During the February Revolution, the Russian empire enjoyed an unprecedented degree of unity. All classes, ethnicities, and national groups welcomed Nicholas II’s overthrow. Armenians, Chechens, Chukchi, Finns, Georgians, Kazakhs, Poles, and Uzbekhs celebrated the fall of the tsar alongside peasants, intellectuals, workers, managers, bankers, and even some landlords.

But this solidarity could not last.

A year later, Tsarist Russia had split and would continue to do so until, at its peak in 1919, at least twenty separate bodies claimed to control all or part of what was once a unified empire. The ensuing struggle included some of the most barbaric episodes of antisemitism seen in Europe up to that point and claimed ten million lives.