Our Notes & References
First edition of the first extensive study of the condition of the Jewish population in Russian tsarist schools and universities. A detailed, scientific work, with telling statistical graphs, and an unusual voice against antisemitism in a state famous for its discriminative measures against Jews, including the ‘Pale of Settlement’.
Born in Minsk to a family of a Jewish entrepreneur, Solomon Pozner (1876–1946) became a prominent member of the Jewish community in Russia, being affiliated to the the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society and one of the leaders of the Society against Anti-Semitism in Petrograd. He edited and published works on a wide range of topics, but this Jews in General School may well have been his most detailed and scientific book upon publication.
Pozner takes first a historical approach, starting with Catherine the Great’s establishment of national schools and the right of Jews to study there along with the others. He continues with a broad overview and analysis of the following educational reforms in the Russian Empire, up to his times until Nicholas II.
Among various restrictive regulations, Pozner criticises especially the percentage rate, or Jewish quota, which only allowed a limited percentage of Jewish students into schools and universities. To prove his point, Pozner makes extensive use of statistics, international examples and moral, social and political considerations, including the rise of bribery and school closures because of lack of students. Pozner finally shows rather convincingly the necessity of equal rights for Jewish students in the Russian Empire, for the people and the nation alike.
The book ends with an extensive bibliography and with annexes with fascinating statistical graphs and many officials decrees related to Jews.
Among his many activities, Pozner had also co-founded in 1907 this ‘Razum’ publishing house (meaning ‘reason’, as in ‘reasonable’) as a specialised publisher for works on the history and current conditions of Jews in Russia and Europe. A stated aim for ‘Razum’ was to help the Russian society to go beyond antisemitic beliefs.
In 1921 Pozner emigrated to Paris, where he continued to engage in literary and public activities, and he sustained an important correspondence with the prominent Russian statesman Pavel Miliukov. During World War II, he was forced to hide in the south of France. His son Vladimir Pozner (1905–92) became a noted French writer.
A scarce work: although copies can be found in public institutions, we couldn’t trace any copy at auction or on the market outside Russia.
Provenance
Avenir Nizoff (a pianist, who lived in Edmonton, Canada, in the second half of the 20th century, and gathered a large, wide-ranging library of Russian works, especially covering art, history and literature; the binding is probably his own).
Bibliography
Pozner, Solomon Vladimirovich (Stellin) // Brockhaus and Efron Jewish Encyclopedic Dictionary. vol.12, pp. 665–666; Pozner, Solomon Vladimirovich // Kelner V.E. / Great Russian Encyclopedia; Pozner, Solomon Vladimirovich // Russian Jewish Encyclopedia; Latest connections (Letters of P. N. Miliukov to S. V. Pozner). Text editing by O. R. Demidova. Introduction and commentaries by О O. R. Demidova and V. E. Kelner // Diaspora: New materials. Saint-Petersburg, 2005. №7; Kelner V. E. Publishing activity of S. V. Posner and some aspects of public life in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century // Kelner V. E. Essays on the history of the Russian-Jewish book business in the second half of the 19th – Early XX century. Saint-Petersburg, 2003. P. 97–112.
Item number
2859