A
pogrom is a violent
riot aimed at
massacre or
persecution of an ethnic or religious group, particularly one aimed at
Jews. The term originally entered the English language to describe 19th- and 20th-century
attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire (mostly within the
Pale of Settlement in present-day
Ukraine and
Belarus). Similar attacks against Jews at other times and places also became retrospectively known as pogroms. The word is now also sometimes used to describe publicly sanctioned purgative attacks against non-Jewish ethnic or religious groups.