21st Century Samizdat

http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/banned-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-two-...

Two Hundred Years Together (Rus. Двести лет вместе, Dvesti let vmeste) is a two-volume historical essay by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), perhaps known best for his seminal work The Gulag Archipelago (Russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, Arkhipelag GULAG).

Although partial English translation of some excerpts may be found in The Solzhenitsyn Reader - oddly Solzhenitsyn's last work has not been translated and published in English by any notable Western publishing house.

It is reminiscent of the censorship The Gulag Archipelago faced in the Soviet Union -  such that the samizdat manuscript was smuggled out and published in the West, where it sold 30 million copies and was printed in 35 languages.

Strange given the Russian dissident was a highly respected writer and recipient of the 1970 Nobel prize in literature.

Or is it?

Two Hundred Years Together deals with the Jewish role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Soviet purges.

Read it for yourself, evaluate and make up your own mind:

https://archive.org/details/Solzhenitsyn200YearsTogether

https://archive.org/download/Solzhenitsyn200YearsTogether/Solzhenit...

http://mailstar.net/Solzhenitsyn-200YT.pdf

It covers the Bolshevik period except for Chapter 15, which is not fully translated.

http://mailstar.net/Solzhenitsyn-200YT.html

---

Solzhenitsyn makes reference to The Red Terror In Russia 1918-1923 by S. P. Melgunov.

You can find the English translation by C.J. Hogarth in the PDF format here:

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/redterrorinrussia.pdf

---

200 Years Together: Russo-Jewish History, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Peter Myers, January 12, 2114; update January 14, 2014.

http://mailstar.net/Solzhenitsyn-200YT.html

My comments are shown {thus}; write to me at contact.html.

You are at http://mailstar.net/Solzhenitsyn-200YT.html.

(1) Banned All Over Again
(2) Unofficial English Translation - only on the Internet
(3) Chapter 15 - first part
(4) Links for Translated Chapters - Volume 1
(4) Links for Translated Chapters - Volume 1
(5) Links for Translated Chapters - Volume 2
(6) The word "Moslem" - in the German version but not the Russian or French versions

(1) Banned All Over Again

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote that he had been "convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag Archipelago, which sold 30 million copies in 35 languages, never was published in the Soviet Union. Despite KGB attempts to confiscate it, the manuscript was smuggled out and published in the West. Now, it is mandatory reading in Russian schools.

But Solzhenitsyn's last and greatest book - freely available in Russia - is facing the same censorship in the West that The Gulag Archipelago faced in the Soviet Union. That's because it deals with the Jews - specifically, their role in the Bolshevik Revolution.

The above Wikipedia webpage on Alexander Solzhenitsyn includes this statement:

"Solzhenitsyn also published a two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations (Two Hundred Years Together 2001, 2002). Never published in the USA, this book stirred controversy and caused Solzhenitsyn to be accused of anti-Semitism."

Solzhenitsyn's book on the Jews was published in Russian in 2001/2. Since then, German and French editions have been published, but no English-language edition.

The Guardian reviewed the Russian edition:

Solzhenitsyn breaks last taboo of the revolution
Nobel laureate under fire for new book on the role of Jews in Soviet-era repression

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
The Guardian, Saturday 25 January 2003 21.32 AEST
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/25/russia.books.

Amazon sells the Russian edition: http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Together-Complete-Edition-Volumes/dp/....

It has no Editorial Reviews, only Customer Reviews. Of them:

Chuckyarla wrote "It is both sad and a travesty that we cannot read this book in english. Who says that we have freedom of speech".

Edmund P. Leigh "Chief Aerospace Engineer" (Warner Robins, GA) wrote:

{quote}
[...] The Gulag Archipalego is now required reading for all Russian high school students. Quite an accolade along with winning the Nobel Prize for literature in the 1970's. So why do we not have an english translation from Russia's great writer on this book ? [...] Later in the early 20th centuary it does appear that there was disproportionate amount of leadership that was jewish in the communist top echelons in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. [...] It also appears that many of the commisars in the communist revolution were disproportionately jewish. Since the jews were only 4 % of the Russian population out of 180 M this was obvious to many during the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923 because the jews spoke Russian often with a yiddish accent and this gained noticed. Also in general terms jewish and russian facial and hair features (russians tend to be blond) and mannerism are different as you would expect from two different cultures. It appears the the "Reds" attracted the jews and the communist revolutionaries were able to trust the jews for key roles such as the execution of the Czar and his familiy. [...] Today in present day Russia there are only about 200,000 Jews remaining whereas in 1917 there were about 7 M. Hence we have the title of Solzhenitsyn's book. ...
{endquote}

Jan Wlochowski wrote "The discussion of the Jewish Question ( his own words) probably keeps it from being published in English-how sad."

John A. Bertenshaw wrote:

{quote}
I haven't read the book but came here after reading that the English version had been inexplicably banned in the West and thought I'd come to Amazon to see if this were true. Indeed, it seems it is. Interesting that there are 4 reviews praising the book from this Nobel prize winning author - particularly in regards to the research and documentation involved - and 1 giving the absolute lowest score possible. That reviewer even suggesting the author had somehow lost his mind! My interest was piqued. I did a little digging and found that the 1 star reviewer gave a mighty 4 stars to a book about MOSSAD which she says she already knew quite a bit about. Any further comment would be superfluous.
{endquote}

Solzhenitsyn was never a Nazi or Nazi supporter. On the contrary, during World War II he was a Commander in the Soviet Army which conquered East Germany. A letter he wrote, criticising Stalin, was intercepted and opened by the Secret Police, and led to him being sentenced to eight years in the Gulag, after which he was sent to internal exile. During his imprisonment, exile, and treatment for cancer, Solzhenitsyn abandoned Marxism, returned to spiritual values, and repented of some of the things he had done in the Army.

Khrushchev freed Solzhenitsyn in 1956, after delivering his Secret Speech against Stalin; he also allowed the publication, in the USSR, of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. But after Brezhnev ousted Krushchev in 1964, repression returned. Solzhenitsyn was charged with Treason, and deported - saved by his high profile.

Gorbachev pardoned Sakharov - a fellow One Worlder like himself - but never pardoned Solzhenitsyn. Treason charges against Solzhenitsyn were only dropped in September 1991, after Gorbachev had fallen in August 1991: convergence.html. The New York Times reported:

Soviets Drop Solzhenitsyn Treason Charges
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL Published: September 18, 1991
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/18/world/the-soviet-transition-sovie....

The Gulag Archipelago was fiercely criticised in the Soviet press, even though the book was never published there. Similarly, if you study the Wikipedia webpage on Solzhenitsyn, you will note similar fierce attacks on him in the United States, even though his 200YT has never been published there.

Solzhenitsyn was no apologist for Capitalism. He deplored the destruction of the Russian economy after the fall of Communism, and urged the West to turn from decadence and materialism back to spiritual values.

He is a prophet for our times.

Reader, we are like the samizdat during Soviet times. Do your part: download the pdf file (below) and spread it around. Beat the censorship of this book.

(2) Unofficial English Translation - only on the Internet

An unofficial English translation is, however, available for most of the book - on the Internet, HERE, on this website.

The book comprises two volumes - Volume 1 covers up to 1917, and Volume 2 covers the Soviet period beginning in 1917.

200 Years Together: Russo-Jewish History

by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Volume 1. The Jews Before the Revolution
Volume 2. The Jews in the Soviet Union

Volume 2 is complete, except for Chapter 15, which deals with the October (Bolshevik) Revolution, up to the Civil War. A translation of the first - and most important - part of Chapter 15 is, however available - BELOW.

A pdf file comprising Volume 2 (except for Chapter 15), and some Chapters of Volume 1, is available for download here: Solzhenitsyn-200YT.pdf

The absolute address is http://mailstar.net/Solzhenitsyn-200YT.pdf

Please report any difficulties you have downloading it, to me at contact.html.

The entire text of both volumes was available online in Russian. The Russian text of Chapter 15 is at http://web.archive.org/web/20030205210434/http://sila.by.ru/15.htm

Any translator competent and willing to do Chapter 15, and/or other missing chapters is welcome to contact me.

(3) Chapter 15 - first part

NB The word "otshchepentsy" means "renegades".

Chapter 15 -- THE BOLSHEVIKS

This is not a new theme: the Jewish role in Bolshevism. On it, much has already been written. Those who try to prove that the revolution was non- Russian indicate the Jewish names and pseudonyms in an attempt to remove from the Russian people the blame of the revolution of 1917. But Jews, who began by similarly denying the role of Jews in positions Bolshevik authority, have now been forced to admit participation, but claim that those Jews were not Jews in spirit, but otshchepentsy[?].

Let us agree with this statement and admit we are unable to judge people's spirits. Yes, these were otshchepentsy .

However, by that logic, the leading Russian Bolsheviks were also not Russians in spirit, but were frequently both anti-Russian and anti-Orthodox, and in their minds Russian culture was refracted through the lenses of political doctrines and calcuations.

But a question is raised: How much evidence must there be of the participation of random otshchepentsev before acknowledges a pattern that defies random distribution? What fraction of the Jewish nation is required? We know about the Russian otshchepentsakh: the depressing number that joined the Bolsheviks -- an unpardonable number. But how widely and actively did Jews participate in strengthening Bolshevik authority?

And another question: what was the reaction of each group's people to its otshchepentsam. The reactions of people to otshchepentsev can be different -- they can curse them or praise them, ostracize them or join them. And the manifestations of this -- the reactions of the masses of the people, whether Russian, Jewish or Latvian -- have been given very little consideration by historians.

The question is one of whether the people renounced their otshchepentsev, and whether the renunciation that did occur reflected the sense of the people. Did a people choose to remember or not to remember it otshchepentsev? In answer to this question, there must not be doubt: The Jews choose to remember. Not just to remember the individual people, but to remember them as Jews, so that their names may never disappear.

There is perhaps no more clear example of otshchepentsa than Lenin: one cannot fail to recognize Lenin as Russian. To Lenin Russian antiquity was disgusting and loathsome; in all of Russian History he eems only to have mastered Chernishevsky and Saltykov-Schedrin. Yes, he frolicked with the liberal views of Turgenev and Tolstoy. But in him there appeared no attachment even to the Volga, where he passed his youth. To the contrary, he pitilessly brought terrifying hunger there in 1921. Everything with him was thus -- everything Russian among which he grew generated inside him hatred. That Orthodox faith in which he could have grown, he strove instead to weaken and destroy. Even in youth he was otshchepenets. But nevertheless he was Russian, and we Russians must accept criticism for it. But if we speak of the ethnic origin of Lenin, we must not change our method of judgement, when we recognize that he was a cross-breed of the most different bloodlines: his grandfather according to the father, Nikolai Vasilyevich, was of the blood of a Kalmik woman Anna Alekseyevna Smirnova; another grandfather Israel [baptised Aleksandr] Davidovich was a Jew; another grandmother, Anna Iogannovna (Ivanovna) Grosshopf,the daughter of a German and a Swede. But all of this cross-breeding does not give us the right to reject him as a Russian. We must accept him as a creation completely Russian since his national character -- that which infused his spirit -- was intertwined with the history of the Russian Empire. But to the creations of Russia, that country which erected us, and its culture, his was a spirit alienated and at times sharply anti-Russian, but nevertheless we can in no way renonuce him.

But the Jewish otshchepentsa? As we saw, in 1917, the Jews had not all been drawn to Bolshevism. Instead, they had been drawn to a myriad of revolutionary movements. at the last conference of the RSDRP -- the RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC WORKER'S PARTY (London 1907) -- the Mensheviks -- of the 302- 305 delegates the number of Jews exceeded 160, i.e., more than half. As a result of the April conference of 1917, among 9 members of the new Central Committee of the Bolsheviks we see G. Zinoviev, L Kameneva, and Sverdlova. In the summer of the congress of the rKPb (renamed from the RSDRP) to the TSCK there were 11 members, among them Zinovev, Sverdlov, Sokolniks, Trotsky, and Uritsky. Then, on 10 October 1917, in the apartment of Gimmera and Flakserman, where the decision was made about the Bolshevik Revolution, among the 12 participants were Trotsky, Zinovev, Sverdlov, Uritskiy, Sokolniks [and one other Jewish name the translator won't give us properly]. And who was chosen first for the Politburo? Of its seven members: Trotsky, Zinoviev, [another Jewish name], Sokolniks. That is in no way a small proportion. There can be no doubt -- Jewish otshchepentsy were present in the Bolshevik leadership in great disproportion to their numbers in the population -- and they comprised too many of the Bolshevik commissars for a relationship to be denied.

It can be certain that the Jewish leadership of Bolshevism was not completely monolithic. Even the Jews in the Politburo did not act as a Bloc. Some were against the revolution, believing that it was not the proper moment. Then, already, Trotsky was the autocratic genius of the October revolution; he did not exaggerate his role in his writings on the subject. Lenin hid himself in a cowardly manner and played no essential role until after the revolution had been complete.

Generally, Lenin was guided by a spirit of internationalism, and even in his dispute with the bund in 1903, he adhered to the view nationalism did not exist and must not exist, and that the question of nationalism divided revolutionary from reactionary socialism. (In harmony with this view Stalin declared that the Jews were a nation and thus prophecied their eventual assimilation.) Accordingly, Lenin considered anti-Semitism to be a tactic of capitalism, and saw in it not an organic expression of the will of the people but a convienient method of counterrevolution. But Lenin also understoof what a powerful mobilizing force the Jewish question was in the ideological fight. He also saw to it that the special bitterness of the Jews to the Tsar was prepared for us in the Revolution.

However, from the first days of the revolution Lenin found it necessary to consider how the Jewish question would eventually be addressed. Like much he did not forsee in state questions, he did not see how the formation of Jewish power within the Bolsheviks would lead the Jews, as a result of war scattered throughout Russia, to take control of the apparatus of the Russian state during the decisive months and years -- a process that began with the replacements that occurred after the Bolshevik mass strike against Russian clerks. That strike was organized by the Jewish settlers in the Russian frontier and border regions, who did not return to their relatives after the war.

But the liquidation of permanent residency in 1917 particularly resulted in the great dispersion of Jews from the urban centers inside Russia, no longer as refugees and settlers, but as migrants. Soviet information in 1920 states that to Samara alone ten thousands Jews has settled in recent years, in Irkutsk, the Jewish population grew to fifteen thousand. Large Jewish settlements were formed in central Russia and the Urals. This was performed in large part by Jewish social security agencies and philanthropic organizations.

A small pile of Bolsheviks having now come to power and taken authority, their control was still brittle: Whom could they trust in the government? Whom could they call to aid? The seeds of the answer lay in the creation in January 1918 of a special people's commissariat from the members of the Jewish commissariat, whose reason was expressed in Lenin's thought: The Bolshevik service in the revolution was possible because of the role of the large Jewish intelligentsia in several Russia cities. These Jews engaged in general sabotage, which was directed against Russians after the October Revolution and which has been extremely effective. Jewish elements, though certainly not the entirety of the Jewish people, saved the Bolshevik Revolution through these acts of sabotage. Lenin took this into consideration, and emphasized it in the press ... and he recognized that to master the state appartus he could succeed only because of this reserve of literate and more or less intelligent, sober and new clerks.

Thus the Bolsheviks, from the first days of their authority, called upon the Jews to assume the bureaucratic work of the Soviet apparatus -- and many, many Jews answered that call. They, in fact, responded immediately. The sharp need of the Bolsheviks for bureaucrats to exercise their authority met great enthusiam among young Jews, pell-mell with the Slav and international brethren. And this was in no way compulsory for these Jews, who were non- party members, and who had been previously completely non revolutionary and apolitical. This phenomenon was not ideological but a phenomenon of mass calculation by the Jews. And the Jews in the previously forbidden and cherished rural provinces and their capitals gushed out of their ghettos to join the Bolsheviks, seeing in them the most decisive defenders of the revolution and the most reliable internationalists, and these Jews flooded and abounded in the lower layers of the party structure.

To every man who was not a member of the nobility, a priest or a Tsarist bureaucrat the promises of the new clan were extended. And to encourage Jewish participation, the Bolsheviks organized in St Petersburg the Jewish division of the nationalities commissariat. In 1918 it was converted into a separate comissariat of its own. And in March 1919, in the eighth congress of the rKPb, with the proclamation of the Communist Union of Soviet Russia, it was made into an organic and special part of the rKPb, in order to integrate it into the Communist Internationale, and it a special Jewish section was created in the Russian Telegraphic Agency.

The statements made by Shub that Jewish young people joined the communist party in response to anti-Semitic pogroms conducted in White-controlled areas in 1919 has no basis in reality. The mass inflow of Jews into the Soviet apparatus occurred in 1917 and 1918. There is no doubt that the pogroms of 1919 strengthened the allegiance of Jews to the communist party, but it in no way created it. ...

Rarely do authors deny the role of Jews in Bolshevism. While it is true that the appearance of Bolshevism was the result of the special features of Russian history the organization of Bolshevism was created through the activity of Jewish commissars. The dynamic role of Jews in Bolshevism was estimated by contemporary observers in America. The transfer of the Russian Revolution from the destructive phase into the building phase was seen as an expression of the ability of the Jews to build elaborate systems based on their dissatisfactions. And after the successes of October, how many Jews themselves spoke about their role in Bolshevism with their heads held high!

Let us recall that how, before the revolution, revolutionaries and radical- liberals were willing to oppose the restraints placed upon the Jews not out of love for the Jews, but for political purposes. So in the first months and years after the October Revolution the Bolsheviks made a great effort to hunt down Jews for use in the state and party apparati, not out of affinity for the Jewish people, but for the abilities they combined with their alienation and hatred of the Russian population. In this manner they also approached the Latvians, the Hungarians and the Chinese.

Though the mass of the Jewish population initially viewed the Bolsheviks with alarm, thought not hostility, after finding that the revolution granted them complete freedom, and that it welcomed a bloom of Jewish activity in the public, political and cultural spheres, the Jewish population threw themselves into Bolshevism; and Bolshevik authority particularly attracted those whose character held a surplus of cruelty.

The question then emerges of when Communist authority spread from Russia, and came to engulf world Judaism. The stormy participation of Jews in the Communist revolution drew cautious statements of concerns about world Jewry that were quieted, their evidence concealed, by communist and Jews worldwide, who attempted to silence it by denouncing it as extreme anti-Semitism.

After 70 or 80 years has passed, and under the pressure of many facts and discoveries, the view of Jewish involvement in the revolutionary years had opened slightly. And already many Jewish voices have been to discuss this publicly. For example, the Poet Naum Korzhavin has noted that along as it is "taboo" to speak of the participation of the Jews in Bolshevism, it will be impossible to properly discuss the revolutionary period. There are even times now when Jews are proud of their participation -- when Jews have said that they did participate in the revolution, and in disproportionately large numbers. M Argusky has noted that Jews involved in the revolution and the civil war was not limited to the revolutionary period but also continued in their considerable and widespread involvement in running the state apparatus. Israeli socialist S. Tsiryul'nikov has stated that from the beginning of the revolution Jews served as the basis of the new communist regime.

But most Jewish authors, today still deny the contribution of Jews to Bolshevism, sweeping the evidence aside with anger, or, more frequently, with reference to the pain such evidence causes them.

But despite their pain there is no doubt that these Jewish otshchepentsy for several years after the revolution dominated Bolshevism, headed the belligerent Red Army (Trotsky), the ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTE (Sverdlov), ran both capitals (Zinoviev), the Komintern (Zinoviev), the Profintern / Red Trade Union International (Dridzo-Lozovskiy) and the Komsomol (Oscar Ryvkin, after it Lazarus Shatskin, the very same and in the chapter of the Communist international of young people).

In the first council of People's Commissars there was, true, only one Jew, but the influence of this one Jews, Trotsky, Lenin's second, exceeded that of all the rest. And from November 1917 through 1918 the real government was not the Council of Peoples' Commissars but the in the so-called "Malyy"[?] Council of People's Commissars: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Karelin, Prosh'yan. After October, of no less importance that the Council of People's Commisars, was the presidium of VCTscIcK, the ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. Among its six chairman: Sverdlov, [unintelligible Jewish name], Volodarsky, and Glass.

M. Agursky correctly notes that in the country, where one was not accustomed to seeing Jews,the ascension of the Jews to power was particualrly striking: The President of the country, a Jew? The War Minister, a Jew? There was something to this, so radical that the population of Russia could not adjust to it -- not only because of their Judaism, but because of what they as Jews stood for.

(4) Links for Translated Chapters - Volume 1

Volume 1. The Jews Before the Revolution

Chapter 1: Before the 19th century
Chapter 2: During the reign of Alexander I
Chapter 3: During the reign of Nicholas I

Chapter 4: During the period of reforms
https://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/chapter-4-in-the-...

Chap 5: After the murder of Alexander II
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-5-after-th...

Chap 6: In the Russian revolutionary movement
Chap 7: The birth of Zionism
Chap 8: At the turn of the 20th century
Chap 9: During the Revolution of 1905
Chap 10: During the period of Duma
Chap 11: The Jewish and Russian national consciousness prior to the World War I
Chap 12: During WWI (1914-1916)

(5) Links for Translated Chapters - Volume 2

Volume 2. The Jews in the Soviet Union

Introduction

Chapter 13: The February Revolution
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-13-the-feb...

Chapter 14: During 1917
https://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/chapter-14-during...

Chapter 15: Among Bolsheviks - only partly translated - see above

Chapter 16: During the Civil War
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-16-during-...

Chapter 17: Emigration between the two World Wars
https://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/chapter-17-emigra...

Chapter 18: In the 1920s
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-18-during-...

Chapter 19: In the 1930s
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/chapter-19-in-the-...

Chapter 20: In the camps of GULag
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-20-in-the-...

Chapter 21: During the Soviet-German War
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-21-during-...

Chapter 22: From the end of the war to StalinÕs death
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-22-from-th...

Chapter 23: Before the Six-Day War
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-23-before-...

Chapter 24: Breaking away from Bolshevism
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-24-breakin...

Chapter 25: Accusing Russia
https://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/chapter-25-accusi...

Chapter 26: The beginning of Exodus
https://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/chapter-25-the-ex...

Chapter 27: About the assimilation. Author's afterword
http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/chapter-27-about-t...

(6) The word "Moslem" - in the German version but not the Russian or French versions

From: "Saleh Elkmeshi" <selkmeshi@gmail.com> Subject: RE: Solzhenitsyn - Banned All Over Again Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 20:59:17 +0100

Dear Peter; I hope this finds YOU in the best of health.. I also hope you recollect me from years back, after this. I want to thank you for your Great work and conrtibution to enlightment... With all due respect..

I downloaded the 200YT book by Solzhenitsyn, and found the guy is out of foucos, or disorinted in the historical context of 13th century.. when Mosco was established.

He mixes between Jewish and Moslems and claims the Moslems bought from Tatars (Moslems) the �pricipalit rights to levy Tribute� ?? Or dose he mean the Keiv Jewish ?? who bought those rights from the Tatars? Thank you and happy lunatic birth of the Prophet Mohamed� hearing all kind of fireworks around me in Tripoli.

{quote - from 200YT}
The invasion of the Tatars portended the end of the lively commerce of the Kiev Rus, and many Jews apparently went to Poland. (Also the jewish colonization into Volhynia and Galicia continued, where they had scarcely suffered from the Tatar invasion.) The Encyclopedia explains: �During the invasion of the Tatars (1239) which destroyed Kiev, the Jews also suffered, but in the second half of the 13th century they were invited by the Grand Princes to resettle in Kiev, which found itself under the domination of the Tatars. On account of the special rights, which were also granted the Jews in other possessions of the Tatars, envy was stirred up in the town residents against the Kiev Jews.� Similar happened not only in Kiev, but also in the cities of North Russia, which �under the Tatar rule, were accessible for many [Moslem? see note 1] merchants from Khoresm or Khiva, who were long since experienced in trade and the tricks of profit-seeking. These people bought from the Tatars the principality�s right to levy Tribute, they demanded excessive interest from poor people and, in case of their failure to pay, declared the debtors to be their slaves, and took away their freedom. The residents of Vladimir, Suzdal, and Rostov finally lost their patience and rose up together at the pealing of the Bells against these usurers; a few were killed and the rest chased off.� A punitive expedition of the Khan against the mutineers was threatened, which however was hindered via the mediation of Alexander Nevsky. �In the documents of the 15th century, Kievite [G19] jewish tax-leasers are mentioned, who possessed a significant fortune.�

Note 1. The word �Moslem� is in the German but not French translation. I am researching the Russian original.
{endquote - from 200YT}

Best Regards Saleh M. Elkmeshi. ICT & MD Services. Tripoli - Libya.

Reply (Peter M.):

> hearing all kind of fireworks around me in Tripoli.

Are you sure they are not gunshots?

As for the word "Moslem" you refer to: this paragraph is from Chapter 1, p. 6 in the pdf.

You are right - the word "Moslem" should not be there. It's referring to Jews, not Moslems - that is, to Jewish Tax-farmers who paid the Tatars for the right to levy taxes from the people.

In another version of Chapter 1, there is this note (near the bottom of this page). I think that TJH is the translator:

{quote} Note 1. The word "Moslem" is in the German but not French translation. I am researching the Russian original. The word "Moslem" is not in the French version. It does not appear to be in the Russian either, though I am struggling to get every word in the Russian. When I succeed, I will make a final correction. Until then, I have added a footnote.

Comment by TJH � March 31, 2008 @ 8:00 pm

{endquote} http://200yearstogether.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/chapter-20-in-the-...

Write to me at contact.html.