The Anti-Imperial Choice
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The Making of the Ukrainian Jew
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
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Format: ClothPrice: $69.00
This book is the first to explore the Jewish contribution to, and integration with, Ukrainian culture. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern focuses on five writers and poets of Jewish descent whose literary activities span the 1880s to the 1990s. Unlike their East European contemporaries who disparaged the culture of Ukraine as second-rate, stateless, and colonial, these individuals embraced the Russian- and Soviet-dominated Ukrainian community, incorporating their Jewish concerns in their Ukrainian-language writings.
The author argues that the marginality of these literati as Jews fuelled their sympathy toward Ukrainians and their national cause. Providing extensive historical background, biographical detail, and analysis of each writer’s poetry and prose, Petrovsky-Shtern shows how a Ukrainian-Jewish literary tradition emerged. Along the way, he challenges assumptions about modern Jewish acculturation and Ukrainian-Jewish relations.
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern teaches Jewish history in the History Department and the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies, Northwestern University. He publishes frequently in the areas of East European history and culture and Jewish studies. He lives in Chicago.
"Petrovsky is a real rarity among scholars: he is fully at home in both East European and Jewish literature, and he exhibits an intimate knowledge of both Ukrainian and Jewish histories."—Glenn Dynner, author of Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society
"A work of original and impressive scholarship."—Timothy Snyder, Yale University
Publication Date: April 28, 2009
29 b/w illus in gallery
