Nicholas Sanjarani: the head of the HRC compared the anti-Semitism of syphilis in connection with the statements Tolstoy
Historian and journalist Nikolai Svanidze, condemned Vice-speaker of the state Duma Peter Tolstoy for the statement, which the MP accused of anti-Semitism. On Tuesday, January 24, according to the national news service (NSN).
“You have two options: either the person doesn’t know what he’s talking about, which is strange for the Vice-speaker of the State Duma and a professional journalist. Or he understands what’s worse, — said Svanidze. We evaluate the statement is not in accordance with what he had in mind, but with what we hear and read”.
Earlier Tuesday, speaker of the state Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, commenting on the situation, noted that the pale in the Russian Empire spread including convicts. Tolstoy himself said he did not mean any nationality, commenting on the transfer of the Saint Isaac’s Cathedral Russian Orthodox Church.
January 23, Vice-speaker of the state Duma participated in a press conference on the changing status of the St. Petersburg Cathedral. “People who are the grandchildren of those who demolished our temples, jumped up from the pale of settlement with a revolver in the 17th year today, working in a variety of other very reputable places — on the radio, in the legislative assemblies, continue the work of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers” he said at the event.
The President of the Federation of Jewish communities of Russia Alexander Boroda called the words of Tolstoy anti-Semitic.
The pale of settlement existed in the Russian Empire in the late XVIII century until 1917. This is the border of the territories, beyond which it was forbidden to live with Jews and Gypsies.
Hard labor as a form of punishment appeared in the Russian legislation under Peter I. it was sentencing a person convicted of serious crimes (e.g. murder, rape, counterfeiting). In addition, therefore, to punish the participants of anti-government protests and those who campaigned for the overthrow of the regime. In March 1917 the Provisional government granted Amnesty to all convicts — 88 thousand people, including almost 6 thousand politically convicted.