In this multidisciplinary volume, leading historians provide new understanding of a time that sent shockwaves through Jewish communities in and beyond the Russian Empire and transformed the way Jews thought about the politics of ethnic and national identity.
This book examines the intersection of urban society and modern politics among Jews in turn of the century Warsaw, Europe's largest Jewish center at the time. By focusing on the tumultuous events surrounding the Revolution of 1905, Barricades and Banners argues that the metropolitanization of Jewish life led to a need for new forms of community and belonging, and that the ensuing search for collective and individual order gave birth to the new institutions, organizations, and practices that would define modern Jewish society and politics for the remainder of the twentieth century.
Robert Weinberg examines the tumultuous events of the 1905 Revolution in Odessa, the fourth-largest city in the Russian Empire at the turn of the twentieth century, and explores why workers in Odessa were the driving force in the near-toppling of autocratic rule. Weinberg offers a compelling analysis of labor's militancy and politicization in 1905 and provides insights into the social dynamics of labor activism in late Imperial Russia. He pays close attention to how the intersection of national developments, local events, and the workers' daily experiences prompted Odessa workers to claim rights of citizenship, challenge authority, and assert greater control over their working lives. The book also sheds light on the notorious Jewish Question in tsarist Russia and the impact of ethnic conflict on the events of 1905. Jews constituted one-third of Odessa's population, and the bloody October pogrom that left hundreds dead reveals how ethno-religious tensions affected the labor movement and influenced the outcome of the revolution in Odessa. By demonstrating the intricate relationship among labor unrest, politics, and anti-Semitism, The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa enriches our understanding of the multifaceted dimensions of revolution in the Russian Empire.
This scholarly biography focuses on the early years of the influential Russian Jewish author and pioneer of Revisionist Zionism. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Russia was a place of intense social strife and political struggle. Vladimir Yevgenyevich “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky, who would go on to become the founder of the Revisionist Zionism Alliance in 1925, was already a Zionist leader and Jewish public intellectual. Although previously glossed over, these early years were crucial to Jabotinsky’s development as a thinker, politician, and Zionist. In this enlightening biography, Brian Horowitz focuses on Jabotinsky’s commitments to Zionism and Palestine as he embraced radicalism and fought against the suffering brought upon Jews through pogroms, poverty, and victimization. Horowitz also defends Jabotinsky against accusations that he was too ambitious, a fascist, and a militarist. As Horowitz delves into the years that shaped Jabotinsky’s social, political, and cultural orientation, an intriguing psychological portrait emerges.
Between 1917 and 1921, Jewish intellectuals and writers across the Russian empire pursued a “Jewish renaissance.” Here is a revisionist argument about the nature of cultural nationalism, the relationship between nationalism and socialism, and culture itself—the pivot point for the encounter between Jews and European modernity over the past century.
Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem The Holocaust in the Soviet Union is the most complete account to date of the Soviet Jews during the World War II and the Holocaust (1941-45). Reports, records, documents, and research previously unavailable in English enable Yitzhak Arad to trace the Holocaust in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union through three separate periods in which German political and military goals in the occupied territories dictated the treatment of the Jews. Arad's examination of the differences between the Holocaust in the Soviet Union compared to other European nations reveals how Nazi ideological attacks on the Soviet Union, which included war on "Judeo-Bolshevism," led to harsher treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union than in most other occupied territories. This historical narrative presents a wealth of information from German, Russian, and Jewish archival sources that will be invaluable to scholars, researchers, and the general public for years to come.
A compendium of original essays and contemporary viewpoints on the 1917 Revolution The Russian revolution of 1917 reverberated throughout an empire that covered one-sixth of the world. It altered the geo-political landscape of not only Eurasia, but of the entire globe. The impact of this immense event is still felt in the present day. The historiography of the last two decades has challenged conceptions of the 1917 revolution as a monolithic entity— the causes and meanings of revolution are many, as is reflected in contemporary scholarship on the subject. A Companion to the Russian Revolution offers more than thirty original essays, written by a team of respected scholars and historians of 20th century Russian history. Presenting a wide range of contemporary perspectives, the Companion discusses topics including the dynamics of violence in war and revolution, Russian political parties, the transformation of the Orthodox church, Bolshevism, Liberalism, and more. Although primarily focused on 1917 itself, and the singular Revolutionary experience in that year, this book also explores time-periods such as the First Russian Revolution, early Soviet government, the Civil War period, and even into the 1920’s. Presents a wide range of original essays that discuss Brings together in-depth coverage of political history, party history, cultural history, and new social approaches Explores the long-range causes, influence on early Soviet culture, and global after-life of the Russian Revolution Offers broadly-conceived, contemporary views of the revolution largely based on the author’s original research Links Russian revolutions to Russian Civil Wars as concepts A Companion to the Russian Revolution is an important addition to modern scholarship on the subject, and a valuable resource for those interested in Russian, Late Imperial, or Soviet history as well as anyone interested in Revolution as a global phenomenon.
In the years following the Russian Revolution, a bitter civil war was waged between the Bolsheviks, with their Red Army of Workers and Peasants on the one side, and the various groups that constituted the anti-Bolshevik movement on the other. The major anti-Bolshevik force was the White Army, whose leadership consisted of former officers of the Russian imperial army. In the received—and simplified—version of this history, those Jews who were drawn into the political and military conflict were overwhelmingly affiliated with the Reds, while from the start, the Whites orchestrated campaigns of anti-Jewish violence, leading to the deaths of thousands of Jews in pogroms in the Ukraine and elsewhere. In Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920, Oleg Budnitskii provides the first comprehensive historical account of the role of Jews in the Russian Civil War. According to Budnitskii, Jews were both victims and executioners, and while they were among the founders of the Soviet state, they also played an important role in the establishment of the anti-Bolshevik factions. He offers a far more nuanced picture of the policies of the White leadership toward the Jews than has been previously available, exploring such issues as the role of prominent Jewish politicians in the establishment of the White movement of southern Russia, the "Jewish Question" in the White ideology and its international aspects, and the attempts of the Russian Orthodox Church and White diplomacy to forestall the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The relationship between the Jews and the Reds was no less complicated. Nearly all of the Jewish political parties severely disapproved of the Bolshevik coup, and the Red Army was hardly without sin when it came to pogroms against the Jews. Budnitskii offers a fresh assessment of the part played by Jews in the establishment of the Soviet state, of the turn in the policies of Jewish socialist parties after the first wave of mass pogroms and their efforts to attract Jews to the Red Army, of Bolshevik policies concerning the Jewish population, and of how these stances changed radically over the course of the Civil War.