История и культура российского и восточноевропейского еврейства: Новые источники, новые подходы ред. по О. В. Будницкий, К. Ю. Бурмистров, А. Б. Каменский, В. В. Мочалова (review)

Abstract

387 Ab Imperio, 1/2011 Irena VLADIMIRSKY История икультура российского и восточноевропейского еврейства: Новые источники, новые подходы. Материалы международной науч- ной конференции, Москва, 8-10 де- кабря 2003 г. / Ред. О. В. Будницкий, К.Ю.Бурмистров,А.Б.Каменский, В. В. Мочалова. Москва: “Дом еврейской книги”, 2004. 424 с. ISBN: 5-98370-017-0. There is a certain difficulty in reviewing conference proceedings due to two main reasons: the multiplicity of subjects and the number of contributors . Every conference despite its announced theme always refers to a greater number of problems. The reviewed publication is not an exception from this general rule: the articles differ in length and content, some of them can be characterized as serious research essays while others are rather of informative character. Two problems are central for this collection: a) the problem of location and variety of primary sources on Jewish history and b) the problem of self-identification searches on the individual and community levels. The accessibility of primary sources is indeed an acute problem for the researchers in this field. Personal archives and archives of various Jewish organizations in the former Soviet Union for a long time were unavailable due to strict restrictions. A great number of the local sources, so-called pinkasei kehilot (community registry books), were destroyed during WWII, others still need a comprehensive systematization . Over the last decade, the objects of material culture (Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, Torah scrolls, etc.) and oral history records have become increasingly used as independent and important source of information on the Jewish life in Eastern Europe. The chapter by the late John Klier of the University College London focuses on the study of the Russian Jewish history in the United States from the beginning of the twentieth century. Actually, in the USA the interest in Jewish history aroused after WWII and followed by reestablishment of the Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO), which was originally founded in Vilna in 1925 as Yiddish Scientific Institute. First Institute’s publications were made in Yiddish, and only in the beginning of the 1950s first publications in English appeared. The real pioneers in the field of the Jewish studies in the United States were Louis Greenberg and Isaac Levitats. From the very beginning, the problem of access to archival materials became critical for NorthAmerican researches; they could use only available secondary sources or pri- 388 Рецензии/Reviews mary sources from Israeli archives. The situation slightly improved in the middle of the 1980s, when American scholars began to consult archives in Poland and study the history of Jews in Poland and Lithuania. They also were allowed into Soviet archives to research on some “neutral ” subjects, such as the history of Russian periodicals (the media coverage of the “Jewish question” and manifestations of anti-Semitism ) and Russian revolutionary movements. Some important works by Hans J. Rogger and Ezra Mendelsohn were published then. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, access to archives was facilitated, but the identification of sources became even more complicated because of the dissolution of the formerly centralized archival system, and redistribution of documentary collections among different regional authorities, national depositaries, and academic institutions. In her essay, Olga Belova from the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences refers to the studying of objects of material culture in former Jewish communities of Podoliya and Western Belarus. One of the first ethnographical expeditions in this region of the Pale of Jewish Settlement was organized by S.An-skii in 1912–1914, when Jews comprised about 80% of the local population. The latest expedition was organized by the Institute of the Slavic Studies and the Center “St. Petersburg Judaic Studies” in 2000–2003. During the expedition, rich material on Jewish presence in the region before WWII was collected, while the survived synagogues, cemeteries, and community buildings in the former Jewish quarters of towns and villages were mapped. The working group interviewed many locals, both Jews and gentiles. It is concluded that the problem of preserving the historical memory still receives little attention from the local authorities in both Belarus and Ukraine. Dmirtii Feldman from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) describes the difficulties in locating documents on the Jewish history in Russian archives. As it is known, RGADA stores documents dated back to the eleventh century, and the documents relating to the Jewish history (most of them refer to the first partition of Poland) are...