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Archiver > UKR-ODESSA-GEN > 2002-09 > 1031930959


From: "Karli or Jerry" <>
Subject: Re: [Ukr-Odessa-Gen] Khmelnitskiy meschanin
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 11:36:14 -0700
References: <LOBBLONNLFCLGCBBMKJKCEOMDHAA.gkhusidman@comcast.net>


Dear Odessits,

From time-to-time the meaning of "meshchanin" in the context of
pre-revolutionary Russia comes up; thus calling for repeated clarifications.
The last one I saw was posted a few months ago by Alan Shuchat, a member, as
I am, of both the Odessa and Tal'noye special-interest groups.

"Petty bourgeois" is strictly a Soviet-era meaning. It is inappropriate for
times prior to 1918. It is a term of derogation associated with official
Soviet ideology. Current Russian-English dictionaries give petty bourgeois
as a first meaning and "a person of narrow or petty interests" as a second.
One dictionary from 1930, which I own but can not lay my hands on at the
moment, places petty bourgeois as second, I recall.

Indeed, a four-volume, Russian-only, Academic Dictionary - the Soviet
equivalent of our Oxford Dictionary of the English Language (OED) and
published in 1983 - that I own, quotes literary sources such as Chekhov and
Gorky using meshchanin in a quasi-economic context. They talk about traders
in small towns and persons who charge too much for items.

It's true meaning during the period of Imperial Russia can be grasped
immediately upon reading a Tsarist international passport. The section,
stretching over two pages, stating at least the holder's name and social
class is tendered in Russian, German, and French. Where "meshchanin" appears
in Russian, its counterparts in German and French read, respectively,
"burger" and "bourgeois." There are no qualifying adjectives. It is clear
that the traditional European class assignment of townsman or town dweller
is intended.

Although I have never seen a social class description of a Jew other than
meshchanin (masculine) or meshchanka (feminine), I have seen it applied on
scores of international and internal passports, as well as birth records.
Over time, a pure late-medieval social classification evolved into one
connoting economic and intellectual derision. Funny, that it was applied to
virtually all Jews, and that nowadays retroactively defines Russian Jewry.

It is hard to imagine those millions of Jews - prohibited from subsistence
farming - who were compelled to reside in small towns and villages and who
survived by exercising their wits or by accepting charity - as artisans,
shopkeepers, and other mom-and-pop business operators. It is equally as
difficult to classify those legions who embraced intellectual enlightenment
or who at great personal peril founded or joined trade unions, revolutionary
organizations, or the Zionist movement as narrow-minded.

My mother's father was an itinerant peddler who on occasion guided those
seeking refuge from the Imperial regime across the international border into
Austria-Hungary. He carried his store on his back and was concerned with
global justice. That made him a narrow-minded shopkeeper?

Hardest of all is to accept persons such as Alan Shuchat's grandfather and
my grandmother who both were both rank-and-file workers in the same
tea-packing plant in Odessa, as any species of bourgeois. In my Baba Rosa's
case, she did 6 months in the Odessa Jail for being a strike leader and an
adherent of the Bol'sheviks during the Revolution of 1905. Her payoff was
ultimately being branded as "petty bourgeois" by the very faction whose
cause she furthered.

Simply put, during the Tsarist era a meshchanin was a town dweller. Almost
all Jews were classified in that wise. Then the Bol'sheviks redefined
meshchanin to mean petty bourgeois, just another way that they perpetuated
traditional Russian anti-Semitism. Unhappily, many professional researchers
as well as translators have been trapped by that.

With respect to Mr. Khusidman's question regarding "Khmelnitskiy
meshchanin", the Khmelnitskiy refers to the place where a forebear was
registered - in all likelihood the town of Khmel'nitskiy in the Western
Ukraine - and his social class assigned. Registrations were enrolled in
Revizkiye Skazki, which have come to be termed, somewhat inaccurately, as
Revision Lists. (The third definition of reviziya is revision, while numbers
one and two are inspection and audit.)

That entry stuck with each succeeding person unless and until he petitioned
for and was granted a change of registration. My Odessa-born grandfather was
a Shpikovskiy meshchanin since his father had been registered as such. (His
birth surname was Bratslavskiy, as was his father's, meaning a person from
Bratslav. This made sense since Shpikov is located about 10 miles west of
the Bratslav in the Ukraine. Grandpa Osip was an ardent Jewish Trade
Unionist - his father was a coal merchant - who hightailed it out of Odessa
for the US soon after wife Rosa completed her sentence. Petty bourgeoisie,
the two of them?)

Happy 5763 to all.

Jerry
Jerome Breslaw
Springfield, VA 22150




----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Khusidman" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:59 PM
Subject: [Ukr-Odessa-Gen] Khmelnitskiy meschanin


> Hi, everyone,
>
>
> I just received the results of Galina's research and there was a lot of
good
> information (although some expected information was obviously missing).
>
> My great-grandfather and his brothers were noted as "Khmelnitskiy
> meschanin". What does it mean? Does it mean that they are from Khmelnik
or
> from Khmelnitsk? I thought that Odessa Archives only covered Odessa
proper,
> not other towns in Ukraine...
>
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Gary Khusidman
>
> ==================
> 1-215-740-6084
>
>
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