nign decree of November 10, 1811, issued through the Secretary of
State Speransky, was not always executed by his officials goes without
saying. Simeon Levy Wolf, one of the first Russo-Jewish graduates, was
denied his degree of doctor of jurisprudence in Dorpat unless he
embraced Christianity.[23] When, in 1819, some of the Vilna graduates
applied for the privilege of not paying the double tax, they were told
that they must first renounce their faith, an exception being made only
in favor of Arthur Parlovich. Still the number of Jewish graduate
physicians was on the increase. Osip Yakovlevich Liboschuets, who was the
son of the famous physician of Vilna, took his doctor degree at Dorpat
(1806), became court physician in St. Petersburg, where he founded a
hospital for children, and wrote extensively in French on the flora of
his country.[24] The medical institute of Vilna (1803-1833), afterwards
transferred to Kiev, became the centre of attraction for the Russian
Jewry. Padua, Berlin, Koenigsberg, Goettingen, Copenhagen, Halle,
Amsterdam, Cambridge, and London were for a third of a century replaced
by the home of the Gaon and of Doctor Liboschuets. The first students
were recruited from the bet ha-midrash, and they frequently joined, as
in former days, knowledge of the Law with the practice of their chosen
profession. Such were Isaac Markusevich, whose annotations to the
_Shulhan 'Aruk_ (ab. 1830) were published fifty years later;[25] Joseph
Rosensohn, the promising Talmudist who became rabbi of Pyosk at the age
of nineteen;[26] and Kusselyevsky of Nieszvicz, a stipendiary of a
Polish nobleman and a great favorite with Professor Frank. Because of
his proficiency, he was exempted from serving as a vratch (interne), and
for his piety and learning he was addressed by Jews and Gentiles as
"rabbi."[27]

With what dreams such happenings filled the Jewish heart! "Thank God,"
writes a merchant of the first guild in reply to an inquiry from distant
Bokhara, "thank God, we dwell in peace under the sovereignty of our czar
Alexander, who has shown us his mercy, and has put us in every respect
on an equality with all the inhabitants of the land."[28] But a rude
awakening was soon to make the Jews aware that their visions of better
days were still far from realization. In 1815, Alexander I formed the
acquaintance of Baroness Kruedener, and since then, to the satisfaction
of Prince Galitzin, "with what giant strides the emperor advance