The Veil of Moses—Jewish Themes in Russian Literature of the Romantic Era

Weisskopf (Hebrew U. of Jerusalem, Israel) describes how the Jewish people were portrayed in Russian journalistic, literary, poetic, and theatrical texts during the period from the mid-1820s to the beginning of the 1840s in the era of Tsar Nicholas I. The analysis brings in to purview previously neglected evidence from journalism and second- and third-rank prose, finding that journalism proved most successful at avoiding antisemitic stereotypes, particularly in comparison to the cliches of much Russian romantic prose. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Mikhail Weisskopf, Ph.D.(summa cum laude), Hebrew University, is lecturer at that university. He is the author of five monographs on Russian literature. His sixth, A Demiurge in Love: Metaphysics and Eros of Russian Romanticism is now available in Moscow.