19th century
Exclusion from the spirits trade
1894-1902·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.
the establishment of the State monopoly on alcohol deprives tens of thousands of families in the Pale of Settlement of their livelihood
The Russian state reserved the alcohol trade for itself. The monopoly was introduced province by province, and it stripped tens of thousands of families in the Pale of Settlement of their livelihood: the sale of beverages, village inns, and the leasing of taverns had been one of the few trades open to Jews for centuries, precisely because the Polish nobility and later the Russian administration had confined them to it. They were reproached for this trade and then driven out of it with nothing put in its place. The governors' own reports noted the brutal impoverishment of small towns. This ruin, more than the pogroms, explains the pace of Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire in the decade that followed.
- Period :
- 19th century
- Type :
- Persecution
- Region :
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Country :
- Empire russe
Simon Doubnov, *Histoire des Juifs de Russie et de Pologne* ; Hans Rogger, *Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia* ; *Encyclopaedia Judaica*, article « Russia ».