Pogroms Russia

Pogroms in the Russian Empire (Russian: Еврейские погромы в Российской империи, romanized: Evreyskie pogromy v Rossiyskoy imperii) were large-scale, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish riots that began in the 19th century. Pogroms began to occur after Imperial Russia, which previously had very few Jews, acquired territories with large Jewish populations from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire from 1772 to 1815. These territories were designated "the Pale of Settlement" by the Imperial Russian government, within which Jews were forced to live. The Pale of Settlement primarily included the territories of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Lithuania as Jews were forbidden from moving to other parts of European Russia (including Finland), unless they converted from Judaism or obtained a university diploma or first guild merchant status. Migration to the Caucasus, Siberia, the Far East, or Central Asia was not restricted.