[Sharing Lights]

Title
The text is alternatively known in English as Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion, Protocols of the Meetings of the Zionist Men of Wisdom, Protocols of the Sages of Zion, Protocols of Zion, The Jewish Peril, The Protocols and World Revolution, and Praemonitus Praemunitus. The variation in title derives partly from the fact that the book has two titles in Russian - "Сионские протоколы" (Sionskiye protokoly, lit. "Protocols of Zion") and "Протоколы сионских мудрецов" (Protokoly sionskih mudretsov, lit. "Protocols of the Sages of Zion") - and partly due to the different translations of the Russian word мудрец (mudrets, a wise man or a sage).

The variation in title also derives from the fact that various (often anonymous) compilers or editors give it a different main title (as distinct from a subtitle), as well as the interest of these to advertise or suit their particular antisemitic agenda, and the fact that the text, which consists roughly of no more than 2 or 3 dozen paragraphs is only sufficient for a pamphlet, and it becomes a book by expansion with prefaces, introductions, addenda, etc.

For example, the first American English language edition, published in Boston in 1920 by Small, Maynard & Company, has the following full title: The Protocols and World Revolution Including a Translation and Analysis of the "Protocols of the Meetings of the Zionist Men of Wisdom". Only pages 11 through 73 contain the so-called Protocols. The word "Zion" in this edition has not been used; rather, the word "Zionist" is used. This contrasts to a similar practice of the prior Russian editions. For example, in 1905 Sergei Nilus's book on the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ The Big within the Small, the Protocols constituted the final twelfth chapter.


Origins and content

Maurice Joly

Elements of the text in the Protocols appears to be plagiarized from an 1864 pamphlet, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu), written by the French satirist Maurice Joly. Joly's work attacks the political ambitions of Napoleon III using the device of diabolical plotters in Hell as stand-ins for Napoleon's views. Joly himself appears to have borrowed material from a popular novel by Eugène Sue, The Mysteries of the People, in which the plotters were Jesuits. Jews do not appear in either work. Since it was illegal to criticize the monarchy, Joly had the pamphlet printed in Belgium, then tried to smuggle it back into France. The police confiscated as many copies as they could, and it was banned. After it was traced to Joly, he was tried on April 25, 1865, and sentenced to fifteen months in prison. Joly committed suicide in 1878.