What constitutes a “Jewish” space, real or imaginary, in a country where almost all Jews were murdered in the Holocaust?
What is the role of memory and imagination in the recreation of that space in works of fiction?
Is there a gender dimension to that literary vision?
And what can we learn from the difficult and often depressing experience of Jews who came back to live side by side with their dead in places which were once prominent centers of Jewish culture and learning?
This talk will touch upon these questions by examining the interaction between space, memory, and identity in contemporary Russian writing about Jewish life in post-war Ukraine. Authors such as Inna Lesovaya, Margarita Khemlin, Karine Arutyunova, Yulia Kissina are well known among Russian and Ukrainian readers and critics, but not in the English-speaking world. Writers of different age and background, who reside in different countries but continue to write in Russian, they form a distinct trend in today’s Russian literature which is not confined by the borders of the Russian Federation. Their work is marked by meticulous attention to visual details, intimate knowledge of Jewish everyday life, and deep understanding of human character. Drawing on their personal experience and family history, they are engaged in a captivating preservation project of the recent past that has left little material traces.

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/judaic/events