Empress of Russia; born Feb. 8, 1693; crowned 1730; died Oct. 28, 1740. After the death of Peter the Great (Feb. 8, 1725) a reactionary policy was inaugurated by his immediate successors, who were influenced by the Greek Orthodox clergy. This policy induced Catherine I. to expel the Jews from the Ukraine and from some other parts of the empire, with the order "not to admit them in the future into Russia under any circumstances, and carefully to watch everywhere to this end" (Ukase of May 7, 1727, Complete Russian Code, vii., No. 5063). Peter II. (1727-30), in response to a petition of the Zaporogian Hetman Apostol, permitted the Jews to attend the fairs of Little Russia, provided they carried on a wholesale trade only (Ukase of Sept. 2, 1728, Complete Russian Code, viii., No. 5324).
The German element at the court of Anna Ivanovna, represented by Ostermann and Biron, followed a broader, more practical policy in regard to the Jews, whom they considered to be a useful factor in the development of Russian commerce; not looking upon them with the eyes of the narrow-minded, uneducated Russian clergy, who feared them as enemies of the Church. Anna Ivanovna, therefore, "in consideration that in many military settlements the number of merchants is very scanty, and commerce and industry very little developed," allowed the Jews ("for the benefit of the inhabitants") to carry on trade at fairs in retail (ibid. v.-ix. Nos. 6610, 6614). By an edict of July 14, 1738, the Jew Baruch Leibov and the captain of the navy Voznitzyn were sentenced to be burned; the former for the conversion of the latter to the Jewish faith; and the captain, for apostasy. It was probablyowing to this incident that Anna Ivanovna issued, on Aug. 29, 1739, a ukase forbidding Jews to own or to rent in Little Russia inns or any other property (ibid. v.-x. No. 7869). A previous edict, of July 22, had expelled all the Jews from Little Russia.
- Levanda, Polny Khronologhicheski Sbornik Zakonov, etc., 1874, pp. 7-14;
- N. Kostomarov, Russkaya Istoriya, etc., 2d ed., 1893, ii. 142 et seq.;
- Solovyev, Istoriya Rossia, iv. passim and v. 519 et seq.