Controversy
Vladimir Dal worked in Ministry of Domestic Affairs, the chief administrative center of minister (1841). His responsibilities included overseeing investigations of murders of children in the western part of Russia.
In 1840 the Damascus Affair had revived the medieval blood libel canard in Europe (the anti-Semitic accusation that Jews use the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes), and Czar Nicholas I instructed his officials, especially Vladimir Dal, to thoroughly investigate the legend. In 1844, just 10 copies of a 100-page report, intended only for the czar and senior officials, were submitted by Dal. The paper was entitled "Investigation on the Murder of Christian Children by the Jews and the Use of Their Blood." Dal claimed in his report that, although the vast majority of Jews had not even heard of ritual murder, ritual murders and the use of blood for magical purposes were committed by sects of fanatical Hasidic Jews.
In 1914, 42 years after Vladimir Dal's death, during the blood libel trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis in Kiev, Dal's then 70-year-old report was published in St. Petersburg under the title Notes on Ritual Murders. The name of the author was not stated on this new edition intended for the public.
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