During the early 1930s Jacob Marateck (1883-1950), a Polish-born immigrant to the United States, resumed the journal he had begun during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. At the time of his death he had filled a total of twenty-eight notebooks, none of which had he had the opportunity to revise and edit for publication in English. To the present-day reader, they will undoubtedly evoke ready echoes of the society and culture of what collectively has come to be known as the shtetl -- the lost world of East European Jewry. Finally, there is also the story of Jacob Marateck, now a soldier in the Czar's army, finds himself adrift on the blood-soaked battlefields of Manchuria, a participant in the Russo-Japanese War. His notebooks serve to remind us that for a people simply to have survived through nineteen centuries of unrelenting hostility, most of them have truly belonged to that biblical breed of "giants of the earth"--Compassionate yet full of brawling vitality, pious yet earthy, stubbornly determined to survive without forfeiting their humanity, and not all inclined "to let anyone spit into his kasha". To prepare this huge windfall of stories, fragments, and notes for publication called not only for translation and editing, but frequently also for connective passages of imaginative reconstruction. Involving the talents of writer, historian, and literary archaeologist -- his youngest daughter, Anita, and son-in-law, Shimon -- serve him well.

Not another 'misunderstandings and misconceptions' volume, but a wide-ranging review of intellectual traditions, mutual and alternative images, and case studies of people and events that mirror the focus of this book.

Every war leaves an imprint in history, but few have had such a pervasive impact in so many respects as the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Politically, it fatally weakened the Russian Empire while allowing Japan to follow more dangerous paths. Diplomatically, it shook the power balance in Europe and reshaped it in the form of two coalitions, leading to World War I. With regard to the art of warfare, it emphasized the use of trench warfare and machine guns on land and the deployment of battleships and the use of torpedoes at sea. Yet, despite its importance at the time, it has become very much a forgotten war. The A to Z of the Russo-Japanese War provides considerable breadth and depth of coverage based on Japanese, Russian, and Western sources. The breadth is accomplished through a wide-ranging introduction, a detailed chronology and an extensive bibliography. The depth comes in the hundreds of entries on military and political leaders, major battles and lesser encounters, tactics and strategy as well as the weaponry and of course the causes and consequences. The result is the first major reference work on the Russo-Japanese War in English and the largest in any language.

In light of Russia's aggressive 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a crucial, elucidative read, a sweeping epic chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed, from pre-Christianity to the fall of Communism—illuminating the remarkable cultural significance and richness of a place perpetually lost to the margins of history "Eastern Europe" has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone today, and they might tell you that Estonia is in the Baltics or Scandinavia, that Slovakia is in Central Europe, and that Croatia is in the eastern Adriatic or the Balkans. In fact, Eastern Europe is a place that barely exists at all, except in cultural memory. Yet it remains a powerful marker of identity for many, with a fragmented and wide-ranging history defined by texts, myths, and memories of centuries of hardship and suffering. Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a masterful narrative about a place that has survived being forgotten. Beginning with long-lost accounts of early pagan life, Mikanowski offers a kaleidoscopic tour of the various peoples who made Eastern Europe their home over the centuries, including the Roma, Jews, and Muslims; the great kingdoms of the medieval period; the rise and fall of the Ottoman, Habsburg, and Russian empires; the dawn of the modern era; the ravages of fascism and Communism; the birth of the modern nation-state and beyond. A student of literature, history, and the ghosts of his own family’s past, Mikanowski paints a magisterial portrait of a place united by diversity and eclecticism, and of people with the shared story of being the dominated rather than the dominating. The result is a loving and ebullient celebration of the distinctive and vibrant cultures that stubbornly persisted at the margins of Western Europe and Russia, and a powerful corrective that re-centers not only our understanding of how the modern Western world took shape but also the ways in which Eastern Europe has evolved throughout history to become what it is today.

This volume contains these four plays: Resort 76 by Shimon Wincelberg Will the relentless oppression of the starving workers in a ghetto factory destroy their faith in God? Their love of life? Their ability to resist? If a cat is more valuable than a human being, have hope and goodness been eliminated from the world? A moving and terrifying melodrama. Throne of Straw by Harold and Edith Lieberman Through the career of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, head of the Lodz, Poland Judenrat, we come to understand the horror of “choiceless choice,” of how giving up some to save others was the worst nightmare for those who sought the responsibilities of ghetto leadership. An epic play with music and song. The Cannibals by George Tabori The children of murder victims assemble to enact ritually the destruction of their fathers in the presence of two survivors. As the sons become their fathers, the most profound ethical questions of the Holocaust are raised concerning the limits of humanity in a world of absolute evil. A daring tragicomedy. Who Will Carry the Word? by Charlotte Delbo (translated by Cynthia Haft) In the austere, degraded setting of a concentration camp, twenty-two French women attempt to keep their sanity and hope as, one by one, they fall victim to the Nazi terror. Will anyone believe the story of the survivors? A poetic drama of resistance and witness.

The Russo-Japanese War was fought for 19 months (8 February 1904– 5 September 1905) between the empires of Japan and the Russia over the southern part of Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. While essentially a colonial conflict, the war became a major engagement both in scale and innovation unseen until then. In recent years there has been a growing awareness that this event marks a historical juncture far more important than it was usually taken to be. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War offers a major revision of the highly praised first edition, which, by all accounts, has been the standard work on this conflict in any language during the last decade. The book contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. Moreover, the dictionary section has some 800 new or fully revised cross-referenced entries on the battles, weaponry, and major personalities of the war, as well as various international events and conflicts, agreements, schemes, and projects that led to the war. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Russo-Japanese War.

A reliable historical account is a recitation of past truths and an important guide to living life in the present. A study of history enables future generations to avoid the pitfalls experienced by those who have lived before. This is a historical novel based in part on a true story about a Jewish familys quest to escape oppression in Ukraine in the early twentieth century. The story traces the virulent anti-Semitism against the Jewish people in Ukraine and their need to escape from the darkness of a tsarist autocracy. In the guise of offering more freedoms to a downtrodden people, the tsarist regime was overthrown in a revolution led by the Marxist dictatorship of Lenin and then Stalin. That dictatorship became even more oppressive than the heavy hand of the tsar. The Jewish family became separated from the father when he escaped to the United States with the intent of the family joining him within months. Then the Great War closed all the doors for escape, and for almost eight years, a mother and her three young children lived through the horrors of world war, revolution, civil war, and communist dictatorship behind what became known as the Iron Curtain. The story culminates in the escape and ultimate reunion of the family with the father in the land of the free, the United States of America.