JSEE: Общая информация
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JEWISH SCHOLARSHIP IN EASTERN EUROPE
Vol. 4, No. 1, January 2000
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CONTENTS
- CALENDAR OF ACADEMIC EVENTS
1999
- Holocaust in Hungary - symposium
- The Vanished World of Polish Jewry - photographic
exhibition
2000
- Holocaust in Poland - seminar
- 7th Annual International Interdisciplinary Conference on
Jewish Studies in Moscow
- Yiddish Studies at Oxford - graduate seminar
- NEW PUBLICATIONS
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Michael Beizer
Evrei Leningrada, 1917 - 1939. Natsionalnaia zhizn
i sovetizatsia (The Jews of Leningrad, 1917 - 1939.
National Life and Sovietization). Moscow-Jerusalem:
Gesharim, 1999.
- Eli Valley
The Great Jewish Cities of Central and Eastern Europe:
A Travel Guide and Resource Book to Prague, Warsaw,
Cracow, and Budapest. Published by Jason Aronson, 1999.
- Kevin Alan Brook
The Jews of Khazaria. Published by Jason Aronson, 1999.
BOOK REVIEWS
- Steven Cassedy
To the Other Shore: The Russian Jewish Intellectuals Who
Came to America. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1997.
- Mark Kupovetsky, Evgenii Starostin, and Marek Web eds.
Dokumenty po istorii i kultury evreev v arkhivakh Moskvy
(Jewish Documentary Sources in Moscow Archives). Moscow:
Russian State University for the Humanities, 1997.
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CALENDAR OF ACADEMIC EVENTS
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1999
----
INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
AND I STILL SEE THEIR FACES:
THE VANISHED WORLD OF POLISH JEWRY
Boston University, USA
September 15 - October 6, 1999
By:
Anna Petrov Bumble
petrov@brandeis.edu
456 photographs were on display have been culled from a
collection of 9000 pre-WWII pictures sent in the early 1990s,
by mostly non-Jewish Poles, to the Shalom Foundation of Warsaw,
after its director, Jewish actress Golda Tencer, made the
appeal for the submission of such memoribilia on Polish
national television. The exhibition took place at the
Boston University Exhibition Showroom.
The exhibition's program included:
- Film screenings
"Yiddle with his Fiddle"
introduced by Prof. Sharon Rivo, Director of the National
Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University and Prof. Anthony
Polonsky, Brandeis University
"Children Must Laugh"
followed by the discussion on Jewish life in Poland during the
World War II led by Prof. David Engel, New York University
"Our Children"
introduced by Prof. Nancy Harrowitz, Boston University and
Prof. Marianne Hirsch, Dartmouth College
- Holocaust Survivors Forum
a panel discussion among Holocaust survivors of different religious,
ethnic, and national backgrounds
- Developments in Jewish life in Poland from 1945 until the present
discussed Prof. Michael Steinlauf, Gratz College.
SYMPOSIUM
THE HOLOCAUST IN HUNGARY: CONFRONTATION WITH THE PAST
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
November 9, 1999
By:
Kymberly Sargent
ksargent@ushmm.org
Program:
Session I: Welcoming Remaks and Background Presentation
- Welcoming Remarks
Paul Shapiro
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies,
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Hungary, the Holocaust, and Hungarians: Remembering
Whose History?
Timothy Cole
Lecturer, Department of Historical Studies, University
of Bristol, and 1999 - 2000 Pearl Resnick Postdoctoral
Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, US Holocaust
Memorial Museum
Session II: The Holocaust in Hungary
- Continuities and Transformations in Post-War Anti-Semitism
in Hungary
Paul A. Hanebrink
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Chicago,
and Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, US Holocaust
Memorial Museum
- Retribution or Revenge? War Crimes Trials in Post World
War II Hungary
Istvan Deak
Seth Low Professor, Department of History, Columbia University
- Assault on Historical Memory: Hungarian Nationalists and the
Holocaust
Randolph Braham
Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Director, Rosenthal
Institute for Holocaust Studies, City University of New York
Session III: Survivors' Perspectives of the Holocaust in Hungary
- Perspectives of the impact of the Holocaust on Hungary presented
by the Holocaust survivors
Eva Hevesi
Rabbi Laszlo Berkowits
Albert L. Lichtmann
George Pick
Session IV: Closing Address
Charles Fenyvesi
Senior Writer, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and author,
"When the World was Whole".
2000
----
SEMINAR
THE HOLOCAUST IN POLAND
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
January 10 - 15, 2000
By:
Kymberly Sargent
ksargent@ushmm.org
The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum announces a seminar on
the Holocaust in Poland for professors who are now
teaching or preparing to teach a 20th-century history
course on Poland with the approval of their institution.
The seminar will be taught by Prof. Antony Polonsky,
Brandeis University. It will lectures and discussions and
be offered in daily two-and-a-half hour sessions. Topics
will include:
- Poland between the wars
- Polish question during World War II
- Polish society, Polish-Jewish relations, and the Holocaust
- Aftermath of the Holocaust on Polish lands
- Memory of the Holocaust
There will also be opportunities to use the Museum's
library and archival holdings, as well as the Library of
Congress and the National Archives.
For further information contact:
Dawn M. Barclift
University Programs
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Address: 100 Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, DC 20024, USA
Fax: 1-202-479-9726
E-mail: univ_programs@ushmm.org
THE SEVENTH INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY ANNUAL
CONFERENCE ON JEWISH STUDIES
Korolev, Moscow Region, Russia
January 31 - February 2, 2000
Organizers:
- "Sefer", Moscow Centre for University Teaching of
Jewish Civilization
- The International Centre for University Teaching of
Jewish Civilization, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Program:
January 31
- Opening session
Chairmen: Rashid Kaplanov, Victoria Mochalova
Greetings
Presentation of the publications:
Lawrence Schiffmann
From Text to Tradition (Gesharim, 1999)
presented by Arkady Kovelman
Michael Beizer
Evrei Leningrada, 1917 - 1939. Natsionalnaia
zhizn i sovetizatsia (The Jews of Leningrad,
1917 - 1939. National Life and Sovietization)
(Moscow-Jerusalem: Gesharim, 1999)
Dmitry Elyashevich
The Russian Government Policy and the Jewish Press
in Russia, 1797 - 1917. From the Censorship History
(Petersburg - Jerusalem, 1999)
presented by Mikhail Grinberg
New scholarly Israeli-Russian journal "Vestnik of
the Jewish University"
presented by Israel Bartal and Rashid Kaplanov
- Plenary session
Chairmen: Israel Bartal, Arkady Kovelman
Avi Ravitzky (Jerusalem)
Awe and Fear of the Holy Land in the Jewish Thought
Israel Bartal (Jerusalem)
Jewish Nationalism and Jewish Historiography: Revisiring
the Old Connection
John Klier (London)
Jewish Studies in the West
- Meeting of the American Mission with the Stephanie and
Herbert Neuman Fellows
- Meeting of the CJS and JUM students with Mr. Stanley Chais
- Meeting of the heads of Jewish Institutions of Higher
Learning, Judaica Departments and Chairs.
- Meeting of the participants of the "Contemporary Jewish
Thought" Project (discussion: textbook, workshop in Israel)
Chairmen: Aviezer Ravitzky, Zinaida Sokuler
February 1
- Plenary session
Chairmen: Shlomo Gendelman, Yakov Kopansky
Herman Branover (Beer-Sheva)
Contemporary phenomena of Convergence of Modern sciences
with the Torah based world outlook
Yosef Begun (Jerusalem)
Jewish Movement in the USSR (1960 - 1980)
- Round Table: Jews and their Role in Civilization. Jewish Identity
Moderator: Alexander Militarev
Michael Tchlenov (Moscow)
Ethnic structure of the Jewish Civilization
Alexander Militarev (Moscow)
Jews and Anthropocentric Civilization
Vladimir Sobkin (Moscow)
The Development of Jewish Identity During Adolescence
Vladimir Shapiro (Moscow)
Three Generations of Russian Jews: Ethnic-Sociological Portrait
- Workshops:
Semitology
Chairman: Alexander Militarev
Biblical Studies
Chairmen: Vladimir Jakobson, Sergey Tishchenko
Jewish Thought and Literature - The Second Temple and Talmudic
period
Chairmen: Lawrence Schiffman, Arkady Kovelman
Jewish Thought - Modern Period
Chairmen: Ruvin Ferber, Michail Girshman
Jewish-Khazarian Antiquities
Chairmen: Nino Kiguradze, Vladimir Petroukhin
East European Jewish History of the XV - XIX Centuries
Chairmen: Dmitry Elyashevich, Aleksander Lockshin
Jewish History of the XX century
Chairmen: Clara Jignea, Alexander Stepansky
The Holocaust
Chairman: Ilya Altman
Soviet and Post-Soviet Jewry: Demography, Sociology, Psychology
Chairmen: Vladimir Shapiro, Vladimir Sobkin
Ethnology and Ethnography of Jews in Eastern Europe - Local Lore
Chairman: Yaroslav Dashkevich
Yiddish and Hebrew Literature - Modern Time
Chairmen: Michael Krutikov, Aleksander Kryukov
Jewish Arts
Chairmen: Igor Doukhan, Irina Sergeeva
Jewish Education
Chairmen: Semen Avgustevich, Sofia Shurovskaya
Round Table: Future Directions of Jewish Education in the CIS
and Baltic States
Speaker: Jonathan Porath (AJJDC, Jerusalem)
February 2
- Workshops:
Biblical Studies
Chairmen: Vladimir Jakobson, Sergey Tishchenko
Jewry and World Culture
Chairmen: Herman Branover, Galina Sinilo
Round Table: Plans for programs in Jewish culture in the FSU
in the realm of community
Moderator: Vladimir Glozman (AJJDC, Kiev)
Jewish Thought and Literature - Medieval period
Chairmen: Zeev Elkin, Dmitry Frolov
Jewish History in Eastern Europe of the XV - XIX Centuries
Chairmen: Dmitry Elyashevich, Aleksander Lockshin
Zionism. Jewish National and Political Movements
Chairmen: Israel Bartal, Inna Gerasimova
Jewish History of the XX century
Chairmen: Clara Jignea, Alexander Stepansky
The Holocaust
Chairman: Ilya Altman
Xenophobia - Anti-Semitism
Chairman: Szymon Rudnicki
Jewish Diaspora
Chairmen: Vladimir Shapiro, Vladimir Sobkin
Round Table: Diaspora. Presentation of the scholarly journal
Moderator: Victor Dyatlov
Speakers: Serguey Arutyunov, Natalia Kosmarskaya, Alexander
Militarev, Vladimir Rabinovich, Michael Tchlenov, Eugene
Satanovsky, Anatoly Vyatkin, Natalia Yukhneva
Jewish Ethnology - Crimea, Caucasus, Near and Central East
Chairmen: Djemal Adjiashvili, Guram Lordkipanidze
Literary Contacts
Chairmen: Leonid Katsis, Aleksander Kobrinsky
Jewish Education
Chairmen: Semen Avgustevich, Sofia Shurovskaya
Round Table: People's Universities of Jewish Culture
Speaker:
Libin Victoria (Jerusalem)
The "Russian Project" of the Open University of Israel in
the CIS and Baltic States
- Sefer Academic Board meeting
Chairmen: Rashid Kaplanov, Victoria Mochalova
- Meeting of "Vestnik Yevrejskogo Unversiteta" Editorial Board
Chairmen: Israel Bartal, Rashid Kaplanov
For more information contact:
Dr. Viktoria Mochalova, Director, Center "Sefer"
Leninsky prospekt, 32 A, bldg. B, room 808
Moscow 117334 Russia
Tel.: 7-095-938-57-16
Fax: 7-095-938-00-70
E-mail: sefer@fl08.tower.ras.ru
Web site: http://www.glasnet.ru/~sefer
GRADUATE SEMINAR IN YIDDISH STUDIES
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, England
February - March, 2000
The seminar is chaired by Dr. Joel Berkowitz and Dr. Dov-Ber
Kerler.
Presentations:
January 27
Anna Shternshis (St. Antony's College)
Yiddish theatrical trials in the Soviet Union (1917 - 1941)
February 3
Dr. Barbara Henry (Wolfson College)
Yiddish Theatre in St. Petersburg, 1900 - 1917
February 10
Prof. Moshe Taube (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Dos-focusing in Yiddish
February 17
Arina Gaba (Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow)
Poetics of young Dovid Hofshteyn: composition and prosody of
"Ba vegn" (1919)
February 24
Dr Lisa Kaul-Seidman (University of Birmingham)
'A Jew, not a Zionist': Toward an understanding of Neturei Karta
action
March 2
Amelia Glaser (Wadham College)
The Proletpen Yiddish writers in New York (1924 - 1939)
March 9
Jordan Fowles (Exeter College)
Heine's poetry in Yiddish
For more information contact:
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
45 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3LP United Kingdom
E-mail: ochjs@sable.oxford.ac.uk
Web site: http://associnst.ox.ac.uk/ochjs
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BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS
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M.Beizer. _Evrei Leningrada, 1917 - 1939. Natsionalnaia zhizn
i sovetizatsia (The Jews of Leningrad, 1917 - 1939. National
Life and Sovietization)_. Moscow-Jerusalem: Gesharim, 1999.
477 pp., ill.
The book covers the history of the Jewish minority in Petrograd-
Leningrad from 1917 - the year of the Russian revolutions, through
the periods of "war communism", the New Economic Policy, the first
"Five Year Plans", and the mass purges of the 1930s. The first
part of the book discusses the zigzags of governmental policy and
attitudes of the general population towards the Jews, as well as
the role played by the Jews, as an ethnic group, in city life.
It also includes a detailed analysis of the demographic and
socio-economic changes among the Jewish population of Leningrad.
The processes of their acculturation, urbanization, and integration
into the Soviet society are also discussed.
The second part is devoted to different aspects of Jewish life,
Jewish political parties, and organizations, religious and communal
activities, social assistance, education, culture, and Jewish studies.
Special attention is paid to the stratum of the "organized Jewish
public", thanks to whose efforts Jewish life in Leningrad was so
rich and survived for so long, despite the pressure of the
authorities.
The author is a former refusenik and activist of the Jewish cultural
movement in Leningrad in the 1980s, who now lives in Israel. He
is presently working for the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee and teaching Russian Jewish history at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
For more information contact the author:
Michael Beizer
E-mail: beizer@h2.hum.huji.ac.il
Eli Valley. _The Great Jewish Cities of Central and Eastern
Europe: A Travel Guide and Resource Book to Prague, Warsaw,
Cracow, and Budapest_. Published by Jason Aronson, 1999.
488 pp. ISBN 0-7657-6000-2.
_The Great Jewish Cities of Central and Eastern Europe_ is
the most comprehensive guidebook covering all aspects of
Jewish history and contemporary life in Prague, Warsaw, Cracow,
and Budapest. The book includes detailed histories of the Jews
in these cities, walking tours of Jewish districts past and
present, intensive descriptions of Jewish sites, fascinating
accounts of local Jewish legend and lore, and practical
information for Jewish travelers to the region. There are
detailed maps of Jewish sections and cemeteries, plus
discussions of contemporary Jewish lifestyles in these cities.
Extensive discussions of the effects of the Holocaust on
European Jewry are also included.
Review:
"Part tour guide and part resource, this volume combines
history and contemporary culture in a surprisingly accessible
way. Valley, son of a New York rabbi, has been living in and
leading tours of Jewish Prague since shortly after the fall of
communism. With unparalleled enthusiasm for his subject, he
takes readers through the sites, history, and cultural milieus
of the four central and Eastern European cities that receive
the most tourists, cities that 'are a microcosm of practically
every trend in European Jewish history.' Prague and Cracow
have preserved synagogues from the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, while Warsaw and Budapest offer mostly 19th and
20th century sites. Itineraries and supporting materials are
offered for each locale. Also included are... sites for prayer,
dining, lodging, mikveh, and community services..."
- Megan S. Farrell
Library Journal (December 1998)
Kevin Alan Brook. _The Jews of Khazaria_. Published by Jason
Aronson, 1999. 360 pp. ISBN 0-7657-6032-0.
The distinguished Jewish author Nathan Ausubel once wrote,
"Of all the astonishing experiences of the widely dispersed
Jewish people, none was more extraordinary than that concerning
the Khazars." _The Jews of Khazaria_, the first English-language
book about the Khazars since 1982, recounts the eventful history
of the Turkic kingdom of Khazaria, which was located in Eastern
Europe and flourished as an independent state from about 650 to
1016.
As a major world power, Khazaria enjoyed diplomatic and trade
relations with many peoples and nations (including the Byzantines,
Alans, Magyars, and Slavs) and changed the course of medieval
history in many ways. For instance, (1) the Arab-Khazar wars
established the Caucasus Mountains as a boundary between the
Islamic world to the south and the Slavo-Turkic world to the
north; (2) Khazarian warriors participated in the founding of
the kingdom of Hungary beyond the Carpathians; (3) Khazarian
princesses married into the Byzantine royal family; and
(4) Khazars played a part in founding the city of Kiev on the
Dnieper River. Some even speculate that the two-king
governmental system of the early Rus was derived from that of
the Khazars.
In the ninth century, the Khazarian royalty and nobility as
well as a significant portion of the Khazarian Turkic
population embraced the Jewish religion. After their conversion,
as this book proves, the Khazars were ruled by a succession of
Jewish kings and began to adopt the hallmarks of Jewish
civilization, including the Torah and Talmud, the Hebrew script,
and the observance of Jewish holidays. A portion of the empire's
population adopted Christianity and Islam. Archaeological
evidence for the observance of Christianity, Shamanism, and
Judaism in the kingdom is provided in chapters 2, 4, and 6.
The book also examines the many migrations of the Khazar people
into Hungary, Ukraine, and other areas of Europe and their
subsequent assimilation, providing the most comprehensive
treatment of this complex issue to date. The book presents
exciting archaeological data - from sites near Chelarevo
(now in Serbia), Ellend (Hungary), Navahrudak (Belarus),
and other towns - which seems to demonstrate the existence
of Turkic-Jewish communities in central and eastern Europe
far beyond the borders of the Khazar kingdom. Additionally,
there are discussions of Khazarian communities in Spain,
Azerbaijan, and other regions of the world, plus the Mountain
Jews of the Caucasus and the Judaized Subbotniki of Russia.
The final chapter enumerates the Jewish communities of Eastern
Europe which sprung up after the fall of Khazaria and proposes
that the Jews from the former Russian Empire are descended
from a mixture of Khazarian Jews, German Jews, Greek Jews, and
Slavs.
Review:
"This book represents a modern effort to unravel the mysteries
which still surround the Khazars. It makes skillful use of the
vast literature, in many different languages, related to the
Khazars. It will be a very helpful guide for the general reader
who wishes to discover the truth about this legendary people."
- John D. Klier,
Professor of Modern Jewish History,
University College, London
For more information on these publications contact:
Kevin Brook
4 Cannondale Drive, Danbury, CT 06810-7912 USA
E-mail: kbrook@khazaria.com
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BOOK REVIEWS
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Steven Cassedy. _To the Other Shore: The Russian Jewish
Intellectuals Who Came to America_. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1997. xxiii + 197 pp. Notes, photographs,
illustrations, and index, $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-691-02975-7.
Source:
H-Judaic: The Jewish Studies Network
http://h-net.msu.edu/~judaic
Reviewed by:
Jeffrey Veidlinger, Indiana University, Bloomington
jveidlin@indiana.edu
Much has been written on the generation of Jewish immigrants
who fled Russia for America between 1880 and 1920. One need
look no further than the numbers alone to account for this
group's ubiquity in Jewish historiography. In 1880, the Jewish
population of the United States numbered approximately 230,000.
By 1930 that number had increased to 4,400,000. Of the
estimated 2,885,000 Jewish immigrants who reached the shores
of the United States between 1881 and 1930, 1,749,000 hailed
from Russia. If the numbers alone fail to impress sufficiently,
one can also cite the cultural and intellectual influence that
this generation has had on the American landscape. One need
only think of David Sarnoff, Louis B. Mayer, Emma Goldman and
Abraham Cahan to remember the impact of these immigrants. Even
more striking is the influence of their children: George
Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Irving Howe, Lionel Trilling, Irving
Kristol and Alfred Kazin, to name but a few.
Steven Cassedy's _To The Other Shore: The Russian
Jewish Intellectuals Who Came To America_ is the most
recent attempt to explore the radical ideas and
agitational politicking that came with these immigrants.
Cassedy's innovation - and a significant one at that - is
to highlight the role that distinctly Russian forms of
political awareness played in both the identity and
thought of the Russian Jewish Intellectuals. Whether
they chose to write in Russian, Yiddish or English,
Cassedy argues, their language was that of the Russian
intelligentsia who came of age in the 1860s and 1870s
and embraced a wide array of populist (and elitist)
ideologies, generally subsumed under the rubric
"nihilism." In terms of their intellectual heritage,
Cassedy maintains, the Russian Jewish Intellectuals were
"Russian first and Jews second, or, in some cases,
Russian first and Jews not at all" (64).
It has long been recognized that Russia had a profound
influence on the identity of the new immigrants. In her
classic memoir, _The Promised Land_, Mary Antin
dedicates half her work to her childhood in Polotzk, and
Abraham Cahan's David Levinsky does not arrive in
America until Book V of _The Rise of David Levinsky_.
Most scholarly studies of the "mass immigration" have
followed these two timeless classics by prefacing their
work with a survey of life in the shtetl. Neither Irving
Howe in his _World of Our Fathers_ (New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1976) nor Ronald Sanders in his _The
Downtown Jews: Portraits of an Immigrant Generation_
(New York: Harper & Row, 1969) could begin their
study without first providing their readers with an
account of the shtetl in which their subjects were reared.
Although Cassedy follows this tradition, the Russia he
presents us is not the Russia of kheyders and pogroms,
but the Russia of "critically thinking individuals" and
"narodovol'tsy" (members of the radical party People's
Will). Their only kheyder is "Chernyshevsky's kheyder."
By focusing on the "Jewish radical immigrant
intellectuals who became cultural and political leaders in
the new immigrant community in America" (xx),
Cassedy moves away from the stereotypical greenhorn
who arrives in Battery Park and makes his way over to
the Lower East Side in search of a synagogue and a
sweatshop. Instead, he presents us with a collective
biography of radical ideologues who come to America
committed to establishing a labor movement, socialist
press, and thick journals of literary criticism. Among the
most prominent of his subjects are Abraham Cahan, Leo
Deutsch, Jacob Gordin, Morris Hillquit, Philip Krantz,
Aron Liberman, Morris Winchevsky, and Chaim
Zhitlovsky.
As youth in Russia, his subjects all shared a strong desire
to assimilate into the Russian intelligentsia. All also
shared a practical knowledge of the Russian language,
gained either through clandestine study, or in the case of
those whose parents subscribed to the Haskalah
(Enlightenment), through a formal secular education. All
also came of age in the 1860s, just as the Russian
intelligentsia was reaching maturity. The decade was
characterized by two very broad philosophies: nihilism,
a rejection of anything not verifiable by science, and
populism, a broad term referring to any of numerous
philosophies that claimed to draw inspiration from the
masses. Among the many writings that influenced the
youth of this period were Nikolai Chernyshevsky's 1863
novel _What Is to Be Done?_, which inspired a
generation of youth with visions of communal living and
women's liberation; and Petr Lavrov's _Historical
Letters_, which inspired thousands of students to flock
to the countryside in order to impart their wisdom to the
Russian peasants in a movement that culminated with
the 1874 summer of "going to the people."
The Jewish radical immigrants, Cassedy argues, found
their inspiration in Chernyshevsky and Lavrov as well.
"The 'going to the people' campaign," he writes,
"ultimately provided the Jewish labor movement, both
in Russia and in the United States, with a model of
political action, one whose basic inspiration may be
found in Lavrov's _Historical Letters_ and whose
applications may be found in the unsuccessful campaign
of 1874" (48). Certainly the Jewish intelligentsia, like
their Russian counterparts, did look toward
Chernyshevsky and Lavrov for inspiration. Cassedy's
evidence for this is derived primarily from the testimony
of the Jewish intellectuals themselves, who repeatedly
recall their early infatuation with Chernyshevsky,
Lavrov and others in their autobiographical writings.
Perhaps, though, Cassedy relies too much on
autobiographical literature. The reader is often left
craving more evidence of nihilist and populist thought in
the theoretical writings of these Jewish intellectuals.
The absence of such analysis can leave the reader wondering
whether the Jewish intellectuals were not overstating the
influence of their Russian counterparts in their memoirs.
After all, among the Russian intelligentsia who were so
idealized by the Jewish intellectuals, one could hardly
be taken as a serious radical without paying the requisite
homage to Chernyshevsky and Lavrov - whether or not
one had actually bothered to read them. For instance, one
wonders how well the poverty-stricken Jewish
intellectuals could have identified with Lavrov's
"critically thinking individuals." Lavrov, a wealthy
member of the landed gentry whose estate was visited
by Alexander II and other luminaries, argued that those
who have been able to enjoy the luxuries of leisure time
and education by relying upon the labor of the masses to
provide them with their physical needs owe a moral debt
to the peasantry on whose toil they have profited. It is
easy to see how this philosophy could have touched a
nerve among the wealthy members of the Russian
intelligentsia, many of whom had seen with their own
eyes how their own serfs contributed to their economic
status. But could the poor Jewish migrants like Cahan
really have been so moved by the upper- class guilt
inherent in Lavrov's call? Although he acknowledges this
point, Cassedy could have addressed it with greater depth
(103). Indeed, the act of conjuring the names of the
Russian "men of the 60s" became a standardized refrain
among the Jewish intellectuals that may have acted more
to signify their inclusion within the radical intelligentsia
than to represent a genuine intellectual influence. Even
if the Jewish intellectuals did somewhat manufacture or
exaggerate the influence of the Russian intelligentsia on
their thought, though, the fact remains, as Cassedy
correctly insists, that the Russian intelligentsia
profoundly influenced the identity of the radical Jewish
intellectuals in America.
The most important influence of the Russian
intelligentsia on the Jewish intellectuals, Cassedy
maintains, was in their practical work. Cahan, Deutsch,
Krantz and Hillquit all shared the belief that it was their
responsibility to channel the people's frustrations into
appropriate action through education, and all shared the
belief that the means of educating the people was
through the written media. The newspapers they
founded - _Forverts_, _Di Tsukunft_, and others - all
sought to emulate similar papers in Russian that served
as platforms for radical ideologues. The Yiddish press,
writes Cassedy, "was created and run by an elite
vanguard of intellectuals whose political stance
continued to be defined by Russian models they had
learned before emigrating" (77). There can be little doubt
that Cassedy is correct in citing the Russian populist
origins of this type of agitation.
In addition to the heritage of the Russian intelligentsia,
however, the Jewish intellectuals Cassedy studies were
also profoundly affected by the heritage of the Jewish
enlightenment. This aspect of their pedigree,
unfortunately, is largely overlooked in Cassedy's work.
Indeed, it was no coincidence that Cahan, Liberman and
Hourwich all learned the skills of political agitation
among the Jewish workers of Vilna. As the intellectual
center of the Russian Haskalah, Vilna possessed an
unusually educated and sophisticated Jewish population
that proved particularly receptive to socialist principles.
By appealing to the workers' immediate economic
concerns, the predominantly Jewish activists in Vilna
were able to motivate the masses with a degree of
success that could only be envied by those who preferred
the more elitist techniques of Lavrov. The worker circles
of Vilna, led by Liberman among others, would serve as
models for political activism throughout the Russian
Empire and in the United States. After all, it was in
Vilna that Iulii Martov and Aleksandr Kremer wrote
_On Agitation_, a book that would serve as a handbook
for worker motivation, and it was in Vilna that the Bund
and Poalei Tsion would see their first successes. Cahan,
Liberman and Hourwich learned just as much about
agitation from the streets of Jewish Vilna as from the
writings of Lavrov and Chernyshevsky.
_To The Other Shore_ is an original and well-written
study of an important group of individuals. Cassedy
shows that the Russian Jewish intellectuals who came to
America cannot fully be understood without an
appreciation for the Russian tradition of social criticism.
For those unfamiliar with the Russian heritage, Cassedy's
work provides a useful survey. For those who are
already able to navigate among the populists and
nihilists, this book is equally beneficial, as it shows the
far-reaching influences of Russian thought, and the debt
that the American labor movement owes to the Russian
intelligentsia.
____________________________________________________________
H-Net and JSN Book review. Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net and
JSN. All rights reserved.
____________________________________________________________
Mark Kupovetsky, Evgenii Starostin, and Marek Web (eds.).
_Dokumenty po istorii i kultury evreev v arkhivakh Moskvy_.
Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 1997.
503 pp. Index.
Source:
H-Russia: Russian History List
h-russia@msu.edu
Reviewed by:
Jeffrey Veidlinger, Indiana University, Bloomington
jveidlin@indiana.edu
_Dokumenty po istorii i kulture evreev v arkhivakh
Moskvy_ (Jewish Documentary Sources in Moscow
Archives) edited by Mark Kupovetsky, Evgenii
Starostin, and Marek Web, is an essential resource for
any scholar doing archival work on Jewish issues in
Moscow, as well as an invaluable source of information
on Moscow Jewish institutions and individuals.
The book is the first in a series of guides to be published
jointly by the Russian State University for the
Humanities in Moscow, the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish
Research in New York. Future volumes will focus on St.
Petersburg and provincial archives within Russia,
Ukraine, and Belarus. The volume under review
contains an introduction in both English and Russian,
briefly outlining the history of the project, surveying
other archival collections relating to Russian-Jewish
history, and describing the criteria used to select archival
collections for inclusion in the volume. Essentially, all
records of Jewish provenance, such as those originating
from Jewish communities, Jewish educational
institutions, charitable institutions, cultural institutions,
commercial institutions, professional institutions,
political parties, social movements and individuals were
selected, as well as governmental and municipal records,
archives of public institutions and associations, and
personal papers relating to Jews or Judaism.
The breadth of material covered is exceptional. The book
contains descriptions of archival holdings dating from as
far back as the sixteenth century (fonds relating to early
Jewish settlements in Lithuania and Poland in RGADA)
and as recently as 1991 (The Central Committee of the
CPSU in RtsKhIDNI). Most archival collections,
however, date from 1917-1953. Of particular note are
the records of the German Reich seized from Berlin,
which can be found in the Center for the Preservation of
Historical Documentary Collections. The guide also
contains an appendix listing collections that met the
criteria, but were, for unstated reasons, not included.
Although other editors would, perhaps, have chosen to
include many of these entries, their inclusion in an
appendix nevertheless provides important information
for those seeking simply to verify that a collection exists
and to locate it.
The archives surveyed are divided into five sections: 1)
Central state archives, including the Russian State
Archives of Early Records, the State Archives of the
Russian Federation, the Russian State Military-
Historical Archives, the Russian State Archives of
Economics, the Russian State Archives of Literature and
Art, the Russian State Archives of Film and Photo
Documentation, the Russian State Archives of
Phonographic Documentation, and the Center for the
Preservation of Historical and Documentary Collections;
2) former Communist Party archives, including the
Russian Center for the Preservation of Documents of
Contemporary History, the Center for the Preservation
of Documents of Youth Organizations, and the Center
for the Preservation of Contemporary Documentation; 3)
Institutional archives, including the archives of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of History at
the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Russian
Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 4) Moscow
municipal archives, including the Moscow Central
Historical Archives, the Moscow Central Municipal
Archives, and the Moscow Central Archives of Social
Movements; and 5) manuscript divisions in libraries and
museums, including the Russian National Library, the
State Historical Museum, the State Literary Museum,
the Glinka State Central Museum of Music, the
Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, and the
Museum of the Revolution. The project was unable to
gain access to the archives of the President of the
Russian Federation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and
the KGB.
Each entry contains several paragraphs of explanation.
Although the editors could have set more precise
guidelines for their contributors giving the entries a
more standardized appearance, the individual entries do
share some characteristics. They usually outline the
history of the archival collection, describe its content,
and provide a brief history of the organization or
individual under examination. In many cases, the
historical sketch of the organization is so informative,
that the book can actually be used as an encyclopedic
source as well.
Comprehensive indexes organized according to subject,
name, and geography in both English and Russian
enhance the guide's usability, and allow for extensive
cross-referencing.
Not only is this archival guide an essential tool for
researchers and a model for future guides to emulate, but
it can also serve as a miniature encyclopedia of Russian
Jewry. One can only hope that the forthcoming guides in
this series will be of equal value.
____________________________________________________________
H-Net Book review. Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net. All rights
reserved.
____________________________________________________________
JEWISH SCHOLARSHIP IN EASTERN EUROPE:
ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER
JSEE International academic editorial board:
Henry Abramson (Florida Atlantic University, USA),
Dmitry Elyashevich (Petersburg Jewish University, Russia),
Avraham Greenbaum (Ben-Zion Dinur Institute, Israel),
Rashid Kaplanov (Center "Sefer", Russia),
John Klier (University College London, England),
Antony Polonsky (Brandeis University, USA),
Jonathan Porath (FSU Department, AJJDC, Israel),
Paul Radensky (Jewish Theological Seminary, USA),
Shaul Stampfer (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel),
Michael Steinlauf (Gratz College, USA).
Editors of JSEE Vol. 4, No. 1:
Nadezhda Banchik
Vassili Schedrin
Subscription requests and submissions: jsee@jewish-heritage.org
Archives: http://www.jewish-heritage.org/jseeare.htm
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Address: Russia 117449 Moscow,
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