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2 4 4 8 The Limits of the Russian Nationalist Vision In March 1911, less than a week after Stolypin instituted the western zemstva under Article 87, children playing in Kiev’s Luk′ianovka district—the neighborhood where the “truly Russian” movement had secured its earliest mass following in the 1905 period—made a horrifying discovery. In a cave on the property of a brick factory they found the body of a young boy. Clad only in underwear, the corpse displayed multiple shallow wounds; it was surrounded by school notebooks and the boy’s torn clothes. Police soon identified him as Andrei Iushchinskii, a resident of a shanty settlement on the sandy left bank of the Dnieper and a pupil of the primary school at St. Sophia’s Cathedral.1 Although the murder of Andrei Iushchinskii was only one of many violent crimes reported in the Kiev press in the spring of 1911, it would ultimately garner the attention of the entire empire. The most radical of Kiev’s nationalist activists, who had expressed outrage at the alleged indifference of conservative politicians and imperial elites toward the welfare of the Orthodox East Slavs in the aftermath of the western zemstvo bill’s defeat, took great interest in the crime. Alleging that the murder had been perpetrated by Jews as part of a blood ritual, they eventually brought the case to the attention of Minister of Justice I. G. Shcheglovitov (1861–1918). In spite of substantial evidence countering the claims of these activists (and opposition from other prominent figures in the government), Shcheglovitov pursued the ritual murder angle. The case developed into imperial Russia’s most notorious anti-Semitic show trial, mobilizing indignant liberals and militant Russian nationalist organizations on either side.2 Placing the Iushchinskii case in its local context, this chapter chronicles how the southwest’s Russian nationalists once again successfully set an agenda, mobilized followers , lobbied officials, and shaped imperial policy. But this chapter also explores how the flurry of civic activity surrounding the case simultaneously destabilized the Russian nationalist lobby and the empire that it claimed to defend. Discomfited by the 1. Memorandum to Kiev prosecutor, 21 March 1911, TsDIAUK, f. 317, op. 1. d. 5482, t.1, l. 1. 2. For a brief discussion of the government response to the case, see Rogger, Jewish Policies, 40–55. The Limits of the Russian Nationalist Vision 2 4 5 ritual murder allegation and the rapid growth of the most radical fringes of the “truly Russian” movement, the most prominent nationalist leaders would distance themselves from the Iushchinskii case. For their part, the radical intellectuals, peasants, and proletarians who insisted that the Iushchinskii murder was part of a broader Jewish plot to destroy the Orthodox East Slavs and their historical traditions complained that the skeptical nationalist leadership had abandoned the children of Rus′ to their enemies. The growing discord within the nationalist lobby—and the ever more radical ideas that some of its members endorsed—also forced both local and imperial officials to reconsider their relationship with the group. Even those who had once relied on the southwest’s Russian nationalists to serve as a party of order now acknowledged that the movement posed unprecedented threats to the stability of local society and the tsarist regime. The Iushchinskii Investigation Police focused their initial investigation of the Iushchinskii murder on the boy’s troubled and impoverished family. They discovered that his mother, who had borne him out of wedlock, routinely neglected him. The fact that she had once lived close to the site where his body was found and that she had waited five days to report his disappearance further incriminated her in the eyes of local investigators. Police also suspected that his stepfather, who had physically abused him, might have been involved in his murder.3 But within days of the discovery of Iushchinskii’s body, police and prosecutors began to receive anonymous letters claiming that the murder, which had taken place during Passover, had been committed by Jews, who had drained Iushchinskii ’s blood and used it to bake matzo.4 Protesters convened at Iushchinskii’s funeral in late March, crying, “The Yids tortured the young boy Andrei Iushchinskii!” “Russian people!” they continued, “if your children are dear to you, beat the Yids! Beat them until there is not one Yid left in Russia!” As the mourners scattered after the funeral, the protesters circulated literature outlining the history of alleged Jewish blood rituals.5 Rumors that Iushchinskii had...

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