<RADICAL TRENDS IN EASTERN EUROPE.
[1827:
Cantonist rule in the Pale of Settlement splits Jewry]
Several developments in Eastern Europe between the 1860s
and 1880s led to a considerable radicalization in the
ideology of the youth and a marked cleavage within Jewish
society; on the other hand, through the selfsame
developments, they led to greater similarity in social
structure and the problems facing Western Jewry. The
demand of the Russian government (1827) requiring the
Jewish community in most of the Pale of Settlement to
supply youngsters as *Cantonists for prolonged Russian
army service gave rise to much bitterness within the
communities between the leading circles, who were
responsible for mustering the quota, and the lower strata,
who suspected the former of evading this onerous duty in
the case of their own children and putting it on the
children of the poor.
Jewish society as a whole was embittered toward the
tyrannical government of Russia that used army service as
a means of bringing about the assimilation of young boys.
[1835: Border restriction
in the Pale of Settlement - conversion stimulations -
agriculture settlements in the south]
The government of Czar *Nicholas I again put forward a
constitution for the Jews in 1835. Apart from exclusion of
the paragraph concerning expulsion from the villages, this
constitution was a summary of former disabilities,
including a prohibition on Jewish residence within 50
versts (33 miles) (col. 721)
of the western border. The constitution promised various
alleviations for Jews turning to Russian culture, again a
continuation of former policies. Thousands of Jewish
families applied for agricultural settlement, and many
were settled in the south.
[1840: Anti-Jewish
decision of a "new commission" for the Pale of
Settlement]
In 1840 a new commission for research into the Jewish
legal status and existence was set up. Both the premises
it worked on and the decisions arrived at had a markedly
anti-Jewish bias.
[1844-1855: New clothing
laws and classification in five "classes" for Jews in
the Pale of Settlement]
Czar Nicholas I also attempted to enforce changes in
Jewish education and dress; he abolished Jewish kahal autonomy in
1844, and planned to classify the Jewish population into
five classes, according to their "usefulness". This
project, as well as his cruel policy toward the Jews, was
abandoned after his death in 1855.
[since 1855: Less
discrimination of professionally educated Jews -
exemptions from discrimination - life outside of the
Pale of Settlement]
Czar *Alexander II attempted the solution of the Jewish
problem, again on the basis of discrimination between Jews
but in this case through showing favor toward small
professionally educated groups of Jews, with the aim of
bringing by their example the general Jewish population to
which no alleviation was granted - to the main road of
general culture and productivization.
During the 1860s various groups of such Jews were granted
various exemptions from anti-Jewish discriminatory
legislation, the main prize being the permission to live
outside the Pale of Settlement. This right was granted to
Jewish merchants who paid the highest scale of tax, to
Jews who had academic diplomas, and, in 1865, to Jewish
craftsmen.
[1870s: Discrimination
movement against minorities in Russia abolishes all
progress - 1878: Congress of Berlin without effect]
This trend was not continued in the 1870s, while public
opinion as well as state policy turned against minorities
in Russia in general, and Jews in particular.
Only in *Rumania [[Romania]] was the Jewish status and
Jewish existence even worse than in czarist Russia. The
intervention of the Congress of *Berlin in 1878 in favor
of Jews in the Balkan states, and chiefly of those in
Rumania [[Romania]], helped them only formally, but not in
actual practice.> (col. 722)
