Kodėl 1495 m. iš Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės buvo išvaryti žydai? Apie žydų išvarymo sąsajas su judaizavimo judėjimu
Volume 5 (2014): Istorijos šaltinių tyrimai, pp. 57–83
Pub. online: 31 December 2014
Type: Article
Open Access
Open Access
Published
31 December 2014
31 December 2014
Abstract
The author of this article strives to answer the question whether the eviction of the GDL Jews could have been predetermined by the activities of the movement of Judaizing heresy in the second half of the 15th century. The text analyses the preceding historiography related to the eviction of the GDL Jews and dwells on the author’s reasoning, seeking to bring out the European contexts of the eviction of Jews, exhibit the environment in which the decision of such eviction was made and disclose its key spearheads. The fate that awaited the Jews of the GDL in 1495 was similar to that which awaited their coreligionists in Spain in 1492, i.e. full-scale extrusion from the territory of the state. The absolute majority of Jews withdrew from the territory of the country with only an insignificant number of adherents of Judaism undergoing baptism which granted them the right to reside in the territory of the GDL and continue their previous economic activity. Jews evicted from the GDL found shelter in the Kingdom of Poland, which was under the rule of Alexander Jagiellon, and settled close to the borders of the GDL in hope that the eviction law would be repealed shortly. In 1503, i.e. after eight years, the GDL Jews were
allowed to return to their former places of residence. Assessment of the historiographical hypotheses of the eviction of the GDL Jews allows the distinction between religious, economic and political reasoning behind the banishment of the GDL Jews. Based on the selected methodological approach, historians emphasize the religious, economic or political motives as the principal cause of eviction, or try to prove that the extrusion was determined by interaction of the above-listed motives. In historiography the eviction of Jews from the GDL hitherto has not been associated with the escalation of the so-called movement of Judaizing heresy in Novgorod and Moscow, allegedly initiated by Jew Skhariyah of Kiev who in 1470 came to Novgorod in the entourage of Prince Mikhailo Olelkovich and disseminated the “new heresy” there. Being fierce opponents of the heresy, the Archbishop of Novgorod Gennady and the Superior of the monastery of Volokolamsk Joseph Volotsky decidedly associated the movement with Jews and the “Jewish way of thinking”. Modern historiography comprehensively analyses the project of text translation from the Hebrew to Ruthenian language pursued in the second half of the 15th century in the environment of the Rabi Moses ben Jacob ha-Goleh of Kiev and the learned Jew Skhariyah of Kiev which evidences their relations with the movement of Judaizing heresy in the State of Muscovy. Some researchers make an assumption that such project could have hardly been carried out without the commission of the local Orthodox church of the GDL which was concerned with the translation of philosophical, astronomic, mathematical and medicinal texts into the Ruthenian language. Therefore it is assumed that the translation project was commissioned by princes Olelkovich of Kiev. The learned Orthodox nobleman Ivan Soltan, characterized as “book lover”, might also have been interested in the said texts. Thus an assumption can be made that by the second half of the 15th century “movement of Judaizing heresy”, analogous to that of Novgorod and Moscow, had formed in Kiev, however, it is not evidenced in sources due to differences in the attitude of the Orthodox church of the GDL and Moscow towards the central figure of the movement – Jew Skhariyah. In the context of the GDL he was identified as a philosopher, whereas in Moscow the Jew was referred to as heretic and pioneer of the new “Jewish heresy”. The goal of the translations from Hebrew to the Ruthenian language conducted by Jew Skhariyah of Kiev was likely to be related to the messianistic Jewish prophesies, influenced by the literary tradition of Byzantine Jews. In this context proselytes who converted to Judaism were bestowed the greatest share of attention.