ABSTRACT
This chapter indicates the shtetl in the lands of the Russian Empire, encompassing both the Pale of Settlement and the Kingdom of Poland. Students of East European Jewry have long pursued the intimidating task of explaining the shtetl as a 'state of mind', an idyll, an exercise in nostalgia, or an artistic construct. Jews played prominent roles in two phenomena which characterized the early modern period in Poland: the growth and differentiation of the national economy, and the colonization of empty regions like the Ukraine. Jews began to appear in largely rural settings, in the guise of managers of noble estates, and lessees of its abundant feudal privileges. Ironically and appropriately, the most important space in the shtetl was the one truly non-denominational one—the market place. The pogrom phenomenon is one vehicle for introducing the question of Jewish–Gentile relations within the shtetl.
