TY - JOUR
TI - Unwarranted Notoriety? The Ritter Trials, 1882–1886
AU - Kozińska-Witt, Hanna
TI - Unwarranted Notoriety? The Ritter Trials, 1882–1886
AB - 
	Moses and Gitla Ritter were accused of murdering the charwoman Franciszka Mnichówna. The accusation and trials which followed revoked the blood libel. In three circumstantial trials (1882–1886), despite the lack of evidence, the Ritters were found guilty and sentenced to death. Owing to the “ritual” nature attributed to the presumed murder, the trials became media events, followed by an international audience. The author discusses the course of the trials, considering whether and how the municipalities in which they took place exploited their unexpected popularity for promotional purposes. What importance did the urban elites attach to the trials? How can we interpret the three guilty verdicts, and what symbolic significance can be assigned to them?

	* This article was written for project no. 2015/19/P/HS3/04054 in programme Polonez 1 organized by National Science Center which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 665778.
VL - 2020
IS - Issue 1 (45)
PY - 2020
SN - 1506-9729
C1 - 2450-0100
SP - 75
EP - 109
DO - 10.4467/24500100STJ.20.003.12917
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/studia-judaica/article/unwarranted-notoriety-the-ritter-trials-1882-1886
KW - blood libel
KW - trials
KW - Galicia
KW - the nineteenth century
KW - press reports