Jews in the East European Borderlands

Avrutin (modern European Jewish history) and Murav (Slaviclanguages and literatures), both at the U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, introduce Klier (1944-2007) as a pioneering UIscholar on Jewish-Russian history on Jews in the East Europeanborderlands. Based on a conference honoring Klier held in 2009and new archival sources, this collection of a dozen essays byinternational contributors examines factors that impacted Jewishcommunal life and culture in the late imperial and early Sovietperiods, the establishment of Jewish communities in the easternborderlands of Europe, and the genealogy of anti-Jewish violencein these areas. Conflicting images of such Jewish life is examinedin the Yiddish works of An-sky and Sholem-aleichem. Illustrationsinclude a Russian anti-Semitic cartoon and photographs of deathcamps. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Eugene M. Avrutin (PhD University of Michigan) is assistant professor of modern European Jewish history and Tobor family scholar in the Program of Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois. He is the author of Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia (2010). He and Harriet Murav co-edited, together with Petersburg Judaica, Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky's Ethnographic Expedition (2009). Harriet Murav (PhD Stanford University) is a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative and World Literature at the University of Illinois. She is the author of Holy Foolishness: Dostoevsky's Novels & the Poetics of Cultural Critique (1992), Russia's Legal Fictions (1998), Identity Theft: The Jew in Imperial Russia and the Case of Avraam Uri Kovner (2003), and Music From a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-Revolution Russia (2011).