Simonini’s Letter in Russia

In August 1806, Giovanni Simonini sent a letter to Augustin Barruel, author of Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism. In his letter, Simonini praised Barruel`s book, and at the same time criticized it for not exposing the role of the Jews in secret societies, whom according to Barruel planned and realized the French revolution of 1789. The text of this letter, in the words of Umberto Eco, “unfolds the paraphernalia of all that was to become the anti-Semitic propaganda of the nineteenth century”, i.e. it is the first document that explicitly says that Jews were conspiring in order to take power over the whole world. The text of the letter circulated in various copies and finally was published in print in 1878 and 1882. So far we know of two documents that tell us of how Simonini’s infamous argument spread in Russia: one is a literary rendering of the Simonini letter, which was submitted between 1823 and 1826 to the Russian ministry of interior (a reproduction of the document can be found at the CAHJP); the other one is a copy made by Russian historian Nikolai Shilder at the end of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, from the copy of Simonini’s letter probably kept among the documents of the tsar Alexander I. The talk will focus on the historical context surrounding Simonini’s letter in Russia during the first quarter of the 19<sup>th</sup> century and its possible influence on the formation of the Russian administration`s policy toward the Jews.