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Russian Jewish Culture (Jewish Studies)

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  1.  
  2. Introduction
  3. Russian Jewish culture has historically been expressed in a variety of languages, most notably Russian, Hebrew, and Yiddish. In the pre-revolutionary period, most Jewish cultural expression took place within a predominantly religious milieu. The gradual secularization of Jewish culture in the Russian Empire brought about the rapid growth of new forms of public cultural expression through literature, the performing arts, and the visual arts. The consolidation of Bolshevik control in the Soviet Union accelerated the secularization of Jewish culture and, while promoting Yiddish culture as the expression of the Jewish masses, discriminated against Hebrew culture. The early years of the Soviet Union saw innovative experimentation in Yiddish culture under the support of the state. Taking advantage of the new opportunities afforded them in the Soviet Union, many Jewish cultural producers also turned to Russian-language culture, playing important roles in the formation of a pan-national Soviet culture. After World War II, the Soviet state turned against Jewish culture, and many leading Yiddish cultural activists were executed. Jewish culture was largely forced underground, only to reemerge, primarily in emigration, with the fall of the Soviet Union. This article includes works on Jewish cultural arts—literary arts, performing arts, and visual arts—in Russia and the Pale of Jewish Settlement. This region includes parts of what are today Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Moldova, but excludes the territory of Poland, which was under Russian imperial control from 1772 to 1917 but never was fully incorporated into the Russian Empire. It also excludes the extensive cultural contributions of Russian Jews produced abroad, in the Americas, Europe, and Israel.
  4.  
  5. Reference Works
  6. Hundert 2008 is the definitive reference work for eastern European Jewish studies and includes many entries on cultural aspects. Katzenelson, et al. 1991 remains useful over one hundred years after its first publication. Beider 2011 is a useful lexicon for those interested in Yiddish literature in the Soviet Union.
  7.  
  8. Beider, Chaim. Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in Ratn-farband / Biographical Dictionary of Yiddish Writers in the Soviet Union. Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Boris Sandler. New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, 2011.
  9.  
  10. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  11.  
  12. Biographies and bibliographies of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union.
  13.  
  14. Find this resource:
  15.  
  16. Hundert, Gershon David, ed. The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. 2 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
  17.  
  18. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  19.  
  20. This two-volume masterpiece includes contributions from hundreds of scholars. The authoritative source for everything related to Jews in Russia and eastern Europe, with particular attention to cultural matters. Available online.
  21.  
  22. Find this resource:
  23.  
  24. Katzenelson, Yehudah Leyb, Simon Dubnow, David Günzburg, and Albert Harkavy, eds. Evreiskaia entsiklopedia: Svod znanii o evreistvie I ego kul’ture v proshlom i nastoiashchem. 16 vols. Moscow: Terra, 1991.
  25.  
  26. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  27.  
  28. Originally published between 1906 and 1913 and edited by a team that included Dubnow, Israel Zinberg, and Katzenelson, this Russian-language Jewish encyclopedia remains an excellent resource for pre-revolutionary Russian Jewish culture. Some of the material was copied from the English-Language Jewish Encyclopedia, published 1901–1906, but the entries dealing with Russia were often original.
  29.  
  30. Find this resource:
  31.  
  32. Bibliographies
  33. Kel’ner and Eliashevich 1995 and Rutberg and Pidevich 2000 are bibliographies of Russian-language works that deal with Jews, much of which is related to culture. Shmeruk, et al. 1961 is a bibliography of Yiddish- and Hebrew-language works published in the Soviet Union. Dov-Ber Kerler’s online bibliography, Az me zukht, gefint men, helps researchers navigate from a vast array of Yiddish sources, most of which are available online. Louis Fridhandler’s Indexes to the Yiddish Works of Sholem Aleichem and Their English Translations, is a helpful tool for those conducting research on the most prominent of Russian Jewish writers.
  34.  
  35. Fridhandler, Louis. “Indexes to the Yiddish Works of Sholem Aleichem and Their English Translations.”
  36.  
  37. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  38.  
  39. Fridhandler’s index to the various editions of the works of Sholem Aleichem and their English translations. Available online as a PDF.
  40.  
  41. Find this resource:
  42.  
  43. Kel’ner, V. E., and D. A. Eliashevich. Literatura o evreiakh na russkom iazyke, 1890–1947: Knigi, broshiury, ottiski statei, organy periodicheskoi pechati; Bibligraficheskii ukazatel’. St. Petersburg, Russia: Akademicheskii Proekt, 1995.
  44.  
  45. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  46.  
  47. Bibliographical index of literature on Jews in Russian, 1890–1947, includes books, brochures, reprints of articles, and periodical editions. Not comprehensive, but a very useful resource for the study of Russian Jewish culture. Includes sections on music, theater, literature, visual arts, and folklore.
  48.  
  49. Find this resource:
  50.  
  51. Kerler, Dov-Ber. Az me zukht, gefint men.
  52.  
  53. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  54.  
  55. Kerler’s online bibliography of Yiddish resources includes much material related to Russian Jewry. Includes sections on folklore, music, literature, theater and drama, visual arts, and film and video.
  56.  
  57. Find this resource:
  58.  
  59. Rutberg, N. I., and I. N.Pidevich. Evrei i evreiskii vopros v literature sovetskogo perioda. Moscow: Sefer, 2000.
  60.  
  61. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  62.  
  63. Bibliography of Jews and the Jewish question in the literature of the Soviet period. Includes sections on folklore, culture, visual arts, literature, music, theater, and film.
  64.  
  65. Find this resource:
  66.  
  67. Shmeruk, Chone, Y. Slutski, and Y. Y. Cohen. Pirsumim Yehudiyim bi-Berit ha-Mo’atsot: 1917–1960. Jerusalem: Ha-hevrah ha-historit ha-Yisre’elit, 1961.
  68.  
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  70.  
  71. A bibliography of publications in Yiddish and Hebrew published in the Soviet Union. Also includes a bibliography of Russian-language Jewish newspapers and periodicals, and a glossary of commonly used Soviet acronyms and abbreviations. Introductory essays by Shmeruk and Slutski.
  72.  
  73. Find this resource:
  74.  
  75. Anthologies of Primary Sources and Literature Collections
  76. Jewish writers in Russia and the Soviet Union expressed themselves primarily in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian. Dawidowicz 1967 remains an essential sourcebook for Jewish life in eastern Europe, and Freeze and Harris 2013 is a general-source reader designed for classroom use. Howe and Greenberg 1977 was the first collection to focus on Yiddish literature by Soviet authors and remains useful to this day. Shrayer 2007 is the definite anthology of Russian-language literature written by Jewish authors.
  77.  
  78. Dawidowicz, Lucy S., ed. The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967.
  79.  
  80. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  81.  
  82. Edited by the prominent Jewish American historian of the Holocaust. Includes excerpts from Russian maskilim, rabbinical, and Hasidic writings; Yiddish and Russian literary writings; and political treatises, all of which provide a useful glimpse into Russian Jewish intellectual life from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries.
  83.  
  84. Find this resource:
  85.  
  86. Freeze, ChaeRan Y., and Jay M. Harris, eds. Everyday Jewish Life in Imperial Russia: Select Documents, 1772–1914. Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. Waltham, MA: Brandeis, 2013.
  87.  
  88. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  89.  
  90. This collection of historical documents on everyday life includes many documents on different aspects of Jewish culture in Imperial Russia.
  91.  
  92. Find this resource:
  93.  
  94. Howe, Irving, and Eliezer Greenberg, eds. Ashes out of Hope: Fiction by Soviet-Yiddish Writers. New York: Schocken, 1977.
  95.  
  96. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  97.  
  98. The first collection in English to recognize the merits of Yiddish writing in the Soviet Union.
  99.  
  100. Find this resource:
  101.  
  102. Shrayer, Maxim D., ed. An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry. 2 vols. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2007.
  103.  
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  105.  
  106. Volume 1 covers the 1801–1953 period, and Volume 2 covers the 1953–2001 period. Includes the works of well-known writers such a Isaac Babel, Ilya Ehrenburg, and Osip Mandelstam, as well as lesser-known gems. Shrayer’s introductory essay provides a useful survey of Jewish writing in the Russian language.
  107.  
  108. Find this resource:
  109.  
  110. Single-Author Anthologies
  111. Very few Hebrew- and Russian-language works of the imperial period are available in English translation. Ben-Amos and Mintz 1970 is a scholarly translation of Shivhei ha-besht, the hagiographical legends about the Baal Shem Tov. Bialik 2000 is a nice collection of poetry by one of the pioneers of Hebrew poetry. The best-known Russian-language Jewish writer is probably Isaac Babel, whose complete works are available in English translation as Babel 2005. The New Yiddish Library series provides some of the most accessible English translations of Yiddish writings. Sholem Aleichem 1996, Abramovitsh 1996, and Ansky 2002 present translations of some of the most famous stories by Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, and S. An-sky, respectively. Werman 1996 provides three of David Bergelson’s early stories. The website Ale verk fun Sholem Aleykhem is a searchable Yiddish-language anthology of the most famous Yiddish writer, Sholem Aleichem.
  112.  
  113. Abramovitsh, S. Y. Tales of Mendele the Book Peddler: Fishke the Lame and Benjamin the Third. Edited by Dan Miron and Ken Frieden. Translated by Ted Gorelick and Hillel Halkin. New York: Schocken, 1996.
  114.  
  115. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  116.  
  117. Accessible translations of two of the most significant writings of Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, with a critical introduction by Miron. Ideal for classroom use.
  118.  
  119. Find this resource:
  120.  
  121. Ansky, S. The Dybbuk and Other Writings. Edited by David G. Roskies. Translated by Golda Werman. New Yiddish Library. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
  122.  
  123. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  124.  
  125. Accessible translations of representative writings by S. An-sky. Originally published by Schocken; republished in Yale’s New Yiddish Library Series. Ideal for classroom use.
  126.  
  127. Find this resource:
  128.  
  129. Babel, Isaac. The Complete Works of Isaac Babel. Edited by Nathalie Babel. Translated by Peter Constantine. Introduction by Cynthia Ozick. New York: Norton, 2005.
  130.  
  131. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  132.  
  133. The most complete collection of Babel’s writings in English, albeit not error free.
  134.  
  135. Find this resource:
  136.  
  137. Ben-Amos, Dan, and Jerome R. Mintz, eds. and trans. In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov [Shivhei ha-Besht]: The Earliest Collection of Legends about the Founder of Hasidism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970.
  138.  
  139. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  140.  
  141. This is the first scholarly edition and English translation of the hagiographical tales about the purported founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, first published in 1814.
  142.  
  143. Find this resource:
  144.  
  145. Bialik, Hayim Nahman. Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik. Edited and translated by Atar Hadari. Introduction by Dan Miron. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
  146.  
  147. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  148.  
  149. A selection of poems by one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry, many of which were written during the poet’s time in Odessa.
  150.  
  151. Find this resource:
  152.  
  153. Finkel, Raphael. Ale verk fun Sholem Aleykhem.
  154.  
  155. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  156.  
  157. Finkel’s online searchable compilation of the complete works of Sholem Aleichem in Yiddish, compiled from editions at the National Yiddish Book Center.
  158.  
  159. Find this resource:
  160.  
  161. Sholem Aleichem. Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories. Library of Yiddish Classics. Translated by Hillel Halkin. New York: Schocken, 1996.
  162.  
  163. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  164.  
  165. Halkin’s translations of some of the most significant writings of Sholem Aleichem. Originally published by Schocken; republished in Yale’s New Yiddish Library series. Ideal for classroom use.
  166.  
  167. Find this resource:
  168.  
  169. Werman, Golda, trans. The Stories of David Bergelson: Yiddish Short Fiction from Russia. Foreword by Aharon Appelfeld. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996.
  170.  
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  172.  
  173. Translations of three of Bergelson’s early stories: “Remnants,” “Impoverished,” and “Departing.”
  174.  
  175. Find this resource:
  176.  
  177. Translations of Single Works
  178. Mapu 2006, published as part of the Toby Library series, presents a good example of the Hebrew maskilic novel in Russia. Sholem Aleichem 1991 is one of the writer’s more polished novels. Jabotinsky 2005 presents a side of the Revisionist Zionist founder rarely seen in his more polemical writings; this is a stunning portrait of revolutionary Odessa. Kulbak 2013 and Der Nister 1987 represent two of the most compelling Yiddish family sagas of the Soviet period. Grossman 1987 is a haunting and epic novel of World War II, and Deutsch 2011 is a translation of S. An-sky’s ethnographic questionnaire.
  179.  
  180. Der Nister. The Family Mashber: A Novel. Translated by Leonard Wolf. New York: Summit, 1987.
  181.  
  182. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  183.  
  184. One of the last Yiddish novels published in the Soviet Union. A fictional-realist drama of Jewish life in 19th-century Berdichev by Pinkhes Kahanovitsh, writing under the pseudonym Der Nister (the Hidden One). Also available in a New York Review Books Classics edition (New York: New York Review, 2008). First published in Yiddish in 1939.
  185.  
  186. Find this resource:
  187.  
  188. Deutsch, Nathaniel. The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
  189.  
  190. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674062641Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  191.  
  192. Translation of S. An-sky’s ethnographic questionnaire, with extensive commentary and introductory material.
  193.  
  194. Find this resource:
  195.  
  196. Grossman, Vasily. Life and Fate: A Novel. Translated by Robert Chandler. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.
  197.  
  198. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199.  
  200. Epic Russian-language novel about the Soviet experience of the Second World War, with a focus on the Jewish experience. Modeled on Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Written in 1959 as Zhizn’ i sud’ba, the book was suppressed by the Soviet censors and was first published in the West in 1980.
  201.  
  202. Find this resource:
  203.  
  204. Jabotinsky, Vladimir. The Five: A Novel of Jewish Life in Turn-of-the-Century Odessa. Edited and translated by Michael R. Katz. Introduction by Michael Stanislawski. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005.
  205.  
  206. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207.  
  208. A remarkable novel about Odessa in the revolutionary period, written by the founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement. Jabotinsky wrote the Russian-language novel in 1935 while living in Paris.
  209.  
  210. Find this resource:
  211.  
  212. Kulbak, Moyshe. The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga. Translated by Hillel Halkin. Introduction and notes by Sasha Senderovich. New Yiddish Library. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
  213.  
  214. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215.  
  216. A comic novel about an intergenerational family’s struggles to adapt to the new Soviet regime in Minsk. Excellent translation by Halkin and helpful notes and introduction by Senderovich. First published in serialized form between 1929 and 1935.
  217.  
  218. Find this resource:
  219.  
  220. Mapu, Abraham. The Love of Zion. Translated by Joseph Marymount. Introduction by David Patterson. New Milford, CT: Toby, 2006.
  221.  
  222. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223.  
  224. Generally considered the first Hebrew novel, Mapu’s Ahavat Tsiyon (originally published in 1853) is a predictable romance set in biblical Palestine and is a fine representative of early maskilic writing.
  225.  
  226. Find this resource:
  227.  
  228. Sholem Aleichem. The Bloody Hoax. Translated by Aliza Shevrin. Introduction by Maurice Friedberg. Jewish Literature and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.
  229.  
  230. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231.  
  232. English translation of Sholem Aleichem’s Der blutiker shpas (first published in 1914), a novel about the Mendl Beilis blood libel.
  233.  
  234. Find this resource:
  235.  
  236. General Historical Studies
  237. Gitelman 2001 and Polonsky 2010–2012 are textbooks on Jewish life and history in Russia and eastern Europe, both of which pay particular attention to culture. Polonsky 2010–2012 is more detailed, whereas Gitelman 2001 is better suited for classroom use. Petrovsky-Shtern 2014 is presented as a history of the shtetl but is really a general history of Jewish popular culture in the early 19th century. Veidlinger 2009 studies the flourishing of Jewish secular culture in the late Russian Empire, and Fishman 2005 examines the flourishing of Yiddish culture during the same period. Stein 2004 is a comparative analysis of the role of the Jewish-language press in the Ottoman and Russian Empires, Trachtenberg 2008 is a focused study on Yiddish scholarship, and Litvak 2006 looks, in particular, at the theme of military conscription in Russian Jewish culture.
  238.  
  239. Fishman, David E. The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture. Series in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.
  240.  
  241. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  242.  
  243. A study of the major institutions that facilitated the rise of Yiddish culture in its many manifestations. Part I is on Tsarist Russia; Part II focuses on interwar Poland.
  244.  
  245. Find this resource:
  246.  
  247. Gitelman, Zvi. A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
  248.  
  249. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  250.  
  251. First published in 1988 (New York: Schocken), this survey text remains the most accessible introduction to the topic. Gitelman writes about cultural activity throughout.
  252.  
  253. Find this resource:
  254.  
  255. Litvak, Olga. Conscription and the Search for Modern Russian Jewry. Modern Jewish Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
  256.  
  257. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  258.  
  259. Litvak examines the different ways that Jewish writers utilized the theme of conscription in order to make sociopolitical arguments about the nature of Jewish identity in Russia.
  260.  
  261. Find this resource:
  262.  
  263. Petrovsky-Shtern, Yohanan. The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.
  264.  
  265. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  266.  
  267. A sympathetic portrait of Jewish daily life in the heyday of the Pale of Jewish Settlement. Mining a treasure trove of previously unused archival data, Petrovsky-Shtern brings to life a culture normally depicted only in its decline.
  268.  
  269. Find this resource:
  270.  
  271. Polonsky, Antony. The Jews in Poland and Russia. 3 vols. Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010–2012.
  272.  
  273. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  274.  
  275. Detailed historical survey, incorporating the most-recent scholarship. Includes chapters on religious life, literature, and mass culture. Vol. 1, 1350 to 1881; Vol. 2, 1881 to 1914; Vol. 3, 1914 to 2008.
  276.  
  277. Find this resource:
  278.  
  279. Stein, Sarah Abrevaya. Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Modern Jewish Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
  280.  
  281. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  282.  
  283. A comparative study of the role of the Jewish-language press in the late Russian and Ottoman Empires. Stein’s analysis of the ways that newspaper advertisements reflected on and created a modern bourgeois culture is particularly important.
  284.  
  285. Find this resource:
  286.  
  287. Trachtenberg, Barry. The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903–1917. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008.
  288.  
  289. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  290.  
  291. A focused study of the Yiddish activists and scholars who formed around the yearbook Der Pinkes, including Shmuel Niger, Ber Borokhov, and Nokhem Shtif. These scholars, and others like them, sought to use Yiddish scholarship and science for the purpose of nation building.
  292.  
  293. Find this resource:
  294.  
  295. Veidlinger, Jeffrey. Jewish Public Culture in the Late Russian Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
  296.  
  297. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  298.  
  299. An analysis of the proliferation of cultural societies that took place in the aftermath of the 1905 revolution, and the ways in which Jews began to express themselves publicly through the cultural arts. Focuses on libraries, theaters, literary societies, and historical societies.
  300.  
  301. Find this resource:
  302.  
  303. Anthologies of Scholarship
  304. Ro’i 1995 and Ro’i and Beker 1991 focus on Jewish cultural resistance and renaissance in the Soviet Union, reflecting the period in which they appeared. Budnitskii 2006 includes mostly articles by Russian-based scholars, and Nathans and Safran 2008 is a collection of works by scholars based in America, Israel, and Poland. Katsis, et al. 2009 includes articles by scholars from around the world and focuses on Yiddish in the Soviet Union.
  305.  
  306. Budnitskii, Oleg, ed. Russko-evreiskaia kul’tura. Papers presented at a conference held in December 2005 in Moscow. Moscow: Rosspen, 2006.
  307.  
  308. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  309.  
  310. A collection of articles by leading Russian scholars on various aspects of Russian Jewish culture.
  311.  
  312. Find this resource:
  313.  
  314. Katsis, Leonid, Maria Kaspina, and David E. Fishman, eds. Idish: Iazyk i kul’tura v sovetskom soiuze. Papers presented at a conference held in 2006 in Moscow. Moscow: Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Gumanitarnyi Universitet, 2009.
  315.  
  316. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  317.  
  318. A collection of articles by leading scholars on Yiddish language and culture in the Soviet Union. The volume emerged out of a conference held at the Russian State University for Humanities.
  319.  
  320. Find this resource:
  321.  
  322. Nathans, Benjamin, and Gabriella Safran, eds. Culture Front: Representing Jews in Eastern Europe. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
  323.  
  324. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  325.  
  326. A collection of articles by major scholars that emerged from the 2002–2003 Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies theme year on Jews in eastern Europe.
  327.  
  328. Find this resource:
  329.  
  330. Ro’i, Yaacov, ed. Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union. Ilford, UK: Frank Cass, 1995.
  331.  
  332. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  333.  
  334. A collection of essays, including several on various aspects of Jewish culture. Section V, on cultural expression of Soviet Jews, is particularly relevant, as are the essays by David E. Fishman and Ro’i on religious practice before and after the Second World War, respectively.
  335.  
  336. Find this resource:
  337.  
  338. Ro’i, Yaacov, and Avi Beker, eds. Jewish Culture and Identity in the Soviet Union. New York: New York University Press, 1991.
  339.  
  340. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  341.  
  342. A collection of essays, including several on various aspects of Jewish culture. Zvi Gitelman’s introductory chapter is of particular note, as is the series of essays on the revival of Jewish identity in the postwar period.
  343.  
  344. Find this resource:
  345.  
  346. Russian Jewish Literature—Criticism and Scholarship
  347. Literature is the most studied aspect of Russian Jewish culture. Jewish intellectuals in Russia followed the Russian tradition of using literary criticism as a means of addressing much more general problems of culture and society writ large. Literary criticism and literary biographies sometimes became so embedded within the cultural fabric that it is difficult to separate the actual literature from its critics. More recently, literary criticism has become a common mode for studying Jewish culture in its many manifestations.
  348.  
  349. Tsarist Era
  350. The three classical Yiddish writers Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and S. Y. Abramovitsh continue to dominate literary scholarship today. Much scholarship has broadly addressed the ways that 19th-century Jewish writers sought to mold public discourse through literature. Alter 1988, Miron 1996, and Patterson 1999 focus on those who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish. Roskies 1996 is concerned with the ways that Yiddish writers adopted oral storytelling, and Glaser 2012 and Seidman 1997 look at the interactions between different languages in Jewish literatures. Pinsker 2011 demonstrates the European origins of modern Hebrew-language literature, while Litvak 2012 argues that the Russian Haskalah should be regarded as a romantic movement.
  351.  
  352. Alter, Robert. The Invention of Hebrew Prose: Modern Fiction and the Language of Realism. Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988.
  353.  
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  355.  
  356. Important work on the ways in which maskilic writers constructed a modern literature by using an ancient language.
  357.  
  358. Find this resource:
  359.  
  360. Glaser, Amelia M. Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary Borderlands: From the Shtetl Fair to the Petersburg Bookshop. Studies in Russian Literature and Theory. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2012.
  361.  
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363.  
  364. A study of representations of the Ukrainian marketplace in Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish literatures, demonstrating the multiethnic environment of Ukraine.
  365.  
  366. Find this resource:
  367.  
  368. Litvak, Olga. Haskalah: The Romantic Movement in Judaism. Key Words in Jewish Studies 3. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.
  369.  
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371.  
  372. This short book argues that the Russian Haskalah was not properly an enlightenment movement but, rather, was a romantic and nationalist revolution.
  373.  
  374. Find this resource:
  375.  
  376. Miron, Dan. A Traveler Disguised: The Rise of Modern Yiddish Fiction in the Nineteenth Century. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996.
  377.  
  378. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379.  
  380. Focusing on S. Y. Abramovitsh, this classic text is much more than a biography of Abramovitsh but shows how Abramovitsh used the character of Mendele the Book Peddlar to help render Yiddish as a respectable language for literary expression. Originally published in 1973 (New York: Schocken).
  381.  
  382. Find this resource:
  383.  
  384. Patterson, David. The Hebrew Novel in Czarist Russia: A Portrait of Jewish Life in the Nineteenth Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
  385.  
  386. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387.  
  388. Originally published in 1964 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), Patterson examines the development of the Hebrew novel between 1868 and 1888, arguing that Hebrew novelists of this period had both didactic and artistic goals and sought to raise awareness of contemporaneous society to their readers.
  389.  
  390. Find this resource:
  391.  
  392. Pinsker, Shachar M. Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  393.  
  394. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395.  
  396. Draws attention to the mobility of early-20th-century Hebrew writers, arguing that their transnational and multilingual identity, rooted in a European milieu, informed the ways they perceived the modern. For many of them, their transnational journeys began in Russia.
  397.  
  398. Find this resource:
  399.  
  400. Roskies, David G. A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
  401.  
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403.  
  404. Roskies examines how Jewish writers rendered oral storytelling practices and modes into literature. Several chapters deal with writers in Russia, such as Nahman of Bratslav, Isaac Meir Dik, Sholem Aleichem, and Der Nister.
  405.  
  406. Find this resource:
  407.  
  408. Seidman, Naomi. A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish. Contraversions 7. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
  409.  
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411.  
  412. Examines the gendered ways in which eastern European Jewish writers presented and interpreted the Hebrew and Yiddish languages, with a focus on the literary works of S. Y. Abramovitsh and Dvora Baron.
  413.  
  414. Find this resource:
  415.  
  416. Soviet Era
  417. During the period of the Cold War, there was little Western attention to Soviet Jewish literature. Many scholars dismissed Soviet literature as propaganda and failed to appreciate the efforts of Jewish writers to continue creating in the Soviet Union. Estraikh 2005 and Krutikov 2001 were two of the first studies to integrate Soviet Yiddish literature into the canon of Jewish literary studies. Estraikh 2008 shows the global interactions among Yiddish writings during the Cold War. Markish 1986, Nakhimovsky 1992, and Sicher 1995 focus on prominent Jewish writers who wrote in Russian, whereas Petrovsky-Shtern 2009 introduces lesser-known Jewish writers who wrote in Ukrainian. Tanny 2011 looks at the image and myth of Odessa in literature and culture, and Murav 2011 is a comprehensive study of Jewish literatures—Russian and Yiddish—in the Soviet Union.
  418.  
  419. Estraikh, Gennady. In Harness: Yiddish Writers’ Romance with Communism. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.
  420.  
  421. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  422.  
  423. A study of Yiddish-language communist literature from the avant-garde literary movements of the early revolutionary period to the consolidation of socialist realism.
  424.  
  425. Find this resource:
  426.  
  427. Estraikh, Gennady. Yiddish in the Cold War. Studies in Yiddish 7. London: Legenda, 2008.
  428.  
  429. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  430.  
  431. A short history of communist Yiddish literature during the Cold War. Several chapters deal with Yiddish literature in the postwar Soviet Union.
  432.  
  433. Find this resource:
  434.  
  435. Krutikov, Mikhail. Yiddish Fiction and the Crisis of Modernity, 1905–1914. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
  436.  
  437. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  438.  
  439. Krutikov’s sweeping synchronic analysis of Yiddish fiction during the turbulent period between the first Russian Revolution and the onset of the First World War. He identifies four major themes that permeated Yiddish literature of this period, both in Russia and the United States: the economic transition from a rural market to an urban capitalist system, the revolution of 1905, immigration, and psychological character development.
  440.  
  441. Find this resource:
  442.  
  443. Markish, Simon. “A Russian Writer’s Jewish Fate.” Commentary 81.4 (1986): 39–47.
  444.  
  445. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  446.  
  447. One of the few English-language essays by the prominent Geneva-based Russian literary critic and essayist, and the son of the murdered poet Peretz Markish. The essay helped introduce Vasily Grossman to Western audiences.
  448.  
  449. Find this resource:
  450.  
  451. Murav, Harriet. Music from a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-revolution Russia. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  452.  
  453. DOI: 10.11126/stanford/9780804774437.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  454.  
  455. Presents multilayered literary analyses of Russian- and Yiddish-language literature produced by Jews in the Soviet Union. Murav shows how Jewish writers drew from Jewish traditions and Judaic motifs in their Soviet works and, in the aftermath of the war, used literature to commemorate destroyed communities.
  456.  
  457. Find this resource:
  458.  
  459. Nakhimovsky, Alice Stone. Russian-Jewish Literature and Identity: Jabotinsky, Babel, Grossman, Galich, Roziner, Markish. Johns Hopkins Jewish Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
  460.  
  461. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  462.  
  463. A study of how some of the more prominent 20th-century Jewish writers who wrote in Russian addressed Jewish themes.
  464.  
  465. Find this resource:
  466.  
  467. Petrovsky-Shtern, Yohanan. The Anti-imperial Choice: The Making of the Ukrainian Jew. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
  468.  
  469. DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300137316.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  470.  
  471. An in-depth literary study of five lesser-known Jewish writers—Hryts’ko Kernerenko, Ivan Kulyk, Raisa Troianker, Leonid Pervomais’kyi, and Moisei Fishbein—who chose to write in the Ukrainian language. Petrovsky-Shtern argues that their choice to write in a minority language was an act of anticolonial resistance.
  472.  
  473. Find this resource:
  474.  
  475. Sicher, Efraim. Jews in Russian Literature after the October Revolution: Writers and Artists between Hope and Apostasy. Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
  476.  
  477. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  478.  
  479. Sicher, a Ben Gurion University scholar of literature and specialist on Isaac Babel, explores the conflicts of identity in the works of Babel, Ilya Ehrenburg, Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, and others.
  480.  
  481. Find this resource:
  482.  
  483. Tanny, Jarrod. City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia’s Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011.
  484.  
  485. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  486.  
  487. A study of the ways in which the city of Odessa was portrayed in Russia and the Soviet Union, with a focus on the popular identification of the city as a Jewish space.
  488.  
  489. Find this resource:
  490.  
  491. Biographies and Biographical Criticism
  492. The major figures who helped shape Russian Jewish culture have since the late 20th century become the subject of several important biographies and critical studies.
  493.  
  494. Tsarist Era
  495. Dauber 2013 provides a much-needed critical biography of the most prominent of Russian Jewish authors, Sholem Aleichem. Bailin 2000 brings to our attention several women who played important roles in Jewish literature. Safran and Zipperstein 2006 and Safran 2010 have helped launch a newfound scholarly and popular interest in S. An-sky. Zipperstein 1993 delves into the life and thought of the cultural Zionist Ahad Ha’am, and Stanislawski 1988 situates Judah Leib Gordon within the Russian Haskalah.
  496.  
  497. Bailin, Carole B. To Reveal Our Hearts: Jewish Women Writers in Tsarist Russia. Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 24. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 2000.
  498.  
  499. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  500.  
  501. Collective biography of five Jewish women writers: Miriam Markel-Mosessohn, Hava Shapiro, Rashel’ Mironovna Khin, Feiga Izrailevna Kogan, and Sofiia Dubnova-Erlikh. The first two wrote primarily in Hebrew, whereas the rest wrote in Russian. Bailin shows how these educated middle-class writers challenged traditional stereotypes of Jewish women.
  502.  
  503. Find this resource:
  504.  
  505. Dauber, Jeremy. The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye. Jewish Encounters. New York: Schocken, 2013.
  506.  
  507. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  508.  
  509. A highly readable biography of Sholem Aleichem. The definitive biography.
  510.  
  511. Find this resource:
  512.  
  513. Safran, Gabriella. Wandering Soul: The Dybbuk’s Creator, S. An-sky. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
  514.  
  515. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  516.  
  517. The definitive biography of An-sky by a scholar equally at home with An-sky’s Russian and Yiddish writings.
  518.  
  519. Find this resource:
  520.  
  521. Safran, Gabriella, and Steven J. Zipperstein, eds. The Worlds of S. An-sky: A Russian Jewish Intellectual at the Turn of the Century. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.
  522.  
  523. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  524.  
  525. An edited volume featuring chapters about An-sky and his influence, by leading ethnographers, historians, and literary scholars. Includes a CD of recordings from the An-sky expeditions.
  526.  
  527. Find this resource:
  528.  
  529. Stanislawski, Michael. For Whom Do I Toil: Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry. Studies in Jewish History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
  530.  
  531. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  532.  
  533. A biography of the poet, communal activist, and liberal reformer Judah Leib Gordon. Stanislawski writes a history of the Russian Haskalah and its failures through Gordon.
  534.  
  535. Find this resource:
  536.  
  537. Zipperstein, Steven J. Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha’am and the Origins of Zionism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
  538.  
  539. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  540.  
  541. A masterful intellectual biography of the cultural Zionist Asher Ginzburg (Ahad Ha’am), particularly strong in placing the writer within the context of the Odessa-based group of Russian Jewish thinkers from which he emerged.
  542.  
  543. Find this resource:
  544.  
  545. Soviet Era
  546. The Legenda series has been instrumental in reviving awareness of Soviet Yiddish writers: Sherman, et al. 2011 focuses on Peretz Markish; Estraikh, et al. 2014, on Der Nister; and Sherman and Estraikh 2007, on David Bergelson. Krutikov 2011 brings to life the complex biography of literary critic Meir Wiener, and Grinberg 2011 introduces the poet Boris Slutsky to English-speaking readers.
  547.  
  548. Estraikh, Gennady, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov, eds. Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister. Studies in Yiddish 12. London: Legenda, 2014.
  549.  
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551.  
  552. This edited volume of twelve chapters includes some of the most recent scholarship on the writings of Pinkhes Kahanovitsh (Der Nister).
  553.  
  554. Find this resource:
  555.  
  556. Grinberg, Marat. “I Am to Be Read Not from Left to Right, but in Jewish, from Right to Left”: The Poetics of Boris Slutsky. Borderlines: Russian and East European Jewish Studies. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011.
  557.  
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559.  
  560. An in-depth study of the writings of the Russian Jewish poet Slutsky.
  561.  
  562. Find this resource:
  563.  
  564. Krutikov, Mikhail. From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.
  565.  
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567.  
  568. A masterful intellectual biography of the Yiddish literary critic and novelist Wiener that explores the writer’s movement from Kabbalistic mysticism to communism.
  569.  
  570. Find this resource:
  571.  
  572. Sherman, Joseph, and Gennady Estraikh, eds. David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism. Studies in Yiddish 6. London: Legenda, 2007.
  573.  
  574. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575.  
  576. This edited volume includes some of the most recent scholarship on the writings of Bergelson, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of his writings and critical scholarship about him.
  577.  
  578. Find this resource:
  579.  
  580. Sherman, Joseph, Gennady Estraikh, Jordan Finkin, and David Shneer, eds. A Captive of the Dawn: The Life and Work of Peretz Markish (1895–1952). Studies in Yiddish 9. London: Legenda, 2011.
  581.  
  582. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583.  
  584. This edited volume includes some of the most recent scholarship on the writings of Markish, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of his writings and critical scholarship about him.
  585.  
  586. Find this resource:
  587.  
  588. Soviet Jewish Culture
  589. Moss 2009 looks at high culture during the height of the revolutionary period and shows the earnestness with which a group of Jewish activists believed in the transformative power of culture. Shneer 2004 shows how Yiddish writing flourished in the Soviet state. Shternshis 2006 looks at how Soviet Jewish citizens identified with Jewish culture, and Slezkine 2004 argues that Jews played a prominent role in creating not only Soviet culture, but the very notion of modernity.
  590.  
  591. Moss, Kenneth B. Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
  592.  
  593. DOI: 10.4159/9780674054318Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  594.  
  595. A compelling and deeply erudite analysis of the 1917–1921 project of Jewish intellectuals to construct and disseminate a Jewish high culture modeled on the cultures of their European neighbors, and its relationship to the rise of Jewish nationalism and socialism.
  596.  
  597. Find this resource:
  598.  
  599. Shneer, David. Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture, 1918–1930. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  600.  
  601. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  602.  
  603. Shows how the Soviet Union developed an extensive publishing industry in Yiddish and a vibrant network of Yiddish poets and critics. Shneer analyzes the ways that Yiddish functioned in the early Soviet Union.
  604.  
  605. Find this resource:
  606.  
  607. Shternshis, Anna. Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.
  608.  
  609. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  610.  
  611. On the basis of oral-history interviews as well as contemporaneous pamphlets, books, dramatic texts, and other cultural products, Shternshis argues that Jewish audiences continued to regard certain cultural products as Jewish even when they were purged of overt Jewish markers.
  612.  
  613. Find this resource:
  614.  
  615. Slezkine, Yuri. The Jewish Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
  616.  
  617. DOI: 10.1515/9781400828555Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  618.  
  619. In this wonderfully written book, Slezkine proposes the provocative thesis that Jews manifested many of the qualities that came to be valued in the 20th century, allowing them to acquire a privileged place. Even those who disagree with his thesis will find much value about the culture of Soviet Jewry in this work.
  620.  
  621. Find this resource:
  622.  
  623. Education
  624. Formal and informal systems of education helped spread Russian and secular culture to the Jewish masses. Stampfer 1992, Adler 2011, and Parush 2004 focus on the comparative advantages that women had in their access to secular education. Horowitz 2009 looks at the most important Jewish educational association in the 19th century, and Stampfer 2014 and Etkes 1993 shed light on a variety of different aspects of traditional and more-modern forms of Jewish education.
  625.  
  626. Adler, Eliyana R. In Her Hands: The Education of Jewish Girls in Tsarist Russia. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.
  627.  
  628. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  629.  
  630. Argues that the unregulated environment of private schools for girls allowed these schools to become laboratories where new, modern educational techniques could be tested.
  631.  
  632. Find this resource:
  633.  
  634. Etkes, Immanuel. Rabbi Israel Salanter and the Mussar Movement: Seeking the Torah of Truth. Translated by Jonathan Chipman. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1993.
  635.  
  636. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  637.  
  638. Etkes’s biography of Israel Salanter also puts into historical context the reforms that Salanter undertook within Jewish education in Lithuania. Translation of the Hebrew original, which was published in 1982.
  639.  
  640. Find this resource:
  641.  
  642. Horowitz, Brian. Jewish Philanthropy and Enlightenment in Late-Tsarist Russia. Samuel and Althea Stroum Book. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.
  643.  
  644. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  645.  
  646. The Society for the Spread of Enlightenment played an integral role in the promotion of Russian-language education among Russian Jews. Horowitz shows how the organization gradually came to adapt itself to the more nationalist demands of the Jewish masses it served.
  647.  
  648. Find this resource:
  649.  
  650. Parush, Iris. Reading Jewish Women: Marginality and Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Eastern European Jewish Society. Translated by Saadya Sternberg. Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2004.
  651.  
  652. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  653.  
  654. Argues that as a result of their marginal status, women were given access to secular culture in ways that men were not. Translation of the Hebrew original, published in 2001.
  655.  
  656. Find this resource:
  657.  
  658. Stampfer, Shaul. “Gender Differentiation and Education of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe.” Polin 7 (1992): 63–87.
  659.  
  660. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  661.  
  662. Argues that the conventional stereotype of eastern European Jewish women as uneducated is not supported by the evidence. In fact, women had access both to traditional Judaic knowledge and modern secular knowledge.
  663.  
  664. Find this resource:
  665.  
  666. Stampfer, Shaul. Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century: Creating a Tradition of Learning. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2014.
  667.  
  668. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  669.  
  670. English translation of Stampfer’s original work in Hebrew, published in 1995. The book argues that the Lithuanian yeshiva was able to adapt to modernity by introducing new forms of rabbinical learning. Also deals extensively with the culture of the yeshiva.
  671.  
  672. Find this resource:
  673.  
  674. Theater
  675. Many Jews in Russia embraced theater with a passion. Jewish theatergoers flocked to the Russian-language theater, and occasionally Jews performed on the Russian stage. Tsarist restrictions on the use of Yiddish on stage, though, hindered the full development of Yiddish theater until after 1905. Klier 2003 is a focused study of the ban on Yiddish theater, which hindered its development in the tsarist period. Henry 2011 looks at the Russian influences on one of the most well-known Yiddish playwrights, Jacob Gordin. Several studies of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET) system have been published: Veidlinger 2000 is a historical study, Harshav 2008 and Ivanov 2007 are detailed studies of the theater’s experimental aesthetics, Altshuler 1996 is a series of essays that look at different aspects of the theater system, and Kotlerman 2009 focuses on the Birobidzhan branch of the theater. Ivanov 1999 is a study of the Habima Hebrew-language theater during its Russian period.
  676.  
  677. Altshuler, Mordechai, ed. Ha-teatron ha-yehudi bi-Verit ha-moatsot. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1996.
  678.  
  679. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  680.  
  681. A collection of articles about Jewish theater in the Soviet Union. Includes Altshuler’s piece on GOSET (Gosudarstvennyi Evreiskii Teatr), Shmuel Spector’s on the Yiddish theater in Ukraine, Dov Levin’s on Yiddish theater in the territories occupied in 1939, and individual studies by Dalia Kaufman on Uriel Acosta, by Beatrice Picon-Vallin on “The Sorceress,” and by Chone Shmeruk on “Night in the Old Market,” in addition to several other chapters on Solomon Mikhoels.
  682.  
  683. Find this resource:
  684.  
  685. Harshav, Benjamin. The Moscow Yiddish Theater: Art on Stage in the Time of Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
  686.  
  687. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  688.  
  689. A study of GOSET during its heyday in the 1920s, by the eminent scholar of Yiddish. Focuses on the avant-garde experimentalism of the theater. Includes useful documents and illustrations.
  690.  
  691. Find this resource:
  692.  
  693. Henry, Barbara. Rewriting Russia: Jacob Gordin’s Yiddish Drama. Samuel and Althea Stroum Book. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011.
  694.  
  695. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  696.  
  697. Gordin became a major Yiddish playwright after his immigration to the United States in 1882. In this work, Henry shows how his works were deeply embedded within the Russian literary tradition from which he emerged. Focuses on three of his plays: The Jewish King Lear, the Kreutzer Sonata, and Khasye the Orphan.
  698.  
  699. Find this resource:
  700.  
  701. Ivanov, Vladislav. Russie sezony teatr gabima. Moscow: Artist. Rezhisser. Teatr, 1999.
  702.  
  703. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  704.  
  705. Comprehensive study of the aesthetics of the Habima Hebrew-language theater during its early Moscow period, before its 1926 departure from Russia.
  706.  
  707. Find this resource:
  708.  
  709. Ivanov, Vladislav. GOSET: Polemika i iskusstvo, 1919–1928. Moscow: GITIS, 2007.
  710.  
  711. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  712.  
  713. A study of the aesthetic techniques of GOSET during Alexei Granovsky’s directorship.
  714.  
  715. Find this resource:
  716.  
  717. Klier, John. “‘Exit, Pursued by a Bear’: Russian Administrators and the Ban on Yiddish Theatre in Imperial Russia.” Paper presented at an international workshop on Yiddish theater held in July 1999 at Yarnton Manor in Oxford. In Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches. Edited by Joel Berkowitz, 159–174. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003.
  718.  
  719. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  720.  
  721. Demonstrates that the so-called ban on Yiddish theater in tsarist Russia was actually a police order lacking any ideological motivation.
  722.  
  723. Find this resource:
  724.  
  725. Kotlerman, Ber Boris. In Search of Milk and Honey: The Theater of “Soviet Jewish Statehood” (1934–49). New Approaches to Russian and East European Culture 1. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2009.
  726.  
  727. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  728.  
  729. Comprehensive history and thorough analysis of the Birobidzhan State Yiddish Theater (BirGOSET) in its historical context. The effort to turn BirGOSET into a leading cultural institution was part of a grander project to reorient Jewish life in the Soviet Union away from the western borderlands and toward Birobidzhan.
  730.  
  731. Find this resource:
  732.  
  733. Veidlinger, Jeffrey. The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage. Jewish Literature and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
  734.  
  735. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  736.  
  737. Comprehensive historical study of GOSET and its director / lead actor Solomon Mikhoels, from the theater’s beginnings in 1917 through its liquidation in 1949. The book argues that GOSET was able to retain aspects of Jewish national culture within the confines of Soviet nationality policies.
  738.  
  739. Find this resource:
  740.  
  741. Music
  742. The towering figure of Soviet Jewish music is the ethnomusicologist Moisei Beregovski, two of whose works have been translated into English. Slobin, et al. 2001 presents his instrumental works and writings, whereas Slobin 2000 provides an English translation of his folk song collections, albeit without musical notation. Veidlinger 2000 looks at the milieu in which Beregovski functioned, and Loeffler 2010 is a scholarly study of Jews and the Russian conservatory and the growth of the Jewish Folk Music Society. Shternshis 2010 asks why Yiddish songs have seen a revival in 21st-century Russia.
  743.  
  744. Loeffler, James. The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
  745.  
  746. DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300137132.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  747.  
  748. The most important scholarly work on Jewish music in Imperial Russia. Shows how national identity in music developed, from Anton Rubinstein’s ideal of music as a neutral sphere to Joel Engel’s project of developing a national Jewish folk music.
  749.  
  750. Find this resource:
  751.  
  752. Shternshis, Anna. “White Piano in a Shtetl: Material Culture and Ethnic Identity in the Post-Soviet Jewish Urban Community.” Jewish Social Studies, n.s. 16.2 (2010): 111–126.
  753.  
  754. DOI: 10.2979/JSS.2010.16.2.111Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  755.  
  756. Analyzes the early-21st-century revival of Yiddish music in Russia, with a focus on the performer Efim Alexandrov and the ensemble Hasidic Cappella.
  757.  
  758. Find this resource:
  759.  
  760. Slobin, Mark, ed. and trans. Old Jewish Folk Music: The Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
  761.  
  762. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  763.  
  764. English translation of Beregovski’s seminal collection of Jewish folk music. First published in English in 1982 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) and in Yiddish in 1933.
  765.  
  766. Find this resource:
  767.  
  768. Slobin, Mark, Robert Allen Rothstein, and Michael Alpert, eds. and trans. Jewish Instrumental Folk Music: The Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski. Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001.
  769.  
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  771.  
  772. English translation of Beregovski’s writings on Jewish instrumental folk music. Includes a CD. First published in Yiddish in 1937.
  773.  
  774. Find this resource:
  775.  
  776. Veidlinger, Jeffrey. “Klezmer and the Kremlin: Soviet Yiddish Folk Songs of the 1930s.” Jews in Eastern Europe 41 (2000): 5–39.
  777.  
  778. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  779.  
  780. Discusses the ethnomusicological work of Beregovski in the 1930s and the publication of Jewish folk music collections during this period. Argues that despite attempts to introduce Soviet themes into folk music, older Yiddish songs of love and daily struggles remained popular.
  781.  
  782. Find this resource:
  783.  
  784. Painting and Sculpture
  785. Glants 2010 looks at the prominent sculptor Mark Antokolskii, while Apter-Gabriel 1988 and Kazovsky 2003 focus on the avant-garde painters of the early revolutionary era, the most prominent of whom was Marc Chagall. Chagall is the focus of Compton 1998 and Harshav 2003, and Goodman 2008 uses Chagall as an entryway into the art of the Soviet Jewish theater. Goodman 1995 not only shows the Jewish role in the avant-garde but continues the study of Jewish art throughout most of the 20th century.
  786.  
  787. Apter-Gabriel, Ruth, ed. Tradition and Revolution: The Jewish Renaissance in Russian Avant-Garde Art, 1912–1928. 2d ed. Israel Museum Catalog 285. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1988.
  788.  
  789. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  790.  
  791. Catalogue from the 1987 Israel Museum exhibit of art from the Russian Jewish avant-garde. Among the artists featured are Natan Altman, Alexander Tyshler, Marc Chagall, and Issachar Ber Ryback. Also includes useful essays by Seth Wolitz, John Bowlt, Chimen Abramsky, and other scholars.
  792.  
  793. Find this resource:
  794.  
  795. Compton, Susan, ed. Chagall: Love and the Stage, 1914–1922. London: Merrell Holberton, 1998.
  796.  
  797. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  798.  
  799. Catalogue of an exhibition of Chagall’s Russian works held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Focuses on the period during which Chagall returned to Vitebsk from Paris until his departure from Moscow, arguing that this was a formative period of his work.
  800.  
  801. Find this resource:
  802.  
  803. Glants, Musya. Where Is My Home? The Art and Life of the Russian Jewish Sculptor Mark Antokolsky, 1843–1902. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010.
  804.  
  805. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  806.  
  807. Biography and critical study of the life and works of the most famous Russian Jewish sculptor.
  808.  
  809. Find this resource:
  810.  
  811. Goodman, Susan Tumarkin, ed. Russian Jewish Artists in a Century of Change: 1890–1990. Munich: Prestel, 1995.
  812.  
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  814.  
  815. Catalogue of an exhibition first shown at the Jewish Museum in New York. Traces Jewish visual culture in Russia through the revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Notable for including the Khrushchev years and art of the Thaw. Introductory essays by Bowlt, Michael Stanislawski, Wolitz, Boris Groys, and others.
  816.  
  817. Find this resource:
  818.  
  819. Goodman, Susan Tumarkin, ed. Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
  820.  
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  822.  
  823. The catalogue of an exhibition first held at the Jewish Museum of New York. The book includes illustrations from the work of Chagall as well as Robert Falk, Altman, and other artists associated with the Moscow State Yiddish Theater. Includes introductory essays by Goodman, Zvi Gitelman, Jeffrey Veidlinger, and Vladislav Ivanov.
  824.  
  825. Find this resource:
  826.  
  827. Harshav, Benjamin. Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary Narrative. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
  828.  
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  830.  
  831. This massive volume integrates hundreds of translated documents related to Chagall into a biography of the painter. Several of the early chapters focus on his Russian years and include some of the earliest reviews of his works.
  832.  
  833. Find this resource:
  834.  
  835. Kazovsky, Hillel. The Artists of the Kultur-Lige. Jerusalem: Gesharim, 2003.
  836.  
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  838.  
  839. Bilingual Hebrew-English catalogue of the works of the artists affiliated with the experimental Kultur-Lige (Culture League) that flourished in the late imperial and early Soviet periods. Includes 213 illustration plates from the works of Chagall, Robert Falk, Altman, and others.
  840.  
  841. Find this resource:
  842.  
  843. Photography and Graphic Arts
  844. Jews were particularly prominent in photography and the graphic arts in the late Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Avrutin, et al. 2014 presents photographic images of Jewish life in early-20th-century Russia, taken from the S. An-sky expeditions. Tupitsyn 1999 draws our attention to another artist of the Soviet avant-garde, El Lissitzky. Shneer 2011 presents a powerful argument about Jews and photography.
  845.  
  846. Avrutin, Eugene M., Valerii Dymshits, Alexander Ivanov, Alexander Lvov, Harriet Murav, and Alla Sokolova, eds. Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky’s Ethnographic Expeditions. Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2014.
  847.  
  848. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  849.  
  850. Beautifully presented collection of photographs from An-sky’s 1912–1914 ethnographic expeditions to the Pale of Jewish Settlement. Also includes interesting introductory essays on Jewish ethnography by Avrutin and Murav, as well as by Ivanov, Lvov, Sokolova, and Dymshits.
  851.  
  852. Find this resource:
  853.  
  854. Shneer, David. Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust. Jewish Cultures of the World. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011.
  855.  
  856. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  857.  
  858. Demonstrates the influential role that Jewish photographers played in the development of Soviet photojournalism, and argues that their Jewish identity played an important role in the ways they portrayed the news, particularly the Second World War and the Holocaust. The illustrations are remarkable.
  859.  
  860. Find this resource:
  861.  
  862. Tupitsyn, Margarita. El Lissitzky: Beyond the Abstract Cabinet. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
  863.  
  864. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  865.  
  866. This catalogue of Lissitzky’s photomontage and graphic works includes 126 color plates. Features some of his most iconic works, from Victory over the Sun and Prounen, as well as his later propaganda posters. Essays by Matthew Drutt, Tupitsyn, and Ulrich Pohlmann.
  867.  
  868. Find this resource:
  869.  
  870. Film
  871. These two studies, both about the Soviet cinematic portrayals of the Holocaust, appeared almost simultaneously. Gershenson 2013 is presented as a personal quest to uncover lost (phantom) films. Hicks 2012 is more focused chronologically, includes newsreels, and is more detailed.
  872.  
  873. Gershenson, Olga. The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe. Jewish Cultures of the World. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.
  874.  
  875. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  876.  
  877. An innovative exploration of the ways in which the Holocaust was treated in Soviet cinema.
  878.  
  879. Find this resource:
  880.  
  881. Hicks, Jeremy. First Films of the Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and the Genocide of the Jews, 1938–1946. Series in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012.
  882.  
  883. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  884.  
  885. A detailed study of the ways that the Holocaust was portrayed in Soviet cinema during the war and in its immediate aftermath.
  886.  
  887. Find this resource:
  888.  
  889. Regional Studies
  890. A variety of scholars have chosen to focus on specific regions, either to demonstrate the peculiarities of distinct regions or as representative case studies. Zipperstein 1991 shows how Jewish modernization took place in the cosmopolitan port city of Odessa during the 19th century. Beizer 1999 looks at Leningrad during the Soviet period and is a continuation of Beizer 1989, which focuses on the imperial capital. Meir 2010 looks at the process of Jewish modernization in Kiev, a city that was physically located within the Pale, but from which Jewish residence was largely restricted. Bemporad 2013 and Zeltser 2006 show that aspects of Jewish culture persisted in Belarus despite Sovietization. Shtakser 2014 looks at the inner emotional lives of Jewish revolutionaries in the Pale of Jewish Settlement.
  891.  
  892. Beizer, Mikhail. The Jews of St. Petersburg: Excursions through a Noble Past. Edited by Martin Gilbert. Translated by Michael Sherbourne. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989.
  893.  
  894. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  895.  
  896. Presented as a tour book, this work sheds light on the extensive Jewish cultural activity that was taking place in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg.
  897.  
  898. Find this resource:
  899.  
  900. Beizer, Mikhail. Evrei Leningrada, 1917–1939. Jerusalem: Gesharim, 1999.
  901.  
  902. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  903.  
  904. Chapter 2.5 includes information on Jewish cultural life in Leningrad.
  905.  
  906. Find this resource:
  907.  
  908. Bemporad, Elissa. Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk. Helen B. Schwartz Book in Jewish Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
  909.  
  910. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  911.  
  912. This important monograph looks at the process of Sovietization in Minsk, arguing that despite adopting Soviet identities, Minsk Jews were able to retain aspects of their Jewish identities. Much of the book focuses on the development of proletarian and religious cultures.
  913.  
  914. Find this resource:
  915.  
  916. Meir, Natan M. Kiev: Jewish Metropolis; A History, 1859–1914. Modern Jewish Experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
  917.  
  918. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  919.  
  920. An exploration of Jewish life in Kiev. Chapter 4 deals with “Modern Jewish Cultures and Practices,” and various aspects of Jewish cultural life are studied throughout.
  921.  
  922. Find this resource:
  923.  
  924. Shtakser, Inna. The Making of Jewish Revolutionaries in the Pale of Settlement: Community and Identity during the Russian Revolution and Its Immediate Aftermath, 1905–1907. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
  925.  
  926. DOI: 10.1057/9781137430236Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  927.  
  928. On the basis of autobiographies submitted to Soviet authorities, Shtakser argues that revolutionary activity had an emotional impact on Jewish revolutionaries.
  929.  
  930. Find this resource:
  931.  
  932. Zeltser, Arkadii. Evrei sovetskoi provintsii: Vitebsk i mestechki, 1917–1941. Moscow: Rosspen, 2006.
  933.  
  934. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  935.  
  936. Analysis of how the Jewish communities of Vitebsk and its surrounding shtetls were transformed by the revolution and how the Jewish community reacted.
  937.  
  938. Find this resource:
  939.  
  940. Zipperstein, Steven J. The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794–1881. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
  941.  
  942. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  943.  
  944. Zipperstein’s classic work on the modernization of Odessa. Deals extensively with cultural aspects of Jewish life in the city, including education, the press, and entertainment. Written before the archives were open, but still relevant for its analytical arguments.
  945.  
  946. Find this resource:
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