Referendum in Transnistria

[Melkitzedeq]

Il referendum della Transnistria, Stato fantasma tra
Russia e Occidente

di Gianluigi Torchiani

Il prossimo 17 settembre i cittadini della
Transnistria saranno chiamati alle urne per rispondere
ai due seguenti quesiti referendari:

1- Lei considera come priorità lo sviluppo dei
rapporti con la Federazione Russa?
2- Lei considera possibile l'entrata della
Transnistria nella composizione della Repubblica
Moldava?

Non si tratta dell'attacco di un saggio di
fantapolitica, la Transnistria, piccola repubblica
ribelle a est della Moldova, ex Urss, esiste sul
serio, anche se dimenticata dalle cartine geografiche
europee perchè non riconosciuta da nessuno stato
(Russia a parte). La Transnistria proclamò infatti la
sua indipendenza il 2 settembre 1990, in piena
perestroika gorbacioviana, per sottrarsi alle
crescenti spinte autonomiste Moldave, e fu difesa dai
2.000 uomini dall'ex 14° corpo d'armata dell'Urss, che
ancora oggi sono là come soldati della Russia di
Putin. Da allora la Transnistria è l'ultimo lembo
rimasto in vita di quello che fu una volta il grande
impero sovietico, un paese ancora governato dal
Partito Comunista e con un Soviet supremo al posto del
parlamento, e presieduto dalla sua indipendenza dallo
stesso presidente, Igor Smirnov, ex metalmeccanico
siberiano. Smirnov, considerato dalle cancellerie
occidentali come un piccolo despota, è anche padre di
Vladimir, che è a sua volta a capo della Sheriff, la
multinazionale di famiglia che controlla l'economia
della piccola enclave. Perchè la Transnistria non è
solo l'ultimo santuario del comunismo, come ci spiega
Mihaela Iordache, collaboratrice dell'Ossrvatorio dei
balcani: «La Transnistria è un vero e proprio Eldorado
del contrabbando e degli affari illeciti, con una
forza presenza di mafie e anche di organizzazioni
terroristiche. Un problema che potrebbe riguardare
sempre più da vicino anche l'Europa». Nel 2007 infatti
l'Ue dovrebbe accogliere nei suoi confini anche la
Romania, che confina direttamente con la Moldova, che
tra l'altro spera anch'essa prima o poi nell'ingresso.
Oltre ai problemi legati alla criminalità si sono
aggiunti recentemente quelli geopolitici, che hanno
fatta innalzare la tensione nell'area dopo anni di
relativa calma e di tentativi di negoziati.

A rompere l'equilibrio nella regione è stata l'ascesa
al potere a Kiev del leader arancione filo occidentale
Vladimir Yuschenko, che ha preso subito di mira la
questione Transnistria. Il 3 marzo 2006 le autorità
doganali ucraine, con l'obiettivo ufficiale della
guerra al contrabbando, hanno infatti imposto che per
le merci provenienti dalla Transnistria siano
necessari i bolli di dogana dalla Repubblica Moldova,
negando validità ai documenti transnistriani. Il
provvedimento, appoggiato dall'Ocse, si è trasformato
di fatto in un vero e prorio embargo per la repubblica
ribelle, con l'obiettivo neanche tanto celato (come
conferma l'ultimo rapporto dell'International crisis
group) di incoraggiare il malcontento in Transnistria.
Il blocco ha provocato la reazione di Mosca,
assolutamente decisa a non concedere altro spazio
all'occidente dopo l'Ucraina e la Georgia, che ha
emesso un bando contro l'importazione del ricercato
vino moldavo. Smirnov, dal canto suo, ha provato ad
organizzare un controblocco, presto ritirato, e ha poi
minacciato di usare l'arma dell'energia elettrica, dal
momento che le centrali che alimentano la Moldova sono
quasi tutte in Transnistria.

Altri fatti strani negli ultimi mesi hanno contribuito
all'innalzamento della tensione: il 6 luglio a
Tiraspol, capitale della Trasnistria, una bomba ha
provocato sette vittime. «Nel regime di Smirnov -
spiega la Iordache - alcuni hanno puntato il dito
contro il governo moldavo, accusandolo di voler
destabilizzare il paese. Altri invece hanno ammesso
che l'episodio potrebbe essere ricondotto a un
regolamento di conti tra le mafie locali». Fatto sta
che l'attentato ha contribuito a rendere ancora più
inarrestabile la marcia di Tiraspol verso il
referendum. «Il ministro degli esteri moldavo -
racconta la collaboratrice dell'Osservatorio dei
Balcani - ha già negato ogni validità a questo
referendum, perchè non condotto con regole
democratiche. Putin dal canto suo ha già avvertito che
'i desideri dei popoli devono essere rispettati'.
Insomma è molto verosimile che dopo il 17 settembre,
dando per scontata al referendum una vittoria
prorussa, Smirnov e i suoi possano chiedere
l'annessione del territorio alla Federazione Russa».

Uno scenario sicuramente incandescente, che creerebbe
nuove tensioni tra Occidente e Russia, in un momento
in cui le riserve pretrolifere siberiane appaiono
sempre più indispensabili al Vecchio Continente. «
L'unica soluzione - commenta la Iordache - è quella di
riprendere i negoziati con la presenza dell'Ue. La
Moldova non è in grado di risolvere da sola un
problema così grande Il leader moldavo, Voronin, è
volato poche settimane a Mosca ma non ha ottenuto
nulla da Putin, e in patria questa sua visita è stata
vista addirittura come un cedimento». Ma un'eventuale
ripresa delle trattative rimane difficile, a causa
della rinnovata politica estera di Mosca (che un tempo
aveva promesso il ritiro delle sue truppe dalla
Transnistria), come dimostra anche la forte tensione
di questi mesi con la Georgia per la presenza di
soldati russi in Abkhazia, regione reclamata da
Tbilisi.

[Folgore]

Riferimento geografico:

[cariddeo]

Conosco molto bene la situazione, grazie ai miei frequenti soggiorni di studio in Romania, e posso, senza tema di smentita affermare che il referendum di domenica non servirà a nulla se non a concentrare un po' d'attenzione su questa situazione, generata dall'occupazione stalinista del 1940.
In ogni caso due puntualizzazioni, per il momento: l'Unione Sovietica, di cui, sinceramente, inizio a sentire la mancanza (!), arrivava fino a Kiscinyov / Chişinău, città che, all'inizio del vecchio secolo, aveva oltre il 50% della popolazione ebraica, nell'attuale Republica Moldova e certamente, da un punto di vista storico e un territorio romeno ma, seconda puntualizzazione, quando un romeno parla di Moldavia o Transnistria bisogna fare la tara di quello che dice!

Raffaele

[Massimiliano71]

http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezi...nsnistria.html

[cariddeo]

[cariddeo]

L'origine della popolazione Moldava risale ai Daci, i quali furono conquistati dall'Impero romano nel 106. Dopo l'abbandono dei Romani a partire dal 270 a causa delle invasioni dei Goti subirono una serie di invasioni (Unni, Avari, Bulgari, Magiari, Slavi, Tartari e Mongoli).

Dopo la disfatta dei Mongoli nel 1343 la regione fu compresa nel principato di Moldavia, che nel 1392 controllava le fortezze di Cetatea Albă e Chilia e aveva stabilito il confine orientale sul fiume Dniester (Nistru, in rumeno). Il principato raggiunse la massima fioritura sotto il regno di Ştefan cel Mare (Stefano il Grande, 1457-1504). Nel 1484, tuttavia la zona costiera a nord del Danubio venne conquistata dall'Impero ottomano ("Bessarabia storica"). Il principato di Moldavia divenne quindi vassallo dell'Impero Ottomano nel 1538.

Nel 1775 l'Impero Austro-Ungarico occupò la parte nord-occidentale (Bucovina) e nel 1812, l'Impero Russo occupò la metà orientale del principato, (Bessarabia). Nel 1859, Alexandru Ioan Cuza unì la restante parte occidentale del principato di Moldavia e la Valacchia nel regno di Romania. Dopo la prima guerra mondiale Transilvania, Bucovina e Bessarabia furono riunite alla Romania.

In conseguenza al patto Molotov-Ribbentrop nel giugno 1940, l'Unione Sovietica si annettè Bessarabia e la Bucovina: due terzi della Bessarabia furono uniti con alcuni territori sulla riva sinistra del fiume Dniester (Transnistria) e costituirono la Repubblica socialista sovietica moldava, mentre il resto fu annesso alla Repubblica socialista sovietica ucraina. Nel 1941 la Romania entrò in guerra a fianco delle Potenze dell'Asse, recuperando Bessarabia e Bucovina, ma a partire dal 20 agosto del 1944 furono riprese dall' Armata Rossa e alla fine della guerra fu ristabilita la Repubblica socialista sovietica moldava con i medesimi confini del 1940.

A partire dal 1969 si sviluppò a Chişinău un "Fronte Nazionale Patriottico" clandestino, che auspicava la creazione di una "Repubblica Democratica Moldava", separata dall'Unione Sovietica e annessa alla Romania. I tre leaders del Fronte (Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgar, Gheorghe Ghimpu e Valeriu Graur) vennero arrestati nel 1971.

Nel febbraio del 1988 si ebbe una prima dimostrazione a Chişinău, nella quale si chiedeva l'uso ufficiale della lingua moldava (rumeno) in sostituzione del russo, che venne sancito il 31 agosto 1989. Nel 1990 si tennero le prime elezioni per il parlamento, vinte dal "Frontul Popular", il cui leader, Mircea Druc costituì il primo governo. La repubblica sovietica divenne prima "Repubblica Socialista Sovietica Moldova" e quindi "Repubblica di Moldova", divenuta indipendente il 24 agosto del 1991, con gli stessi confini stabiliti nel 1940.

[cariddeo]

La popolazione complessiva è di poco superiore ai 4,3 milioni di abitanti, il che rende la Moldavia uno dei Paesi a maggiore densità di popolazione in Europa. La composizione etnica dell'insieme della repubblica è la seguente: moldavi (romeni) 64,5%, ucraini 13,8 %, russi 13 %, gagauzi 3,5%, bulgari 2%, ebrei 1,5 %, altri 1,7%.

La Moldavia, indipendente dall'agosto 1991, è retta da un parlamento monocamerale composto da 101 membri, eletti a suffragio universale. Il presidente della repubblica, eletto a suffragio diretto, nomina il primo ministro che a sua volta compone il proprio gabinetto e lo sottopone al voto parlamentare. Le ultime elezioni politiche si sono tenute nel 2005.

La Transnistria, ubicata nella regione orientale tra il Dniester e l'Ucraina, ha dichiarato la propria indipendenza nel settembre 1990, anche se non è ufficialmente riconosciuta da nessuno Stato. Il nome completo della regione è Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublika. È ampia 4.163 Km² e conta 660.000 abitanti (33% moldavi, 29% russi, 29% ucraini, 3% bulgari, 2% polacchi, 2% gagauzi).

La Gagauzia è una regione autonoma popolata da un'etnia turca di religione ortodossa, con capoluogo Komrat, nel sud del Paese.

[cariddeo]

Chabad Lubavitch di Chişinău e della Moldova

[cariddeo]

A Singular Event in Jewish History

Kishinev Pogrom

Andrei Shapiro



Shapiro argues convincingly that, contrary to popular opinion, 'the Kishinev pogrom is not just another tragic event in the history of the persecution of the Jews... but an officially planned action.'





Heavens! Entreat for mercy in my name,

If there's God in you, and to that God,

A road I have not found -

Speak prayers in my name!

My heart is dead, upon my lips no song

Of prayer; strength has failed, hope is no more -

How long, till when, how long?

(H. N. Bialik, “On the Butchery”, 1903)



Introduction
The history of Jewish people in the Diaspora had many periods. Some generations were lucky to live under the rule of those who were tolerant to the Jews, gave them privileges, and did not intervene into their internal world and matters of faith. But many lived in unbearable times of persecutions inspired by the fervent belief of Christian world that Jews were exiles on purpose, the fate of whom was to suffer for what they had done to Christ. Sometimes they were given a ``chance" to convert, but quite frequently they were just expelled, even if the price for this measure was high and meant the economic ruin of the country from which they were expelled. But no doubt, this was the central motif for their expulsions from Medieval European countries; and this was certainly what Russian Empress Elizabeth bore in mind saying “From the enemies of Christ I don’t not expect any interesting profits.” Religious hatred accompanied by its derivative forms, such as the belief that Jews are not productive, but make their living on usury and robbing their Christian neighbours, that they are the Judas who betrayed Christ for money - these beliefs instigated by the Church and authorities frequently turned into violent eruption. Jewish blood was spilled, their houses and property destroyed. These acts of violence against the Jews are usually signified in literature by the word pogrom. But the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, which is the theme of this essay, though referred to by the same word cannot be treated in the same way as those which preceded it; what happened in Kishinev 100 years ago is not just a pogrom among many others.

When we hear the word “pogrom”, we are accustomed to think of a spontaneous and violent outburst of emotions and hatred towards Jews. In a way it may be comparable to a natural calamity, e.g., eruption of a seemingly sleeping volcano. One might take the violent pogroms inflicted by Bogdan Khmelnitsky's Cossacks during his rebellion against Polish Rule in Ukraine in 1648 as such an example. A pogrom is never a natural state condition (referred most harshly by Hobbes’s dictum homo homini lupus); it is rather a violent outburst either within the existing social order or it is a side effect of the attempt to overthrow the existing order. In neither sense, the word “pogrom” is applicable to what preceded the Kishinev massacre, its character and what followed it. The Kishinev pogrom is not just another tragic event in the history of the persecution of the Jews. It is, strictly speaking, not a pogrom at all, but an officially planned action, done with the permission of the Russian authorities (or at least, an officially sponsored action carried out against the Jews). In this sense the Kishinev affairs have more of the Nazis Aktionen than of spontaneous eruption. This very thesis I will prove and defend here.

There is permanent danger in claiming that a certain historical event is unique. For it might be that the event can be mapped onto the course of history and rationalized in historical or psychological terms; atrocities committed during the Kishinev pogrom could be claimed to lie on a graph of cruelty, just as many other massacres. Moreover, approaching the matter this way, one might strongly claim that the number of killed and injured is relatively small in comparison to the number of killed and injured in other massacres which took place in the course of human history, e.g., Saint Bartholomew night in which the number of killed is counted in thousands, and so it is the reaction to the event is unique, but not the event itself. Here I argue that there is no way to accept this explanation.

Combining the features of previously existing forms of anti-Semitism, it demarcates a qualitative change in the attitude towards Jews. The change, which produced the new form of anti-Semitism, - the one, which afterwards was appropriated by the Nazis and lay in the heart of Nazi ideology, was deliberately used by the official propaganda machine to inseminate the new form of hatred towards the Jews, and had direct connection to their politics of “special treatment” for the Jewish question, that brought about the destruction of European Jewry. Some eminent scholars treated the pogrom as the prototype of the Shoah, but I have reservations regarding this verdict and its proper meaning.[1] The Kishinev pogrom is rather, a starting point, a first rehearsal or a laboratory experiment, a certain point from which the reading to Shoah begins. That is to say, the prelude to Kishinev pogrom and its character have much more in common with Crystallnacht than with the sporadic eruption of hatred characteristic to pogroms. So, let me take you to the journey to the April affairs in Kishinev 100 years ago.



Brief Historical Excursus into the history of Bessarabian Jews
After 1811-12 victorious campaign against the Ottoman Empire, Russia acquired Bessarabia and half of Moldavia, which had been the dependencies of the Ottoman Empire since the 16th century. The Treaty of Bucharest signed on 28th of May in 1812 put the end to Ottoman rule in these regions. The name Bessarabia was applied to the entire area, and Kishinev was acknowledged as the main city of the region. The estimated number of Jews inhabiting this territory was about 5.000 families.[2]

At the beginning of Russian rule, their legal status was far better in comparison to the position of the Jews in the Pale of Settlement. The Russian government was interested in the fast development of this area and exempted Jews from paying taxes, by a series of decrees allowed them to buy and lease land (which was quite remarkable!), and did not put harsh restrictions upon the spectrum of possible occupations practiced by Jews. This, however, did not last long.

After the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, whose policy towards Jews was rather liberal, the reign of his successor Alexander III brought the period of reaction. The position of Jews in the whole Pale of Settlement worsened significantly. The pendulum swung back: all the privileges granted to the Bessarabian Jews were taken back and by a series of violent decrees they were equalized with the rest of Jewry within the Pale. Jews had to leave villages and move to the cities, were prohibited from leasing land and distilling brandy, which, for most of them, practically meant loosing their poor-already means for survival. These measures, according to the official rationale, were in order to stop the competition of Jews with their Christian neighbours. The presumption embraced by the government was that this led to the enrichment of the Jews and impoverishment of the Christians. Jews also were held to be responsible for the phenomenon of hard drinking so characteristic to Russian peasantry, and that is why there was a prohibition to produce spirits. I use the word “presumption”, because that is exactly what it was. The economic condition of Jews in the Pale of Settlement was not much better than of their Christian neighbours. Regarding the accusation of accustoming to hard drinking, the expulsion of Jews from the country did not have any positive effect, as it had been expected.

Prince Urussov, Russian aristocrat and liberally minded person, who was appointed as the Governor of Bessarabia after the pogrom, gave the following description of his impression regarding the condition of Jews in Bessarabia.

“The observer is struck by the number of Jewish signs in Bessarabian towns. The houses along the second-rate are occupied in unbroken succession by stores, big and small, shops of watch-makers, shoe-makers, locksmiths, tinsmiths, tailors, carpenters and so on. All these workers are huddled together in nooks and lanes amid shocking poverty. They toil hard for a living so scanty that a rusty herring and a slice of onion is considered the tip-top of luxury and prosperity. There are scores of watch-makers in small towns where the townsfolk, as a rule, have no watches. It is hard to understand where all these artisans, frequently making up seventy-five per cent of the total population of the city or town, get their orders and patrons. Competition cuts down their earnings to the limit of bare subsistence on so minute a scale as to call in question the theory of wages ....”[3]

As a consequence of the Czar’s policy and the decrees mentioned above, the entire Russian South was enveloped in the flames of pogroms of 1882.[4] But still, it is quite remarkable that nothing of this kind happened in Bessarabia that year. For most, the pogrom in 1903 in Kishinev came out of the blue.[5] The Kishinev pogrom was quite a surprise; pogroms were expected where they used to happen, and nobody (except those who lived in Kishinev) seemed to imagine that it would occur in the relatively safe place. So, the natural question to be asked is: How could seismically peaceful place turn into violent volcano erupting bloody lava?



Kishinev Pogrom
The pogrom in Kishinev started on 6 April, the first day of Easter. A week before the pogrom the notorious document below circulated among the tea houses of the city.

Proclamation Letter received by the owner

of the tavern “Moscow” in Kishinev

not later than 30 March, 1903[6]

Brethren Christians!

Here comes the great day of Christ resurrection. Many years ago Our Saviour, tormented by the Jews, atoned our sins and the sins of the whole world by His blood ... Meanwhile the base Zjids are not satisfied with the blood of Our Saviour crucified by them ... Every year they shed the innocent blood of Christians and use it for their rituals. Have you not heard that they crucified a Christian boy in Dubossari (Kishinev's neighbourhood) and bled him? Yes, it is true. It is known to the authorities, but they do not declare it not to excite us against these bloody bastards, who should have been expelled from Russia long ago ...

This is the way of their jeering at us, Russians. And how much harm do they bring to our Mother Russia! They want to take possession of her … they publish various proclamations to the people in order to excite it against the authority, even against our Father the Czar, who knows the mean, cunning, deceitful and greedy nature of this nation, and does not let them liberties ...

But if you give liberty to the Zjids, he will reign our holy Russia, take everything in his paws and there will no more Russia, but Zjidowia. Brothers, in the name of our Saviour, who shed his blood for us; in the name of our Father the Czar, who cares for his people and grants them alleviating manifests, let us exclaim in the forthcoming great day: Down with Zjids! Beat these mean degenerates, blood suckers drunk with Russian blood! Remind them Odessa pogrom, during which even the army was on the side of the people; no need to say, they will help us this time ...

The party of workers, true Christians. Let it be read by your guests, otherwise we will smash the tavern.

Although the letter was signed by the fictitious name of an official representative, its authorship is not difficult to determine. In the previous section of this essay, we have indicated that the economic and legal position of Bessarabian Jews worsened significantly after 1881 as the result of reactionary policy applied towards the Jews. But the worst trouble came when Kishinev became the headquarters of the newspaper Bessarabetz, the only one published in Kishinev. Its editor P. A. Krushevan led systematic anti-Semitic propaganda, instilling the hatred against the Jews within the population of Bessarabia. All the attempts to protest submitted were of no avail. The official reaction coming from the head of the Main Office for the Press said that the activities of Bessarabetz was quite useful, had the sound ground and that from the government’s point of view it was undesirable to suspend its publication.[7]

Krushevan’s paper caricatured Jewry from “all the possible angles”, and combined all the forms of anti-Semitism. The Jews were represented as exploiters of the people, who did not produce anything of economic value, but only pocketed the product of the toil of others; they were said to be those who attempted to violate the existing political order by their destructive revolutionary activities; and finally the Jews were accused of the world conspiracy theory the ultimate aim of which was to seize and rule the whole world. The last accusation was quite unique; it was the central motiv of “The Protocols of Zion Elders” published anonymously in Russian two years later, which had profound impact not only upon the Russian society, but also upon many educated people in Europe. Similarly to the story of bloody calumny which possessed minds of folk, conspiracy theory took a broad space, but this time, in the intellectual world. Just as Paps failed to make their flock get rid of the belief in the bloody calumny plot, so no official refutations and court investigations claiming that “The Protocols of Zion Elders” was a fraud document could make people change their belief in its veracity. The first target upon which this accusation was approbated was the Kishinev Jews.

However, to make the mob rise, Krushevan had to resort to something familiar, deeply engraved in the superstitious mind of layman against which no logic or authority will work – “something which is always there”. This was the old motif of bloody calumny - the belief that Jews perform a ritual murder of Christian boy or girl to use their blood for the preparation of Passover Matzos. Already in 1902 Krushevan attempted to set a bloody calumny case in moving, when a murdered boy found in the well just before the Easter, was declared by him to be the victim of Jewish ritual murder. But his plan was spoiled, because the real murderer was found. Krushevan had to publicly admit that the story was untrue. But the next year Krushevan was luckier. In the first days of February 1903, a body of a boy with a huge number of knife-wounds was found in Kishinev neighbourhood. Taking advantage of the fact that the murderer was not found yet, Krushevan published a number of articles with chilling details about the way the Jews murdered him. It was a spark dropped inside the cask of gun powder.

In the month preceding the pogrom, the town was full of sinister rumours about the Jews, and as the Easter approached, the rumours that the Jews would be revenged grew stronger. Frightened Jews sent their representatives to the local authorities, the chief of police and archbishop, but that was of no avail. The authorities assured the Jews that all the measures would be taken in the case of rioting and archbishop refused to calm the masses. As was expected, the pogrom began on the first day of Easter. Twenty groups, each having 20-25 persons, moved towards the Jewish quarter from the square where all the festivities took place at the same time. As it seems, they were well instructed, they moved silently and each has its own area of action. They started to break the windows and rob houses and small shops. These actions did not face any police resistance, and the rioters, inspired by this, become assured of their impunity. Moreover, the new rumour was spread, that the Czar himself gave the permission to beat and raid the Jews during three days. As the dusk felt, the crowd broke up.

The next day, the pogrom took on wide scope and massive character. Small groups of raiders were joined by the masses of people. The pogrommers proceeded in three waves: first, boys throwing stones and breaking windows; then, adults using crow bars to destroy everything that came into their sight, and finally came the wave of collectors, who took everything of value they could carry. Jews were hiding. By 11 o’clock a large part of the city was covered with the broken glass, furniture, papers; and feathers from disemboweled pillows like the snow covered the roadway. The governor stayed at his residence and refused to intervene in the affairs occurring. The archbishop made his holiday visits while passing through the rioting crowd. The policeman observed the disorder and did not intervene; excusing themselves by saying they did not have any orders to intervene. Quite frequently, they stopped to be passive bystanders and even directed the actions of the rioting mob, showing the houses and the places where Jews were hiding.

Around noon, the mob intoxicated by the feeling that anything is permitted, turned into a herd of wild beasts. They started to kill the Jews in the most brutal way, and rape women and girls. The attempts of Jews to organize the resistance were prevented by the police; the groups of Jewish men, who took anything which could be used as a weapon to defend their lives and the lives of others, were disarmed and arrested. But due to these attempts, the number of killed and injured was certainly less than it could have been.[8]

Only in the late afternoon, when the administration became afraid that the riots would turn into complete anarchy, the governor gave the order to restore the order and the police started to disperse them. The official explanation offered later in the court said that the directive to use arms in order to stop the riots was received only on April 7. Between the time the order was received and the beginning of its implementation at 6 o'clock in the evening of the same day, the crowd, drunk with the Jewish blood and tired of their work, dispersed. Order in the city was restored in less then two hours, and, as sadly noted a famous eye-witness: “There was no one to fight, beastly murderers and thieves went through backyards and over fences; they hid themselves, smelling the scent of gun powder and the proximity of jail.” In the suburbs of Kishinev the order was restored only the day after.[9]



Reactions
Immediately after the pogrom Shimon Dubnov, assisted by Ehad ha-Am, Bialik, Ravnizky, and Ben-Ami founded the Historical Council in Odessa, the purpose of which was to investigate Kishinev affairs. The council commissioned Bialik to collect oral testimonies and material required for detailed analysis. The report of Israel Berman, the assistant to Bialik said that 49 Jews had been killed, 587 injured, 1350 houses and 588 shops destroyed in the period lasting from the 6th to 8th of April, 1903. Bialik’s huge report, however, was published neither by the Council nor by Bialik himself. Three notebooks incorporating wide evidence testifying to not only the Jewish tragedy, but also the attempts of the Jews to organize self-defense lay in Bialik's personal archives and were published only 80 years later. Why the report was not published at the time of its completion still remains a mystery. Perhaps, he could not accept the thought that the report could turn the tragedy into the currency for making political dividends.[10] Bialik depicted the tragedy in his well known poem “In the City of Slaughter” and questioned and accused the God of the Chosen People in “On the Butchery”.

The number of resolutions and protests to the massacre in Kishinev was astonishing for those times. Their first part includes the reactions expressed by various Jewish political parties, which did not stop at condemning the massacre and the part the Government took in it, but also for eliciting lessons for the future. For Zionists, it was another sad proof to justify their political demands of the state for the Jews and elimination of the Diaspora. Herzl wrote: “There is one consoling message in this grief - Let us be united in the grief as in the happiness, to liberate our people from its bondage.” The Bund, professed the view according to which the Jews should fight for political rights in Russia with the world proletariat.[11] Those attached to Lenin’s Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party believed that Zionists and the Bund are squarely wrong, for the only genuine purpose to which they should lead the Jews was the creation of a union with other parts of revolutionary proletariat on equal basis, without any national distinction. Other reactions came from various Jewish communities spread all over the word came to console with the Jews of Kishinev and help their condition by raising funds in the Pale of Settlement and abroad.

Another group of reactions includes those of non-Jews. Russian Intelligentsia led by the writers of name, such as Korolenko, Tolstoy, Gorky, intellectuals and clergy published an official condemnation of the event. Korolenko wrote the famous story House 13 in which he described the fate of a Jewish family inhabiting this house and how its members were killed. Graf Tolstoy contributed three stories to the book edited by Shalom Aleichem, in which he called for the love of mankind, preserving God's image in humanity, and acting according to the universal wisdom “Act upon others the way you would prefer they act upon you”.

Finally, many newspapers in America and Europe condemned the Czar’s policy against the Jews, concluding that the government knew about the pogrom, but did not make any attempt to stop it. Moreover, in the middle of July 1905 the American government sent the petition signed by 12,544 well known people which condemned the pogrom and claimed that this was act of unprecedented lawlessness. All this, however, had little impact upon Czar Nicholas II, who refused to accept the petition as he refused to condemn the massacre.

As it is observed by Urussov:

But after 1903 it became apparent to everybody that a hostile feeling towards the Jews was also entertained by the Czar's immediate family. All efforts to induce the latter to express some condemnation of the pogroms, or even to give vent to some sympathy for the sufferers by granting them any material aid, met with complete failure; yet a single authoritative word or action in this direction would have helped immeasurably to the maintenance of order in the provinces of the Pale.[12]

And as it was put by Irish journalist Michael Davitt, who tried to portray the life in the Pale in Settlement and understand the rationale of the Russian policy towards Jews in general and its interest in the Kishinev pogrom in particular:

... as an educated Russian official said, in discussing this question with the author, “What can we do with them? They are the racial antithesis of our nation. A fusion with us is impossible, owing to religious and other disturbing causes. They will always be a potential source of sectarian and economic disorder in our country. We cannot admit them to equal rights of citizenship for these reasons and, let me add, because their intellectual superiority would enable them in few years’ time to gain possession of most of the posts of our civil administration. They are a growing danger of a most serious nature to our Empire in two of its most vulnerable points, - their discontent is a menace to us along the Austrian and German frontiers, while they are the active propagandists of Socialism of Western Europe within our borders. The only solution of the problem of the Russian Jew is his departure from Russia.[13]



Conclusion
The Kishinev affairs marked a qualitative change in shaping the political anti-Semitism. The old motif of blood calumny was what got the mob moving, but in fact what happened behind the scenes was the formation of a phenomenon the world had not known before. The Jewish people, frequently used as a scapegoat was accused of all possible sins and the target of anger and dissatisfaction with the condition of the folk. This time, however, they were accused in demolition work meant to overrule not only the Tsar's authority but the whole political order in the world. The persecutions of the Jews went according to the pre-ordained scenario, in which a decisive role was played by the officially supported propaganda. It is through the Kishinev Jews that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published a year later, were effectively approbated and afterwards not only incorporated into the Nazi anti-Semitic doctrine against the Jews in general, but played a decisive role in their extermination of the Soviet Jewry on the occupied territories.

Hitler, and many intellectuals treated the emergence of Communist State as an omen fitting perfectly the “predictions” and agenda outlined in Protocols. This was their justification for identifying all Jews with communists.

In the occupied territories of Soviet Union the Jews and communists were executed on the spot, ghettoes raised by Nazis in large cities did not last long, and the fate of Kishinev Jews during the War is exemplary. The ghetto in Kishinev existed less than half a year and as the pro-Nazist Romanian paper Bukarester Tageblat said in the beginning of 1942: “In 1941, 11,888 Jews lived in Kishinev that disappeared from there and today only 75 people are left”. In the middle of May 1942 Kishinev was declared to be Judenrein..



“House number 13 looks as dead man; it yawns on the street by its empty windows with broken and knocked out frames, and doors nailed with wooden pieces in a slapdash manner… One should give justice to the police - although it did not oppose much to the pogrom, now it energetic measures, urging the Jews to put the destroyed and damaged buildings in order. But it has no control over the owner of house 13 ...”

(Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko, “House 13”)









A story of a suckling child asleep,

A dead and cloven breast between its lips,

And of another child they tore in two,

Thus cutting short its last and loudest scream,

For “Ma-”, was heard, but “Mama” never finished.

Haim Nachman Bialik, “In the City of Slaughter”






In that town I saw in filth

A torn piece of Torah scroll.

With care I shook off dust

Absorbed by the eternal list

to read what was written on.



“In ForeignLand” - just two short words

said the forever living people’s Book ...



Zeev Jabotinsky



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[1]Dinur B., “Kishinev Pogrom and its Historical Meaning”, The Kishineff Pogrom of 1903, 1963, p. 243-259; Doron D., Ghetto Kishinev - The Final Pogrom, Kiriat Sefer, Jerusalem, 1977.

[2]This section is based upon the article of D. Madievschi, “The Legal position of the Bessarabian Jews at the beginning of XX century”, Kishinev Pogrom of 1903, [lang. - Russian], ed. I. Levit, Kishinev, 1993, pp. 11-28

[3] Urussov S.D., The Memoir of a Russian Governor, London and New York, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1908, p. 147

[4] These pogroms are called in Hebrew Sufot be-Negev (Negev Storms).

[5] Jabotinsky in his masterpiece novella The Five, tells the story of his relations to a family in Odessa and its tragic destiny so characteristic to the epoch, and describes how he was involved in organization of armed resistance movement before the Easter in 1903: “That Sunday the pogrom, a very bloody one took place and has not been forgotten, but this time it did not happen in Odessa.”

[6] The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 (collection of documents), Chisinau, Ruxanda, 2000, p. 26, [author’s translation from Russian].



[7]Urussov, p. 79

[8] The Roots of Self Defense, [lang. - Hebrew], Yad Tabenkin, 5-45

[9] This section is largely based upon the following sources: Jignea C., “Kishinev Tragedy of 1903”, Kishinev Pogrom of 1903, [lang. - Russian], ed. I. Levit, Kishinev, 1993, pp. 31-60; Kishinev Pogrom, edition of the newspaper Liberation, [lang. - Russian], Stuttgart, 1903.

[10] For the analysis of this question, consult: Doron D., Ghetto Kishinev - The Final Pogrom, pp. 25-26

[11] Bund (General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia) - Jewish Socialist political movement founded in Vilnius in 1897 by a small group of workers and intellectuals from the Jewish Pale of tsarist Russia.

[12] Urussov, p. 43

[13] Davitt M., Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia, p. 66

[nicoferro]

molto interessante