Russian scientist publishes history of pogroms

By · August 17, 2007

A scientist from the Russian Academy of Sciences has completed a 1,000-page history of anti-Semitic violence.

“The Book of Pogroms” by Lidia Milyakova details the bloody massacres that were widespread in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus during the three-year Civil War that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and continued during the early years of the new Soviet state.

Milyakova spent six years working on the book. The only funding she received was a $500 grant from a publishing house.

She pored through official and unofficial documents, including more than 360 reports made between 1918 to 1923 by the so-called “Central Committee for Assisting Victims of the Programs,” which she located in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The documents report that 200,000 Jews suffered during the Civil War and its aftermath.

The book proves that nearly all the forces fighting in Russia’s Civil War held anti-Semitic attitudes, from the pro-Monarchy White Guards to the Bolsheviks, and a wide assortment of local paramilitary and separatist groups.

“Common people in hard times often look unconsciously for a scapegoat,” she says. “Jews are the perfect target because of their visible distinction and absolute vulnerability.”

This week, Milyakova was thanked for her book by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem.

Five hundred copies were printed.