Odessa pogroms

A series of pogroms against Jews in the city of Odessa, then part of the Russian Empire, took place during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They occurred in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881, 1886, and 1905.

According to Jarrod Tanny, most historians argue that the earlier incidents were a result of "frictions unleashed by modernization" rather than antisemitism. The 1905 pogrom was markedly larger in scale and antisemitism played a central role.

Odessa is a port city on the Black Sea and its multi-ethnic population included Greek, Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian, and other communities.

The 1821 pogrom, perpetrated by ethnic Greeks rather than Russians, is named in some sources as the first in the modern period in Russia:

In Odessa, Greeks and Jews were two rival ethnic and economic communities, living side by side. The first Odessa pogrom, in 1821, was linked to the outbreak of the Greek War for Independence, during which the Jews were accused of sympathizing with the Ottoman authorities and of aiding the Turks in killing the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory V, dragging his dead body through the streets and finally throwing it into the Bosphorus.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906 ed.),

"The community did not escape the horrors of the pogrom. Indeed, the very first pogrom in Russia occurred in Odessa in the year 1859. This was in reality not a Russian but a Greek pogrom; for the leaders and almost all of the participants were Greek sailors from ships in the harbor, and local Greeks who joined them. The pogrom occurred on a Christian Easter; and the local press, in no wise unfriendly to the Jews, attempted to transform it into an accidental fight, the Greek colony at that time being dominant in the administration as well as in the commerce of Odessa. Further pogroms occurred in 1871, 1881, and 1886."

Historians note economic antagonism between the two urban minorities, in addition to religious frictions.

However, after 1871, the pogroms in Odessa took a form more typical of the rest of the Russian empire: "Although the pogrom of 1871 was occasioned in part by a rumor that Jews had vandalized the Greek community's church, many non-Greeks participated to it. Russian resentment and hostility toward Jews came to the fore in the pogrom of 1871 as Russians joined Greeks in attacks on Jews. Thereafter, Russians filled the ranks of pogromist mobs in 1881, 1900, and 1905." In the 1881 and 1905 pogroms, many Greek houses were also destroyed.

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