Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

Русские евреи в Америке. Очерки из истории, жизни и быта русско-еврейских эмигрантов в Соединенных Штатах Сев.Америки. С 1881 по 1891 г. (Sketches from the History and Life of Russian-Jewish Immigrants in the United States from 1881 to 1891)

Санкт-Петербург (St. Petersburg): Типо.-лит. А.Е. Ландау, 1893. First edition. Softcover. Large octavo. [6], 121, [1], 41, [1]pp. Wrappers missing.

In this detailed study, George Moses Price, a Russian-Jewish newspaper correspondant, analyzes the figures for the 1881 to 1891 Russian-Jewish migration following the pogroms of 1881 in the Pale of Settlement, a western region of Imperial Russia, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and with Austria-Hungary. The Pale was first created by Catherine the Great in 1791, after several failed attempts by her predecessors, notably the Empress Elizabeth, to remove Jews from Russia entirely, unless they converted to Russian Orthodoxy, the state religion. Jewish life in the shtetls ("little towns") of the Pale of Settlement was hard and poverty-stricken. The concentration of Jews in the Pale made them easy targets for pogroms and anti-Jewish riots by the majority population. These, along with the repressive May Laws, often devastated whole communities. Though pogroms were staged throughout the existence of the Pale, particularly devastating attacks occurred between 1881-1883 and 1903-1906, targeting hundreds of communities, killing thousands of Jews.

Although the concentration of pogroms in the southern region of the Pale might imply that the dominance of settlers from the South Pale was typical of Jewish migration in the early 1880s, this was not the case. Indeed, George Moses Price reveals that the Jewish immigration figures for the period of mass migration (1881-1891) indicate that most were from the North or Northwest Pale (areas hit most strongly by economic hardship).

Wrappers missing. Age-toning along paper margin. Text in Russian. Pages in overall good to good+ condition. g to g+. Item #40312

Price: $450.00

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