Reproducing actual Soviet documents, this work examines what prison and labour camp files reveal of the fate of the poet Osip Mandelstam and the history of the Yiddish writer Pinhas Kahanovich (Der Nister). It also provides a guide to the analysis of Stalin-era prison and labour camp files.

A critical look at the later work of the Russian Jewish author in the Soviet Union and its significance to Russian and Jewish history. In Der Nister’s Soviet Years, author Mikhail Krutikov focuses on the second half of the dramatic writing career of Soviet Yiddish writer Der Nister, pen name of Pinhas Kahanovich (1884–1950). Krutikov follows Der Nister’s painful but ultimately successful literary transformation from his symbolist roots to social realism under severe ideological pressure from Soviet critics and authorities. This volume reveals how profoundly Der Nister was affected by the destruction of Jewish life during WWII and his own personal misfortunes. While Der Nister was writing a history of his generation, he was arrested for anti-government activities and died tragically from a botched surgery in the Gulag. Krutikov illustrates why Der Nister’s work is so important to understandings of Soviet literature, the Russian Revolution, and the catastrophic demise of the Jewish community under Stalin. “Krutikov’s book on Der Nister will serve an important function, offering a strong, well-researched, and well-organized analysis of six significant periods in Der Nister’s writing. I expect it to inspire a great many new readers of Der Nister, inside and outside of academia.” —Amelia M. Glaser, author of Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary Borderlands: From the Shtetl Fair to the Petersburg Bookshop “Among Soviet Yiddish writers, Der Nister occupies a unique place in literary history. Mikhail Krutikov’s meticulous analysis follows the transformation of the writer under the pressure of the Soviet ideological environment.” —Gennady Estraikh, author of Yiddish in the Cold War

Der Nister (Pinkhes Kahanovitsh, 1884-1950) is widely regarded as the most enigmatic author in modern Yiddish literature. His pseudonym, which translates as 'The Hidden One', is as puzzling as his diverse body of works, which range from mystical symbolist poetry and dark expressionist tales to realist historical epic. Although part of the Kiev Group of Yiddish writers, which also included David Bergelson and Peretz Markish, Der Nister remained at the margins of the Yiddish literary world throughout his life, mainstream success eluding him both in- and outside the Soviet Union. Yet, to judge from the quantity of recent research and translation work, der Nister is today one of the best remembered Yiddish modernists. The present collection of twelve original articles by international scholars re-examines Der Nister's cultural and literary legacy, bringing to light new aspects of his life and creative output.

This book is a comprehensive introduction to the relationship between communism (understood as an ideological, political, and social project) and culture, broadly defined as the field of aesthetic production. Communism was a global phenomenon, and the global civil war of the 20th century was, in more than one respect, a cultural war, which involved some of the most influential figures of the last century. The book highlights and explains the impact of political mythologies in the effiorts to transcend the “bourgeois” legacies and engage in a social, cultural, and anthropological revolution. The authors examine the interplay between utopian goals and cultural practices in fields such as literature, visual arts, film, and humanities in general.

This is the first biography in any language of 'Comrade Prince' D. S. Mirsky (1890-1939), who uniquely participated in three distinctive episodes of modern European culture. In late imperial St Petersburg he was a poet, a student of Oriental languages and ancient history, and also a Guardsofficer. After fighting in World War I and the Russian Civil War, Mirsky emigrated, taught at London University, and became a literary critic and historian, writing prolifically in English, and also in Russian for the Paris-centred emigration, especially as a leading member of the Eurasian movement.His closest literary relationships were with Marina Tsvetaeva and Aleksei Remizov, and later with Maksim Gorky. In 1926-7 he published A History of Russian Literature, written in English, which remains the standard introduction to the subject. While in London he lived in Bloomsbury and knew theWoolfs; he also knew T. S. Eliot, and was the first Russian critic to write about him. Mirsky became a Communist in 1931 and returned to Stalin's Moscow the following year, becoming a prominent Soviet critic, and in particular championing Boris Pasternak. In 1937 he was arrested, and died in theGulag. This biography draws on much unpublished material, including Mirsky's NKVD files.

"Katherine Eaton has compiled a collection of essays on the destruction of the arts in Russia in the 1930s. The essays provide information about what we know was lost, and speculation about what might have been lost, in the Stalinist Great Purge"

This volume deals with the significance of the avant-garde(s) for modern Jewish culture and the impact of the Jewish tradition on the artistic production of the avant-garde, be they reinterpretations of literary, artistic, philosophical or theological texts/traditions, or novel theoretical openings linked to elements from Judaism or Jewish culture, thought, or history.