19th century
Legal persecution
1887·Empire russe
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
numerus clausus imposed in high schools and universities, 10% of places in the Pale of Settlement and 3% in Saint Petersburg
The numerus clausus instituted in 1887 limited the proportion of Jews admitted to the secondary schools and universities of the Russian Empire: one place in ten within the Pale of Settlement, one in twenty outside it, one in thirty-three in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. The measure targeted a population whose thirst for education had become, in the eyes of the authorities, a political danger as much as a social competition.
It produced lasting and paradoxical effects. Thousands of young people left to study in Switzerland, Germany, and France, from which several would return carrying the revolutionary ideas the government had claimed to keep at a distance; others gave up, or converted in order to pass through the door. Access to knowledge became, in the Russian Empire, one of the arenas in which the Jewish condition was decided.
- Period :
- 19th century
- Type :
- Persecution
- Region :
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Country :
- Empire russe
Circulaires du ministère de l'Instruction publique ; rapports de la commission Pahlen et études sur le numerus clausus impérial.