--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> Serfdom (not much
> different from North American slavery) was abolished
> in Russia only in 1861
> but the de facto domination of the landed gentry
> persisted until 1917.
To tie this with something related (the huge increase in anti-Semitism after the assassination of Alexander II), is that it was triggered by the murder of the man who had freed the serfs, i.e., abolished slavery. I imagine this must have been an immense shock to the huge numbers of first- and second-generation freed serfs, and probably paid a role in the anti-Semitism violence/legislation ("THE JEWS KILLED OUR SAVIOR!!!"), especially considering that your average progromshik in 1883 was more than likely a first- or second-generation freed serf.
I have sometimes wondered if the anti-Semitic convulsions were not an intended result of the assassination of Alexander II. Seeing how anti-Semitic a lot of the revolutionary literature was in Russia at the time, I would not be surprised if that turned out to be the case.
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