Bozhe, Tsarya khrani! - the Jews of the Russian Empire

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[A] new school of Russian Jewish history writing emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, first in the United States, then in Israel, and finally in post-Soviet Russia itself.
This school views the Russian state’s treatment of Jews comparatively, as part of the overall nationalities policy of the empire, a policy always marked by contradiction and bureaucratic ineptitude.
In this view, antisemitism was not the motivating force of the government’s treatment of Jews, which in general was consistent with, or in some cases milder than, its treatment of other groups.

Jews were largely permitted to continue their traditional way of life and education of their young, as opposed to other minorities whose native languages and school systems were outlawed by the state.
Perhaps most controversially, the new school of Russian Jewish historiography argues that pogroms against Jews were not orchestrated or even approved of by the state, but were rather spontaneous and unplanned outbreaks of urban violence caused by social and economic forces beyond the control of the Russian army or police.

Most broadly, Russian government policy toward Jews can be understood as the product of an unresolved tension between integration and segregation—a tension that resulted in contradictory laws and regulations, persisting from the days of Catherine the Great (r. 1762–1796) to the fall of the Romanov dynasty in the winter of 1917.
Catherine’s legislation regarding Jews at one and the same time fostered their segregation from the rest of the population by ratifying their communal autonomy and religious institutions and encouraged their integration into the new administrative institutions that she was creating—merchant guilds, urban government, and legally defined artisan associations.

The new classification of the Russian population did not define Jews as an independent estate (called a soslovie in Russian), but included them in urban estates: either in the townspeople estate (meshchantstvo) or, if they were wealthy enough, in the merchant guilds (kupechestvo).

However, the fact that in many areas, and particularly in Ukraine, Jews lived overwhelmingly in villages and rural settlements contradicted Catherine’s policies from their inception because rural residence was forbidden to members of the meshchantstvo estate. Thus, Jews were implicitly exempted from a basic prohibition incumbent upon most members of their estate.

Periodically, this exception was lifted and Jews were banned from the countryside and forced to move to towns and cities; these actions (never terribly successful) were regarded by the Jews (and by some later historians) as discriminatory and oppressive.

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In general, the basic rules regarding Jewish residence constituted an inchoate mixture of integrationist and segregationist intentions and realities: in a state and legal system in which no one enjoyed the natural right to live anywhere and where residence was regarded as a privilege extended by the state,
Jews were permitted to reside in the areas of the empire in which they had lived at the time of annexation; legislation soon formalized these areas into the Pale of Jewish Settlement.

Applications of individual Jews to live outside the Pale were almost always denied, but as the empire expanded, particularly into the area known as New Russia (southern Ukraine), Jews were permitted, and to some extent encouraged, to move into this new terrain, which included the city of Odessa, soon to be one of the major Jewish centers of the world.

Alexander I [1801–1825] announced a new policy of offering Jews free land to work as farmers if they converted to Russian Orthodoxy, but this offer was not popular.

In another integrationist move with unexpected consequences, the Russian state in 1844 established special schools for Jewish children, meant to teach them Russian and basic secular subjects. Maskilim, the adherents of the Jewish Enlightenment movement, hailed these schools and administered them, but the traditionalist majority feared and hated them.
Finally, that same year the government of Nicholas I formally abolished the kahal, the executive agency of the autonomous Jewish community, placing Jews under the formal control of local state authorities; at the same time, though, Jews were permitted to run their own affairs when these activities were considered aspects of Jewish religious practice.

The reign of Alexander II (1855–1881), the Tsar Liberator, retained and expanded the policy of integration of the Jews into the Russian body politic, but under a far more liberal guise than that of his predecessor: conscription of children was outlawed, Jewish residence outside of the Pale of Settlement was expanded, and economic and educational restrictions against the Jews were lifted.

After the Revolution of 1905 ... in the wake of which the tsar was forced to grant a measure of constitutional liberty to his subjects, many restrictive laws limiting Jewish participation in Russian civic life were eliminated. Jews were permitted to vote in elections to the new parliament and to form legal political parties.

As Russia entered the world war and the regions in which the largest Jewish population in the world were engulfed in battle, the Russian government was forced to abolish the Pale of Settlement in the summer of 1916, as a temporary measure aimed at dealing with the hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing the battlefront and flooding the interior of Russia. At the same time, more than half a million Jews served proudly and bravely in the Russian army.

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World War I began badly for the French. To relieve the German pressure, two Russian armies attacked East Prussia only, in a series of battles, to be beaten back and partially destroyed. The commander of the 1st Army was relieved from his position, the commander of the annihilated 2nd Army committed suicide.

It was during this period of the engagement, [in the middle of a fierce battle near the town of Goldap], that one of the most significant events - so far as Russia is concerned - of the whole war occurred.
A Russian battalion was in the midst of a veritable inferno. ...
On both sides, the carnage had been terrible. At last, with a desperate rush, the Russians succeeded in getting to grips with the Germans. Indescribable hand-to-hand fighting ensued.
In the midst of the melee, a German bayoneted the Russian Standard-bearer and seized the flag. Emboldened by this emblem of victory, the Germans renewed their efforts and dashed to the assistance of their comrade.
But before they could reach him, a young [Jewish volunteer in the Tsarist Army - Lev Osnas] had sprung forward, killed him, and recaptured the flag.
With a howl of disappointment, the Germans attacked him. For a moment, [severely wounded Osnas] seemed to be doomed. Germans were all around him, struggling for the possession of the flag.
Then there came a deep-throated roar, a sudden rush, and the Germans were hurled back. The Russians had captured the position and saved their flag.
The People Who Run - Being The Tragedy of the Refugees in Russia by Violetta Thurstan

For that, Lev Osnas was personally decorated by Russian Tsar Nicholas II with the Cross of St. George, the highest award for bravery in the Russian Army (basically the Russian Victoria Cross).

Lev (or maybe Lieb) Osnas was born to a wealthy family in Vilna, at that time, part of the Russian Empire; some of his family lived in Philadelphia, USA. Apparently, he became one of the leaders of the Russian Nihilists. For his anti-government activity, Osnas was sentenced to a prison term.
Then he studied medicine in Paris. After two years, he was recalled to Russia to serve in the army. He served eight months and was released.
When the call for volunteers was made, Osnas was one the first to enlist.

Russian propaganda postcard: the heroic private Lev Osnas

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Lev Osnas

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one of the battles near Goldap

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Sources: 1, 2, Evening Public Ledger Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - September 14, 1914.

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It is both perplexing and ironic to find so many clichés about Eastern European Jewry, the "world of our forefathers," frozen in so much contemporary writing.
One commonly finds a sentence like this in many books or articles: "Jews came to the shores of this country from the ghettos of the shtetlekh as a result of the pogroms." Each phrase in this sentence is untrue or oversimplified to the point of untruth.

There were no ghettos in 19th-century Eastern Europe (except in a metaphorical sense, like the old Lower East Side of New York).
By no means had all Jews come to the U.S. from shtetlekh; many came from large towns like Warsaw, Lodz, Odessa.
And the pogroms were not the principal reason for emigration: proportionately more Jews came to the U.S. from Austrian-ruled Galicia —where there were no pogroms— than from Tsarist Russia.
Demythologising the Shtetl by Joshua Rothenberg