Kiev pogrom (1905)

The Kiev pogrom took place October 18–20, 1905 (October 31–November 2, 1905, New Style) in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire. The violence followed the collapse of a city hall meeting held on October 18, 1905, which drew a mob into the streets. Among the perpetrators were monarchists, reactionaries, anti-Semites, and common criminals, who proclaimed that "all Russia's troubles stemmed from the machinations of the Jews and socialists."

Historian William C. Fuller's account states the riot claimed the lives of between forty-seven and one hundred people, seriously injured at least three hundred more, and destroyed between 10 and 40 million rubles of property. Historian Simon Dubnow, as cited in the same account, described this pogrom and others sweeping the southern Russian Empire at the same time as together amounting to "Russia's St. Bartholomew's night."

Citing the Jewish Encyclopedia, the article notes that anti-Jewish riots broke out earlier in 1905 in Elizabethgrad, Kiev itself, Shpola, Ananiv, Wasilkov, and Konotop, and in roughly 160 other locations in southern Russia over the following six months. The Jewish Encyclopedia account cited states that the riots "were premeditated," offering as an example that Kiev's chief of police, Von Hubbenet, reportedly warned some Jewish acquaintances of the coming riots a week before they broke out.

Historian Shlomo Lambroza, distrusting police-sourced figures, is cited as having used opposition-derived data to count 3,103 murdered Jews across all of Russia during the broader 1905–1906 wave of pogroms, of which the Kiev pogrom was one incident.

No individual perpetrators, victims, or persons charged or convicted in connection with the Kiev pogrom are named, and no legal proceedings are described in the available material.