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199 western provinces of the Russian Empire in 1905, at the most intensive stage of the Russian Revolution. While violence was aimed mainly at the authorities and the nobility, a significant part of it was directed toward Jews, resulting in pogroms, more violent than any witnessed thus far, throughout Bessarabia, Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus. Lithuania, however, for the most part was spared large-­ scale anti-­ Jewish violence, which was more likely to spread in industrialized cities than in the rural areas that dominated the Kovno and Vil’na gubernias . Yet in spring 1905, a town by the name of Dusetos, located in what today is eastern Lithuania, became the scene of large-­ scale riots against the Jewish population. In this chapter, I present the Dusetos riots in their local context, while at the same time keeping in mind the empire-­ wide revolution of 1905–06 and its wave of pogroms. Moving from a grassroots level to a more general analysis, I include the perspectives of multiple actors, including local officials, the public prosecutors, the Catholic clergy, and the Lithuanian intelligentsia. Taking the representations of these groups into account, I draw conclusions regarding the practice of anti-­Jewish violence exerted by the peasants. My approach thus employs the method of “thick description,”1 which has proven to be particularly fruitful in research on pogroms.2 Another focus here is on the place of action. The small town (the Yiddish shtetl, Russian mestečko, and Lithuanian miestelis) of Dusetos bore characteristic traits that make it both unique and at the same time comparable to a multitude of other towns in the Pale of Settlement. Moreover , Dusetos will be treated not as a static place, but as a site experiencing dramatic transformations at the moment that the riots took place. Jewish-­Christian relations, economic life, and settlement patterns in Dusetos, as in many towns in Lithuania, were undergoing marked changes in the early twentieth century. Simon Dubnow’s interpretation of pogroms as having been instigated by Russian officials and soldiers dominated the narrative of the history of post– World War I historiography on the Jews of the Russian Empire.3 Later, scholars Klaus Richter “HORRIBLE WERE THE AVENGERS, BUT THE JEWS WERE HORRIBLE, TOO” ANTI-­JEWISH RIOTS IN RURAL LITHUANIA IN 1905 A wave of violence and social unrest broke across the 10 200 : Revolution and War challenged this interpretation, arguing that Russian officials, although often sympathetic with the rioters, saw pogroms as a threat to public order.4 Lithuanian émigré historians, such as Bronius Kviklys and Pranas Čepėnas, drew on Dubnow’s model in their efforts to explain the Dusetos pogrom; however, they did not develop their interpretations by using a broad base of primary sources.5 Building on this foundation, this chapter will revisit the Dusetos pogrom by concentrating on the relationship between the Tsarist administration and the local population. Because of its relatively small scale, anti-­ Jewish violence in Lithuania has not been researched systematically.The claim of Lithuanian and non-­ Lithuanian historians that “Lithuania remained a sort of peaceful island in the surrounding hostile, antisemitic, violent ocean”6 before World War I has prevented anti-­ Jewish violence from becoming an object for sustained historical research. Detailed studies incorporating the perspectives of different actors have been written regarding only the first pogrom wave of 1881–1884 in Lithuania7 and for the years preceding the revolution of 1905.8 For a number of reasons, the Dusetos pogrom is a good starting point for research on anti-­ Jewish violence in Lithuania, as it displays traditional and, at the same time, distinctly modern features. Although it took place in one of the most rural and “backward” regions of Lithuania, its eruption would not have been possible without the situation created by the revolution of 1905. It thus requires a multiperspective approach, integrating how the Russian administration , which in spring 1905 was under enormous pressure to regain control of the vast empire, viewed the pogrom and what meaning educated Lithuanians attached to it. In the absence of first-­ person accounts from peasants, the view of state officials and Lithuanian elites will be contrasted with a detailed description of the peasants’ behavior, which focuses on the meaning inherent in their actions and social practices. I will also examine concepts that were of significance for the peasants’ everyday lives, such as arson allegations and conceptions of morality and law, which often clashed with the policies of the Russian authorities. ■ ■ Protocol of a Pogrom Dusetos was...

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