Location: Gellner Room, Monument Building (1051 Budapest, Nádor u. 9.)

Scholars are divided as to the underlying motives of restrictive legislation imposed on the Jews of the Russian Empire between 1791 and 1914. Religious, economic and cultural motives have usually been cited, but a number of scholars have pointed to racialist perspectives underlying restrictions directed against Jews and 'those of Jewish origins' at the fin de siècle. This lecture will explore the extent to which late imperial Russia was treating the Jews as a racial group.

John D. Klier is Corob Professor of Modern Jewish History at University College London. Professor Klier came to Jewish history through the study of pre-revolutionary Russia when he became aware that virtually no original research had been done on Russian Jewry for most of the twentieth century. Much of Professor Klier's work has focused on the Jewish Question from the Russian perspective, especially in his books, Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the Jewish Question in Russia (Northern Illinois University Press, 1986) and Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 1855-1881 (Cambridge, 2000). He has just completed a book manuscript entitled Southern Storms: Russians, Jews and the Pogrom Crisis of 1881-1882. He has published many articles, and co-edited Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge, 1991). He is on the editorial board of the scholarly journal East European Jewish Affairs.

A reception will follow.