These primitive forms of denominational politics continued
for a long time to prevail in Muscovy. The Jews of Poland
and Lithuania managed, though illegally, to visit the capital
in the interest of their business. With the influx of Poles into
Moscow during the so-called "period of unrest," the interreg-
num preceding the establishment of the Romanov dynasty in
1613, a goodly number of Jews penetrated into Russia. The
Muscovites became alarmed, and their apprehensions found
expression in 1610, when the noblemen of Moscow were con-
ducting negotiations with Poland looking to the election of
the Polish Crown Prince Vladislav to the Russian throne.
An agreement was concluded, consisting of twenty clauses,
setting forth the conditions on which the noblemen were will-
ing to vote for Vladislav. The fourth clause of this agreement
runs as follows:

No churches or temples of the Latin or any other faith shall
be allowed in Russia. No one shall be induced to adopt the
Roman or any other religion, and the Jews shall not be allowed
to enter the Muscovite Empire either on business or in connec-
tion with any other affairs.

In these circumstances the Jews were deprived of all
opportunity to develop commercial life in the reactionary
Empire. Forty years later this same Empire pushed its way
into the territories of Poland and Lithuania, which were
populated by Jews, and the policy of Muscovy was destined to
reveal its creative genius in the domain of the Jewish question.

The first contact of the Muscovite Empire with large Jewish
masses took place when the province of Little Russia was
annexed by Tzar Alexis Michaelovich in 1654. When the
Russian troops, allied with the Cossacks, overran White Rus-
sia, Lithuania, and the Ukraina, they were struck by the

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