tzardom

Updated: June 7, 2025

The violence resorted to in both cases, though different in form, sprang from the same motive. There was yet one domain in which the squeezing and pressing power of Tzardom could fully employ its destructive energy. We refer to military conscription.

Simon Dubnow - History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II: From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander: III. (1825-1894)

The Russian Government had left nothing undone to shatter the old Jewish mode of life. Despotic Tzardom, whose ignorance of Jewish life was only equalled by its hostility to it, lifted its hand to strike not merely at the obsolete forms but also at the sound historic foundations of Judaism.

Simon Dubnow - History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II: From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander: III. (1825-1894)

In Russian literature he perceived a foreshadowing of the doom of Tzardom and imminent catastrophe. In the literature of France and England he sought to divine the future. The fervent imperialism of Kipling stirred his emotions, but left him spiritually cold. Patriotism was the mother of self-sacrifice, but also of murder, and Paul distrusted all forces which made for intolerance.

Sax Rohmer - The Orchard of Tears