Вчера

Gruzenberg (1866–1940), born in Kiev to a Jewish merchant's family, was a prominent Russian defense attorney. Ch. 12 (pp. 110-129), "Sram (po povodu dela Beilisa)" ["The Shame (concerning the Beilis Case)"], describes his activities as Beilis' defense attorney and the role of the defense experts (Bekhterev, Troitskii, etc.) during the Beilis trial in Kiev. Ch. 13 (pp. 130-146), "O 'Soyuze russkovo naroda'" ["About the 'Union of the Russian People'"], deals with this main faction of the Black Hundreds, and in particular with the murder of two liberal deputies of the Duma: Mikhail Gertsenshtein [Herzenstein] (of Jewish origin) in 1906, and Grigorii Iollos (Jewish) in 1907, in Finland. Gruzenberg instigated an inquiry of the Ministry of Justice into these murders, and the perpetrators were tried in Kivenepa, Finland and convicted (Finland was part of the Russian Empire, but maintained its own judicial system). However, all but one were released several months later due to connections of the Union of the Russian People with higher authorities. In the section "Silhouettes", containing portraits of eight persons, pp. 231-236 discuss the trial and conviction of the student Pinchas (Pyotr) Dashevskii, the perpetrator of an abortive attempt in 1903 on the life of the notorious antisemite Pavolaki Krushevan, an instigator of the Kishinev pogrom. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)