The meaning of the words: Pogrom

Pogrom

It refers to a popular anti-Semitic movement encouraged or tolerated by the authorities and accompanied by looting and massacres, and by extension a violent uprising against a Jewish community. (Robert Historique, 1903)

The word pogrom appeared in everyday language around the 1880s, following a series of anti-Semitic acts of violence in Russia after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.

Today, the term pogrom can sometimes be used to refer to violent attacks against other minorities within a country, unlike the term genocide.

Although the word is of Russian origin and generally reserved for anti-Semitic massacres and looting, it has become universal to describe violence against minorities.

However, the term pogrom does not have a precise legal definition, unlike concepts such as genocide which is clearly defined in international law.

  • An untargeted act of violence. It targets a particular group, often an ethnic or religious minority.
  • A simple political opposition that is directed against the authority or institutions in place, often for economic or political reasons.
  • The pogrom of Valentine’s Day: on 14 February 1349, 2,000 Jewish inhabitants were burned alive in Strasbourg, wrongly accused of having poisoned the wells and provoked the Black Death. This massacre practically annihilated the Jewish community of Strasbourg and became one of the first documented pogroms in Western Europe.
  • Pogroms of 1881-1884: in reaction to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, a series of pogroms broke out in the Russian Empire, notably in Ukraine and Poland.
  • Pogroms of 1903-1906: this wave of pogroms intensified in cities like Kisinev, where extreme violence caused the death of many people.
  • The Kristallnacht, from 9 to 10 November 1938, was a pogrom organized by the Nazi regime during which about one hundred Jews were murdered, synagogues burned down, Jewish businesses and homes destroyed, and about 30,000 people were deported to concentration camps.
  • The pogrom of Kielce (Poland, 1946): after the end of the Second World War, rumors of child abductions by Jews led to a wave of violence in the town of Kielce, Poland. 42 Jews were killed, marking a moment of anti-Semitism after the Holocaust.

Discover the meaning of words