L'antisémitisme en Russie: de Catherine II à Poutine

Describes the continuity of Russian antisemitism from the 18th century to the present. The "Jewish question" was marginal in Russia until the end of the 18th century, when large Jewish populations became part of the Empire after the divisions of Poland. State antisemitism, which developed under Catherine II, was implemented by Nicholas I. At the beginning of the 20th century, orchestrated by the ultra-monarchist Black Hundreds, antisemitism became a mass phenomenon and state policy. Repressed for a while by the Revolution, hatred of the Jews reappeared under Stalin. It continued under Khrushchev and Brezhnev and has surged recently, with a theoretical basis provided by Igor Shafarevich, Lev Gumilev, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Since the fall of the USSR, Russian nationalism has been expressed in virulent xenophobia, also targeting Jews. Argues that antisemitism was part of the tsarist "divide and rule" policy, characterized by the narrow nationalism of a bureaucracy striving to russify the "non-natives" by converting them to Orthodoxy, and by the organic antisemitism of the Russian Orthodox Church. Under Stalin, oppression of national minorities took on brutal forms. While Stalinist antisemitism was covert and was considered shameful, current Russian antisemitism is overt and renews the traditional theme of Jewish conspiracy.