THE VELIZH AFFAIR
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THE VELIZH AFFAIR
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lood Libel in a Russian Town
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EUGENE M. AVRUTIN
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Avrutin, Eugene M., author.
Title: The Velizh affair : blood libel in a Russian town / Eugene M. Avrutin.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017011535 (print) | LCCN 2017012749 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190640538 (updf) | ISBN 9780190640545 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190640521 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Blood accusation—Russia—Velizh—History—19th century. |
Antisemitism—Russia—Velizh—History—19th century. |
Jews—Persecutions—Russia—Velizh—History—19th century. |
Trials (Murder)—Russia—Velizh. | Russia—Ethnic relations. |
Velizh (Russia)—Ethnic relations.
Classification: LCC BM585.2 (ebook) | LCC BM585.2 .A97 2017 + (print) |
DDC 305.892/404727—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011535
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
To Yingying and Abi
for being there
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Contents
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Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
1. Fedor Goes for a Walk 13
2. Small- Town Life 31
3. Tsar Alexander Pays a Visit 57
4. The Confrontations 79
5. Grievances 101
6. The Investigation Widens 117
7. Boundaries of the Law 133
Epilogue 153
Appendix: Jewish Prisoners Held in the Town of Velizh 161
Notes 163
Selected Bibliography 197
Index 213
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PrefaCe
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On the mOrning Of December 5, 1919, in revolutionary Petrograd,
the historian Simon Dubnov walked several miles along a maze of dark
and empty streets to a meeting of the newly inaugurated Commission
for Investigating Blood Libel Materials.1 This was a desperate time in
the city. The brutality and chaos of the Civil War wreaked havoc on the
early Soviet state. In the nearly two years after the collapse of the tsar-
ist regime in February 1917, the population of Petrograd decreased by
50 percent. The death toll skyrocketed, as did the unemployment rate.
Shortages of fuel, electricity, clean water, and basic food staples such as flour, eggs, bread, and potatoes meant a drastic fall in the standard of
living for those who remained. The sudden collapse of all institutions
of law and order resulted in an unprecedented number of petty thefts,
muggings, robberies, and rapes. Empty apartments and boarded- up
buildings could be found on every street corner. Rubbish littered court-
yards and alleyways. The closure of markets, shops, factories, and restau-
rants brought an eerie silence to one of Europe’s most dazzling cities.2
In the early days of the revolution, Dubnov had led a modest but
privileged existence as an academic. The beneficiary of a special schol-
ar’s ration— consisting mainly of bread, thin soup, cabbage, and salted
fish— the distinguished historian immersed himself in work. Like so
many politically engaged writers, Dubnov worked tirelessly to build a
new Jewish cultural sphere that lay dormant under the shackles of tsar-
ist oppression.3 Dubnov converted the kitchen, the only room in the
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Preface
apartment that reached a tolerable five degrees Celsius, into a makeshift
study. He divided the time between writing his magnum opus, The
World History of the Jewish People; lecturing at the newly established Jewish University; composing editorials for leading periodicals; and
participating in numerous political and scholarly initiatives made pos-
sible as a consequence of the events of 1917. For nearly three decades,
Dubnov called on scholars and Jewish residents in the Pale of Settlement
to collect historical materials. Ultimately, he believed, historical knowl-
edge would help regenerate spiritual Jewish life in the tsarist empire.
At noon sharp, Dubnov joined seven other members of the commis-
sion in an unheated hall of the old Senate building. Centrally located on
the embankment of the Neva River, this magnificent structure, painted
in cadmium yellow, overlooked the Square of the Decembrists. For
nearly ninety years, the building was home to the most extensive col-
lection of the old regime’s records ever assembled. The Russian State
Historical Archive, as it is known today, was formally consolidated
shortly after the Bolsheviks came to power. Among other things, its
holdings include the records of the most powerful administrative,
judicial, and ministerial institutions, as well as public organizations,
philanthropic societies, and the personal papers of leading statesmen,
men- of- letters, artists, and composers. Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, scholars have been granted unprecedented access to the historical treasures. Scores of monographs, articles, and dissertations have been
written in recent years— all with copious archival references. But under
the Soviet regime, only the most privileged were permitted to read the
files, and almost no one who was working on Jewish themes. The Soviet
state classified Jewish records as highly confidential. Some were removed
from archival depositories and sealed in special vaults; the most com-
promising files were destroyed.
For a brief moment, however, after the fall of the old regime and
before the centralization of the new Soviet state, the possibilities were
endless. Before the revolution, a handful of scholars wrote books and
articles on Jewish subjects grounded in archival sources. But these p
ub-
lications barely scratched the surface of the extraordinarily rich materi-
als preserved in the archives. The revolution initiated an outpouring
of new cultural, artistic, and academic projects. Taking advantage
of the new political conditions, the Jewish Historical- Ethnographic
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Society— an organization specializing in recovering important cul-
tural and historical texts pertaining to Jewish life in Russia— came up
with a bold initiative to collect and publish prerevolutionary archival
documents. The society organized an archival commission to work
on three particularly urgent topics: pogroms, the history of Jewish
schools, and the blood libel. The goal was to publish all the materials
in their entirety, without any editorial redactions, and in their proper
chronological order.4
The Commission for Investigating Blood Libel Materials worked
primarily with materials in the Senate archive. As the highest judicial
body in the Russian Empire, the Senate presided over the most con-
troversial criminal and civil cases, many of which generated massive
paper trails. The members of the commission were carefully chosen,
to ensure an impartial discussion of such an emotionally charged sub-
ject. Dubnov joined the social activist Henrikh Sliozberg, the anthro-
pologist Lev Shternberg, and the lawyer Grigorii Krasnyi- Admoni as
the Jewish experts, while the celebrated historian Sergei Platonov, the
director of the Senate archive Ivan Blinov, and the scholars Lev Karsavin
and Vasilii Druzhinin represented the Russian side. The group met for
twelve months, usually on Tuesday afternoons, spending most of the
time working on a sensational blood libel case that had taken place in
Velizh, a small town located in Vitebsk province, on the northeastern
edge of the Pale of Settlement.
Now erased from historical memory, the Velizh affair was the longest
ritual murder case in the modern world, and most likely in world history.
Lasting approximately twelve years, from 1823 to 1835, the investigation
generated a truly astonishing number of archival documents— around
fifty thousand pages in total. All the materials are impeccably preserved
in twenty- five bound volumes at the Russian State Historical Archive in
St. Petersburg; an additional thirty volumes, many of which are dupli-
cates of the St. Petersburg files, are housed in the National Historical
Archive of Belarus in Minsk. The Velizh archive includes hundreds of
depositions and petitions; official government correspondence, reports,
and memos; personal letters and notes; as well as a detailed summary
of the case of more than four hundred pages prepared by the Senate—
known simply as the Memorandum of a Criminal Case ( Zapiska iz
ugolovnykh del).5
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Preface
The colossal size of the archive complicated the work, making it dif-
ficult, as Dubnov observed in one of the first meetings, “to answer the
question— what should we copy?”6 According to the historian’s calcula-
tions, even if the nonessential items were omitted, they would be left
with three- quarters of the materials, requiring at least ten thick volumes and years of hard labor. The group discussed many things: how much
of the archive to publish, the problem of decoding and reading the
handwriting, how to organize the introductory essay, and whether they
should publish other blood libel cases as well. Dubnov hoped to edit
only one volume for publication, preferably the Senate memorandum,
but his suggestion fell on deaf ears. In the end, the commission agreed to
publish an exhaustive account, beginning with the 1816 case in Grodno
and then all twenty- five volumes of the Velizh case.
Dubnov first came across the Velizh materials in 1893, while living in
Odessa. In April, he received a letter from an antiquarian by the name
of L. N. Etingen, who wrote that “after much hard work and a great
deal of expense” he had obtained the Senate memorandum from an
undisclosed source. Etingen could not have been more thrilled by his
find. The Senate made a small number of hectographed copies of the
memorandum for internal government use only. The document had
immense historical value, and Etingen set his sights on Voskhod (The Dawn), the most respected thick journal in the field of Russian Jewish
affairs. Voskhod featured a new monthly column publicizing historical discoveries. The only problem was that Etingen did not have the time
and, more important, the expertise to carry out the scholarly work
himself. This is why he turned to Dubnov for help. “Would you be so
kind,” he asked, “as to whip this into shape under the following guide-
lines?” Etingen requested that Dubnov take no longer than two or three
months to complete the work, with the understanding that he would
receive full credit for the publication and retain the exclusive right to
republish the materials as he saw fit. For all this work, Etingen offered
Dubnov the royalties from the Voskhod sales, a meager sum even under the best of circumstances.7
Although we do not know how Dubnov responded to such an unre-
alistic proposal, we do know that he did not pass up the opportunity
to take a close look. Etingen sent the memorandum by special post to
Odessa with the understanding that it be returned to him in exactly
Preface
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three weeks. At the time, Dubnov was working on a general history of
Jews in Russia and Poland, while writing monthly columns for Voskhod, and was not in any hurry to accommodate the request. In May and June,
Etingen penned two impatient letters to Dubnov, insisting that the dis-
tinguished historian immediately return the document and complete
the article “as soon as possible.”8 Why was Etingen in such a hurry?
Apparently, he was not the only person intrigued by the case. Miron
Ryvkin, an aspiring cultural critic with direct ties to Velizh, was busy
gathering published and ethnographic sources, including oral interviews
of survivors and their descendants, for a major publication on the topic.
At one point, Etingen even agreed to share the memorandum with
Ryvkin but changed his mind at the last minute, deciding to keep it a
secret until Dubnov had completed the work.9
Dubnov never bothered to fulfill Etingen’s request, but he did take
advantage of the opportunity to take detailed notes. In 1894, Dubnov
published his own essay on Velizh in the Hebrew- language almanac
Luah Ahi’asaf (Ahiasiaf’s Register). Putting his notes to good use, as well as other fresh documentary evidence, Dubnov explored a little- known
episode of the Velizh case as it played out in the town of Bobovne.10 In
his memoirs, Dubnov recalled that the blood libel had come up in his
research from time to time and that he had even published some of the
more interesting findings in a review article about seventeenth- century
Poland in Voskhod.11 But for reasons that remain unclear, a mysterious silence looms over Velizh, with no mention of his correspondence with
Etingen and Ryvkin or of the Luah Ahi’asaf essay.
Perha
ps Dubnov wished to make a claim on the case by getting there
first? History is full of lively tales of discovery. After all, the race to uncover a lost stash of highly prized manuscripts or to publish a significant piece of research results in a type of immortality that only scientists, humanists, and explorers can truly appreciate. Whatever the reason may
have been, after the publication of the essay, Dubnov’s name continued
to be associated with Velizh, and every scholar who worked on the case
turned to him for help.
In February 1901, seven years after they first corresponded, Ryvkin
pleaded with Dubnov to help him locate the memorandum. Ryvkin was
busy working on several different projects about the case, and he wanted
to convey the spirit and social conditions of the age by describing as
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Preface
many realistic details as possible. To do this he desperately wanted to get his hands on the memorandum. So he rummaged through antiquarian
bookshops, but he did not know the exact title of the book, the place
and date of publication, or the number of copies in print. “The copy
that was once in your possession, if only a short period of time,” Ryvkin
explained to Dubnov, “is currently in the most unpleasant hands.” But
try as he did, Ryvkin did not have any luck locating the memorandum.
Eventually, he managed to collect enough materials to write a detailed
essay about the case, based on firsthand recollections, ethnographic
materials, and published primary sources. Ryvkin also published a suc-
cessful historical novel that appeared in Russian in 1912 and was even-
tually reprinted in several editions in Yiddish and Hebrew.12
That same year, Dubnov exchanged several letters with a talented
young historian who had just received permission from the Ministry
of Justice to work in the Senate archive. In the prerevolutionary era, no
other scholar of Russian Jewry had access to so many classified records
as Iulii Gessen. “You have always been so generous with your time,”
Gessen wrote to his mentor on February 5. “If there are any archival
The Velizh Affair Page 1