Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture : 1918-1930
Editorial Reviews
Review
'Shneer's history is an important contribution not only to Soviet (and Russian) history (and most especially Soviet nationality policy and politics) but at least as much (if not more) to Jewish history, which, as he correctly argues, has been reluctant to consider the Russian and Soviet chapters of Jews' communal and intellectual history as anything but victimology and part of the overall history of the Holocaust. He brings to the project a wide reading in the contemporary press and published sources, enhanced by recently accessible archives in Russia and Ukraine. I found particularly attractive David's ability to bring to life several of the key players in this story of Jewish cultural and intellectual politics in the 1920s and his reluctance to pigeonhole them (and himself) in many of the stereotypically conventional ways that historians before him have done. Moreover, very few scholars who write on these matters, and especially representatives of the younger generation, command David's mastery of Yiddish-, Hebrew-, and Ukrainian-language sources.' Mark von Hagen, author of: Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: The Red Army and the Soviet State, 1917 1930 (Cornell University Press, 1993) and Co-Editor: After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building (Westview Press, 1997)
'... a detailed and insightful study'. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Book Description
Empowered by the Soviet state before World War II to create a Jewish national culture, Soviet Jewish activists were interested in building such a culture because they were striving for a national revolution--through the creation of a new culture in which Jews would be able to identify themselves as Jews on new, secular, Soviet terms. This book explores the ways in which Jews functioned as part of, not apart from, the Soviet system, as well as Jewish history.
Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture: 1918-1930,David Shneer,Cambridge University Press,0521826306,History and criticism,Intellectual life,Jews,Judaism - General,Religion,Religion - Judaism,Social aspects,Sociolinguistics,Soviet Union,Yiddish language,Yiddish literature,European history: from c 1900 -,Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe),History of specific racial & ethnic groups,Jewish studies,Judaism,Religion / Judaism / General,Russia
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