[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."