Read more
The Velizh case was the longest ritual murder investigation in the modern world. Drawing on newly discovered trial records, historian Eugene M. Avrutin looks beyond antisemitism as the single most important factor in understanding ritual murder accusations, and in the process, provides an intimate glimpse of small-town life in eastern Europe.
List of contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Fedor Goes for a Walk
- Chapter 2: Small-Town Life
- Chapter 3: Tsar Alexander Pays a Visit
- Chapter 4: The Confrontations
- Chapter 5: Grievances
- Chapter 6: The Investigation Widens
- Chapter 7: Boundaries of the Law
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Jewish prisoners held in the town of Velizh
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Eugene M. Avrutin is the Tobor Family Endowed Professor of Modern European Jewish History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His books include Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia and Racism in Modern Russia: From the Romanovs to Putin. He is also the co-editor of Pogroms: A Documentary History.
Summary
The Velizh case was the longest ritual murder investigation in the modern world. Drawing on newly discovered trial records, historian Eugene M. Avrutin looks beyond antisemitism as the single most important factor in understanding ritual murder accusations, and in the process, provides an intimate glimpse of small-town life in eastern Europe.
Additional text
During the reign of Tsar Nicholas I, just a decade after Napoleon's ill-starred march on Moscow, the grisly murder of a boy in the Russian town of Velizh brought forth portentous accusations that the Jews had committed blood libel. Based on a remarkably rich, long-ignored source, Eugene Avrutin reconstructs the murder case with great sensitivity, erudition, and a feel for the temper of the time. Piecing together the everyday life of the town, the belief systems that fueled the accusations, and the dynamic between local rivalries and outside politics that made the Velizh Affair history's longest running blood libel accusation, Avrutin offers a compelling explanation, rendered in clear, elegant prose, for how such allegations
