The Six-Day War: Perception within the USSR
The Six-Day War of 1967 awakened the national consciousness / national identity of Soviet Jews. The work on the project presumes research at the libraries and archives, interviews with contemporaries, both in Russia and abroad. A book will result the work on the project. Our study will provide a first panoramic overview of reactions to the Six-Day War.
Comprehensive socio-anthropological study of the Mountain Jews’ community in Pyatigorsk
The project is d to the study of the Mountain Jews’ community of Pyatigorsk and the identification of its structure in diachrony and in synchrony by the use of methods of economic anthropology, sociolinguistics, ethnography. It is planned to conduct a series of expedition to Pyatigorsk and other places in Russia and Israel.
"Autobiography of an Orthodox Christian Jew" by S. Zeichenstein: textual criticism, commentary, interpretation
The result of the project will be an academic edition of Semyon Zeichenstein’s memoir titled "The Autobiography of a Russian Orthodox Jew". The book presents interest for various reasons. First, it is a detailed description of various aspects of the life of Jewish Warsaw in the 1830s and 1840s. Secondly, it is a unique testament of the self-awareness of a Jewish outcast who broke with his environment. In addition to the text of "The Autobiography...", the present edition will include Rozanov's notes, a contemporary commentary on Zeichenstein's work, and a number of accompanying articles.
"Bukharan Collection": What Jewish manuscripts did V. Ivanov bring to St. Petersburg?
The "Bukhara collection" brought by W. A. Ivanov in 1915 to the Asian Museum (nowadays the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, IOM RAS) contains more than 20 Jewish manuscripts. Project aim is to carry out a comprehensive analysis of manuscripts as historical and cultural sources and thus present to the scientific community previously unstudied manuscripts.
Zemelah.online: Digital Archive of Soviet Jewish ego-documents
The project is aimed at further developing a digital archive of Soviet Jewish ego-documents (memoirs, shorter autobiographies, diaries, family histories and correspondence). Collecting and studying ego-documents written by “ordinary” Soviet Jews, neither cultural elite, nor Refuseniks, is meant to enable us to see a more multifaceted picture
A View from Both Banks: A Jewish Life in Jekabpils and Krustpils (Latvia)
The aim of this project is to collect a wide range of memories about various aspects of the traditional life of Latvian Jews, as well as to explore interfaith and interethnic relations in Latvia before the Second World War.