former Traits Settlements became part of the republics of the USSR - Belarus, Ukraine and the RSFSR.

The Second World War

By the early 1940s, the entire former Pale of Settlement was part of the USSR. In 1939, Romania had to leave Bessarabia, as well as Northern Bukovina. Then Nazi Germany and Soviet Union defeated Poland, as a result of which Volyn, Galicia (the territory that was part of Austria after the First Partition of Poland), Bialystok, Polesye, Novogrudok and Vilna voivodeships were annexed. The southern part of the Vilna Voivodeship, as well as the Polessky, Novogrudok and Bialystok Voivodeships, passed to Belarus, while the northern part was transferred to Lithuania, which was independent at that time. Finally, in 1940, the Baltic states were occupied.

With the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR, the entire territory of the former Pale of Settlement, where the Jewish population was still densely populated, was occupied by the Nazis. As a result, the world known to us from the works of Sholom Aleichem, Agnon and Chagall was completely destroyed. Today, on the territory of the former Pale of Settlement, Jews live almost exclusively in large cities, and in much smaller numbers.

Within modern borders

Today, the territory of the Former Pale of Settlement is divided among seven states: Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova, Latvia and Russia.

Ukraine includes the former Yekaterinoslav, most of Chernihiv, Poltava, Taurida, Kiev, Kherson, Volyn and Podolsk provinces, as well as 3 districts of Bessarabia - Izmail, Akkerman and partially Khotinsky. In addition, Ukraine owns former territories Austria-Hungary - Galicia (Lvov, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk), Northern Bukovina (Chernivtsi) and Transcarpathia.

Moldova stands on the site of most of the former Bessarabia. Also, the unrecognized Dnieper Moldavian Republic was formed on the site of the former Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - a territorial unit of the 30s from the sections of the former Kherson and Podolsk provinces.

The former Bialystok region returned to Poland - Bialystok, Belsky and Sokolsky districts of the Grodno province. If we talk about the former Kingdom of Poland, then all of it, with the exception of the northern half of the Suwalki province, is now part of Poland.

Lithuania retained the former Kovno and partially Vilna and Suwalki provinces, as well as a piece of East Prussia with Klaipeda and a piece of Courland with Palanga.

Latvia still includes Courland, now called Kurzeme, and Latgale - 3 former districts of the Vitebsk province, Dvinsky, Rezhitsky and Lutsinsky.

All of today's Belarus stands on the site of the former Pale of Settlement. The Vitebsk region includes the former Vitebsk province, except for six counties that passed to Russia and Latvia, as well as the Orsha, Goretsky and Senno counties of the Mogilev province, the Disnensky county of the Vilna region and partially the Sventsyansky county of the Vilna and Novo-Aleksandrovsky counties of the Kovno province. The Mogilev region includes several northern districts of the former Mogilev province, as well as the Bobruisk district of the Minsk province. The Gomel region included the southern districts of the Mogilev province and the Mozyr and Rechitsa districts of the Minsk province. The Brest region is the Brest, Kobrin and Pruzhany districts of the Grodno province and the Pinsk district of the Minsk region. The Grodno region includes the Grodno, Slonim and Volkovysk districts of the Grodno province, the Lida and Oshmyansk districts of the Vilna and Novogrudok districts of the Minsk province. Finally, the unmentioned districts of the Minsk province and the Vileika district of the Vilna province entered the Minsk region.

Few know, but in the composition Russian Federation there are several counties of the former Pale of Settlement. The Nevel and Sebezh districts of the Vitebsk region are now part of the Pskov region, and the Velizh district is part of the Smolensk region. In addition, most of the Mstislavsky district (without Mstislavl, however) and a smaller part of the Klimovichi district of the Mogilev province fell into the Smolensk region. The famous Lubavichi are located in Russia, in the Smolensk region. Well, 4 districts of the Chernihiv province - Novozybkovsky, Mglinsky, Starodubsky and Surazhsky - got into the Bryansk region. In addition, until 1887, the Yekaterinoslav province, and, consequently, the Pale of Settlement, included Rostov-on-Don district and the city of Taganrog.

Igor Ginzburg

San Diego, USA