Sexual Violence during Pogroms: The Civil War in Ukraine as a Laboratory for Anti-Jewish Violence (1917-22)

International audienceThis article explores sexual violence, particularly rape, perpetrated against Jewish women after the collapse of the Russian Empire, during the 1917 revolutions, and subsequent armed conflicts. The article focuses on Ukraine but also presents some examples from Belarus. Based on original documents produced by Jewish aid committees and Soviet administrations and focused in part on other situations of sexual violence in twentieth-century history, it seeks to provide accurate estimates of this phenomenon. It examines the general pattern of sexual violence during pogroms but also specific moments of radicalization. By emphasizing the massive scale and systematic practice of rape by anti-Bolshevik armies, especially by the White armies, it seeks to demonstrate how, above and beyond its extreme level of violence, this period was also a seminal moment for anti-Semitism and violence against minorities. The rise of a new kind of anti-Semitism, centered on the Judeo-Bolshevik myth, propelled anti-Jewish violence toward the end goal of a persecutory campaign that threatened the entire Jewish population, especially women. To reconstruct the process of violent radicalization, the article focuses specifically on how the circulation of rumors and the functioning of the modern propaganda apparatus shaped the perception of civilian populations and paved the way for mass sexual violence. In this regard, the White armies clearly distinguished themselves from other armed forces that operated during the Civil War in Ukraine (UNR troops, Polish troops, otaman-led groups) by the scale and radicalism of their anti-Jewish discourse aimed at women. Finally, the article pinpoints the various consequences for victims of sexual violence and for the Jewish population in general: increased mortality, venereal disease, trauma, and collective helplessness