Horace Ginzburg
So this story begins with a certain Jehiel from the Portuguese city of Porto. This main city in the province of Entre Duro e Minho was known for its large Jewish community in the 15th century. On December 4, 1496, the king issued a decree ordering all Jews to leave Portugal under penalty of death. The edict stated that “no Christian, under threat of confiscation of all his property, shall conceal a Jew in his possession after the expiration of a fixed period, and that no future ruler, under any pretext whatsoever, shall permit Jews to settle in the kingdom… All Jewish children, from the age of four to twenty, shall be taken away from their parents and converted to the Christian faith.” About 20,000 were driven to the capital; “like sheep, they were driven into a vast palace. Here it was announced to the Jews that henceforth they were slaves of the king, who would dispose of them as he saw fit.”
It was from this country that Jehiel fled. It is not known how, but he managed to get with his family to the Bavarian city of Ulm in the very south of Germany. The place was originally called “Hulma.” It was built by the Romans as an advanced outpost for their legions. Then, during the Roman times, the first Jewish community arose in the city. According to encyclopedists, there was even a letter received by the Jewish community of Ulm from Jerusalem at the end of the first century AD. Even a number of tombstones with Jewish inscriptions dating back to 1246 have been preserved. In 1281, a synagogue had already been built in Ulm.
The Jews at this time were considered the property of the royal crown. In the 12th and 13th century, all trade routes to the south and east passed through Ulm. The city became a center of trade and a transshipment point, which could not but affect its development. Jews certainly played a major role in it as shopkeepers, craftsmen, interpreters and international traders.
In 1348, during the plague epidemic raging in Europe at that time, the so-called “Black Death”, a crowd of Christians, who accused the Jews of poisoning the wells, organized a pogrom in Ulm. The magistrate and the local representative of the royal authority, who were obliged to protect the “royal good”, which was then considered to be the Jews, justified themselves by saying that “all the measures they had taken were powerless to subdue the mob”. Thus the Jews of Ulm were forced to pay special taxes to the magistrate to ensure their safety. In essence, it was a real racket.
As Prof. Pressel writes – after a while a yeshibot opened in the town, which later became very popular in the neighborhood. A Jewish bath, a hospital and a special room for weddings and balls also sprang up. (Interesting in this sense is the ball room mentioned in the enumeration – this only confirms once again that we do not always have a correct picture of Jewish life in the medieval era). In 1383, King Wenzel, in need of money, ordered the Jews of the city to deposit a tenth of their fortune in the treasury. Two years later, the magistrate of Ulm, made a deal with the king – took from the king for 40 thousand florins to pay off taxes from the Jews of the city. Thus, the Jews came under the authority not only of the king, but also of the local government. Taking advantage of this, the magistrate announced that all debts owed to the Jews should be paid into the city’s treasury. The magistrate then began to destroy the debts owed to the Jews.
In 1425, decrees were passed forbidding the Jews of Ulm to keep Christian servants, to go out on the streets during major holidays, and Christians, in turn, were forbidden to use the services of Jewish doctors. After another three years, Christians brought a charge of ritual murder against the Jews of Ravensburg, close to Ulm. It ended with the burning at the stake of several Jews and the expulsion of all Jews from Ravensburg. Finally, in 1499, after many requests, King Maximilian I freed the city from the protection of the Jews. Whereupon the magistrate immediately issued a decree expelling all Jews from Ulm. The Jews are banished forever and the city, according to the German Christians of the time, “finally becomes free of Jews”.
It was at this time that the family of Jehiel and his son Eliezer Avraham, who would later receive the nickname and then the surname Ulma-Günzburg, were forced to flee Ulm, just as they had earlier fled Porto, Portugal.
Only after 200 years some Jews would be able to return and settle in Ulm, paying large sums of money to the magistrate for such permission. But even at the beginning of the 20th century, only 613 Jews lived there. By the way, it was in this city, so unfriendly to the Jews on March 14, 1879 in the family of the owner of a small store was born the great Albert Einstein.
To conclude the Jewish history of this city, it should be noted that it represents an almost typical classical example of the existence of Jews in European cities from the early Middle Ages to modern history. Very often the Jews were the first, together with the Romans, to develop these then absolutely wild barbarian places, outposts slowly turned into fortresses and towns, and gradually the natives began to settle in them. The Jews, by virtue of their energy, education, trade connections, knowledge of languages and commercial abilities, contributed to the financial prosperity of the city, which was usually followed by their disfranchisement as non-Christians, accusations of all the deadly sins, from blood libels to spoiling and plague, with the obligatory confiscation of all finances and property; then usually followed a series of pogroms, and then their expulsion from the city.
By the way, the endless accusations of the Jews that they deliberately infected Christians with the plague were based in the Middle Ages on a fairly simple observation – the Jews themselves really suffered much less from this then fatal disease than the surrounding European nations. But this was not due to some mystical reasons, but because the Jews of the Middle Ages were the only people who strictly observed the religious and ritual rules of hygiene, while the local population not only did not adhere to them, but also considered them “wild and satanic”.
Each time, however, Jews sought to return to the cities from which they had been expelled (Ulm is no exception in this sense) not because of nostalgia or love for the local population, but because of the desperate situation of people deprived of their homeland, persecuted throughout Europe, powerless and defenseless (Jews had no right to bear arms). The history described above and developing according to the scheme from the first settlement, financial prosperity, to disenfranchisement, pogroms, expulsion and return, was repeated in almost every European city with the precision of a clock, up to the end of the 19th century. After the next expulsion, Jews tried to find a new place to live, and those who failed to do so tried to return in every possible way.
But back to our heroes. As we wrote earlier, Yechiel, along with his son Eliezer Abraham, was forced to flee Ulm. Their family was lucky – they made it to the nearest town, Swabian Günzburg, and were able to settle there.
By the way, one almost legal mishap from the life of the Jews of Günzburg occurred soon after. Alas, strife and quarrels shook the local community so much that the Jews appealed to Emperor Maximilian II with a rather unusual petition. They asked to officially recognize as rabbi Isaac ha-Levi, who, in fact, and already for 30 years actually held this post. But, according to the deep conviction of the local Jews, as the encyclopedists testify, “the rabbi could not settle the strife that had arisen at that time among the members of the community until he was officially approved.”
It was at this time that the influential and wealthy Shimon ben Eliezer Ginzburg came to prominence in the community. Shimon, the son of the same Eliezer Abraham who had been forced to leave inhospitable Ulm. Shimon, who shared his father’s nickname, Ulm-Günzburg, was born already in Günzburg in 1506. He was not only a Talmudist and public figure, but also had obvious commercial talents. His range of commercial interests was extremely wide, he made transactions in many principalities of Germany, not to mention the fact that he traveled all over Poland on commercial matters. In Günzburg he built a synagogue and opened a cemetery. It is perhaps safe to say that Shimon ben Eliezer was at that time the most illustrious resident of the Jewish community of that city. In the second half of his life, Shimon moved to Bürgau, where he also did much for the community there. He died in Bürgau in 1585. Shimon ben Eliezer Günzburg is the direct ancestor of most of the modern Ginzburgs, including the famous Russian Barons Ginzburg.
Shimon’s son Asher Aharon Lemel Ulma-Ginzburg lived until the 17th century and died in 1606 in a German principality. Asher’s son – Yaakov Ulma-Ginzburg was the rabbi and teacher of the famous Rav Lipman Heller. Yaakov outlived his father by only ten years and died in 1616. He too had a son, naming him after his famous grandfather, Shimon (Scholtes). Isaac (Isaac), Shimon’s son, was born in Worms, where he married (family lore has preserved his wife’s name – Golda). The family soon moved to Poland. They lived in Vilna and in Pinsk. Whole generations of this family became famous rabbis.
Naftali Hertz, a descendant of Shimon of Günzburg, was the first of the family to follow in his ancestor’s footsteps after a two hundred year hiatus and become involved in business. And his son – Vitebsk rabbi Gabriel Yaakov, and became the father of the famous Jewish baron Joseph Yosel (Yevzel) Gintsburg. We will begin our further narrative with him and his family.
Thus, we have before us one of the most famous Jewish families in Russia at that time – the family of Baron Gintsburg. The members of this family not only possessed, as contemporaries believed, “fabulous wealth,” but were, as they are now written in the Russian press, “cult” figures for the vast majority of the Jews of the Russian Empire. Indeed, their enormous financial wealth, their connections with the tsar’s court and international banking capital, as well as their extremely generous philanthropy and patronage of the arts were a “proverbial parable” and created a favorable ground for the emergence of all sorts of legends and historical anecdotes.
One of such ironic and sad anecdotes about the relativity of even the most prosperous Jewish life in Russia is cited by researcher V. Shtylveld in his article about this family. “Baron Ginzburg, a famous philanthropist who built a synagogue in St. Petersburg, once rode in a carriage with Nicholas II. A man who was passing by could not contain his surprise: here was a Jew riding with the Tsar. The man was caught and wanted to take him to jail for insulting the baron. But Ginzburg asked not to punish the commoner and even gave him a gold piece. For what? For not letting the baron forget that he was a Jew.”
This historical anecdote is quite indicative for Russia of that time, although it is likely that for Russia (which, however, is not an odious exception in this case) it is indicative for all times and under any power. Jewish financial capital has always (from tsarist Russia to modern Russia) been considered by the overwhelming majority of the population as “stolen”, “oligarchic” or, in a softened version, “unjustly gained” and, in any case, according to the conviction of the majority of the people, used mainly for the “Jewish hagal”, “world conspiracy” or “for the purpose of further robbing the Russian people”. This widespread and propagandized opinion has not changed much during the last two and a half centuries, i.e. since the Jewish financiers or, as they say now in Russia, “oligarchs” made themselves known on the territory of Russia.
In this sense, despite numerous historical cataclysms, revolutions and cardinal changes of entire social formations, the attitude of the majority of the Russian people to Jewish capitalists with traditional anti-Semitism superimposed on it has not undergone significant changes. At the same time, the opinion about multimillionaires, or as many people called them semi-contemptuously – “nouveau riche” in the Jewish environment itself has never been unambiguous either. The poor part of Jewry mostly idolized them, was proud of them and counted on their support, which, however, was not unreasonable, as many of the rich tried to financially support their community in every possible way. The Jewish intelligentsia, on the other hand, while paying tribute to their commercial talents, was not only not inclined to idolize them, but also treated them with a great measure of dislike, often condemning and completely rejecting their “worship of the golden calf.
It is worth quoting from A. Lokshin’s article devoted to this issue: “The newly born St. Petersburg Jewish intelligentsia was often very critical of their fellow tribesmen, the rich. They irritated her at least by their frank desire to distance themselves from their poor co-religionists… If the sudden rise of the St. Petersburg Jewish elite was a mystery to the Jews of the line, it was also seen as something threatening to non-Jews. If non-Jews were ready to explain any Jewish success by the assistance of the Kagal, then (the hero of Levanda’s novel, a Jewish nouveau riche) insisted on the reasons for Jewish commercial influence: “…We take solely and exclusively by our temperament, our asceticism and our intense and tireless activity…. At a time when businessmen of other nationalities – first of all, ordinary people with human passions and lusts, epicureans, fascinated and distracted from business who are music, who are painting, who are women, horses, dogs, hunting, sports, gambling, we, businessmen-Jews, are not distracted and not entertained by anything that is not directly related to the business”. In the finale of this novel by L. Levanda, the protagonist, reflecting on the peculiarities of Jewish assimilation, outlines its limits: “…We will be Russians, but Russian laziness, Russian carelessness, zabubenness, impassivity and what is called the broad Russian nature will always remain alien to us.
Of course, considering the largest Jewish financiers of Russia in the 19th century and Russia in the 20th-21st centuries, the researcher certainly has a lot of associations and analogies. In both eras we see the same unbridled capitalist explosion, the same excitement, the same ambitions, the same aspirations. Only the scenery and time have been changed, and the action itself has been moved from the former capital of the Russian State of St. Petersburg to the present capital of the Russian Federation – Moscow. Let us allow ourselves one more lengthy quotation from the article “Window to Russia: Jews in St. Petersburg” by A. Lokshin. “No other Jewish community in Russia had such unheard of rich and prosperous people. St. Petersburg in a short time became the place of choice for the Russian-Jewish plutocracy; many of its representatives played a major role in the nascent spheres of private banking, stock speculation, and railroad construction. Polina Vengerova, a Jewish resident of the capital and author of the famous memoirs “Memories of Grandmother”, probably did not exaggerate too much when she wrote about the era of the 1960s-70s: “Never before had the Jews in St. Petersburg led such a prosperous life, since the capital’s finances were partly in their hands. A Jewish newspaper in St. Petersburg called the 1860s “the feverish decade of private enterprise.” According to one Jew, a former bank clerk, “the natives of the settled areas underwent a complete metamorphosis: the merchant turned into a banker, the contractor into a high-flying entrepreneur, and their employees into the capital’s dandies. Many crows put on peacock feathers; the upstarts from Balta and Konotop in a short time considered themselves ‘aristocrats’ and laughed at the ‘provincials'”. This scathing testimony accurately captures the changing role of the Jewish financial elite during the period of rapid development of capitalism in Russia. Jewish financiers, at least those living in St. Petersburg, made their fortunes primarily in the field of state business and maintained close ties with government officials.
The Ginzburg banking house is the most striking example of this. Large wine merchants, suppliers of food and uniforms to the Russian army during the Crimean War, Euzel Ginzburg and his son Horace established their own bank in St. Petersburg in 1859; they subsequently provided the state with huge loans for many government needs, including those related to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. The Polyakov brothers (Samuel, Yakov, Lazar) financed the construction of railroads and as a result were inducted by Alexander II into the hereditary nobility, which was a great rarity for Jews. In 1871, Abraham Zak, who had previously served with the Gintsburgs, became director of the St. Petersburg Accounting and Loan Bank, one of the largest in the empire. The bank was owned by the Polish-Jewish magnate Leopold Kronenberg. Many others can be added to this list…”
So, who are these famous, mentioned in almost every article on the Jewish theme about Russia of the 19th century and famous in their time for all Europe “bankers and Jewish advocates” Barons Ginzburgs?
Let’s start at the beginning. In 1812, at the time when little Joseph Yosel (in Russian pronunciation – Evzel or Osip) Ginzburg was born in the city of Vitebsk in the family of Rabbi Gabriel Yaakov Ginzburg and his wife Leah Rashkis, no one could have guessed that this infant was destined by fate to play such an outstanding role in the history of the Jews of the Russian State. As the reader will remember, it was a turbulent time – it was then that Napoleon led his famous Russian campaign, which began so successfully and soon ended in such a tragic defeat. As the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Ephron points out, Yosel received a traditional Jewish upbringing as a child, and no one was able to notice any outstanding abilities in him at that time.
At the age of 16 (which was normal then) he married Rasa (in Russian pronunciation – Rosa) Dynina. He did not choose a spiritual path, did not become a rabbi like his father, but preferred a completely different fate. His youthful career he began modestly enough and traditionally enough for those times – he got a job (thanks to his father’s connections) as a cashier to a large landowner, who was engaged in payoffs. Payoff, as encyclopedias write, is “an exclusive right, presented by the state for a certain fee to private individuals (payoffs), to collect any taxes or sell certain types of goods (salt, wine, etc.)”. Many researchers believe that capitalism in Russia actually began with payoffs, or rather with the payoffsmen, who were the first to discover this “Klondike” of business of that time.
It should be noted that Yosel, besides many other qualities necessary for successful commercial activity, had one more quality, perhaps one of the most valuable in this field – unique intuition, which distinguished him from many novice merchants. It was this quality that would allow him to become one of the richest men in this country in the future. He quickly realized, for example, that payoffs – this area of activity, carrying a huge financial potential. And soon he started to buy off on his own – and so successfully that by the age of 28 he became not only the owner of a solid capital, but also became famous as one of the best payoffs. He owned buyouts in several of the largest Russian provinces – in Kiev and Volyn provinces. Thus, having earned a decent capital, by 1833 he already received the title of Vitebsk merchant of the 1st guild.
At the same time, he sought to spend as much time as possible in St. Petersburg. Researcher V. Shtylveld writes: “Earlier than others he understood the inevitability of capitalization of Russia, the inevitability of revolution, conducted from above, by the monarch himself. Not he alone, of course, realized the usefulness for businessmen ties with political circles – but he was almost the first to realize that the bet should be made not on the dignitary bureaucrats, and on the liberal circles of the court, listed under Nicholas in disgrace. Therefore, young Gintsburg hurried to establish business and financial ties with Prince Alexander of Hesse, the brother of the wife of the heir to the throne and a general of the Russian army. When Alexander II ascended the throne, his great reforms were largely inspired by the Tsar’s wife, Maria of Hesse, and her brother’s favorite, Eusel Gintsburg, immediately fell into the circle of those businessmen who, as they say now, began to create the infrastructure of the latest economy”.
In such a turbulent financial activity, of course, it could not do without endless intrigues of competitors, envy, and even just denunciations. Historian O. Budnitsky gives one example of such a situation. “His (Gintsburg’s) rapid enrichment caused a denunciation on him, which reached the emperor himself. The anonymous informer claimed that Gintsburg earned about 8 million rubles in silver on payoffs. “Since the existence of Russia,” wrote the concerned “patriot,” “there has not been a Jew who has had a fortune of a million rubles. The times, however, were liberal and reformatory. Alexander II “scribbled” on the denunciation: “Leave it without consequences.” Evzel’s connections at court were too strong at that time.
However, in addition to strong palace connections, Evzel was distinguished by another quality that was not always characteristic of the nouveau riche. This quality, no matter how banal or paradoxical it may sound in the business world, is honesty, or as they liked to express it at the time – “reliability”. Indeed, the basic principle of commercial activity Evzel in Russia, and soon in Europe served not ordinary for Russia at that time (and, however, probably, and not only that) motto – “decency”. It was not just a motto: Ginzburg’s word in commercial circles of that time was tantamount to a promissory note. Many of his contemporaries wrote about it. It was this quality or this principle that later paid him back a hundredfold and allowed him to create one of the most successful financial empires of the Russian Empire.
As O. Budnitsky points out “For services rendered to the government, Euzel Gintsburg, along with his wife and children, was granted hereditary honorary citizenship on the initiative of Finance Minister F. P. Vronchenko in 1849. During the Crimean War Euzel Gintsburg held a wine buyback in besieged Sevastopol. According to Gintsburg’s attorney, he left the city “one of the last, almost simultaneously with the commandant of the garrison.
So, at the end of the 1850s Yosel, and now finally Eusel Ginzburg, became a St. Petersburg merchant of the first guild, and in 1874 he was granted the title of commercial counselor. In this case, his amazing intuition not only does not fail him, but on the contrary becomes even more acute. As the same Shtylveld points out – “Earlier than other capitalists of the Nikolaev era, our character realized the historical doom of the payoff trade”. In 1863, two years after the abolition of serfdom, payoffs will be abolished in Russia in general and many spheres of activity, which were engaged in payoffs will be left to the state, that is, they will be simply monopolized. A huge number of merchants who had gotten rich on the payoffs, like on yeast, will immediately go bankrupt (and among them many Jews). Four years before this event, in 1859, Evzel Ginzburg changed the direction of his financial activities quite abruptly – he created a banker’s house in St. Petersburg, which soon became one of the most important banks in the capital.
As Brockhaus and Efron points out, Euzel Gintsburg at that time becomes not only one of the best financiers in St. Petersburg, but also in the whole of Russia. He shows fantastic activity in the development of so-called “credit institutions”, or simply banks: he becomes one of the founders of the first private bank in Russia, namely the Private Commercial Bank in Kiev. This would be followed by the establishment of the Accounting Bank in Odessa, then the Accounting and Loan Bank in St. Petersburg. Through his banking house in St. Petersburg, reliable links were established between the financial institutions of Western Europe and Russia. His banks, in the full sense of these words could be called “financial windows to Europe”. In addition, the banking house of Ginzburg took an active part in the grandiose financing of railroad enterprises (which emerged at that time with extreme rapidity and according to contemporaries “grew simply before our eyes, like mushrooms after the rain”).
By the way, all his life Euzel Ginzburg maintained ties with Prince Alexander of Hesse. The latter granted Eusel the title of baron, which title “with the highest permission” (and in order to accept the title of even foreign nobility, it was necessary to obtain the permission of the Russian Tsar) he was allowed to use in Russia hereditarily.
At the same time, if we delve into the historical and memoir literature of the time, any mention of Euzel Ginzburg, as well as of his sons, found in Jewish and Russian history, is always connected not only with his titles, ranks, awards and the astronomical sums of his fortune, but, rather, even primarily with his famous charitable activities, as well as with his role as “benefactor and defender of Russian Jewry. And despite the fact that at the time when his financial empire reached a huge scale, Euzel himself preferred to live not in Russia, but in Paris, but, as G. Sliozberg, who was close to him, writes, “every stay in St. Petersburg was accompanied by some petition concerning the rights of the Jews.
As another researcher of the history of the Hintzburg family V. Shtylveld writes in particular “it is known that on the monument to Bohdan Khmelnitsky in Kiev were to be embossed words from Shevchenko: “Hai vivve Ukraina without a Jew and without a gentry”. And under the hoofs of the horse was projected the figure of a Jew scorching. Baron Ginzburg got the project changed for a decent amount of money”. “After the Crimean War,” continues Sliozberg, “beginning in 1858, Ginzburg made persistent requests ο granting the Jewish merchants the right of permanent residence outside the settlement line. By that time his petitions on behalf of the Jews had become commonplace: he had become “the official representative for the Jews in the capital”. Thanks to his efforts, the bill ο granting merchants the right of universal residence was implemented in a law on March 15, 1859. According to Budnitsky: “In August, 1862, Evzel Ginzburg submitted a note to Baron Modest Korff, chairman of the government’s Jewish Committee, in which he drew attention to the following points in the legislation concerning the Jews and contradicting the logic of ‘sound political economy’: restriction of the right of residence; restriction in the production of trade and the acquisition of landed property; powerlessness of Jews who had received an education.”
“In general, since 1862,” testifies the Jewish Encyclopedia, “he has presented a number of reports, proving the necessity of developing enlightenment among the Jews, of granting rights to persons who had graduated from secondary schools, and also to artisans. In 1863 he founded the “Society for the Propagation of Education among the Jews,” which cost a tremendous effort; the activities of this society developed almost exclusively on the funds of Gintsburg.” Under the influence of the Ginzburgs, the “Society for the Training of Jews in Craft and Agricultural Labor” (ORT) was formed, where people could get in-demand professions. (By the way, this is the same ORT, which was spread in Israel, where it still exists, and after the Russian perestroika it was restored in Russia). The Ginzburgs were particularly attentive to talent. They helped the future famous sculptor M. Antokolsky, the brilliant violinists Y. Heifetz and E. Tsimbalist to “go out into the world”. Tsimbalist. Marc Chagall and Samuel Marshak in their early youth also did not do without the attention of the Gintsburg family. Euzel Ginzburg, and later his son, had a whole staff of assistants who responded to personal appeals from people in distress.
The Ginzburgs’ philanthropy extended not only to Jews. Few people remember that the elder Ginzburg was one of the founders of the Archaeological Society in St. Petersburg, and the younger, Horace, was one of the founders of the Higher Women’s Courses, which were later called “Bestuzhev’s”. Baron Evzel Ginzburg left a bequest, which has long been told in the “sedentary line”: 50,000 dessiatins of land in Taurida province – for poor Jews who will want to peasantize.” Brockhaus and Efron report that “his concern ο the development of agricultural labor among the Jews was expressed, among other things, in his establishment of a prize for the best Jewish farmers. And by 1857 he had established a scholarship for Jews studying at the Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy. At the beginning of the 70s, when proposals began to be worked out for the introduction of general conscription, Euzel, together with his son Horace, showed particularly energetic work, the result of which was the equalization of the Jews with regard to conscription with the rest of the population. On his initiative was built the famous Choral Synagogue, about the construction of which in the capital of the Russian State in his time for several years was broken so many verbal spears and which is still the main synagogue of the Jews of the former Leningrad, and now again St. Petersburg. The famous pews of the Barons Gintsburgs still stand there in the front row.
In the last years of his life, Euzel practically never came to Russia, living in Paris. He passed away there in 1878. He bequeathed his entire huge fortune, including the “I. E. Ginzburg” banking house (and his “banking house” in those days was as they say now “a diversified holding company” or “a giant financial group”) to his three sons – the already mentioned above Naftali Hertz (Horace), Uri (Uriah) and Solomon-David. The inheritance was conditioned by two famous points – preservation of the faith of their fathers (which not all Jewish “oligarchs” of the 19th century, as well as of the 20th century, dared to do) and preservation of Russian citizenship.
Eusel Ginzburg had five children. The year 1878 was a tragic one for the Ginzburg family. The two eldest children, Alexander Ziskind and Mathilde, died in Paris in the same year as their father. The most famous follower and continuer of his father’s work after his death was his son – Naftali Herz (or as he was called in Russian – Horace) Ginzburg. He was the most active associate and companion of his father.
He was born in Zvenigorodka, Ukraine in 1833, was the second child (two years younger than his older brother Alexander), received a home education (which included Hebrew, Torah, and Talmudic studies), and married his cousin Hana Rosenberg at age 20. While still in his twenties, Hertz became his father’s closest assistant in all his commercial and social endeavors. Soon he practically took over their banking house, taking new directions in business development. It is believed that it was thanks to Hertz that the Ginzburgs’ commercial activities were reoriented to the new Russian “Klondike” – gold mining in Siberia. At this time, from the early 70s of the 19th century in Russia, in American terms, began the “gold rush”. But it happened in Russia in a different way than in America – large companies, bankers’ houses and merchants-“millionaires” engaged in gold mining, investing in this area of huge capital and creating a whole branched and extremely profitable new branch of business – gold industry. This Russian gold boom of the late 19th century in its volume and excitement was extremely similar to the oil, metallurgical and aluminum boom of Russia in the late 20th century, when the property, for seventy years held by the state began to pass into private hands.
Horace, like his father in his time, saw in time all the financial potential opening up in this area. After a while, the Ginzburg banking house had already become the founder of about a dozen mines. The enumeration of mines and companies owned by the Gintsburgs at that time takes more than half a page. As the historian writes “it was the Gintsburgs who at the turn of the century topped the list of the most influential persons in the Russian gold industry”.
But gold mining was by no means the only sphere of Horace’s commercial activity. As Smetanin points out “The Ginzburgs had sugar factories and large land holdings in the Kiev and Podolsk provinces. Machines, mineral fertilizers, and scientific crop rotations were widely used on their estates. They also had land holdings in the Crimea and leased them out. But in 1892 the banking house ceased operations. This was not considered bankruptcy, as they repaid their creditors. For some time after that, the family still maintained a position in the gold industry. But after the collapse of the banking house they were forced to hand over the mines to the British.” Indeed, the Ginzburg business in the late 19th century suffered a strong financial blow. Here is how this situation is described by another researcher, O. Budnitsky – “In 1892, at the time of a sharp decline in the Russian ruble, the Ministry of Finance did not help the banking house, whose funds were invested in Russian securities – the Gintsburgs were forced to abandon banking activities and focused on gold mining.” However, even after the cessation of the active operations of the banking house and the reduction of income from gold mining, the Gintsburgs’ fortune was estimated at that time as one of the largest financial fortunes in Russia.
At the same time, Horace, just as his father before him, regardless of the variable or constant success of his financial affairs, never ceased his famous charitable and social activities. For forty years he officially headed the St. Petersburg Jewish community in the capital (although in fact he headed the entire Jewish community of Russia). The now existing ORT in its historical sketch informs – “Gintsburg showed himself as a patron of the arts and a major benefactor. In his house gathered the best representatives of scientific circles and the world of art. Here visited M. M. Stasiulevich, K. D. Kaverin, V. D. Spasovich, professors who left the university after the Polish uprising of 1863. The famous literary and music critic V. V. Stasov and the famous writer I. S. Turgenev were close to Gintsburg; M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. A. Goncharov, I. M. Kramskoi, V. M. Soloviev, A. G. Rubinstein visited his house. Sculptor M. Antokolsky thanks to Gintsburg managed to get an academic education. It is difficult to name all the cases in which he acted as an intercessor, all the Jewish enterprises that he financed. Books in defense of the Jews were published with his money. He was chairman of the JCE, although he did not approve of emigration, chairman of the Society for the Enlightenment of the Jews. His wife, Anna Gesselevna, established an orphanage on Vasilevsky Island. This family always generously helped the victims of fires, crop failures, pogroms and other disasters in the settled areas”.
The researcher Shtydveld continues this theme: “Under the leadership of Horace Ginzburg, 507 emigration committees operated! The Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society, which published thousands of monuments of Jewish antiquities and organized an ethnographic expedition that gathered a unique collection of objects of national material culture – this collection later formed the basis of an entire museum (safely closed under the Soviet regime). Among other things, his money was used to establish many different scholarships…..
Like his father, Horace Ginzburg constantly interceded for the Jews, submitting notes to the government on various occasions. Although Ginzburg was allowed to gather Jewish representatives in St. Petersburg to petition for the improvement of the situation of the Jews, but in response to the petition the Minister of the Interior, Count N.P. Ignatiev, said: “The western border is open to the Jews. They already have many rights, and their emigration will not be hindered.”
Ignatiev was right – it was easier for a Jew to leave Russia permanently than to move temporarily from a small town to a city. At the same time, Russia was experiencing the widest swath of Jewish pogroms, which also encouraged emigration, and many of the Russian officials were frankly happy about it.
Mikhail Beizer describes the relations of “power-holding” high-ranking Russian officials with Baron Gintsburg in his book “Jews in St. Petersburg”, referring to the same Klyachko. “Back in the early eighties, the waiters of the restaurant “Donon”, who were used to being surprised by nothing, witnessed such mysterious scenes: in the study at the table with the remains of a sumptuous dinner, a full general in an unbuttoned uniform was dozing at the table. Three men were strolling along the corridor. Two of them were obviously Jews: “One was tall, burly, bespectacled, with an eagle nose; the other was small in stature, with a graying beard, an unusually agile face, and intelligent, not for his age, brilliant eyes.” The third, a tall, thin, colorless man, had a distinctly bureaucratic appearance. Suddenly the little one separated from the group and tiptoed cautiously into the office. Approaching the general, he quietly lifted the hem of his uniform with one hand, and with the other went into his own pocket. The other “conspirators” peeped through the ajar door. One might have expected that his Excellency would now be stabbed, or that they would put poison in his wine, or at least that something would be stolen. Nothing of the kind happened. On the contrary, the little gray-haired Jew would take an envelope out of his pocket and drop it into the inner pocket of the general’s uniform. Then he would just as quietly leave the office and join the rest of the company. In a few minutes all three would peep into the room. The general continued to sleep. Then the procedure described was repeated, and another envelope disappeared into the capacious pocket of the sleeping fat man. And so sometimes several times, until at last the important person woke up and rang the bell. At this point a trio of “conspirators” deliberately entered the office noisily, greeting the general. He smiled at them: “Yes, I sucked a little. It’s time to go home. Quite satisfied. Everything that can be done will be done.” After that he was leaving with a thin, subservient official.
What was it? An anti-government conspiracy? Sale of General Staff secrets to a foreign power? A failed assassination attempt? Who are these people – participants in the mysterious events? Sleeping General – Minister of Internal Affairs in the government of Alexander III Count NP Ignatiev. The official is his secretary. A tall burly man – a famous philanthropist, chairman of the board of the Jewish community of St. Petersburg Horace Gintsburg. A small, gray-haired man – David Faddeyevich Feinberg, a prominent Jewish public figure, one of the organizers of the construction of the St. Petersburg synagogue and Ginzburg’s secretary. The whole play was invented by Ignatiev himself to obtain bribes from the Jews. If the count found the sum insufficient, the “dream” continued. The minister finally “woke up” when the “contribution” satisfied him completely. And it was necessary to please Ignatiev, because he could prevent new repressions against the Jews (organized by him). For example, Ignatiev was the initiator of the new anti-Jewish legislation. The background to it is as follows. In 1881, after the assassination of Emperor Alexander II, pogroms swept through the siege. Many believed that they were inspired by the government, which feared the outbreak of a revolutionary movement. There were so many pogroms that Alexander III proposed to Ignatiev to investigate their causes and to work out proposals for preventing such things in the future. The Count prepared a report, from which it followed that the pogroms were the fault of … the Jews themselves, who allegedly exploited the peasants mercilessly. Therefore it was proposed to evict the Jews from the villages (not a new idea, it should be noted).
The Minister did not pity the Jews, but was very fond of money, which he always lacked. Therefore, before carrying the report to the Tsar, Ignatiev showed it to Ginzburg and hinted that for two million rubles (according to other sources – for a million) it could be completely changed. The baron was unable to get the unheard-of sum, but still for a smaller bribe (about one hundred thousand rubles) the law was somewhat relaxed. Since the introduction of the new legislation, Jews were forbidden to settle in the villages of the sedentary line and to acquire real estate there. They were not allowed to sell alcohol. Village assemblies were given the right to expel from the village any Jew who had lived there before the adoption of the new law.”
Count Ignatiev was not alone in disliking the Jews, doing everything to worsen their situation, while taking bribes from them – this form of blackmail was widespread in Russia. The majority of the Russian nobility had a particularly strong dislike for people like the Ginzburgs – on the one hand they belonged to the despised Jewish tribe, and on the other hand they had a noble rank, which put them on the same level (at least according to protocol) with the Russian nobility, but most importantly, to all this they also had such colossal capitals, which were not even dreamed of by the majority of the Russian aristocracy. These were sufficient reasons for envy, anger and hatred.
To really understand what was the true attitude of the majority of the Russian nobility to “these Jewish upstarts,” as some representatives of His Imperial Majesty’s court characterized the Barons Gintsburgs at the time, it is worth turning to the correspondence between Prince V. P. Meshchersky and the then Russian Tsar Alexander III. Meshchersky was a well-known publicist, writer, author of a number of topical bestsellers of the time, as well as publisher and editor of the newspaper “Grazhdanin”, which he proclaimed “the organ of Russian people, standing beyond all parties”. The epigraph to Meshchersky’s letter may serve as a phrase from previous letters exchanged between the prince and the tsar – “We must make every effort to stop the spread of the Jewish intellectual.” And here is how another letter to the Tsar from January 5, 1885 looks like.
“Saturday.
Yesterday there was a characteristic dinner at Ober-Jude Ginzburg’s. Ginzburg is the head of the Jewish party in Russia – no one doubts it. He is both very rich and very clever. But what is sad is that his wealth is becoming more and more extensive as his mind is refined in acquiring more and more influence. Moreover, it is characteristic and interesting that Ginzburg acts with surprising cynicism and insolence: he is not ceremonious to show his contempt for the Russian people when he needs them. As soon as Ignatieff’s appointment to Siberia was known, Ginzburg appeared with a visit to him. The reason is clear. Ginzburg had acquired many gold mines in Siberia and had established large Jewish colonies there. And after his visits, Gintsburg calls Ignatiev to dinner. Ignatiev goes and catches Lukullov’s dinner. Among the guests are various ace generals; en tete Count Pavel Shuvalov, then Bobrikov, Anuchin; the last two turned out to be amis de la maison; Adelson, and on the other side Ginzburgiat and the General Manager of Ginzburg’s gold mines in Siberia. Ginzburg treats, but does not eat himself, so as not to get into trouble with the Russians. Champagne is served, and what is it? Bobrikov proposes various toasts, and among others such a toast: to the health of the host, as a most noble man, firmly and steadily walking on his road, a valiant worker, who has proved to us that despite the difference in religion, he does not make a distinction in nationalities, etc.
Such glassy speeches disgust me. Ginzburg listens to them with a smile that expresses: praise me, you peasants, I’ll be free to listen to you…”.
This personal letter, sent to the Emperor of Russia himself, and looking more like a denunciation, mixed everything – hatred and contempt for Jews, jealousy of high-ranking officials who received bribes from them, his own powerlessness and endless desire to do something to spite and annoy that damned inaccessible Ginzburg. But even this denunciation, apparently, did not make the proper impression. However, times changed, Russian emperors, officials and writers. Only one thing did not change – their attitude to the Jews. As Kushner wrote – “Every century, it’s an age of iron.” We can turn to a later time, to the reign of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II, the successor of Alexander III, and see that there were no fundamental changes in the attitude of the authorities to the Jews in Russia at that time, or rather, there were changes, but only for the worse. We will allow ourselves to quote an excerpt from the book by Aaron Simanovich, the jeweler of His Imperial Court and personal secretary of Grigory Rasputin (by the way, quite ambiguous, complex and in many ways a key figure on the horizon of the Russian hardship of those years). Many who have read the memoirs of Simanovich argue that he extremely emphasizes and exaggerates his own role in the events of that time. Without disputing this assertion, it seems to us that it is worth listening to the memoirist, who describes the atmosphere and events of those years quite accurately. Here is what Simanovich writes in his memoirs.
“Of course, it need not be extended that in settling Jewish petitions, which soon became my chief occupation and absorbed a great deal of my time, Rasputin’s friendship was of great value to me. He never refused his help. True, at first he showed some restraint in Jewish affairs. He was more willing to agree with me when it came to other matters, and I had the impression that he had little knowledge of the Jewish question. He also often told me that the Czar complained about the Jews. Since the ministers were constantly complaining about the Jewish domination and the participation of the Jews in the revolutionary movement, the Jewish question was causing the Czar much worry and he did not know how to deal with it.
It was a short but very dangerous time for the Jews. I had already begun to fear that Rasputin would become an anti-Semite, and I used all my skill and energy to direct Rasputin’s thoughts in another direction. In a sense, I had to contrast my influence on Rasputin tsar’s influence on Rasputin, because the Tsar devoted Rasputin in all his concerns and constantly complained about the Jews. The question was whether Rasputin would enter into my explanations of the Jewish question or believe the complaints of the Czar. The representatives of Jewry, whom I thought it necessary to initiate into the formidable situation that had been created, were greatly alarmed and obliged me to take all measures to prevent Rasputin’s going over to the anti-Semites. It was clear to us all that such a turn would have terrible consequences.
At that time, Rasputin was already at the height of his fame, and the Tsar was quite under his influence. Nicholas at that time was fond of reactionary organizations and was himself a member of the “Union of the Russian People”, which arranged Jewish pogroms. If Rasputin joined the reactionary figures who were very much about it, then for the Jews would be the last times. After a long hesitation, he took our side. His healthy human reasoning won out. He became a friend and benefactor of the Jews and supported my endeavors to improve their situation without question.
I had many conferences with Jewish representatives, and I was given the task of striving for and, if possible, achieving Jewish equality. This also meant that the paths I outlined and the means I used to achieve this goal were recognized as correct. I accepted the assignment given to me, but the revolution was ahead of me in completing it. In any case, I am proud of the fact that I was destined to help the Jews in such a difficult time and to alleviate at least partially their fate…..
Rasputin often complained about the opposition of ministers and other influential persons hostile to the Jews. In this connection he asked me to introduce him to people who could give him interesting information on the Jewish question.
He told me that in general the Tsar was not as hostile to the Jews as is commonly thought. The word “Jew” nevertheless has an unpleasant effect on the royal family. Dislike of Jews is inculcated in the children of the imperial family from a young age by nannies and other servants. Rasputin said that the Minister of Internal Affairs Maklakov when playing with the heir tried to intimidate him with the words: “Just wait, you will be taken by the Jews! Out of fear, the heir at these words even screamed.”
It was in these conditions of “anti-Semitic Russia from top to bottom and from bottom to top” that the large Jewish population of the empire and the leaders of the community, the Barons Ginzburgs, had to exist. Of course, in order to lead the community at that time and in those conditions one had to be an extremely extraordinary person. And legends, rumors and gossip always accompany the life of extraordinary and famous people. What only did not tell about the Ginzburgs and, in particular, about Horace, what only disputes and squabbles did not arise around these people: Some argued that he supported the revolutionaries and wanted to overthrow the existing regime with his money, while others argued that he was a loyal “servant of the tsar”; some were foaming at the mouth to prove that he opposed the emigration of Jews from Russia, while others logically argued that Horace spent huge sums of money on the “Jewish Colonization Society” together with Baron Hirsch; some gossiped that Horace was the owner of a harem of mistresses, while others claimed that he was “the most faithful of husbands”. Rumors and gossip “bred without barriers” – part of the Jewish community insisted that Horace’s time had passed and that he was obsolete as a leader, that new ideas and new ways of fighting for equality were needed, while other members of the community reassured them, claiming that in Russia there were and never would be any other ways to achieve anything but money. There was no end to the arguments about this.
О. Budnitsky in his article gives, in particular, such an example: “There were rumors that Gintsburg financed the “Sacred Druzhina” – a secret society created to fight the revolutionaries by their own methods, up to terrorism. At the same time, he maintained close relations with the editor of the liberal newspaper “Order” published in 1881-1882 years Mikhail Stasiulevich and provided him with financial support. However, evil tongues claimed that he supported the newspaper Horace not out of a predilection for liberal ideas, and out of sympathy for Stasiulevich’s wife, née Utina. The same evil tongues argued that a more ugly woman than the object of passion of the banker, it was difficult to find. But love, as is well known, is a mysterious feeling.”
In addition to the endlessly spread and most incredible rumors, in addition to the hatred of the Black Hundreds, the dislike of the tsarist persons, and the overwhelming majority of the Russian people, the Ginzburgs were also subjected to constant criticism from their own community. And this criticism came from the most enlightened and educated part of the community, namely, its intelligentsia. Here is how A. Lokshin describes this situation – “After the reorganization of the board in 1869, literally the entire community life in the capital fell into complete dependence on the voluntary donations of several prosperous Jewish families. The Barons Ginzburgs, who stood at the head of the community (first Euzel and then his sons Horace and David), formed a power that was actually hereditary. They had access to the highest officials in the state and enjoyed immense popularity outside of Peter – as benefactors and intercessors. It is possible to imagine the position of this unique family, for example, by the fact that among themselves, in common speech, the Jews of St. Petersburg called Horace Ginzburg no other than “Daddy”. He had aristocratic manners and, like many Russian aristocrats, felt more natural speaking French than Russian. Among the guests in the fashionable house of Ginzburg on the English Embankment could meet famous Russian writers and artists, generals, lawyers, major government officials. While traveling on his extensive estates in Podolsk province, the Gintsburgs were often literally besieged by crowds of poor Jews begging for monetary help or intercession of various kinds. In the popular mind, in the minds of people who longed for a powerful protector, the various rich and influential Jews of St. Petersburg, who happened to bear the surnames of Ginsberg, Ginzburg, Ginzburg, or Gunzburg, merged into one “Baron Ginzburg”; it was to him that all good deeds were attributed.
Meanwhile, the situation in the community continued to irritate the Jewish intelligentsia. It believed that the very nouveau riche, as depicted in Levanda’s novel, had come to life and taken control of the main community of Russian Jewry. In an open appeal to the Ginzburgs and the like, the editors of “Rassvet” wrote in 1880: “We Jews are still unable to shake off the sad centuries-old legacy imposed on us from outside …. We still cannot free ourselves from the unfortunate, but unfortunately based on sad experience, conviction that everything and everywhere can be achieved only with money. Money, and money alone, saved us from exile, from bonfires; money gave us honor and privileged position in some states, and still does; why, one may ask, with money, with money alone, could we not arrange public affairs properly? It turns out, however, that it is not possible, that within Jewry other levers and engines are also necessary… We, however, are not at all against the fact that our financial celebrities should be involved in public affairs…. We are only against the exclusive participation in these affairs at their expense and no one else’s…. Only public affairs and endeavors that will not be the work of single individuals, but of the people as a whole can have real success”.
This passage very accurately describes the atmosphere and mindset of those years. Zionism and the revolutionary movement (such different and contradictory ideas) were increasingly capturing the consciousness of the Jews of Russia. According to the recollections of contemporaries – “no one wants evolution anymore – everyone wants some kind of revolution!” The Barons Ginzburgs, who had never been revolutionaries, Zionists or monarchists felt themselves in this environment more and more difficult. The time of the philanthropic magnates in Russia was coming to an end. To lead the community of a country that was collapsing before one’s eyes was unthinkably difficult. The Ginzburgs understood this, but could do nothing. Here is how this situation is described in the ORT historical essay dedicated to Horace Ginzburg.
“Undoubtedly, this was an outstanding person. Why then, for example, in the elections to the First State Duma, did not Horace Ginzburg become a Jewish deputy? Why was he not even nominated for this post, and no one came to him for advice? Could it be that they forgot his services to the Jewish world? Of course not. It’s just that times have changed. Ginzburg was too traditional a Jewish leader. In strict accordance with Jewish teachings, he believed that Jews should strictly follow the laws of their country of residence. Loyalty to the government, to the king, was a sacred principle to him. What could he do? Donate money, a lot of money, somehow placate an official, give a bribe (as in the story of Count Ignatiev). And, of course, to beg, to intercede.
Such a leader in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century was no longer satisfactory to most Jews. The political situation in the country was changing rapidly. Anti-Semitism was gaining strength, and terrible pogroms broke out. And Jewry itself had long ago ceased to be a monolithic community, but had broken up into factions fighting each other. It was necessary not to ask, but to demand, to shout in order to be heard. In order to achieve something or at least to protect one’s home, one had to take up arms. The state was not going to protect the Jews from arbitrariness, but participated in this arbitrariness itself, seeing in a foreign nation the cause of the spread of the revolution and a suitable scapegoat. Nicholas II in a telegram sent in June 1907 to one of the leaders of the Union of the Russian People, said: “…. let the Union of the Russian People be a reliable support for me, serving as an example of law and order for all and in everything”.
What could Baron Ginzburg ask of the Emperor, for whom the Union of the Russian People was the basis of law and order?! It was clear to any thinking person at that time that the salvation of the Jews was either in emigration or in the revolutionary struggle. There was no room for compromise in an embittered, crisis-ridden society. But Ginzburg sympathized neither with the revolutionaries (neither left nor right), nor with emigration, nor with Zionism. Therefore, in the elections to the State Duma, the Jews voted not for him, but for the new leaders who had the courage and skill not to ask, but to demand. The Jewish people, like the other peoples of Russia, no longer wanted to ask for anything. It was considered humiliating and pointless. The time of such leaders as Horace Yevzelevich Gintsburg was irrevocably gone.”
Naftali Herz (Horace) Ginzburg died in 1909 in St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian state. In his will he requested that he be buried in Paris, where the ashes of his father, sister and brothers rested. As Shtylveld writes, “When he died, the most prominent public figures of the then Jewry at the funeral service called him “the beauty of Israel” for his incessant concern for his people. And the Zionist Temkin spoke there “on behalf of the remote provincial places”: “Can you name a single place that in a moment of grief would not ask the Baron for protection? Find a single Jew who, in a moment of despair or bitter suffering, would not have appealed to the Baron? And the Baron went, asked, interceded – he never refused anyone!”.
Of course, after Horace’s death, the financial and philanthropic activities of the Ginzburg family did not cease. The family was headed by his sons. In his will Horace wrote that “during his lifetime he donated a lot to charitable purposes and therefore does not bequeath special sums for them, but hopes that his children, following the traditions of the family and the entire Jewish people, will continue the cause of charity”. And indeed, as researchers write, “Horace turned out to be a visionary – the descendants of the Ginzburgs are still involved in charitable actions”.
There is no doubt that the Ginzburg family, more than any other family, left its mark on the Jewish history of Russia. This family had huge connections throughout Europe. The Ginzburgs were related to the famous French Rothschilds, to Baron Hirsch, to the German bankers Warburgs from Hamburg, to the bankers Herzfelds from Budapest, Ashkenazi from Odessa, Rosenberg and Brodsky from Kiev. The Ginzburgs had a large family.
We would like to name at least some of its members in this article as a token of gratitude for all that this family did for the Jews of Russia. Horace alone had eleven children. Here are their names and dates of life: Gabriel Jacob (1855-1926, Paris), David (1857-1910, St. Petersburg), Mordechai Maximilian (1859-?), Louise (1862-1921), Alexandre Moses (1863-1948), Abram Alfred (1865-1936, Paris), Mathilde (1865-1917), Isaac Dimitri (1870-1907), Benjamin Pierre (1872-1948), Vladimir Zeev Wolf (1873, Paris-1932, Paris), and Sarah Anna (1876-?).
Alexander Ziskind (1831-1878), Horace’s older brother had two sons, Michael and Gabriel Jacob.
Mathilde (1844-1878, Paris), his younger sister also had two children, his brother Solomon David (1848-1905, Paris) had four, and Uri (1840-1914, Paris), another of his brothers, had 9 children.
Almost every one of these 28 cousins had their own children, and then grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Numerous descendants of the family remember their roots and have managed to recreate their extensive family tree dating back to the 15th century.
In conclusion, it should be said that all the descendants of the Ginzburgs left Russia at different times (mostly before the revolution). Thus, the more than century-long history of this family’s life on the territory of the Russian Empire has come to an end. Numerous descendants of the Gintsburgs now live all over the world – from France and Israel to the USA. But the memory of this famous family is most likely still preserved by the Jews of Russia.