Between “wretched antisemitism” and “disgusting Zionism”: Pain and hope in a Jewish old Bolshevik’s diary

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article, centered around a late Soviet Jewish diary, examines constituents of Soviet Jewish identity in autobiographical writing, asking how the modes and measures of Jewish identity expression are influenced by genre frameworks (memoirs vs. diaries), political climate, and principles of socialist subjectivity. Discovering Jewish roots in seemingly orthodox Soviet statements and, thus, substantiating the public anti-Zionist discourse of the late Soviet decades with a private diary, the article argues in favor of the idea of multiple dynamic identities, of which a dormant one might be invoked and replace a salient one, and vice-versa as more accurate than the rigid Soviet/Jewish dichotomy.