In July, 2019 within the framework of the fellowship project Dr. Marat Grinberg, associate professor of Russian and Humanities at the Reed College (Portland, USA) visited Moscow.
The cultural studies project by Marat Grinberg, a scholar of literature and film, is devoted to what he defines as the phenomenon of the “Soviet Jewish bookshelf.” The project uncovered what books shaped the Soviet Jewish psyche, what comprised the Soviet Jews’ Jewish knowledge, and how various reading strategies formed their discreet Jewish identity. Special attention was paid to the officially published literature: translations from Yiddish, Hebrew, and German; scholarship on Judaism and (anti-)Zionism, and the works of such cult authors as the Strugatsky brothers and Yuri Trifonov. In addition to studying relevant materials in the Jewish museum, Grinberg conducted research at RGALI (Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts), Russian State Library, and private archives.
Among his major publications are books on a phenomenon of “Jewishness” in Woody Allen’s films, poetry of Boris Slutsky, and a companion to a Soviet film The Comissar by Aleksandr Askoldov.