Abstinence (conscription)

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The Abstinence (Hebrew: הִסתַגְפוּת‎, Ashkenazi pronunciation: Histagfus) tactic of draft evasion was a type of hunger strike (or other forms of self-harm, such as sleep deprivation, tending to cause tachycardia, or self-inflicted wound), employed by young men in the Russian Empire's Jewish Pale of Settlement (and in neighboring Austria-Hungary's Galician community), in order to be found unfit for military service by the Imperial authorities.

Russian Empire

The "Abstension" resistance by self-harm was most extreme in the Russian Empire under the Cantonist system implemented for Jews from 1827 - 1856,[1] though self-harm actions continued afterward. An 1835 secret report by the chief of the Special Corps of Gendarmes in Vilnius expressed the government's difficulty in preventing self-mutilations.[2]

The phenomenon was covered in the Russian Hebrew press, and Ha-Melitz warned against the practice as violating Jewish law as well as Russian law.[3] The phenomenon of self-induced hernia received attention in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1891.[4]

Just before World War I, the Jewish author and folklorist S. Ansky conducted an ethnographic survey of Russian Empire regions of Volhynia and Podolia, devoting a section of his large questionnaire to conscription-related cultural practices.[5]

Austro-Hungarian Empire

Concription among Jews in Galicia was introduced by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1788.

In some Galician communities (e.g. Tlumach,[6] Liuboml,[7] Kalush[8]), deprivation efforts among young men became a rite of passage, when fasting during the day was followed by communal all-night sessions of excessive caffeine, excessive exercise, chain smoking, and sometimes taking on a pranking Mischief Night character.

Further reading

Memoirs

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Stories

History

  • 1890s account - Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

See also

References

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External links

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  • Kalusz: Amusing Memories