Skip to main content

Free US delivery on orders $35 or over

Yiddish Literature Under Surveillance

The Case of Soviet Ukraine

Yiddish Literature Under Surveillance cover

Yiddish Literature Under Surveillance

The Case of Soviet Ukraine

Description

Choice 2025 Outstanding Academic Title

Yiddish Literature Under Surveillance: The Case of Soviet Ukraine gives a broad view on Soviet Jewish literary life, and on the repression suffered by Yiddish writers under Stalinist rule. It moves from the paradigm of writing almost exclusively about the most prominent authors, whose execution in Moscow on August 12, 1952 is tragically known as "The Night of Murdered Poets." Instead, the narrative is built as a group biography of five writers whose literary home was in Kyiv, the capital of Soviet Ukraine from 1934 to 1991. Those authors are as follows: Avrom Abchuk (arrested and executed in 1937), Chaim Gildin (arrested in 1940; died in a camp in 1943), Itsik Kipnis (arrested in 1949; released in 1955), Rive Balyasne (arrested in 1952; released in 1955), and Hirsh Bloshteyn, an enthusiastic agent of the secret police. In addition, this book is populated by other Yiddish, Ukrainian, and Russian literati. Kyiv was the primary fountainhead for Yiddish literary creativity in the early postrevolutionary period for seven decades and remained a leading Soviet Yiddish literary center, second in importance only to Moscow. Attention is paid to the victims' rehabilitation, posthumous or otherwise, in the mid-1950s and onwards.

Accessibility Information

Additional accessibility information

  • EPUB 3.0
  • Conforms with the requirements of EPUB Accessibility Spec v1.1
  • WCAG level AA
  • WCAG v2.2 compliant
  • accessibility@bloomsbury.com

Hazards

The publication contains no hazards

Support for non-visual reading

  • No accessibility features offered by the reading system, device or reading software are disabled or otherwise unusable with the product
  • Has alternative text descriptions for images

Visual adjustments

Appearance of the text and page layout can be modified according to the capabilities of the reading system (font family and size, spaces, as well as color of background and text)

Navigation

  • Page list to go to pages from the print source version
  • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
  • All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
  • Content is enhanced with ARIA roles to optimize organization and facilitate navigation
  • Purposes of all links are made clear

Rich content

Language tagging provided

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Harnessing Literature to Communism
Chapter 1: Avrom Abchuk: An Illegal Crosser
Chapter 2: Hirsh Bloshteyn: The Agent “Kant”
Chapter 3: Chaim Gildin: A Rebellious Spirit
Chapter 4: Itsik Kipnis: A “Rabid Nationalist”
Chapter 5: Rive Balyasne: A Party-Loyal Poet
Epilogue: After Stalin
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Product details

Published Sep 11 2024
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Pages 180
ISBN 9781666938012
Imprint Lexington Books
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Gennady Estraikh

Gennady Estraikh is professor at the Skirball Depa…

ONLINE RESOURCES

Bloomsbury Collections

This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.

Related Titles

Environment: Staging