Jews in Russian Literature after the October Revolution: Writers and Artists between Hope and Apostasy

by Efraim Sicher

Overview

This study is an innovative and controversial study of how the best-known Jews writing in Russian in early Soviet period attempted to resolve the conflict between their cultural identity and their place in Revolutionary Russia. Babel, Mandelstam, Pasternak and Ehrenburg struggled to form creative selves out of the contradictions of origins, outlook and social or ideological pressures. Comparison of literary texts and the visual arts reveals unexpected correspondences in the response to political and cultural change. Sicher provides a fascinating view of intercultural and intertextual connections and contrasts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521481090
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/07/1995
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.83(d)

Table of Contents

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.

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher