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5 | From Boycott to Riot | Michal Frankl
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94 perienced one of the most extensive and violent popular protests in its history. Triggered byconflict between Czech and German nationalists,Czech politicians and activists sought to mobilize the masses to express their outrage against the repeal of language ordinances designed to place Czech on a more equal footing with German in the state administration. However, in most cases, the nationalist demonstrations and protest marches quickly turned into aggressive anti- Jewish riots. Across the Bohemian Lands, drunken rioters shouted anti- Jewish slogans, smashed windows, pillaged, and looted; extortion and arson were widespread. Recent historiography has provided fresh insights into and new interpretations of anti- Jewish violence in modern Europe. Historians of antisemitism generally agree that violent anti- Jewish crowds should not be understood as “primitive” mobs guided solely by traditional prejudice or lust for plunder and enrichment. Violence against Jews needs to be analyzed in terms of its causes, symbolism, and structure. “Revisionist” historiography on antisemitism also has challenged simplified interpretations explaining the violence (especially in Russia) by the (in)action of the state.2 The most comprehensive interpretative template, the concept of “exclusionary violence,” was empirically based on the analysis of anti- Jewish violence in modern Germany and methodologically inspired by scholarly approaches to racial violence in the United States and elsewhere . In contrast to the “emancipatory” riots of a minority against the state or an oppressive majority, the “exclusionary” riot is defined as a case of violence directed against a minority based on prejudice or driven by antisemitic propaganda . “Exclusionary” pogroms are preceded by a perceived shift in power in Michal Frankl FROM BOYCOTT TO RIOT THE MORAVIAN ANTI- JEWISH VIOLENCE OF 1899 AND ITS BACKGROUND Starting in mid-October 1899, the Bohemian Lands1 ex5 The author expresses his gratitude to Michael L. Miller and Daniel Unowsky for their thoughtful comments on drafts of this chapter. Parts of the text were created within the Czech Science Foundation–sponsored project “State Building without Antisemitism? Antisemitism in the Czech Lands and Slovakia, 1917–1923,” No. P410/11/2146. Moravian Anti- Jewish Violence : 95 favor of the minority and a cooling of social relations between the in- group and the out- group. Such violence is meant to reassert, through a symbolic and violent performance, the outsider status of the minority. “Exclusionary” riots are characterized by an asymmetry of power between the majority and the excluded minority and most often by a low level of organization.3 While building on the existing research and drawing on the concept of “exclusionary ” violence, this chapter seeks to extend it in two ways. First, the setting of the violence in an ethnically mixed territoryand against the background of an intensifying (and increasingly aggressive) nationality conflict between Czechs and Germans in the Bohemian Lands provides a specific context for this case of “exclusionary” violence. Moreover, the chapter draws our attention to the importance of the local, in this case Moravian, context and offers an opportunity for an in- depth look at the interplay between the local or regional and the national aspects of the riots and the propaganda that preceded them. In this way, this chapter also aims to challenge the usual interpretations of the 1899 riots (and by extension late nineteenth- century Czech antisemitism). It is striking how close the positions in recent scholarly works are to the views put forward bycontemporary Czech nationalists in 1899.4 Czech commentators generally saw the violence as part of a legitimate national protest against the oppressive Habsburg state and against German dominance.Czech antisemitism and anti- Jewish violence were described as a by- product of the ever more radicalized conflict between Czech and German nationalists and as a reaction to the alleged German political and cultural loyalty of Bohemian and Moravian Jews. For a long time, this subordination of the history of Czech antisemitism to the nationality conflict prevented critical research into its causes and forms. Even though the Bohemian Lands have been analyzed by many historians of modern nationalism as a kind of laboratoryof nationalityconflict, antisemitism has figured in this research only as a marginal subject. Therefore, this chapter aims to challenge the prevailing view of Czech antisemitism as secondary to the rise of the nationality conflict and to the anti-German passions and policies of Czech politicians and activists. Instead, it aims to provide a more balanced analysis of the dynamic interaction of modern nationalism and antisemitism. The chapter seeks to decode and understand the Moravian anti- Jewish violence of 1899 not only against the broader...
