Ukraine, which was subjected to an unprovoked military attack from Putin’s Russia in February 2022, has long been an important place in Jewish experience, history, and memory.
A birthplace of Hasidism and secular Yiddish literature, a land of some of the most brutal anti-Jewish violence after the Russian Revolution and of mass executions of Jews during the Holocaust, and a home to one of Europe’s most vibrant Jewish communities on the eve of the current war, Ukraine has long played an outsized role in the Jewish imagination.
This seminar series focuses on three key moments in the experience of Ukrainian Jews in the 20th century — the anticipation of the revolution at the turn of the century, the responses to violence that followed the Russian Revolution, and responses to the Holocaust from the end of World War II to the present — through the lens of literary fiction (short stories) and poetry.
All readings are in English; readings for each session are 50-60 pages in length. The syllabus draws on English translations from Russian, Yiddish, and German (including some texts available for the first time), and also on some of the contemporary English-language poetry by U.S.-based poets who emigrated as children from Soviet Ukraine.