Der Nister's Soviet Years

Mikhail Krutikov is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. He is author of Yiddish Fiction and the Crisis of Modernity, 1905–1914, and From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener.

"Mikhail 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"Krutikov's book is the most definitive and accessible work in English to date on Der Nister and his monumental novel The Family Mashber. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice"I think that Der Nister would have really liked Krutikov's book. It gives justice to Der Nister without making him into a saint, villain, or a misguided idealist, but instead sees him as a writer searching for his path..."—Anna Shternshis, AJS REVIEW

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction1. 1929: The Year of the Great Turn and the End of Symbolism2. From Symbolism to Reality: Space, Politics and Self in Hoyptshtet3. The 1930s in Children's Poetry4. The Generation of 1905 5. Text and Context of The Family Mashber6. The Last Decade, 1939–1949: Revealing "The Hidden"EpilogueBibliographyIndex