Read Online A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: The Beilis Blood Libel by Edmund Levin - Free Book Online
Authors: Edmund Levin
Ads: Link
his purported infallibility, had the power to stop its spread.
Golubev did not know of his debt to Thomas of Monmouth (who was by then an obscure figure even to scholars, not having earned the renown he surely craved). But Golubev was likely acquainted with the works of anti-Semitic pseudo-scholarship then circulating in Russia, and so would have been familiar with the five slaughtered brothers of Fulda;Andreas of Rinn, supposedly killed by the Jews on the “Judenstein” or Jew-Stone in 1462; andSimon of Trent, a murdered boy whose case codified the blood accusation’s essentials in 1475, establishing themotif of Christian blood being used to bake Passovermatzo. Golubev also undoubtedly knew of the most notorious cases of the past three decades, nearly all of which originated to the west of Russia.
The blood accusation in the case of AndreiYushchinsky would soon cause the tsarist regime to be condemned in the West for its shocking retrogression to a medieval mentality of prejudice and vengeance. Yet nearly forgotten amid the outrage was that some of the most “civilized” parts of Europe had recently witnessed the largest outbreak of ritual murder charges in three centuries. According to themost reliable count, for the decade from 1891 to 1900, there were seventy-nine significant ritual murder cases in Europe where specific allegations were made to the authorities or at least gained wide popular currency. Only five cases took place in the Russian Empire. The majority were inAustria-Hungary (thirty-six) and Germany (fifteen). Men like Golubev knew the most notorious of them like a catechism. A handful had come to trial.Kutaisi (Georgia, part of the Russian Empire) 1879: nine Jews, tried in the murder of a six-year-old girl. Tisza-Eszlar (Hungary) 1882: a Jewish synagogue sexton, tried in the murder of a fourteen-year-old servant girl. Xanten (Prussia) 1891: a Jewish butcher, accused of killing a five-year-old-boy, whose throat had been slit ear-to-ear. Polna (Bohemia) 1899: a twenty-two-year-old cobbler’s apprentice, tried in the murder of a nineteen-year-old seamstress.Konitz (Prussia) 1900: a Jewish butcher and an animal skinner, accused in the killing and dismembering of an eighteen-year-old gymnasium student.
As Golubev combed the area around the cave for clues and canvassed the Lukianovka neighborhood for witnesses, he must have been conscious of his potential place in history. With the ambiguous exception of Polna (where the defendant was convicted, but the state officially rejected the ritual motive), in every recent case the Jewish suspects had, frustratingly, been exonerated. Moreover, these cases had been treated primarily as local matters. In modern times, no ritual murder case had had the unmitigated support of a European central government. Golubev sought to change the legacy of the modern blood accusation: he would enlist the highest authorities in the empire behind his cause, including, he hoped, the sovereign himself.
Within months, Golubev’s amateur sleuthing would have a decisive impact on the official investigation. At this point, however, the authorities were pressuring the young hothead to refrain from incitingviolence. Careful not to offend him or his comrades, they cajoled him into promising, on his honor, that he would do nothing to instigate attacks on the Jews, at least through the end of the summer. The deputy head of the KievOkhrana, or secret police, reported in mid-April that “everything has turned out all right.Golubev has quieted down. They have decided to postpone their action until the Sovereign’s departure from Kiev [that is, after the tsar’s planned visit in August]…(B)eating the Yids … they’ve postponed until fall.”
But even though Golubev had been “quieted down,” thethreat of a pogrom still felt real, both to Kiev’s Jews and to the government. The pages of the right-wing press were filled with venomous screeds declaring that the four dozen wounds on the
Golubev did not know of his debt to Thomas of Monmouth (who was by then an obscure figure even to scholars, not having earned the renown he surely craved). But Golubev was likely acquainted with the works of anti-Semitic pseudo-scholarship then circulating in Russia, and so would have been familiar with the five slaughtered brothers of Fulda;Andreas of Rinn, supposedly killed by the Jews on the “Judenstein” or Jew-Stone in 1462; andSimon of Trent, a murdered boy whose case codified the blood accusation’s essentials in 1475, establishing themotif of Christian blood being used to bake Passovermatzo. Golubev also undoubtedly knew of the most notorious cases of the past three decades, nearly all of which originated to the west of Russia.
The blood accusation in the case of AndreiYushchinsky would soon cause the tsarist regime to be condemned in the West for its shocking retrogression to a medieval mentality of prejudice and vengeance. Yet nearly forgotten amid the outrage was that some of the most “civilized” parts of Europe had recently witnessed the largest outbreak of ritual murder charges in three centuries. According to themost reliable count, for the decade from 1891 to 1900, there were seventy-nine significant ritual murder cases in Europe where specific allegations were made to the authorities or at least gained wide popular currency. Only five cases took place in the Russian Empire. The majority were inAustria-Hungary (thirty-six) and Germany (fifteen). Men like Golubev knew the most notorious of them like a catechism. A handful had come to trial.Kutaisi (Georgia, part of the Russian Empire) 1879: nine Jews, tried in the murder of a six-year-old girl. Tisza-Eszlar (Hungary) 1882: a Jewish synagogue sexton, tried in the murder of a fourteen-year-old servant girl. Xanten (Prussia) 1891: a Jewish butcher, accused of killing a five-year-old-boy, whose throat had been slit ear-to-ear. Polna (Bohemia) 1899: a twenty-two-year-old cobbler’s apprentice, tried in the murder of a nineteen-year-old seamstress.Konitz (Prussia) 1900: a Jewish butcher and an animal skinner, accused in the killing and dismembering of an eighteen-year-old gymnasium student.
As Golubev combed the area around the cave for clues and canvassed the Lukianovka neighborhood for witnesses, he must have been conscious of his potential place in history. With the ambiguous exception of Polna (where the defendant was convicted, but the state officially rejected the ritual motive), in every recent case the Jewish suspects had, frustratingly, been exonerated. Moreover, these cases had been treated primarily as local matters. In modern times, no ritual murder case had had the unmitigated support of a European central government. Golubev sought to change the legacy of the modern blood accusation: he would enlist the highest authorities in the empire behind his cause, including, he hoped, the sovereign himself.
Within months, Golubev’s amateur sleuthing would have a decisive impact on the official investigation. At this point, however, the authorities were pressuring the young hothead to refrain from incitingviolence. Careful not to offend him or his comrades, they cajoled him into promising, on his honor, that he would do nothing to instigate attacks on the Jews, at least through the end of the summer. The deputy head of the KievOkhrana, or secret police, reported in mid-April that “everything has turned out all right.Golubev has quieted down. They have decided to postpone their action until the Sovereign’s departure from Kiev [that is, after the tsar’s planned visit in August]…(B)eating the Yids … they’ve postponed until fall.”
But even though Golubev had been “quieted down,” thethreat of a pogrom still felt real, both to Kiev’s Jews and to the government. The pages of the right-wing press were filled with venomous screeds declaring that the four dozen wounds on the
Similar Books
