The Soviet period was not a favorable time for the research of the confessional policies of the Russian Empire, not only because atheism was propagated and religiousness was considered to be a sort of a throwback, but also because of the ideology of «a friendship of nations» that was propagated in the country. Confessional and language policies were not a priority for the Soviet government, because in researching these problems it could have been revealed that a certain «ethnic hierarchy»^[1] had existed in the Romanov empire, which would have clearly went against the claim about the «eternal» friendship of Russians and other nationalities of other Soviet republics. The national policy of the nineteenth century Imperial Russia was not a priority theme in Western historiography during the Cold War, just as it was not one in the Soviet Union. In order for bigger changes to occur in historiography, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the entire Soviet block was needed, though changes in Western historiography occurred a bit earlier, around the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, when the Russo-centric approach towards Imperial Russia was rejected. During the last 20 years, the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional character of the Romanov Empire enjoyed such an amount of attention from researchers that sometimes it may appear that during such a short period more books and articles were devoted to this topic than during all the previous years.
One of them is the book by Andrei Tikhonov, which discusses the confessional policy of the imperial government from the view of the three largest non-Orthodox confessions – Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam. One may note at once that the book’s author does not even try to include this book into the existing discourse on multi-confessionalism in Imperial Russia: it is just in the footnotes of the introduction that some works on this topic are mentioned, however their selection is rather haphazard. Just as importantly, the author does not even attempt to argue with the research of other historians and usually simply disregards it (even that mentioned in the footnotes at the beginning of the book). This, by the way, goes not only for Western, but for Russian historiography, as well as the works of foreign authors already translated into Russian. In fact, it would be difficult for Tikhonov to debate with many of the researchers, because this book could hardly be called conceptual. It does not explain how the author understands the term «confessional policy» and this is even logical, because various aspects of imperial ethnic policy are presented in this work in the broadest of meanings (in the case of the «Jewish Question», army service, schools, agrarian policy, pogroms, emigration etc. and such are discussed). Neither does the author explain the specific terminology used in the book: for example, the often used term «assimilation» (Pp. 147, 158, 213, 214, 283, 289, and 293 among others) is unexplained and used in various contexts, and as a result its meaning remains unclear.
Most of the work is based on references to various laws and archival sources, chosen randomly and recounted without any analysis for a length of several pages (as are, incidentally, the quotations from personal letters or diaries or the publications of other researchers, e.g., pp. 7-9).
We will focus most of our attention in this review on how Tikhonov interprets the «Jewish Question», but first we will discuss briefly the description of imperial policy regarding the Catholic Church in this book. This discussion is not consistent, and the subjects chosen are often not the most important, though it could not be otherwise, as the author uses random documents found in the Russian state history archives and makes hardly any use of the available scientific literature. For this reason, we find here strange interpretations, for example the claim that «the most important question of the 1830-1831 Uprising was the defense of Catholicism» (P. 92). The memoirs of Imperial Russia’s Minister of War Dmitrii Miliutin are the basis for the description of the 1863-1864 Uprising and its goals (Pp. 161-162). The author’s main thesis about Russian policy towards Catholicism is not very surprising either: the imperial government did not meddle in the «internal» life of Catholics and other non-Orthodox believers, it just «strictly made sure» that those of other faiths would not expand their influence among the «new layers of the population» (Pp. 232, 283), whereas in 1905 the rights of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church were totally equaled. The author let us understand that this was a mistake: «This [the Tolerance Decree of April 17th, 1905] brought not reconciliation, but further escalation of hostility between the Catholic Church in Russia and the government, revealing an obvious fact: the Roman Catholic clergy of the Western province always chose the position of total independence from the Russian government» (P. 232). The author does not mention the apolitical part of the Catholic clergy and the large group of Russophile priests who, especially after the 1863-1864 Uprising, supported most of the imperial government’s actions in the Western province. He also seems not to be aware of the rich existent literature which clearly shows how imperial officials meddled in the internal life of the Catholic Church (they regulated the clergy appointments; banned the building of churches; limited contact with believers; regulated the presenting of sermons; forced Catholics to convert to Orthodoxy, etc.).
The «Jewish Question» is interpreted in a similar fashion. In Tikhonov’s opinion, «there was no discrimination of the Jews as a nation» in Imperial Russia, while certain restrictions were applied only to «classical Judaism». In fact, the identification of the Jews, like other minority ethnic groups, i.e. the way imperial officials determined which individual was considered to be a Jew and which was not, is an interesting problem in the Romanov Empire, and one that has been little researched up to date.^[2] However, there is a certain consensus in historiography that the main formal criterion for the identification of a Jew as an individual in Imperial Russia was religion. In some cases such definitions are even unambiguously laied down in acts of legislation. The 1859 statute of the state service of the Kingdom of Poland clearly declared that this service is not applicable to «persons of Judaic belief».^[3] Having converted to one of the Christian confessions, one was no longer considered to be a Jew. E.g., Nicholas I, after having red reports about Jewish cantonists, left a note in the margins: «Those who convert to Orthodoxy, are not any more considered to be Jews».^[4] Only in the fading days of the Empire did the political elite of the Empire, especially the right-wing, begin doubting such a statement and suggested the discrimination not only against Jews, but converts as well. The tendency of still considering converts to Orthodoxy as Jews is explained in historiography in various ways: both as a reflection of racist views, and of the simple distrust of converts, with a suspicion that they changed their confession only out of pragmatic incentives.^[5] Therefore, there are no doubts that the Russian imperial government deliberately discriminated Jews (of course, not only them), while the most important sign of a person being discriminated was Judaism.
Of course, this does not mean that a Jew who converted to Orthodoxy was automatically viewed by Russian society as being a non-Jew. Converts were recognized not only by their accent or other similar characteristics, but formally. Converts were allowed to change their first name, but not their family name.^[6] During the rule of Alexander II, the situation began to change. In 1865 Jews who had converted and served in the army were given a «privilege» by the Tsar – the earlier confession (Judaism) in their service papers was to be changed to the estate these persons belonged to; in addition, they were allowed to take on the family names of their godparents.^[7]
In order to understand the origins of Tikhonov’s interpretation, we must recall how the ruling elite of Russia in the 19th century viewed the «Jewish Question». According to their strategies towards the Jews, two groups can be defined in the imperial ruling elite: bureaucrats with a somewhat more liberal attitude suggested to reform the laws that affected Jews, which would lead to the process of sliianie («merging») or sblizhenie («drawing closer»), while others claimed that first of all the Jews themselves must «come closer» and «converge», and only then would it be possible to get rid of a part of the discriminating laws. The second group had a clear advantage. A modern historian Tikhonov adopts the arguments of the second group and presents them as the result of scholarly analysis. Sometimes it even seems that he is repeating the arguments of the infamous author of «Kahal’s Book», Yakov Brafman, about the influence of the kahal on the life of the Jews. There is no doubt that Tikhonov also fully accepts the approach widespread in the nineteenth century’s Russian discourse, when Jews were viewed as a group that constantly oppressed the common people economically.
The author of the book under review does not notice many of the important episodes of the «Jewish Question» in Imperial Russia, e.g., the double tax on Jews in comparison to Christians, instituted in 1794, which is considered to be the beginning of the discriminational policy towards the Jews.^[8] There is hardly any mention of the reforms implemented by Alexander Wielopolski in 1862, when Jews received the same rights as the other inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland. Instead it is claimed in the book that the government was forced to discriminate Jews because this community, due to the influence of the kahal, was isolated and professed Judaism, which «was totally foreign to the moral and ethical norms of Christians» (Pp. 289-290). Were it not for the insularity of the Jews and their striving to use the peasants, the author claims, Russian policy would have not differentiated from how the «Jewish Question» was solved in Western Europe (P. 153). Tikhonov simply does not want to acknowledge the essential differences between Imperial Russia and West European countries. There, i.e. in Austria, France, Prussia, between the end of the eigteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century Jews received equal rights to the other citizens after they began being drafted to the army.^[9] In 1827 Jews started to be taken as recruits in Imperial Russia, but they did not receive equal rights. Only certain «privileges» were given to soldiers.
Therefore it is not surprising that the author of this book does not consider interesting contemporary works interpreting the insularity of Jews and their hostility towards the government of the Romanov Empire. As some researchers have pointed out, the 1791 introduction of limitations of the territory where Jews could reside had serious consequences not only for Jews, but for the Empire itself. This tool noticeably encouraged the social activity of the Jews and their massive participation in the revolutionary movement, which in the end became one of the most important reasons behind the fall of the Empire. On the other hand, the existence of a Pale of settlement added to the preservation of the Jews’ identity. Alexander Kamensky has even suggested that, had the Pale of Settlement not been implemented, the process of acculturation or even assimilation of Russia’s Jews would have been markedly more advanced.^[10] John D. Klier asked, why the Jews of Imperial Russia, different from the Jews of Habsburg Empire, were not loyal, though Russia’s Jews were to a large extent an «imperial nation», meaning that Jews of various political views usually gave priority to imperial statehood, and to the state in its nineteenth century form. Klier looks for the reasons of change in Jewish attitudes towards Imperial Russia in its national policy which linked the «Jewish Question» with the «Polish Question»; in other words, the state did not trust this non-dominating ethnoconfessional group, and discriminated them, so the Jews could not remain consistently loyal to the Empire either.^[11]
Traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes are to be found in other parts of Tikhonov’s book as well. Tikhonov states that «almost all Jews, except for very rare exceptions, entered medical and law departments [at universities]. These graduates were in position of receiving better paid and more profitable private practice then others» (P. 211). Obviously, the author is not interested in the conditions which, due to the restrictions implemented by the imperial government, impeded Jews from making a career in various spheres of public life.
Having learned about the interpretations presented in this review, the reader should not be shocked by Tikhonov’s description of pogroms at the beginning of the 1880s. It is accentuated in historical literature that the pogroms were an urban phenomenon, meaning the reasons for them were located in the city, they began there and only later spread to rural areas. Industry developed rapidly in the southern part of Imperial Russia; however, for example, in 1881 there were many unemployed concentrated in the larger cities, which came from other regions of the Empire and were competing with peasants from the surrounding area for jobs. The traditional hostility of Ukrainian peasants towards Jews was further escalated in 1881, after the attempted assassination of the new Tsar, when rumors spread that the Tsar had supposedly put forth a decree, allowing the «punishing» of Jews for taking part in the assassination attempt. The importance of the religious anti-Judaism in this case is illustrated by the circumstance that pogroms usually began during Easter.^[12] Tikhonov is not acquainted with this historiography and provides an «original» interpretation: the reason behind the pogroms was the activities of the Jews themselves, meaning that the Christians were indignant at «how the Jews earned money» (P. 268; and Pp. 266-269; 291-292 about the pogroms). This interpretation (hardly original, as it repeats the interpretations of nineteenth century Judophobes), of course, does not explain the further intensifying of anti-Jewish violence, its extent, and its geographic expansion. The conclusion that «the members of higher bureaucracy did not take an anti-Semitic position», crowns the authors arguments.
The reader of the present review may be wondering why its author wasted his time on the book that is clearly devoid of scholarly analysis and does not contribute anything to our knowledge. The answer is that the book by Tikhonov is no some Samizdat publication. It was published by the publishing house of the second most important university in Russia – St. Petersburg State University. This fact illustrates the politicized processes of rehabilitation of the Romanov Empire in Russian science, and as such can not, in our opinion, be ignored.^[13]