I'm editing an essay by Kropotkin, "Anarchist Morality", in which the following passage occurs:
"'They have the right to steal,' in speaking of those terrorists who lived on dry bread, and stole a million or two of the Kishineff treasure, taking, at their own peril, all possible precautions to free the sentinel, who guarded the wealth with fixed bayonet, from all responsibility.
I have been unable to find any reference to this incident, which probably occurred in the timeframe 1890 - 1905. Kishineff presumably refers to the principal city of Moldavia, but I 'm not certain about this either. Kropotkin does not indicate whether the "terrorists" were anarchists are belonged to some other faction. Hoping someone can nail down this event.
Thanks @-librarians!
There are some alternate spellings of Kishineff:
Kishineff
Kishinev
Kishinyov
Chisinau
The passage might have to do with pogroms in the early 1900s in Kishinev:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom
Here's an excerpt from:
recollectionbooks.com/bleed/AnarchistTimeline2.htm
6-21-1903 -- England: In London, anarchists organize a massive
demonstration among the Jewish labor movement to protest the Russian pogrom
in Kishineff.
Held on a Sunday, it was the largest demonstration by Jewish workers
London had ever seen.
Thousands marched from Miles End to Hyde Park. Thousands of others
went straight to the park. London's daily papers estimated 25,000 had
turned out, despite the opposition of two Yiddish dailies, & calls by East
End Rabbis for workers to boycott the demonstration.
Besides East End speakers, there were Herbert Burrows, John Turner
(Turner was eventually arrested (in October) & booted out of the country.
[Details, click here]), Ted Leggatt, Harry Kelly, N. Tchikovsky, Warlaam
Tcherkesoff>W. Tcherkesov & Peter Kropotkin.
Source, see Rudolf Rocker, The London Years
Another item, possibly related:
www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/volozhin/vol_pages/vol_gb_archive1.html
..Two Bunimovitz brothers lived In Volozhyn. One of them rented the
Sakovshchina mill. He was a rich man. In 1905 his house was robbed at
midnight by a gang of Jewish anarchist's who expropriated all valuable
objects for their foundation to fight the czarist regime.
----
Thanks Research on Anarchism email list
Can this refer to the Kishinev massacre - the anti-Jewish progrom of 1903?