Abstract
This essay identifies and explains intellectual influences in Soviet Jewish writer Vasilii Grossman’s representation of the Holocaust. In his 1943 essay ‘Ukraine without Jews’, Grossman described murdered Jewry as a people defined by their unique culture, history and experience of World War II. An unpublished diary of Grossman’s reading notes from the 1930s provides fragmentary evidence of his pre-war ideas about Jewish people and history. Using a microhistorical approach, Grossman’s reading notes citing Johann Gottfried von Herder in 1938 are interpreted as clues that help explain the content of ‘Ukraine without Jews’, written five years later. This essay shows that Grossman was a cosmopolitan thinker who derived some of his ideas about Jewish history from European thinkers, and that these ideas influenced his depiction of the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
