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Jews in Kiev: the diary of Litman Feigin
“The Jewish people is hunted down, not because of its moral qualities but because of its faith.”
—Litman Feigin
Litman Feigin was a prominent Jewish first guild merchant from the city Chernigov. Feigin conducted trade business frequently in Kiev between 1820-1835: the time in which Nicholas I banned Jewish people from conducting business within the city. Life for Jews in Kiev has been tumultuous. It has simultaneously been a city where Jewish culture flourishes, but also one where intense anti-Semitism exists. These short diary entries set out to give a glimpse into the life of a Jewish person in Kiev. Feigin had to face many injustices: from Catherine’s Pale of Settlement to being expelled from Kiev, Feigin’s story gives light to life for a Jewish merchant during the mid-19th century.
Jewish first guild merchant, inhabitant of Chernigov: Experiences in Moscow
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December 23 1827:
As I have travelled to the city of Kiev for contractual purposes for the Commissariat Commission earlier this winter, I have received troubling news regarding the fate of the Jewish existence in Kiev and through the Empire. As the Pale existed now some 35 years without interference of livelihood in Kiev, Tsar Nicholas under the reasoning of Zygmunt III privilege and Bukharin’s statement of obscenity issued a decree as winter took hold ordering all of Jewish descent out of the city in one year’s time. Such radical moves with purely ecclesiastical motives I think not, Bukharin and other Christian merchants complain of unfair trade daily, citing the honest Jewish merchants as destroying their businesses and causing them poverty. Such an ill fate for the Jewish peoples and Kiev! Surely the city will suffer as the people, as the other merchants are ill equipped to handle exotic goods—there will be nothing of use to sell and the prices high!
January 3 1828:
The most unfortunate of events today! Kiev, city of thousands of Jews, have been ordered by the police under force to evacuate the city. No regard is given to status, my status being equal to that of the lowest Jew. A misguided expulsion will surely have dire consequences—what willAlexander speak of soldiers clad in tattered rags as the grips of winter are upon us! Even at the expense of harming my national duty, gentile merchants wish to expel us as quickly as possible. 40 years of peace destroyed by a decree; my fate and estate is unknown.
Feburary 21 1829
One year past since I was expelled from Kiev, but many Jewish families still remain. Nicholas under direct under postponed the expulsion as economic interest proved too lucrative for the state of the region. Life is dangerous for the brave who stay. They risk being captured by police every day, bribed by gentile merchants to expel the poor souls. Virtually all of those less fortunate have now evacuated the city, as the most prosperous of [Jewish] merchants suffer. Take the case of poor Leiba Zal’tsfish, a law-abiding inhabitant from Warsaw intentioned to sell optical wares. So to not incense the local merchants, he shaved his beard and assumed the appearance of a gentile. Upon being founded a boycott of his services and urging of arrest was sent to the governor! In the harshest of treatments, Zal’tsfish was banned from the city, his belongs confiscated.
April 12 1830
The state of affairs for the Kievan Jew is dire for those who stay. News of the Podol district came, one of the hearts of Jewish life in Kiev. The synagogue, constructed in 1815 as a sign of prosperity, was ransacked and burned. The building a tribute to the budding Jewish culture in the peaceful city, sits just North of the city’s center near the Dneiper. The neighbor as I recall consisted nearly all of wooden buildings, tight streets, and housed most of Kiev’s population. The great fire of 1811 destroyed the previous synagogue and half of the housing as well, leaving mass destruction through the streets of the city. Architects redesigned the city in grand form, with large orderly streets. Out of the ashes the wealthy Jews of the city built a great synagogue, one of a stone to last the ages. And so it would have if not for the unfortunate fate, being destroyed by the city and repurposed without recompense. I’ve heard rumors about the true fate of Kiev. It seems that Nicholas I has grand plans for Kiev to be a military fortress instead of a trade city—no wonder the expulsion of the city’s most prominent merchants seems to bother him none. While the people suffer high prices, Nicholas I seems intent on creating a military post, where there’s no need for trade. What does this mean for the fate of my people?
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Litman Feigin would go on to address Nicholas I and Count Benckendorff about a detailed plan for reorganizing Jewish life. In it, he disclosed the grievances Jewish people had endured while demanding civic rights and a basic standard of living conditions.
From this brief diary entry, the tumultuous life of Jews in Kiev is revealed. It is both a place of thriving Jewish culture with Jewish literature and architecture being produced, and a place of persecution. This uncertainty would continue for centuries—from the Pogroms of 1905, into the Soviet era, and even in modern day Kiev. Jewish culture has played a key role in the development of Kievan culture, and must be understood to see the full picture of Kiev.
