This symposium will examine the diverse lasting effects of the Russian imperial rule on Jewish social, cultural and intellectual life both within and outside the Soviet Union. The papers will address both general trends and individual cases.

Please email JudaicStudies@umich.edu to receive the session papers link

Symposium Schedule:

9:00 - 9:15 AM Introduction
Deborah Dash Moore

9:15 - 10:45 AM Session I: HISTORY
Chair: Herbert Eagle, University of Michigan

Jeffrey Veidlinger, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“Revolution, Pogroms, and Migration: Interethnic Violence in Imperial Borderlands”

Deborah Yalen, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“The Shtetl in the Museum: Depicting Jews in the Soviet Union and in Russia Today”

Discussant: Ron Suny, University of Michigan

10:45 - 11:00 AM BREAK

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Session II: BIOGRAPHY – Jabotinsky
Chair: Olga Maiorova, University of Michigan

Brian Horowitz, Tulane University
“The Italian and Russian Inheritance in Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Zionism?”

Marina Mogilner, University of Illinois, Chicago
“Defining the Racial Self: Russian Autobiographical Contexts of Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Engagement ‘Race’”

Discussant: Shaul Stampfer, Hebrew University

12:30 - 1:15 PM LUNCH BREAK

1:15 - 2:45 PM Session III: CULTURE
Chair: Benjamin Paloff, University of Michigan

Mikhail Krutikov, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“Russians Without Russia: Vilna/Wilno/Vilnius as a Locus of Russian Jewish Literature”

Sara Feldman, Frankel Institute, University of Michigan
“Writing Themselves In and Out of the Empire: Jews and Russian Culture in Translation”

Discussant: Harriet Murav, University of Illinois