Reviews

Review

Review of Sasha Senderovich's How the Soviet Jew Was Made

In this recent­ly-pub­lished study, Senderovich chal­lenges this fixed notion of the Sovi­et Jew, and recounts a com­plex pre­his­to­ry of the Sovi­et Jew in the imme­di­ate con­text of inter­war Sovi­et culture.

Review

Sisyphus: A Review of Harriet Murav's David Bergelson’s Strange New World: Untimeliness and Futurity

With this mon­u­men­tal study, Har­ri­et Murav pro­vides the first com­pre­hen­sive lit­er­ary biog­ra­phy of Bergel­son and a rich inter­cul­tur­al con­tex­tu­al­iza­tion of the Yid­dish writer’s work

Review

Review of Der Nister’s Soviet Years: Yiddish Writer as Witness to the People by Mikhail Krutikov.

Krutikov’s philo­log­i­cal skillset and metic­u­lous archival research shine through­out this book, a land­mark study of both Der Nis­ter and Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture under Stalin.

Review

How to be Both: Officials and Artists Vying for the Limelight

May­hill Fowler’s book shines light on the blind spots of nation­al cul­tur­al his­to­ries of turn of the cen­tu­ry Ukraine, fol­low­ing the often uneasy inter­face between author­i­ties and art institutions.

Review

Judgment

In time for the one hun­dredth anniver­sary of the Octo­ber rev­o­lu­tion, Dovid Bergel­son’s nov­el Mides-hadin is out in a new trans­la­tion by Har­ri­et Murav and Sasha Senderovich. 

Review

“The Worst Good Idea Ever”? The Birobidzhan Project and Soviet Jewish Culture

Masha Gessen’s new book explores the his­to­ry of the Jew­ish Autonomous Region of Biro­bidzhan through the sto­ry of David Bergel­son and Simon Dub­now, whose thought and writ­ing influ­enced its development.

Review

“To what might the yard have been compared?”

Ach, the things a poor tai­lor has lived to see! We live in times when the coats go around mak­ing them­selves.” A review of a recent trans­la­tion of Kul­bak’s Zel­menyan­er.

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