reactionary agitation, originating like its German
analogue in the Hegelianism of a section of the lettered public, had
manifested itself in Moscow. After some early vicissitudes, it had been
organized, under the auspices of Alexis Kireiev, Chomyakov, Aksakov and
Kochelev, into the Slavophil party, with a Romanticist programme of
reforms based on the old traditions of the pre-Petrine epoch. This party
gave a great impetus to Slav nationalism. Its final possibilities were
sanguinarily illustrated by Muraviev's campaign in Poland in 1863, and
in the war against Turkey in 1877, which was exclusively its handiwork
(Statement by General Kireiev: Schutz, _Das heutige Russland_, p. 104).
After the assassination of Alexander II. the Slavophil teaching, as
expounded by Ignatiev and Pobedonostsev, became paramount in the
government, and the new tsar was persuaded to cancel the constitutional
project of his father. The more liberal views of a section of the
Slavophils under Aksakov, who had been in favour of representative
institutions on traditional lines, were displaced by the reactionary
system of Pobedonostsev, who took his stand on absolutism, orthodoxy and
the racial unity of the Russian people. This was the situation on the
eve of Easter 1881. The hardening nationalism above, the increasing
discontent below, the economic activity of the Hebrew heretics and
aliens, and the echoes of anti-Semitism from over the western border
were combining for an explosion.

A scuffle in a tavern at Elisabethgrad in Kherson sufficed to ignite
this combustible material. The scuffle grew into a riot, the tavern was
sacked, and the drunken mob, hounded on by agitators who declared that
the Jews were using Christian blood for the manufacture of their Easter
bread, attacked and looted the Jewish quarter. The outbreak spread
rapidly. On the 7th of May there was a similar riot at Smiela, near
Cherkasy, and the following day there was a violent outbreak at Kiev,
which left 2000 Jews homeless. Within a few weeks the whole of western
Russia, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, was smoking with the ruins of
Jewish homes. Scores of Jewish women were dishonoured, hundreds of men,
women and children were slaughtered, and tens of thousands were reduced
to beggary and left without a shelter. Murderous riots or incendiary
outrages took place in no fewer than 167 towns and villages, including
Warsaw, Odessa and Kiev. Europe had witnessed no such scenes of mob