19th century
Starting point of the first wave of pogroms
15 avril 1881·Elisavetgrad
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Jewish quarter pillaged for three days, houses and shops destroyed
On the fifteenth of April, a brawl in a cabaret in Elisavetgrad sets the city ablaze: the Jewish quarter is looted for three days, houses and shops destroyed. The assassination of Tsar Alexander II, a few weeks earlier, had created the climate.
This is the starting point of the first great wave of pogroms in the Russian Empire, which would strike dozens of cities over two years. The word itself entered European languages at that time. The wave would produce two lasting consequences: mass emigration to America and England, and the birth of the first Jewish national movements — for part of that generation, European-style emancipation had just lost its credibility.
- Period :
- 19th century
- Type :
- Pogrom
- Region :
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Country :
- Ukraine
Rapports administratifs russes ; presse juive de l'Empire.