The Jews in Poland and Russia: Volume II: 1881 to 1914

by Antony Polonsky

Overview

In his three-volume history, Antony Polonsky provides a comprehensive survey-socio-political, economic, and religious-of the Jewish communities of eastern Europe from 1350 to the present. Until the Second World War, this was the heartland of the Jewish world: nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland alone, while nearly three million more lived in the Soviet Union. Although the majority of the Jews of Europe and the United States, and many of the Jews of Israel, originate from these lands, their history there is not well known. Rather, it is the subject of mythologizing and stereotypes that fail both to bring out the specific features of the Jewish civilization which emerged there and to illustrate what was lost. Jewish life, though often poor materially, was marked by a high degree of spiritual and ideological intensity and creativity. Antony Polonsky recreates this lost world-brutally cut down by the Holocaust and less brutally but still seriously damaged by the Soviet attempt to destroy Jewish culture.

Wherever possible, the unfolding of history is illustrated by contemporary Jewish writings to show how Jews felt and reacted to the complex and difficult situations in which they found themselves. This second volume covers the period from 1881 to 1914. It considers the deterioration of the position of the Jews during that period and the new political and cultural movements that developed as a consequence: Zionism, socialism, autonomism, the emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, Jewish urbanization, and the rise of popular Jewish culture. Galicia, Prussian Poland, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Tsarist Empire are all treated individually, as are the main towns of these areas. Volume 1 covers the period 1350-1881; Volume 3 covers 1914-2005.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789620467
Publisher:	The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press
Publication date:	12/31/2019
Series:	Littman Library of Jewish Civilization , #2
Pages:	520
Sales rank:	323,683
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Antony Polonsky is Professor Emeritus of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University and Chief Historian of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw. He is the author of the three-volume History of the Jews in Poland and Russia, published in an abridged paperback version as The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History.

Table of Contents

List of Maps xi

List of Tables xi

Note on Transliteration xv

Note on Place Names xvi

Maps xvii

Introduction 1

1 The Position of the Jews in the Tsarist Empire, 1881-1905 3

2 Revolution and Reaction, 1904-1914 40

3 The Kingdom of Poland, 1881-1914 87

4 Galicia in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century 113

5 Prussian Poland, 1848-1914 147

6 Jewish Spaces: Shtetls and Towns in the Nineteenth Century 162

Statistical Appendix 198

7 Modern Jewish Literature in the Tsarist Empire and Galicia 212

8 Jewish Religious Life from the Mid-Eighteenth Century to 1914 275

9 Women in Jewish Eastern Europe 336

10 The Rise of Jewish Mass Culture: Press, Literature, Theatre 379

Conclusion 404

Glossary 409

Bibliography 417

Index 459

Editorial Reviews

"Polonsky's sweeping study offers an illuminating, accessible view of Jewish life in eastern Euope since the end of World War II. In elegant prose, the author engages major historiographical issues while analyzing important cultural, religious, social, and political trends among eastern European Jewry. He carefully frames each section with a chapter-long overview of the relevant historical context for the following chapters . . . Throughout, Polonsky masterfully navigates the different realms of a turbulent eastern European Jewish world, conveying both the richness of its history and the tragedy of its destruction. Highly recommended."
J. Haus, Choice

"Exemplary and formidable . . . Polonsky, as much as anyone else, has created the field of modern Jewish history as a subject to be considered and understood rather than simply a tragic past to be mourned. He is too good a historian to confuse the history of Jewish life with the German policies that brought Jewish death . . . The barely visible commitment in these three wonderful volumes is to rescue a world from polemic, for the sake of history."
- Timothy Snyder, Wall Street Journal

"Succeeds admirably. Simply put, these volumes are required reading for anyone with a serious interest in East European history or for anyone looking for a scholarly assessment of a particular feature of Polish or Russian Jewish history. Handsomely produced, with extensive maps and tables, and a glossary . . . will remain a standard work in the field for some time."
Sean Martin, European History Quarterly

From the Publisher