LEKERT, HIRSCH

LEKERT, HIRSCH (1880–1902), bootmaker, native of a small Jewish town in Lithuania. Lekert was active from his youth in workers' groups and in the bund in Dvinsk, Kovno, Yekaterinoslav, and Vilna. He became famous for his attempt on the life of the governor of Vilna, wounding him, because the latter had ordered the flogging of 26 demonstrators (among them 20 Jews) on May 1, 1902. After the flogging, the central committee of the Bund published a manifesto calling for revenge; Lekert carried out his attack with the help of a group of workers which organized itself independently, since the Vilna committee of the Bund, headed by M. Gurevich , refused to support the deed officially – they were opposed in principle to political terror. The flogging gave rise to dejection and confusion among the Jews; the shooting by a simple bootmaker at the antisemitic governor was regarded by the Jewish population in general as an act in defense of Jewish honor. Lekert served as an example for P. Dashewski , especially after the Kishinev pogrom. The Bund, together with Polish and Lithuanian Social Democrats, published a statement on the affair which had international reverberations. In the Russian Iskra, V. Zasulich and J. Martov praised Lekert's reaction, while Lenin dissociated himself from it. In the Bund itself terrorist tendencies were aroused for a time. Its fifth conference in Berdichev in August 1902 adopted a resolution for a policy of "organized revenge" that was encouraged by S. Gozhanski and A. Braun . The resolution was rescinded under the influence of the "committee abroad" of the Bund. Lekert was sentenced to death by a military court and hanged on June 10, 1902. The anniversary of Lekert's death was marked for many years in the Jewish workers' movement. The deed was commemorated in popular songs and in special literary works (H. Leivick , A. Kushnirov ). On the 20th anniversary of Lekert's death a memorial, which no longer exists, was erected in a square in Minsk. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.S. Hertz, Hirsh Lekert (Yid., 1952), bibliography compiled by E. Jeshurin: 118–35; N. Sirkin, in: Kunteres, 6:117 (1922/23), 10–12; A.S. Stein, Haver Artur (1953), index; Index to Mi-Bifnim (1970), 293. (Moshe Mishkinsky)