19th century
Trial for ritual murder
1853·Saratov
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
two Jews condemned to hard labor after an investigation conducted by order of Nicholas I
The Saratov affair arises from the disappearance of two Christian children on the Volga and the accusation of ritual murder brought against Jews of the city. The investigation is conducted on the express orders of Nicholas I, who summons from Saint-Petersburg a special commission and an expert tasked with establishing the existence of the crime in Jewish texts.
The trial drags on for several years and ends with the sentencing of two defendants to penal servitude, without the ritual accusation itself ever being proven. The affair sets a precedent: it establishes within the imperial judicial apparatus the notion that such an inquiry is admissible, and it will be invoked until the Kiev trial, more than half a century later.
- Period :
- 19th century
- Type :
- Trials and executions
- Region :
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Country :
- Empire russe
Dossiers judiciaires du gouvernement de Saratov ; études sur les accusations de meurtre rituel dans l'Empire russe.