DS 135.R9 Y3 Yarmolinsky, Avrahm. The Jews and other minor nationalities under the soviets. New York, Vanguard Press, 1928. http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/yiddish/Englishbks/engrussia.h tml Return to Contents page. Robert Weinberg Stalin's Forgotten Zion Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland: An Illustrated History, 1928-1996 An Associates Book Photographs edited by Bradley Berman. With an Introduction by Zvi Gitelman.
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Publication Date: May 1998
128 pages, 7x10 inches, 96 b/w illustrations Subjects: Jewish Studies; Russian & Eastern European Studies; History; Politics; Judaism Rights: World Clothbound: $55.00 0-520-20989-3 £37.95 Paperback: $24.95 0-520-20990-7 £17.95
Description | About the Author
DESCRIPTION (back to top)
Robert Weinberg and Bradley Berman's carefully documented and extensively illustrated book explores the Soviet government's failed experiment to create a socialist Jewish homeland. In 1934 an area popularly known as Birobidzhan, a sparsely populated region along the Sino-Soviet border some five thousand miles east of Moscow, was designated the national homeland of Soviet Jewry. Establishing the Jewish Autonomous Region was part of the Kremlin's plan to create an enclave where secular Jewish culture rooted in Yiddish and socialism could serve as an alternative to Palestine. The Kremlin also considered the region a solution to various perceived problems besetting Soviet Jews. Birobidzhan still exists today, but despite its continued official status Jews are a small minority of the inhabitants of the region. Drawing upon documents from archives in Moscow and Birobidzhan, as well as photograph collections never seen outside Birobidzhan, Weinberg's story of the Soviet Zion sheds new light on a host of important historical and contemporary issues regarding Jewish identity, community, and culture. Given the persistence of the "Jewish question" in Russia, the history of Birobidzhan provides an unusual point of entry into examining the fate of Soviet Jewry under communist rule.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (back to top) Robert Weinberg is Associate Professor of History at Swarthmore College. He is author of The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steppes (1993) and coeditor of a book-length edition of the journal Russian History (1996). Bradley Berman is the Associate Curator/Project Director for "Stalin's Forgotten Zion" at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California. Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and author of numerous books on Jews in the Soviet Union.
The story begins with the Nazi occupation when Bardach, a young Polish Jew inspired by Soviet Communism, crosses the border of Poland to join the ranks of the Red Army. His ideals are quickly shattered when he is arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to death. How Bardach survives an endless barrage of brutality--from a near-fatal beating to the harsh conditions and slow starvation of the gulag existence--is a testament to human endurance under the most oppressive circumstances. Besides being of great historical significance, Bardach's narrative is a celebration of life and a vital affirmation of what it means to be human.
Poland's Holocaust - Links ... Poland Under Soviet Occupation Gross, Jan T. Revolution From Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia . Princeton ... www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/6764/links1.html http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~dbranden/SemEveryday.html SEMINAR: "EVERYDAY STALINISM": MASS CULTURE AND TERROR IN SOCIETY, 1928-1953 David Brandenberger
http://pup.princeton.edu/chapters/s7018.html OUP: Everyday Stalinism: Fitzpatrick ... Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life In Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930's. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Bernadotte E Schmidt Professor of Modern Russian ... www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-505001-0