Jews in the “Greater Political Space.” Jewish Deputies in the Late 18th–early 19th c. Russian Empire
1/2009
Published in Russian, see Russian pages of this website.
SUMMARY:
The article focuses on the case of Jewish Deputies – the official representatives of the Jewish People. The deputy functioned as an agent of modernization, almost as a government official. At the same time, deputies used the archetypical image of “defender of their people” in their relations with the Jewish population. The Jewish Deputies are comparable to “Court Jews” in early modern Europe. Deputies’ high culture, piety, and aristocratic pride were combined with a propensity toward adventure and even crime. The destinies and cultural experience of the Jewish Deputies have shown an uncertain application of estate categories in relation to various imperial elites.