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REIGN of THE SOVEREIGN EMPRESS ELIZAVETA PETROVNA
1743 yr.
24. -- December 16
th
. The Supreme resolution upon the Senate’s report. --
About the interdict for the Jews to live in Russia.
The Report. By the Supreme Named decree of Your Imperial Majesty (of the December
2
nd
of the last year of 742 **) it was ordered, that from all the Russian Empire,
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both from the Great Russia’s, and from the Little Russia’s cities all the Jews of male and female gender,
no matter of what their rank and status may be, with all their possessions, should be immediately send
abroad and should not be allowed to return to Russia for any reason and under any pretext, except those
who want to be baptized into the Christian faith of Greek confession. Those baptized in Your Majesty’s
Empire shall be allowed to live, but should no longer be allowed to go out of the Russian State.
In order to finally discharge the Jews from all the places of the Russian Empire and in the pursuance of
this Your Imperial Majesty’s Supreme decree - the Senate had published it throughout the State; and
moreover in the current year of 1743, by Your Imperial Majesty’s behest, the Senate’s very strong
orders had been sent to all Provinces and cities in the Little Russia and Riga. — And Now the Senate is
receiving the following dispatches (reports):
1. From the Little Russia’s Principal Chancellery (General Branch Office), the orders were sent
out to all the Little Russia’s regiments, and 42 male and female Jews were deported. Although from the
Little Russia (Russia Minor) the Greeks-Exactors
1
of import duties [inductive collections/taxes]
(which are at the disposition of the Nizhyn’s
2
Wójt
3
, Peter Ternavіot with comrades for 27,000 rubles
per year) report to us, that Jews from the Polish region since olden times come not to settle, but just
for a short time for market-fairs with goods for the merchants; and after the implementation of their
bargain-sales they return abroad, and they pay for the import and export of the goods they pay proper
custom fees (Inducta)
4
to the treasury of Your Imperial Majesty. Furthermore, some of the Jews
accidentally were not aware about Your Imperial Majesty’s aforesaid Supreme Imperial decree about
their expulsion abroad, and many from different Countries brought into the Russian Empire
merchandise on a great sum of money, which has not yet been sold. Also they, the Jews, owe money to
various Great Russia’s and Little Russia’s merchants, and the merchants owe to the Jews and have to
pay money for the exchange bills (Wechsels) from different time-terms. And therefore the Exactors
5
petition for the Jews who are merchants and have goods for the Russian market-fairs – as it was
allowed by the prior/ previous Decrees - so those Jews could be permitted to pass to the Little Russia in
order to avoid (due to their non-admission) deficiencies for the state treasury (tax collections for the
state), and their losses and devastation.
2. The Governorate of Livonia
6
and Regirung-Chancellery
7
, as well as the General-Field
Marshal Reichs-Count and Cavalier von Lacy
8
, and the Riga Magistrate [report]:
Ostensibly, when the aforesaid decree of expulsion of the Jews was published in Riga, the Magistrate
thereof firmly suggested the Jews to move out and evict Riga and the city outskirts within 6 weeks.
And since the position of this place is a border-town and market-place, therefore such is the nature of
trading there and such are the circumstances, that the prohibition for the Jews’ coming for the trade and
departing, perhaps is not quite possible without compromising Your Imperial Majesty’s interests and
devastating the trading suburbanites; thereof, the Magistrate presented the following:
1) Many and barely not all the Polish Great Pans
9
(lords) and merchants use Jews as their factors
10
and
administrators of their commodities/merchandise, by virtue of them contracts with the local merchants
are conducted, money exchanged, goods delivered and products for the needs of Riga purchased – thus
all this business ought to be suppressed (if the Jews are to be banned from coming to Riga).
20
2) On this occasion the Jews, in whose keeping there are earnest money of Riga’s population of the
value of more than 100,000 Efimoks
11
, will go with their goods into the neighboring outlandish places
and there they will sell these goods and purchase the needed goods for export. And hence the
bargaining in Riga will completely vanish, and Riga’s merchants will remain with nothing, and thus the
great detriment will befall upon Your Imperial Majesty’s interests, and the great backlogs of those Jews
to the Riga’s merchants will be lost, and commerce might collapse completely, for they won’t be able to
sell the imported overseas goods. Thereof the Magistrate petitions to permit all the Jews, coming from
Poland and Lithuania to Riga with their goods and then returning abroad, to pass without detention, and
to cause for them no obstruction and barriers. Those Jews who arrive to Riga with goods will not live
there and will not be accommodated, and as soon as they sell their products and buy the necessary
returning
12
products, then without delay they will be released to go back. From the above indications it
is clearly seen that, if an admission for the Jews will be completely cut off in these and other frontier
areas where the seasonal commerce at the fair-markets between Russia’s merchants and the Jews take
place, then a great loss in the merchantry will occur not only to the loyal subjects of Your Imperial
Majesty, but also Your Imperial Majesty’s Supreme interests may suffer a considerable damage.
Thus the Senate humbly dares to bring this opinion to Your Imperial Majesty, and asks whether Your
Imperial Majesty would deign to most Graciously permit: for the sake of the distribution of commerce
and augmentation of Your Imperial Majesty’s Supreme interests, and for the sake of the loyal subjects
of Your Imperial Majesty, merchants of Riga, and Little Russia, and other frontier territories, on which
the trade with Jews takes place – to benefit from them and let them with their merchandise into the
Little Russia and the Slobodsky (Suburban Cossack) Regiments, as well as to Riga and other border
areas, for the only reason of merchant business during the market-fairs. Most certainly as soon as they
sell out their products at the markets and purchase other goods for export - by the force of Your
Imperial Majesty’s decree of the past year of 1742, of the 2
nd
day of December – they shall be driven
abroad, and dealt with according to that very Supreme decree from Your Imperial Majesty; and by no
means shall they be allowed to settle anywhere for any time-period, and nobody shall give them
quarters; and the local commanders must strictly watch after and insure that. Inasmuch as by the
resolute provisions/points of the Supreme Privy Council
13
, given in the year of 1728 *) to Hetman
Apostol, among other things, according to the 14th point - the Jews were allowed access to the
market-fairs in the Little Russia, and they were ordered to sell wholesale, but not the retail by elbows
14
and pounds, and to spend the proceeds from the sales to buy more goods, and yet the money, gold and
silver, they were prohibited to take out from the Little Russia abroad, and in Russia Minor kopecks and
other coins with the Russia’s coat of arms they were forbidden to export.
21
And the orders were given to look strictly after them. And likewise the Jews were prohibited from
settling, and no one was allowed to accommodate them in the Little Russian according to the Named
(personal) decree from the year of 740 *), issued by the blessed in memory Empress Anna Ioannovna,
though the Jews were allowed to come to the market-fairs for the trading business by the provision of
the decree of the year of 728. And upon these matters the Senate is humbly asking Your Imperial
Majesty's the most Merciful resolution.
Resolution. [made and signed by the Empress]:
I do not want interest earnings from Christ's enemies.
(P. P. S. Z. т. XI, № 8,840).
1.Duty/Tax collectors
2.Nizhyn – (Polish: Nieżyn) is a city located in the Chernihiv Oblast (province) of northern
Ukraine. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizhyn
3.Wójt - from Landvogt, German - Vogt, (from vocatus, Lat. - advocatus). Here – the Head of the
Magistrate.
4.Индукта - Inductance - fees charged in the Russian Empire for the goods imported to Ukraine.
5.Duty/Tax collectors
6.Лифля
яндская губеярния (нем. Gouvernement Livland)- i.e. The Governorate of Livonia
(Russian: Лифляндская губерния, Liflyandskaya guberniya (meaning Livonia province).
7. Регирунгс-канцелярия (немецкая канцелярия) – German Regirung-Office Regirung-
Chancellery – was an executive - regulatory and supervisory authority of the local Livonian
nobility.
8.Count Peter von Lacy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lacy
9.Пан - Pan - a feudal lord in Poland, Czech, Belarus and Ukraine; literally means "master".
10.Factors - intermediary sales agents.
11."Efimky/Efimok" (Ефимок/Ефимки) - coins made from silver Thalers -
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefimok
12.“Ретурные товары” – “returning goods” for export.
13.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Privy_Council
14.Elbow – Локоть – an old measure of length, roughly was corresponding to the distance from the
elbow to the end of the elongated middle finger, close to English - half a yard. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ell
Translation by Anastasia Savenko-Moore and Rick Moore, Eugene OR.
Funded by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture NYC, http://mfjc.org/.
Copyright easteurotopo.org 2019.