The petition, which at bottom was directed not alone against the Jews, but also against the interests of the Russian consumer, who was exploited by the "real Russian" trade monopolists, found a sympathetic echo in Government circles. Accordingly, in the autumn of the same year, the Council of State, after considering the counter-petition of the Jews asking to be enrolled in the merchant corporations of Smolensk and Moscow, rendered the decision that it did not deem it expedient to grant the Jews the right of free commerce in the inner Russian provinces, because "their admission to it is not found to be of any benefit." A year later this verdict was reaffirmed by an Imperial ukase issued on December 23, 1791, to the effect that "the Jews have no right to enroll in the merchant corporations in the inner Russian cities or ports of entry, and are permitted to enjoy only the rights of townsmen and burghers of White Russia." To mitigate the severity of this measure the ukase "deemed it right to extend the said privilege beyond the White Russian Government, to the vice-royalty of Yekaterinoslav and the region of Tavrida," i. e. the recently annexed territory of New Russia, where the Government was anxious to populate the lonely steppes.
In this way the first territorial ghetto, that of White Russia, was established by law for the purpose of harboring the Jewish population taken over from Poland. When again, two years later, the second partition of Poland took place, the northwestern ghetto was increased by the neighboring Government of Minsk and the southwestern region—Volhynia with the greater part of the Kiev province and Podolia. The ukase of June 23, 1794, conferred upon this enlarged Pale of Settlement the sanction of the law. The Jews were granted the right "to engage in the occupations of merchants and burghers in the Governments of Minsk, Izyaslav (subsequently Volhynia), Bratzlav (Podolia), Polotzk (now Vitebsk), Moghilev, Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Yekaterinoslav, as well as in the region of Tavrida." The ukase thus enlarges the former pale of Jewish settlement by including Little Russia, or the portion of the Ukraina which had been wrested from Poland as far back as 1654,[238]—in short, the territory from which the Jews had been assiduously driven "beyond the border" in the reign of the three Empresses preceding Catherine. The organic connection of Little Russia with the portion of the Ukraina on the right bank of the Dnieper which had just been annexed from Poland, left the Russian Government no other choice than to allow the Jews who had lived in those parts from time immemorial to remain there. Even the holy city of Kiev opened its gates to the Jews. The Dnieper became thereby the central river of the Jewish Pale of Settlement.
The third partition of Poland, in 1795, added to the Dnieper system that of the Niemen, the territory of Lithuania, consisting of the Governments of Grodno and Vilna.[239] This completed the process of formation of the Pale of Settlement, at the end of the eighteenth century. As for Eastern Russia, she was just as vigilantly on her guard against the penetration of the Jewish element as she had been in the time of the ancient Muscovite Empire.
The same ukase of 1794, which circumscribed the area of the Jewish right of residence, laid down another fundamental discrimination, that of taxation. The Jews, desirous of enrolling themselves in the mercantile or burgher class in the cities, were to pay the instituted taxes "doubly in comparison with those imposed on the burghers and merchants of the Christian religion." Those Jews who refused to remain in the cities on these conditions were to leave the Russian Empire after paying a fine in the form of a double tax for three years. In this way the Government exacted from the Jews, for the privilege of remaining in their former places without the right of free transit in the Empire, taxes twice as large as those of the Christian townspeople enjoying the liberty of transit. This punitive tax did not relieve the Jews from the special military assessment, which, by the ukases of 1794 and 1796, they had to pay, like the Russian mercantile class in general, in exchange for the personal discharge of military service.
It is interesting to observe that at the solicitation of Count Zubov, the Governor-General of New Russia, the Karaites of the Government of Tavrida were released from the double tax. They were also granted permission to own estates, and were in general given equal rights with the Christian population, "on the understanding, however, that the community of Karaites should not be entered by the Jews known by the name of Rabins (Rabbanites), concerning whom the laws enacted by us are to be rigidly enforced" (ukase of June 8, 1795). Here the national-religious motive of the anti-Jewish legislation crops out unmistakably. The handful of Karaites, who had for centuries lived apart from the Jewish nation and its spiritual possessions, were declared to be more desirable citizens of the monarchy than the genuine Jews, who were on the contrary to be cowed by repressive measures.
A decided bent in favor of such measures is manifested in the ukase of 1795, which prescribes that the Jews living in villages be registered in the towns, and that "endeavors be made to transfer them to the District towns, so that these people may not wander about, but may rather engage in commerce and promote manufactures and handicrafts, thereby furthering their own interests as well as the interests of society." The effect of this ukase was to sanction by law the long-established arbitrary practice of the local authorities, who frequently expelled the Jews from the villages, and sent them to the towns under the pretext that Jews could be enrolled only among the townsfolk. The expelled families, deprived of all means of livelihood, were of course completely ruined, as the mere bidding of the authorities did not suffice to enable them "to engage in commerce and promote manufactures and handicrafts" in the towns in which even the resident merchants and artisans failed to make a living. The system of official tutelage had the effect of fettering instead of developing the economic activity of the Jews.
Experiments were now made to extend this tutelage to the communal self-government of the Jews. In 1795 the edict was repeated whereby the Government and District Kahals, in view of the right, conferred upon the Jews, of participating in the general city administration, in the magistracies and town councils, were to be deprived of their social and judicial functions, and not to be allowed "to concern themselves with any affairs except the ceremonies of religion and divine service."[240] As a matter of fact, the active participation of the Jews in the municipalities, owing to the hostile attitude of the Christian burghers, was extremely feeble. Yet, in the interest of the exchequer, the Kahals were preserved for fiscal purposes, and, on account of their financial usefulness, they continued to function as the organs of Jewish communal autonomy, however curtailed and disorganized the latter had now become.
In this wise the restrictive legislation against the Jews appears firmly established towards the end of the reign of Catherine II. A "Muscovite" wall had been raised between the west and east of Russia, and even within the circumscribed area of Jewish settlement the tendency was discernible to mark off a still smaller area and, by forcing the Jews out of the villages, to compress the Jewish masses in the towns and cities. It fell to the lot of the successors of Catherine to consolidate this tendency into law.
In conclusion, the historian cannot pass over in silence the solitary "reform" of this period. In the legislative enactments of the last decade of Catherine's reign the formerly current contemptuous appellation "Zhyd" gave way to the name "Hebrew" (Yevrey).[241] The Russian Government found it impossible to go beyond this verbal reform.