The following circular and instruction, issued in 1852 under the reign of Tsar Nicholas I, represent an important chapter in the regulation of Jewish economic life within the Russian Empire. The document must be understood in the context of several overlapping policies.
The Pale of Settlement (cherta postoiannoi osedlosti).
Since 1791, Jews in the Russian Empire were restricted to living in certain western governorates. Khashchevatoye, in Podolia Governorate, was within this zone. All the regulations in this document applied exclusively to governorates within the Pale.
The Craft Guild System (tsekhovoe ustroistvo).
The Russian Empire organized artisans into guilds modeled on Western European trade corporations. These guilds regulated who could practice a craft, set standards for apprenticeship and mastery, and collected taxes. The 1852 amendments created special provisions for Jewish craft guilds, reflecting both the significant role of Jewish artisans in the economy and the state’s desire to regulate and classify the Jewish population.
The Classification of Jews.
The circular explicitly references the “rules concerning the classification of Jews” (razborka Evreev), a bureaucratic process that sorted Jews into legal categories — merchants, artisans, townspeople, or agriculturalists — each with different rights and obligations. Being registered as an artisan in a craft guild conferred certain residential and economic privileges.
Relevance to Khashchevatoye.
As a small town (mestechko) in Podolia Governorate, Khashchevatoye would have been directly affected by these regulations. The instruction distinguishes between three categories of localities: those with a fully developed guild system, those requiring only a simplified craft administration, and those comparable to villages. The Provincial Administration of Podolia would have been required to classify Khashchevatoye into one of these categories and to report its decision to the Ministry. Jewish artisans in Khashchevatoye — tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and others — would have been organized under whichever system was deemed appropriate for the town’s level of craft development.
The signatories.
The circular was signed by the Assistant Minister (Deputy) of Internal Affairs, in the absence of the Minister. The instruction was countersigned by Vice-Director N. Miliutin — almost certainly Nikolai Alekseevich Miliutin (1818–1872), a prominent reformist official who later played a key role in the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.
Concerning the Introduction of New Craft Regulations for Jews
in the Governorates of the Pale of Permanent Settlement
June 11, 1852
MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS
Department of Economy
Section of Towns, 2nd Division
Desk 4
June 11, 1852
No. 85
With an accompanying instruction on the initial introduction, in the Governorates of the Pale of Permanent Settlement, of new craft regulations for Jews.
To His Excellency the Civil Governor.
From the Decree of the Governing Senate of May 5 of the past month, Your Excellency is aware of the project of amendments and additions to the Code of Craft Regulations (Volume XI), Most Graciously approved* on April 16 of this year, with appendices: 1) on special Jewish Craft Guilds, and 2) on the practice of crafts in small towns, townships, and hamlets, both state-owned and seigneurial.
In the Governorates in which permanent residence of Jews is permitted, these regulations are closely connected with the special Most Graciously approved rules concerning the classification of Jews, with which they must also be coordinated.
For the precise execution of the Most Gracious will, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, on the basis of, inter alia, Article 346 of the Craft Regulations and §§ 5 and 13 of the Appendix to Article 416 of the same Regulations, has prepared a detailed instruction on this subject, which I deem it necessary to transmit herewith to Your Excellency, most respectfully requesting that you issue the appropriate orders for its immediate implementation.
* The formula “Most Graciously” (Russian: Vysochaishe) appears in the original text in bold capitals, as was mandatory in all Imperial documents when referring to the will or approval of the Tsar.
Signed: In the absence of the Minister of Internal Affairs,
his Deputy [Assistant Minister].
Countersigned: Director of the Department,
Vice-Director N. Miliutin.
Certified: Head of Section K. Kryzhanovsk[y].
INSTRUCTION
On the Initial Introduction, in the Governorates of the Pale of Permanent Settlement,
of New Craft Regulations for Jews
(published by Decree of the Governing Senate on May 5, 1852).
(Approved by the Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs on June 7, 1852.)
On the basis of § 1 of the Appendix to Article 490 of the Craft Regulations, Volume XI (Decree of the Governing Senate of May 5, 1852), in each Governorate the Provincial Administration (Gubernskoe Pravlenie) shall compile a detailed list of towns, townships, and hamlets, both state-owned and seigneurial, and shall likewise collect, following the closest instructions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the necessary information on the level of development of craft industry in these localities, in order to make proposals regarding:
1) in which of them it may be permitted to introduce the guild system (tsekhovoe ustroistvo) on the basis established in the Craft Regulations;
2) in which of them, due to insufficient development of crafts, a simplified Craft Administration (uproshchennoe Remeslennoe Upravlenie) should be introduced, in the manner established by the Appendix to Article 490 of the said Regulations; and
3) which of them, under local circumstances, may be conveniently compared, in terms of the practice of crafts, with villages.
These proposals shall be submitted for the approval of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is hereby empowered to decide subsequently on the introduction of the urban guild system in those towns, townships, and hamlets in which craft industry shall have received greater development, and, conversely, in case of a decline of this industry in any of the aforesaid localities, to authorize the introduction therein of the simplified Craft Administration, or indeed of the rules established for the practice of crafts in villages.
Since the collection of all the aforementioned information, as well as the preparation of the proposals, which are imposed as an obligation upon the Provincial Administrations, may require a considerable period of time — and since that which is allocated for the definitive classification of Jews under the Most Graciously approved rules of November 1851 — it is permitted, for the unimpeded execution of the Most Gracious will, that the Provincial Administrations, pending the preparation of the aforementioned proposals concerning the system of Craft Administration in each town, township, and hamlet, and pending the approval of said proposals by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, shall in the meantime make the following temporary arrangements:
a) Towns, townships, and hamlets in which, prior to the publication of the Most Graciously approved supplementary craft regulations of April 16 of this year, guilds already existed for all crafts, shall be assigned to the category of those possessing a guild system and subject to the General Craft Regulations (Volume XI).
b) In towns, townships, and hamlets in which, prior to the publication of the Most Graciously approved supplementary craft regulations of April 16 of this year, there were no guilds at all, or guilds existed only for some crafts, the simplified Craft Administration shall be introduced, on the basis of the Appendix to Article 490 of the Craft Regulations, Volume XI (Decree of the Governing Senate of May 5, 1852).
Regarding the type of Craft Administration that shall be temporarily introduced in each town, township, and hamlet, the Provincial Administrations shall promptly notify the Ministry of Internal Affairs, using the attached form No. 1.
Note. If any Provincial Administration does not have in its files reliable information about which localities have guilds and where they do not, it is obliged to require without delay that such information be obtained by correspondence, or to dispatch special officials to the districts, or to instruct them to collect the necessary information locally and to issue, without delay on their own authority, orders regarding the introduction in each town, township, and hamlet of one or another type of Craft Administration; and to bring the said orders to the attention of the Provincial Administration.
[Regarding the towns, townships, and hamlets that shall be subject to the General Craft Regulations]
In the towns, townships, and hamlets assigned to the category of those possessing a guild system and subject to the General Craft Regulations (Volume XI), there shall be opened without delay General Craft Boards (Obshchie Remeslennye Upravy) and General Craft Assemblies (Obshchie Remeslennye Skhody), on the precise basis of Article 346 of the same Regulations (Decree of the Governing Senate of May 5, 1852), regardless of whether there exists in the town, township, or hamlet a Duma, a Magistrate, or a Town Hall (Ratusha) — or whether it is subordinate…
[The document continues beyond the photographed pages.]
Source: Russian Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs, Circular No. 85, June 11, 1852, with Instruction approved June 7, 1852. Archival photographs.
Original language: Pre-reform Russian (using the old orthography in force before the 1918 spelling reform).
Translation: Translated from the original Russian for the Khashchevatoye KehilaLinks project, February 2026.
Throughout the existence of the Russian Empire, the professional lives of Jewish artisans were shaped — and often constrained — by an evolving web of laws, decrees, and administrative rulings. For the Jews of Khashchevatoye, as for millions of others across the Pale of Settlement, these regulations determined what trades they could practice, how their workshops were organized, and ultimately where they were allowed to live.
The story of this legislation is not a simple one. It traces an arc from early restrictions, through a period of cautious reform and even hope under Alexander II, to a harsh reversal in the 1880s and 1890s that drove millions to emigrate. The following chronology traces the key decrees and their consequences for Jewish craftsmen and their families.
1791 — Establishment of the Pale of Settlement. Following the first partition of Poland (1772), Catherine II decreed that Jews who had come under Russian rule could reside only in the newly acquired western provinces and in the territories of New Russia along the Black Sea. Jews were forbidden to join merchant or artisan guilds in the interior governorates. This was the origin of the Pale of Settlement, within whose boundaries the overwhelming majority of Russian Jews — including those of Khashchevatoye — would live for the next 125 years.
1804 — The Jewish Statute (Polozhenie o Evreiakh). Under Alexander I, a comprehensive statute attempted to regulate all aspects of Jewish life. Regarding crafts, the statute affirmed that Jewish artisans within the Pale were permitted to engage in any trade not specifically prohibited by law, and that no guild or craft board could bar them from doing so. Jewish artisans were also relieved of double taxation. However, the statute simultaneously restricted Jewish residence in rural areas and sought to channel Jews into “productive” occupations.
1835 — Revised Jewish Statute. The Pale of Settlement was formally codified with defined boundaries. Jews were required to register in one of several legal categories: merchants, townspeople (meshchane), or artisans. Registration as an artisan in a recognized craft guild carried specific rights and tax obligations, and would later become a crucial pathway to mobility.
1844 — Temporary residence for artisans in the Caucasus. Jewish artisans were given permission to reside temporarily in fortified towns on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, on account of the dearth of skilled labor in those regions. This was an early, limited acknowledgment that Jewish artisans filled essential economic needs beyond the Pale.
April 16, 1852 — Amendments to the Code of Craft Regulations (Svod Remeslennykh Postanovlenii, Volume XI). Approved by Tsar Nicholas I, these amendments reorganized the craft guild system within the Pale of Settlement. Two appendices were added: one creating special Jewish craft guilds, and one regulating the practice of crafts in small towns, townships, and villages. The reform aimed to bring order to the classification of Jewish artisans and to establish clear institutional structures for their trades.
June 11, 1852 — Circular No. 85 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Ministry issued a circular to all Civil Governors of the Pale, accompanied by a detailed instruction (approved on June 7 by the Assistant Minister). This instruction ordered the Provincial Administrations to survey every town, township, and hamlet in their territory, assess the level of craft development, and classify each locality into one of three categories: those with a full guild system, those requiring only a simplified craft administration, and those comparable to villages. The instruction was countersigned by Vice-Director N. Miliutin. [See the full translation of this document elsewhere on this page.]
The craft guild boards were given an important policing function: they were required to monitor Jewish artisans enrolled in their guilds and to petition for the removal of anyone who, without valid cause, had not practiced their trade for six months. This was designed to prevent fictitious enrollment — Jews registering as artisans solely to obtain the legal status of “settled townspeople” (osedlye meshchane), which carried greater residential security than the alternative classification of “unsettled townspeople.”
The reign of Alexander II brought a series of reforms that progressively expanded the rights of certain categories of Jews to reside outside the Pale of Settlement. These measures reflected a policy of selective integration for Jews deemed “economically productive.”
1859 — Merchants of the First Guild (the wealthiest merchant class) were granted the right of residence anywhere in the Empire.
1861 — Jews holding university degrees (doctors, masters, candidates) were permitted to reside permanently in any governorate of the Empire and to serve as government employees, merchants, or manufacturers.
1862 — Certain military veterans were granted residence rights outside the Pale.
June 22, 1865 — The Artisan Law. This was the most significant reform for Jewish craftsmen. The law granted Jewish master artisans, as well as mechanics, brewers, distillers, and apprentices, together with their families, the right to reside anywhere in the Russian Empire. They could register in craft guilds outside the Pale on the same basis as other subjects. This provision potentially affected as much as one-fifth of the Jewish population of the Pale. For the artisans of Khashchevatoye, the 1865 law opened a door that had been closed for generations.
1867 — Retired soldiers and reservists, together with their families, were granted the right to reside anywhere and to register in merchant or artisan guilds, provided they had been continuously registered in a community outside the Pale.
1879 — The right of residence outside the Pale was extended to graduates of higher schools of learning, assistant pharmacists, dentists, non-graduate surgeons, and midwives.
The assassination of Alexander II in March 1881 triggered a sharp reaction. Although his assassins were not Jewish, a wave of pogroms swept through the Pale, and the new Tsar, Alexander III, adopted a markedly anti-Jewish course. The liberalizing trend was reversed, and a series of restrictive measures were enacted that would remain in force, as “temporary regulations,” until 1917.
May 3 (15), 1882 — The May Laws (Vremennye Pravila). Proposed by Minister Ignatiev, these “temporary regulations” prohibited Jews from settling outside towns and townlets, even within the Pale of Settlement. Deeds of sale and lease of property to Jews outside urban areas were canceled. Jews were forbidden to conduct business on Sundays and Christian holidays. These laws effectively shrank the Pale by confining Jews to urban centers, and their enforcement was left to local police, who used them as instruments of extortion and harassment.
1887 — Jews who had been living in villages before 1882 were forbidden to move from one village to another, further tightening the May Laws.
1880s–1890s — Senate restrictions on the definition of “artisan.” The Governing Senate issued a series of rulings that dramatically narrowed the scope of the 1865 law. The Senate decreed that only those engaged in “the processing of objects requiring a certain degree of knowledge or skill” qualified as artisans. On this basis, the Senate excluded from the definition of artisan the professions of mason, carpenter, plasterer, butcher, ritual slaughterer, photographer, and others. This meant that many Jews who had relied on the 1865 law for the right to live outside the Pale suddenly found themselves without legal standing.
1891–1892 — Expulsion from Moscow. In the most notorious enforcement action, approximately 20,000 Jews — predominantly artisans and merchants — were forcibly expelled from Moscow. Their communal organizations were dissolved and their properties confiscated or sold under duress. The event drew international condemnation.
1890 — A Senate ruling decreed that wives and sons of artisans could reside in the interior provinces only during the lifetime of the husband or father; after his death, they could remain only if they continued to practice the craft themselves. Artisans who ceased working due to illness or old age had to petition the administration for special permission to remain.
1892 — An imperial decree abolished the residence rights of military veterans and their children in the city and governorate of Moscow, except for those already registered in artisan guilds there.
The cumulative effect of these laws was devastating. By the 1897 census, approximately 38.6% of gainfully employed Jews worked in commerce, while 35.4% were engaged in crafts — predominantly tailoring (the single largest occupation, at about 16.5% of all Jewish workers), shoemaking, and other small-scale production. Jews comprised nearly a third of all persons engaged in crafts within the Pale. The intense competition among merchants, shopkeepers, and craftsmen, confined to an ever-narrowing space, drove widespread impoverishment. In response, Jewish communities developed extensive mutual aid networks, and by the end of the century nearly one in three Jews in the Pale was receiving some form of communal assistance.
The pauperization and legal insecurity of Jewish artisans was a major driver of emigration. Between 1881 and the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of Jews left the Russian Empire each year, most of them for the United States. Organizations such as ORT (the Society for the Spread of Productive Work among the Jews of Russia) were founded with the double goal of giving Jews new skills and qualifying them for residence outside the Pale. Among the emigrants from Khashchevatoye, many carried with them the skills and traditions of the trades they had practiced in the old country.
During World War I, the Pale of Settlement effectively collapsed. As the German army advanced, large numbers of Jews fled or were evacuated into the Russian interior. On August 19, 1915, the Ministry of Internal Affairs permitted Jews to reside in urban settlements outside the Pale (with certain exceptions). The formal end came on March 20 (April 2), 1917, when the Provisional Government, which had assumed power after the abdication of Nicholas II, issued a decree abolishing all religious and national restrictions. The century-long system that had defined where Jews could live, what trades they could practice, and what guilds they could join was finally at an end.
Sources: Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), articles on “Pale of Settlement” and “May Laws”; Encyclopaedia Judaica, articles on “Pale of Settlement” and “May Laws”; Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia (ORT), article on “Guilds” (Цехи); V.O. Levanda, Complete Chronological Collection of Laws and Regulations Concerning Jews (St. Petersburg, 1874); archival documents from the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine.
Compiled for the Khashchevatoye KehilaLinks project, February 2026.