‘Numerus Clausus’ for Jews in the Focus of Gender: The Discourse of Imperial Officials of the Kyiv Educational District at the Turn of the 19th–20th Centuries
Abstract
The purpose of the research paper is to clarify the views of the heads of female (pro)gymnasiums of the Kyiv educational district at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries regarding the restriction of admission of Jewish girls to the institutions, to identify in the correspondence of imperial officials the factors of (in)expediency of the introduction of the ‘numerus clausus’, and to establish the discursive image of Jewish students.
Scientific novelty. The work for the first time examines the ideas of the administration of female (pro)gymnasiums in Ukraine regarding the education of Jewish daughters, and establishes the approaches that guided everyday life in the imperial era.
Conclusions. An analysis of the correspondence of the heads of female (pro)gymnasiums of the Kyiv Educational District regarding the restriction of admission of Jewish girls revealed that 37.50% of them unconditionally supported the proposal; 20.83% supported it with a condition; 37.50% did not support it; 4.16% abstained. The heterogeneity of the officials’ perceptions was established: along with (un)hidden anti-Semitism, there were rational assessments, neutral voices, and denials of restrictive initiatives.
Women’s (pro)gymnasiums in Ukraine in the 19th–20th centuries became a space where the imperial policy of discrimination against Jews contradicted the development of educational infrastructure. The ‘numerus clausus’ introduced in the male school, when applied to the female school encountered a different reality: without Jewish students, the financial stability of the (pro)gymnasiums was under threat. Local school policy was adjusted to the economic needs of the institutions. The managerial approach of ‘conditional inclusion’ of Jewish daughters combined the approval of the ‘numerus clausus’ with attempts to optimize it.
The economic reality of the female school restrained the anti-Semitism of the imperial bureaucracy, but did not eliminate it. Most leaders presented Jewish female students as ‘alien’ and ‘threatening’ to the educational environment. The integration of Jewish women into the gymnasiums was approved through practices of quotas, discipline, and subordination.
In the discourse of officials, women’s (pro)gymnasiums acquired the function of a civilizational agent with the tasks of cultural colonization of the ‘Other’ through Russification. Jewish female students were seen as leaders of change in families and religious communities. Gymnasium education for female applicants financed by private means was transformed into an instrument of the macro-politics of the authorities, combining control over gender roles, cultural identity, and imperial loyalty.
References
Avrutin, E.M. (2010). Jews and the imperial state: identification politics in tsarist Russia. Ithaka; London: Cornell University Press [in English].
Bemporad, E., & Dynner, G. (2020). Introduction: Jewish Women in Modern Eastern and East Central Europe. Jewish History, 33 (1/2), 1-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-019-09343-1 [in English].
Drach, O. (2021). “Childhood Left the Brightest Memories”: Early Years Described in the Autobiographies of Jewish Female Students in the Early 20th Century. Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia, 19, 43-64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/20843925SJ.21.004.16413 [in English].
Drach, O. (2022). “Efforts and labour defeat all resistance”: autobiographies of Jewish female students of the early twentieth century about the path to higher medical education in the Russian Empire. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, (4) 22, 379-399. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2022.2044727 [in English].
Drach, O. (2022). The behavior of students as a social and educational tool: on the basis on the materials of the Warsaw women’s progymnasium at the beginning of the 20th century. Kyiv Historical Studies, 2 (15), 38-47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.28925/2524-0757.2022.24 [in Ukrainian].
Drach, O., & Babak, O. (2024). Gymnasium Education According to the Autobiographies of Jewish Girls in Ukraine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Motivation, Accessibility, Significance. Eminak, 2 (46), 254-274. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33782/eminak2024.2(46).716 [in Ukrainian].
Haliv, M. (2018). The national policies of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires’ in Volhynia and Galicia (at the beginning of the ХХ century): a comparative analysis. East European Historical Bulletin, 7, 65-74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24919/2519-058x.7.131212 [in English].
Ivanenko, O. (2019). The Jewish community and the development of education in the Kyiv educational district in the early 20th century. Mizhnarodni zviazky Ukrainy: naukovi poshuky i znakhidky, 28 (5), 45-79 [in Ukrainian].
Kharchenko, A. (2022). Jews in the Russian Empire: what did the imperial authorities know about their subjects? City: History, Culture, Society, 14, 65-74 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15407/mics2022.02.065 [in Ukrainian].
Kharchenko, A. (2023). The colonial project of the empire: the Romanov state and its Jewish subjects. Intermarum: history, policy, culture, 13, 50-66. DOI: https://doi.org/10.35433/history.112056 [in Ukrainian].
Khiterer, V. (2016). Jewish City or Inferno of Russian Israel? A History of the Jews in Kiev before February 1917. Boston: Academic Studies Press [in English].
Khiterer, V. (2018). How Jews Gained Their Education in Kiev, 1860-1917. In Adler, E.R., & Polonsky, A. (Eds.). Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry: Jewish Education in Eastern Europe, 30 (1), 155-179. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/polin.2018.30.155 [in English].
Kistiakivskyi, O.F. (1995). Diary (1874-1885). Vol. 2. (1880-1885). Kyiv: Naukova Dumka [in Russian].
Magochii, P.-R., & Petrovsky-Shtern, Y. (2018). Jews and Ukrainians: A millennium of co-existence. Uzhhorod: Vyd-vo Valeriia Padiaka [in Ukrainian].
Manekin, R. (2020). From Anna Kluger to Sarah Schenirer: Women’s Education in Kraków and Its Discontents. Jewish History, 33 (1/2), 29-59. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-019-09348-w [in English].
Meir, N. (2016). Kiev Jewish metropolis: A history, 1859-1914. Kyiv: Dukh i Litera [in Ukrainian].
Nathan, B. (2002). Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520931299 [in English].
Petrovsky-Shtern, Y. (2019). The Golden Age of Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe. Kyiv: Kritika [in Ukrainian].
Piller, O. (1888). Results of female education in Russia and its objectives. Sankt-Peterburg: Tip. Trenke i Fyusno [in Russian].
Polonsky, A. (2010). Jewish spaces: shtetls and towns in th nineteenth century. In The Jews in Poland and Russia: Volume II: 1881 to 1914 (pp. 162-211). Liverpool University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvv41868.14 [in English].
Rodevich, M. (Comp.) (1884). Collection of current decrees and orders for girls’ gymnasiums and progymnasiums of the Ministry of Public Education. Sankt-Peterburg: Tip. M.A. Khana [in Russian].
Roienko, S.O. (2023). Role of private educational institutions in the development of Jewish education (19th – early 20th century). Naukovi zapysky. Seriia: Pedahohichni nauky, 209, 407-412. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36550/2415-7988-2022-1-209-407-412 [in Ukrainian].
Shandra, V.S. (2015). Language as a means of forming national identity. In Boryak, G. (Ed.), Ukrainian identity and the language issue in the Russian Empire: an attempt at state regulation. (рр. VII-ХХХVIIІ). Kyiv: TOV «Vydavnytstvo “Klio”» [in Ukrainian].
Schainker, E.R. (2019). A Grass Widow in Odessa: Gender and Jewish Law on the Russian Frontier. The Jewish Quarterly Review, 109 (2), 233-264. DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26661656 [in English].
Thompson, E. (2022). Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism. Kyiv: Vyd-vo Solomiï Pavlychko «Osnovy» [in Ukrainian].
Vasiutynska, Ye.A. (2023). Development of Jewish education in Yelisavetgrad region (second half of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century). (PhD thesis). Kropyvnytskyi [in Ukrainian].
Venherska, V.O. (2017). Ukrainians and Jews: How Empires Cultivated Anti-Semitism and Ukrainophobia. Zaporizki yevreiski chytannia. Dnipro: Instytut «Tkuma», 13-20 [in Ukrainian].
Werth, P.W. (2007). Imperiology and religion: Some thoughts on a research agenda. In Matsuzato, K. (Ed.), Imperiology: From empirical knowledge to discussing the Russian Empire (рр. 51-67). Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University [in English].
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
