The pogroms of the 1880s took place during the period of confusion which prevailed in Russia after the assassination of Czar Alexander II by members of the revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya on March 13, 1881. Anti-Jewish circles spread a rumor that the czar had been assassinated by Jews and that the government had authorized attacks on them. The pogroms at first also received the support of some revolutionary circles, who regarded this action as a preliminary awakening of the masses which would lead to the elimination of the existing regime. The first pogrom occurred in the town of Yelizavetgrad ( <!-- @ @ --> Kirovograd <!-- @@ --> ), in Ukraine, at the end of April 1881. From there, the pogrom wave spread to the surrounding villages and townlets – about 30 in number. At the beginning of May, the pogroms spread to the provinces of <!-- @ @ --> Kherson <!-- @@ --> , Taurida, Yekaterinoslav ( <!-- @ @ --> Dnepropetrovsk <!-- @@ --> ), <!-- @ @ --> Kiev <!-- @@ --> , <!-- @ @ --> Poltava <!-- @@ --> , and <!-- @ @ --> Chernigov <!-- @@ --> . The most severe attack was perpetrated in Kiev over three days before the eyes of the governor general and his staff of officials and police force while no attempt was made to restrain the rioters. The pogroms in <!-- @ @ --> Odessa <!-- @@ --> were of more limited scope. During the months of July and August there was again a series of pogroms in the provinces of Chernigov and Poltava. During this period, the pogroms were mainly restricted to the destruction and looting of property and beatings. The number of dead was small. The attackers came from among the rabble of the towns, the peasants, and the workers in industrial enterprises and the railroads. At the end of this period, the government forces reacted against the rioters and in several places even opened fire on them, leaving a number of dead and injured. The pogroms occurred in a restricted geographical region – southern and eastern Ukraine. Here there was a combination of aggravating circumstances: the traditional rebelliousness among the masses; a tradition of anti-Jewish hatred and persecutions from the 17th and 18th centuries (the massacres perpetrated by <!-- @ @ --> Chmielnicki <!-- @@ --> and the <!-- @ @ --> Haidamacks <!-- @@ --> ), together with the presence there of homeless seasonal workers in the factories, railways, and ports; the rise of a rural bourgeoisie and local intelligentsia, who regarded the Jews as most dangerous rivals; and an extremist revolutionary movement which was unscrupulous in the methods it adopted.

After the pogroms in the spring and summer of 1881, there was a remission, although occasional pogroms broke out in various parts of the country. Among these was a severe pogrom in <!-- @ @ --> Warsaw <!-- @@ --> on the Catholic Christmas Day and an Easter pogrom in <!-- @ @ --> Balta <!-- @@ --> , in which two Jews were killed and 120 injured, and many cases of rape occurred. In <!-- @ @ --> Belorussia <!-- @@ --> and <!-- @ @ --> Lithuania <!-- @@ --> , where the local authorities adopted a firm attitude against the rioters, large fires broke out in many towns and townlets; a considerable number of these were started by the enemies of the Jews. The murder of individual Jews and even whole families also became a common occurrence during this period. On June 21, 1882, the new minister of the interior, Count D. Tolstoy, published an order which placed the blame for the pogroms on the governors of the provinces and declared that "every attitude of negligence on the part of the administration and the police would entail the dismissal from their position of those who were guilty." Isolated pogroms nevertheless occurred during the following two years or so. In the spring of 1883, a sudden wave of pogroms broke out in the towns of <!-- @ @ --> Rostov <!-- @@ --> and Yekaterinoslav and their surroundings. On this occasion, the authorities reacted with vigor against the rioters and there were several casualties among them. The last great outburst occurred in June 1884 in Nizhni Novgorod (see <!-- @ @ --> Gorki <!-- @@ --> ), where the mob attacked the Jews of the Kanavino quarter, killing nine of them and looting much property. The authorities tried over 70 of the rioters and severe penalties of imprisonment were imposed on them. This marked the end of the first wave of pogroms in Russia.

The pogroms of the 1880s greatly influenced the history of Russian Jewry. In their wake, the Russian government adopted a systematic policy of discrimination with the object of removing the Jews from their economic and public positions. This was achieved either by restrictive laws (the <!-- @ @ --> May Laws <!-- @@ --> of 1882, the percentage norm of admission ( <!-- @ @ --> numerus clausus <!-- @@ --> ) to secondary schools, higher institutions of learning, etc.) or by administrative pressure, which reached its climax with the expulsion of the Jews from <!-- @ @ --> Moscow <!-- @@ --> in 1891–92. A mass Jewish emigration began from Russia to the United States and other countries. One reaction to the pogroms was the birth of a nationalist and Zionist movement among the Jews of Russia, while many of the Jewish youth joined the revolutionary movement. The year 1881, the first year of the pogroms, was a turning point not only for Russian Jewry but also for the whole of the Jewish people.