FOOTNOTES:
[268] [In Russian, Tzarstvo Polskoye. The names Congress-Poland and Russian Poland are also frequently used.]
[269] The statistics of the period are far from being accurate. They are nevertheless nearer the truth than those of the preceding age. The official "revisions" of 1816-1819 brought out the fact that a large number of Jews had not been entered on the lists, and the Government took severe measures against those evading the census. Relying upon official information, Jost (see his Neuere Geschichte der Israeliten, ii. 122) computed, in 1845, the total number of Jews in Russia, including those of the Kingdom of Poland, at 1,600,000, but he was careful to point out that, in his opinion, the actual number of Jews was considerably larger.
[272] [Alexis Arakcheyev (b. 1769) had been prominent in Russian military affairs under Paul and Alexander, and had attained to fame on account of his iron discipline. Beginning with 1814, he gradually gained the complete confidence and friendship of Alexander. He died in 1834.]
[273] It was written in French, under the title Mémoires (sic!) sur l'état des Israélites.
[274] According to subsequent accounts the date was 1806.
[275] [In the original, Zhydovskaya, adjective derived from Zhyd. See p. [320], n. 2.]
[276] [A town in the Government of St. Petersburg.]
[277] [Police inspector.]
[278] [See next note.]
[279] [In Russian, Dyekabristy, the name by which the revolutionaries of that period are generally designated. They first organized themselves into a secret league consisting of Russian army officers in the latter part of Alexander I.'s reign. Their open revolt took place in December (hence the name), 1825, immediately after the accession of Nicholas I. The league was divided into a "Northern Society," led by Nikita Muravyov, and a "Southern Society," of which Paul Pestel was the head. The latter wrote "The Russian Truth," a work in which he expounded the revolutionary program.]
[280] Pestel evidently has in mind the Tzaddiks, whom he had occasion to observe specifically in Tulchyn, his Podolian place of residence, and more generally in the territory controlled by the "Southern Society."
[281] It has been conjectured that Pestel was influenced by his fellow-Decembrist Gregory Peretz, a son of the converted tax-farmer Abraham Peretz in St. Petersburg (see p. [333] and p. [388]). Peretz advocated on numerous occasions the necessity of organizing a society for the purpose of liberating the scattered Jews and settling them in the Crimea or in the Orient, "in the shape of a separate nationality."