From Shtetl to Society: Jews in 19th-Century Russia

The last five years has seen a flourishing of publications on 19th-century Russian Jewish history. Much of this work has been facilitated by the growing number of Russian academic institutions dedicated to the study of Jewry and Judaism, such as the newly established Petersburg Jewish University and the Jewish University in Moscow, many of which have developed partnerships with Israeli publishers. Most of the scholarship that has come out of Russia in the last few years has taken the form of published collections of documents,¹ re-releases of memoirs,² bibliographies,³ archival guides,⁴ encyclopedias,⁵ translations of English scholarship,⁶ journals and collections of articles,⁷ and even at least one CD-Rom.⁸ Although scholarly monographs have been relatively rare, the new scholarship that has emerged both in Russia and America has largely continued from where Russian scholarship on Russian Jewry left off in 1917. It is not that these new works ignore the achievements of Western scholars of the last 80 years, but rather that the discourse to which they respond fits more closely with the concerns of pre-revolutionary historians such as Simeon Markovich Dubnov, Iulii Isidorovich Gessen, and Shaul Moiseevich Ginzburg regarding the proper place of Jews within Russian society. Like their Russian predecessors, the new historians do not take for granted the assumption of much Western historiography that Jewish-Russian integration was only a chimera. Instead, they realistically assess the potential that existed for the establishment of a Jewish civil society within Russia. In short, this new scholarship focuses on the encounters between Russians and Jews and on issues of integration rather than separation. The shtetl, the synagogue, and the home have given way to the university, the "thick journal," and the courtroom, as the study of Jewish life in imperial Russia has moved away from the private sanctuary and into the public sphere.

Indeed, the shtetl, that metonym of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, no longer fascinates scholars as it once did. The desire to "imagine Russian Jewry," to use Steven Zipperstein's phrase, as a foundation myth of Ashkenazic culture has declined. The shtetl has lost much of its mystique as the former Pale of Settlement has become more accessible to both American "heritage tour groups" and Russian "historical-archaeological expeditions," both of which have found that the venerated shtetls of their grandparents' stories are now little more than concrete-laden suburbs.⁹ Rather than return to a mythologized past of klezmer music, joyous weddings, and the simple values of faith and family as reflected in the writings of Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Leyb Peretz, and other classic Yiddish writers, a new generation of scholars has instead championed the more mundane and practical values of acculturated Jewry in the capitals and their struggles to be accepted on equal terms within Russian society as a whole.

The compilation Evrei v Rossii: Istoriia i kul'tura represents some of the major directions in which scholarship on imperial Russian Jewry is heading. The compilation, the fifth to be published in the "Transactions on Jewish Studies" series of the St. Petersburg Jewish University Press, is the product of a 1996 international conference held in St. Petersburg on the topic "Jews in the Former USSR: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow." Articles by writers from 12 different countries are represented in the collection. The works are concerned first and foremost with issues relating to encounters between Jews and non-Jews (mostly Russians...