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Page 49
This era of great reforms and the resuscitation of all that is good and
noble in the Slavonic soul brought about also a moral regeneration. The
colossus who, according to Turgenief, preferred to sleep an endless
sleep, with a jug of vodka in his clutched fingers, proved that he, too,
was human, with a feeling, human heart beating in his bosom. With the
restoration of peace and the abolition of serfhood, there began a
removal of prejudice even against Jews. Hitherto the foremost
litterateurs in Russia, imitating the writers of other lands, had
painted the Jew as a monstrosity. Pushkin's prisoner, Gogol's traitor,
Lermontoff's spy, and Turgenief's Zhid (Jew) were caricatures and
libels, equal in acrimony, and not inferior in art, to Shakespeare's
Shylock and Dickens's Fagin. But now the best and ablest men of letters
signed a protest against such unjust and impossible characters.
Two thousand years of cruel suffering and affliction--said the
historian and humanitarian Professor Granovsky, of the
University of Moscow--have at last erased the bloody boundary
line separating the Jews from humanity. The honor of this
reconciliation, which is becoming firmer from day to day,
belongs to our age. The civic status of the Jews is now
established in most European countries, and even in the places
that are still backward their condition is improved, if not by
law, then by enlightenment.
And law and enlightenment radiated their sunshine also upon the Jews of
rejuvenated Russia. The Cantonist system was abolished for good; the
high schools and universities were opened to Jews without
discrimination; and the Governments lying outside the Pale were made
accessible to Jewish scholars, professional men, manufacturers,
wholesale merchants, and skilled laborers (March 16, 1859; November 27,
1861).[1] Through the efforts of Wolf Kaplan, one of G�nzburg's noted
pupils, the persecution of Jews by Germans in Riga was stopped, and the
eminent publicist Katkoff undertook to defend them in the newspaper
Russkiya Vyedomosti. Nazimov, the Governor-General of Vilna, Mukhlinsky,
who inspected the Jewish schools in western Russia, Artzimovich, of
southern Russia, and many other prominent personages arose as champions
of the Jews.[2]
The physician and pedagogue Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov (1810-1881), the
superintendent of the Odessa and Kiev school districts, is especially
deserving of honorable mention in the history of Haskalah. Of all the
Russians of the period who gloried in their liberal convictions, he was
the most liberal. In him the last vestige of prejudice and race
distinction disappeared, and he conscientiously devoted himself to the
study, not only of the present, but also of the past of the Jews, to be
in a better position to lend them his assistance. To the Jews he
appealed to unite and spread enlightenment among the masses by peaceful
means. To the Gentiles, again, he did not hesitate to point out the good
qualities of the Jews, and in an article on the Odessa Talmud Torah he
held up the institution as a model for the public elementary schools. He
admired especially the enthusiasm with which Jewish youths devoted
themselves to the acquisition of knowledge. "Where are religion,
morality, enlightenment, and the modern spirit," asked he, "when these
Jews, who, with courage and self-sacrifice, engage in the struggle
against prejudices centuries old, meet no one here to sympathize with
them and extend a helping hand to them?" His liberality carried him so
far that he established a fund for the support of indigent Jewish
students at the University of Kiev, and he advocated strenuously the
award of prizes and scholarships to deserving Jewish students. Such as
he were rare in any land, but nowhere so rare as in Russia.[3]
Pirogov took the initiative in reorganizing the Jewish schools. It
required little observation to understand that they had proved a
failure. Instead of attracting the Jewish masses to secular education,
they only repelled them. The remedy was not far to seek. "The abolition
of these schools" said Count Kotzebu, "would drive the Jews back to
their fanaticism and isolation. It is necessary to make the Jews useful
citizens, and I see no other means of achieving this than by their
education." Pirogov's first move was to order that Jewish instead of
Christian principals be put at their head, and he set an example by
appointing Rosenzweig to that office. The curriculum was changed, making
the lower schools correspond with our grammar schools, and adapting
their studies to the needs of those who must discontinue schooling at a
comparatively early age. The higher schools were arranged so as to
prepare the pupils for the gymnasium. The salaries of the teachers were
raised, and books and necessaries were provided for pupils too poor to
afford them.
The Government's attention having been directed by General Zelenoy to
the Jewish agricultural colonies in southern Russia, Marcus Gurovich was
appointed to work out a plan to provide them with graded schools. He
proposed that secular and sacred subjects alike be taught by Jewish
teachers, and these were to be cautioned to be careful not to offend the
religious sensibilities of the parents. The plan appealed to the
colonists, and they looked forward anxiously to its fulfilment. Having
waited in vain till 1868, they offered to defray the expenses of the
schools involved, if the Government would advance the money at the
first. Accordingly, ten schools for boys and two for girls were opened
in that year.
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