Russian imperial borderlands, Georgian Jews, and the struggle for ‘justice’ and ‘legality’: blood libel in Kutaisi, 1878–80
Year: 2025

This article analyses the Kutaisi Trial (1878–80), a little-known case of blood libel in the Caucasus, in which nine Jewish men stood accused of involvement in the killing of a Georgian girl. All defendants were acquitted. While the accusation of killing for allegedly Jewish ritual purposes was not pressed explicitly by the prosecution, the case was widely discussed in terms of blood libel not only by the jurists but also by the authorities, the Georgian villagers, and the press. Existing schola