Some antisemitic tropes failed to travel from Europe to Russia

Evidence

Nevertheless, some antisemitic tropes—for instance, about their innate criminality or their ubiquitous exposure to syphilis—did not find adherents in Russia. For Russian scholars of Islam, French and British writing about North Africa and the Indo-Afghan frontier were of particular interest. European descriptions of ‘wild mountaineers’ and ‘mad mullahs’ resonated with Russian audiences. Yet Russian readers generally, and Russian officialdom in particular, remained confident that the legacy of experience and lengthy contact with Muslims had endowed tsarist authorities with a hand that was more deft in dealing with the ‘Muhammadans’ than their European counterparts and rivals. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 550

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why did tropes about innate criminality and syphilis not catch on in Russia while the blood libel did? The selective transmission of ideological content is an interesting mechanism question worth chasing.