Jewishness in Russian Culture

Leonid Katsis, PhD (1994), The Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, is Professor at the Russian American Center for Bible and Jewish Studies at The Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow). He received his Habilitate Doctorate in Russian Literature from the same institution in 2002. He has authored monographs on Vladimir Maijakovsky (2000, 2004), Jewish themes in Osip Mandelstam (2002), the Beilis trial (2006) among others, and edited with Prof. Helen Tolstoy the collective volume Zhabotinski i Rossiia (Stanford, 2013). Helen Tolstoy is Professor Emerita of Hebrew University. She received an M.A. in English literature in Moscow and a Ph.D. in Russian literature at The Hebrew University, and has been teaching at her alma mater. She authored monographs on Chekhov (2003), Alexei Tolstoy (2006 and 2012), and Akim Volynsky (2012), and edited, with Leonid Katsis, the collective volume Zhabotinski i Rossiia (Stanford, 2013).

• Introduction: Judaica Rossica – Rossica Judaica Leonid F. Katsis, Helen TolstoyPART ONE: JEWS SPEAK TO THE EMPIRE - THE EMPIRE CREATES ITS IMAGE OF THE JEW 1. The Jewish elite in the Russian Empire of the late 18th - early 19th centuries: Toward a rhetoric of self-presentation Olga Minkina 2. “Diabolic delight”: New light on the history of the Jewish theme in Russian Romanticism (the 1830-1840s) Mikhail WeisskopfPART TWO: THE SILVER AGE AND THE JEWS3. Akim Volynsky and His Jewish cycle Helen Tolstoy4. The drama of faith and the national question in Russian-Jewish playwrights (1880 –1910) Galina Eliasberg5. A philo-Semitic narrative in the anti-Semitic discourse: The case of Vyacheslav Ivanov Vladimir M. PaperniPART THREE. THE RUSSIAN-JEWISH DIALOG IN REVOLUTION YEARS 6. Reflection through revolution: M.O. Gershenzon’s side in Correspondence from Two Corners Brian Horovitz7. The discussions on Fedor Dostoevsky at the Moscow branch of the St.-Petersburg “Free Philosophic Association” as a Russian-Jewish dialogue Leonid F. Katsis PART FOUR. THE TWENTIES: STRATEGIES OF SALVATION 8. Assimilation or cultural encounter? The picaresque in G. Bogrov’s Notes of a Jew and I. Ehrenburg’s The Stormy Life of Lazik Roitschwantz Olaf Terpitz 9. “…We must save our people” (On an unrealized project for a Russian-Jewish weekly in pre-war Paris) Vladimir KhazanPART FIVE. OLD STEREOTYPES REEMERGE IN NEW GUISES 10. Anti-Semitism and the Vampire Theme Michael Odessky 11. The ‘Khazar’-‘Varangian’ dialogue in Dmitry Bykov’s ZHD: Some psychoanalytical observations Andrei Rogachevski12. The darkness of Babylon: Russian-Jewish-Israeli experience in visionary journeys of Michail Gendelev Sergei Shargorodsky