Jews in Russian Literature after the October Revolution: Writers and Artists between Hope and Apostasy (Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 12/7/1995
EAN 9780521481090, ISBN10: 0521481090
Hardcover, 308 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
This work is an innovative and controversial study of how four famous Jews writing in Russian in the early Soviet period attempted to resolve the conflict between their cultural identity and their place in Revolutionary Russia. Babel, Mandelstam, Pasternak and Ehrenburg struggled in very different ways to form creative selves out of the contradictions of origins, outlook, and social or ideological pressures. Efraim Sicher also explores the broader context of the literature and art of the Jewish avant-garde in the years immediately preceding and following the Russian Revolution. By comparing literary texts and the visual arts the author reveals unexpected correspondences in the response to political and cultural change. This study contributes to our knowledge of an important aspect of modern Russian writing and will be of interest to both Jewish scholars and those concerned with Slavonic studies.
List of illustrations
Preface
1. Burning embers
2. Modernist responses to war and revolution
the Jewish Jesus
3. The Jewishness of Babel
4. The 'colour' of Judaism
Osip Mandelstam's Noise of Time
5. The Father, the Son and holy Russia
Boris Pasternak, Hermann Cohen and the religion of Doctor Zhivago
6. Ilia Ehrenburg
the eternal chameleon
Epilogue
hope betrayed
Notes
Index.
"Sicher's erudition and analysis of the visual arts are excellent...In summarizing the arguments and reconsidering them from the viewpoint of these writers' Jewish identity, Sicher has done a valuable service. For those who know a lot about Russian-Jewish literature, but even for novices, this book is well woth reading." Nationalities Papers "...an erudite and wide-ranging study. Cambridge University Press should be commended for reissuing it." --The Russian Review