Nadene Goldfoot
The first empress of Russia called Catherine ruled from 1725 to 1727. Between these 2 years, she managed to expel all the Jewish residents in Little Russia. This order was countermanded after her death. Anti-Semitism was already something that was running rampant in Russia.
Peter the Great b: May 1672 d: 8 February 1725 at 53 years
Inasmuch as Russia had been declared an empire in 1721, the first Russian Empress was Catherine I, the widow of Peter the Great. Fearing that his son Alexey, who viewed his father's reforming interests and endeavours with little warmth, might come to power, Peter took preventative action and issued a law stating that the ruling monarch could himself appoint his successor. Peter originally planned to give the throne to his wife, Catherine, but after quarrelling with her, he ripped up the will, and thus when he died at the beginning of 1725, no official heir had been named. The most influential nobles, led by the all-powerful Prince Menshikov, took advantage of the situation to place Catherine on the throne, bypassing Peter's grandson, also called Peter. Thus, at the head of Russia stood an ambitious women who had never received a systematic education and was hardly able to sign her name on orders and official documents. How did she end up on the Russian throne?
Information about the early years of Catherine's life is extremely garbled, in part due to her own lack of knowledge about her family history, and in part due to attempts to create a fictitious biography for her that would be worthy of the wife of the Emperor of All Russia. It is generally accepted that she was originally named Marta Skavronskaya, that her parents died of the plague around 1689, and that at the age of three, Marta was taken in and raised by a Lutheran pastor.
At seventeen, she married a Swedish dragoon serving in the city of Marienburg in Livonia, but shortly thereafter Russian troops led by Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev besieged the town during the Northern War between Sweden and Russia, and Marta was taken captive. At first she lived in Sheremetev's home, and thereafter in the home of Alexander Menshikov, the Tsar's closest confidant. It was here that Peter the Great met her for the first time. The Russian Tsar was already married, but unhappily so, and gradually he fell in love with the young and attractive Marta. Marta accepted the Russian Orthodox faith, and received the name Catherine upon baptism. Starting in 1709, she accompanied Peter on his many trips and excursions and in 1712 they married. Peter had shortly before divorced his first wife, Eudoxia Lopukhina, who was sent off to a convent. In 1717 Catherine was declared Sovereign, and in 1721, Empress.
Peter began suffering from urological problems and severe headaches. Contemporaries noted that only Catherine could find the soothing words that eased the Tsar's pains. Falling asleep with his head on her lap, the powerful Tsar might sleep for a few hours and then awake refreshed and with renewed vigor.
Catherine and Peter had eleven children together, the majority of whom died in early childhood, and only Anna, who married the Duke of Holstein, and Elizabeth, who was crowned Empress in 1741, survived to adulthood.
After the death of Peter, Catherine ascended to the Russian throne, but due to her lack of education, she paid little attention to state affairs, although she advocated the continuation of Peter's policies. Nonetheless, actual politics often differs widely from plans. If Russia's foreign policy attempted to follow the guidelines set by Peter the Great by turning to the west and by increasing its influence in Europe (the battle for the unification of Schleswig and Holstein and the placement of a Russian puppet on the Courland throne), then in domestic policy, many of Peter's reforms were stalled or corrupted. The Supreme Privy Council, established by Prince Menshikov and consisting of the most powerful nobles, took over the daily management of the country. Soon Catherine's health declined, and in 1727 she died, having earlier declared Peter's grandson, the future Peter II, as her heir.
Catherine I is buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral next to her husband.
Catherine the Great b: May 2, 1729 d: November 17, 1796 at 69 years
The next empress of Russia, and this should shake up all people, was another Catherine who ruled from 1762 to 1796, and during her extended period of 34 agonizing years, managed to also have a Jewish policy that was marked by a combination of liberalism and coercion. Catherine II, was also known as Catherine the Great. This was the longest reign of any female Russian leader. Known more for her affairs of the heart than for affairs of state, she nevertheless greatly expanded her country's empire while at the expense of all the Jews under her domain.
Peter III b: February 10, 1728 d: July 6, 1762 34 years
Catherine II came to power following the overthrow of her husband and second cousin, Peter III. Peter IIIwas Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was born in Kiel as Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (German: Karl Peter Ulrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp), the only child of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (the son of Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, sister of Charles XII), and Anna Petrovna (the elder surviving daughter of Peter the Great).
The German-born Peter could hardly speak Russian and pursued a strongly pro-Prussian policy, which made him an unpopular leader. He was deposed by troops loyal to his wife, Catherine, the former Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst who, despite her own German origins, was a Russian nationalist. She succeeded him as Empress Catherine II. Peter died in captivity soon after his overthrow, perhaps with Catherine's approval as part of the coup conspiracy. However, another theory is that his death was unplanned, resulting from a drunken brawl with one of his guards.
Despite his generally poor reputation, Peter made some progressive reforms during his short reign. He proclaimed religious freedom and encouraged education, sought to modernize the Russian army, abolished the secret police, which had been infamous for its extreme violence, and made it illegal for landowners to kill their serfs without going to court.
Catherine reversed some of his reforms and carried through others, notably the annexation of church property. In her accession to power and her rule of the empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. Under her reign, Russia grew larger, its culture was revitalized, and it was recognized as one of the great powers of Europe.
On the one hand, Jews were allowed to register in the merchant and urban classes in 1780, but permission was restricted to White Russia in 1786. White Russia was what we call Belorussia. It was a Republic. Later, it was called Belarus, country of eastern Europe. Until it became independent in 1991, Belarus, formerly known as Belorussia or White Russia, was the smallest of the three Slavic republics included in the Soviet Union (the larger two being Russia and Ukraine).
Jews went there originally from Poland and its hardships against Jews. Jews were living in GRODNO in the 12th century, at BREST-LITOVSK in the 14th century and at PINSK from 1506. In eastern White Russia, Jews appeared in the 16th century, but owing to opposition from the local burghers, the communities were long unrecognized.
Massacres occurred at POLOTSK in 1563. at HOMEL in 1649, at MOHILEV, etc, in 1655. The Jewish population suffered severely at the end of the 17th century from the Polish-Cossack and Swedish wars.
The partition of Poland in the latter 18th century when Catherine the Great was ruling Russia brought the Jews of White Russia under Russian rule and led to the abolition of their organized communal framework. This marked the beginning of the Pale of Settlement.
The Pale of Settlement consisted of 25 provinces of Czarist Russia: Poland, Lithuania, White Russia (Belarus), Ukraine, Crimea and Bessarabia of which 2/3 of Bessarabia is today's Moldova. This was where Jews were permitted permanent residence. Permission to live outside its confines was granted ONLY to certain groups, like members of the liberal professions with a high school diploma, big businessmen, skilled artisans, and ex-Cantonists, who were the underage sons of conscripts, or soldiers who had been drafted to be soldiers in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "canton schools" for future military service. In other words, only the successful and educated higher social classes might be allowed to live outside the Pale, and they most likely could not be Jewish. This could become quite a sliding scale, for that matter.
At the end of the nineteenth century, close to 95 percent of the 5.3 million Jews in the Russian Empire lived in the Pale of Settlement. In early 1917, at the end of WWI, the Pale of Settlement was abolished, permitting Jews to live where they wished in the former Russian Empire. This region continued to be a center of Jewish communal life until World War II.
Catherine the Great was the longest-serving female ruler in Russian history. But before this Prussian-born princess could reign, she had to overcome a loveless marriage to Peter III, an unstable heir that resulted in a power struggle that turned deadly. The future Peter III was born Karl Peter Ulrich in 1728, in Kiel, Germany. His mother was the daughter of Russia’s Peter the Great, and his father the nephew of Sweden’s Charles XII. Peter seemed destined to inherit the throne of Sweden, not Russia, and he was brought up as a Lutheran. His childless maternal aunt, Russia’s Empress Elizabeth, chose him as her successor. He moved to Russia’s then-capital, St. Petersburg, where he took the name Peter (Pyotr) and was forced to give up his Lutheran faith and join the Russian Orthodox Church.
He was a middling student and weak-willed (though not as stupid as he was later depicted), whose intense dislike for traditional learning was equally balanced by his passion for all things military. He dreamed of becoming a great military leader and later emulated Frederick the Great of Prussia. While many modern historians have presented a more favorable view of Peter, it’s Catherine’s depiction of him that prevails. Her letters and memoirs are filled with tales of his boorish, drunken and frequently cruel behavior (she would later allege that he had forced her to watch him hang and “execute” a mouse he found in their apartments).
During Catherine's last years, which were marked by reaction from 1789 to 1796, 7 long years, she prevented the extension of Jewish settlement and in 1795, prohibited Jewish residence in rural areas.
Antisemitism in the Russian Empire included numerous pogroms and the designation of the Pale of Settlement from which Jews were forbidden to migrate into the interior of Russia, unless they converted to the Russian Orthodox state religion.
Russia remained unaffected by the liberalizing tendencies of this era with respect to the status of Jews. Before the 18th century Russia maintained an exclusionary policy towards Jews, in accordance with the anti-Jewish precepts of the Russian Orthodox Church. When asked about admitting Jews into the Empire, Peter the Great stated "I prefer to see in our midst nations professing Mohammedanism and paganism rather than Jews. They are rogues and cheats. It is my endeavor to eradicate evil, not to multiply it." In my opinion, this all comes from the indoctrination of Christianity in reaction to how Jews were presented in the New Testament. They were seen in a horrible way as of killing the people's G-d, for Jesus was said to be the son of G-d, making him also a god, as the Greeks and Romans had several of in their belief system.
Resource:
http://www.saint-petersburg.com/royal-family/catherine-i/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Russian_Empire
https://www.biography.com/news/catherine-the-great-peter-iii-marriage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great
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