[235] [This law laid the foundation for the division of the Russian Empire into "Governments," in Russian gubernia (the English term is a reproduction of the French gouvernement). The chief of a Government is called Governor, in Russian, Gubernator. There are also a few Governors-General, in Russian, Gheneral-Gubernator, placed over several Governments, mostly on the borders of the Empire.]
[236] [According to this new law, the city population is divided into merchants, burghers, and artisans. The burghers—in Russian (also in Polish, see above, p. [44], n. 2), myeshchanye—are placed below the merchants. The former are those possessing less than 500 rubels ($250); they have to pay the head-tax and are subject to corporal punishment. The merchants are those who have a larger capital, and are privileged in the two directions indicated. The artisans are organized in their trade-unions. Each estate is registered and administered separately.]
[238] It consisted of the Governments of Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversk (subsequently Poltava) and a part of the Government of Kiev.
[239] [The present Government of Kovno was constituted as late as 1872. Its territory was up till then included in the Government of Vilna.]
[240] This was in direct violation of the pledge given by the Russian Government at the occupation of the Polish provinces. As recently as in January of the same year (1795) the Lithuanian Governor-General Repnin had replied to the application of the Lithuanian Jews, who pleaded for the maintenance of the Kahal tribunal, that the Jews "may retain the same rights they had been enjoying prior to the last [Polish] mutiny [of 1794]."
[241] [Zhyd, originally the Slavic form of the Latin Judaeus, has assumed in Russian a derogatory connotation. It is interesting to note that in Polish the same word has no unpleasant meaning, although in polite speech other terms are used.]
[242] [See p. [253], n. 1; for "propination" see p. [67], n. 2.]
[243] Dyerzhavin's statement, that he had "borrowed his principal ideas from Prussian institutions," refers in all likelihood to the well-known Prussian Juden-Reglement für Süd- und-Neuostpreussen of 1797, which was at that time operative in the whole of Prussian Poland. There are numerous points of contact between Dyerzhavin's project and the Prussian enactment. The latter may be found in the work of Rönne and Simon, Verhältnisse der Juden in den sämmtlichen Landestheilen des preussischen Staates, ed. 1843, pp. 281-302.
[244] This is the way Dyerzhavin spells the word Synhedrion, or Sanhedrin, which he evidently had picked up casually.