Focusing on the period surrounding the revolution of 1905 in Warsaw, this article examines the relationship between four different types of violence—urban, revolutionary, governmental, and interethnic—that repeatedly influenced the lives of many of the city’s 775,000 residents. As part of this contextual approach to studying and understanding  intergroup violence in an urban setting, the author maintains that while the causal relationship between social, political, and interethnic violence in Warsaw was never linear, its influence was very often reciprocal and incremental, if not, at times, exponential. This synchronic analysis of the different types of violence is critical for understanding the rising tensions between Poles and Jews in turn-of-the-century Warsaw as well as Jewish interpretations of these developments. In addition to shedding much light on key social and political developments during this period, this contextual analysis of various types of intergroup conflict in one city also challenges the two predominant scholarly paradigms for studying moments of anti-Jewish violence: the longue durée school of antisemitism and the theme of Polish-Jewish coexistence.

Focusing on the period surrounding the revolution of 1905 in Warsaw, this article examines the relationship between four different types of violence—urban, revolutionary, governmental, and interethnic—that repeatedly influenced the lives of many of the city’s 775,000 residents. As part of this contextual approach to studying and understanding  intergroup violence in an urban setting, the author maintains that while the causal relationship between social, political, and interethnic violence in Warsaw was never linear, its influence was very often reciprocal and incremental, if not, at times, exponential. This synchronic analysis of the different types of violence is critical for understanding the rising tensions between Poles and Jews in turn-of-the-century Warsaw as well as Jewish interpretations of these developments. In addition to shedding much light on key social and political developments during this period, this contextual analysis of various types of intergroup conflict in one city also challenges the two predominant scholarly paradigms for studying moments of anti-Jewish violence: the longue durée school of antisemitism and the theme of Polish-Jewish coexistence.