Hardback
October 3, 2023
9780253067302
English
302
39 b&w illus., 4 maps
9.00 Inches (US)
6.00 Inches (US)
$90.00 USD, £70.00 GBP
v2.1 Reference
Paperback / softback
October 3, 2023
9780253067319
English
302
39 b&w illus., 4 maps
9.00 Inches (US)
6.00 Inches (US)
$45.00 USD, £35.00 GBP
v2.1 Reference

The Belarusian Shtetl

History and Memory

For centuries Jewish shtetls were an active part of Belarusian life; today, they are gone. The Belarusian Shtetl is a landmark volume which offers, for the first time in English, an illuminating look at the shtetls' histories, the lives lived and lost in them, and the memories, records, and physical traces of these communities that remain today.

Since 2012, under the auspices of the Sefer Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, teams of scholars and students from many different disciplines have returned to the sites of former Jewish shtetls in Belarus to reconstruct their past. These researchers have interviewed a wide range of both Jews and non-Jews to find and document traces of Shtetl history, to gain insights into community memories, and to discover surviving markers of identity and ethnic affiliation. In the process, they have also unearthed evidence from old cemeteries and prewar houses and the stories behind memorials erected for Holocaust victims.

Drawing on the wealth of information these researchers have gathered, The Belarusian Shtetl creates compelling and richly textured portraits of the histories and everyday lives of each shtetl. Important for scholars and accessible to the public, these portraits set out to return the Jewish shtetls to their rightful places of prominence in the histories and legacies of Belarus.

About the Authors

Irina Kopchenova is Educational Programs Coordinator at the SEFER Center, Moscow, and Junior Research Fellow at the Institute of Slavic Studies in the Russian Academy of Science. She is editor of The Shtetl of Hlybokaye in Contemporary Cultural Memory and Jews on the Map of Lithuania: The Case of Biržai.
Mikhail Krutikov is author of four books and co-editor of ten collected volumes on various aspects of Yiddish culture. He is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.

Reviews

"In a world of AI and fake news, it is refreshing to come across two sophisticated scholars who still remember that they are studying real people. They successfully brought together in one volume expert academic analyses of small-town (shtetl) life written by some of the best researchers from Eastern Europe together with a collection of exceptional primary sources. There is nothing like it. The Belarusian Shtetl is hard to put down and it is impossible to stop thinking about it."—Shaul Stampfer, Sandrow Professor of Soviet and East European Jewish History (emeritus), Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Indiana University Press
Jews of Eastern Europe

9780253067302 : the-belarusian-shtetl-kopchenova-krutikov-sorkina
Hardback
October 3, 2023
$90.00 USD
9780253067319 : the-belarusian-shtetl-kopchenova-krutikov-sorkina
Paperback / softback
October 3, 2023
$45.00 USD

Other Titles by Mikhail Krutikov

Der Nister's Soviet Years

Mikhail Krutikov
Apr 2019 - Indiana University Press
$85.00 USD - Hardback
$38.00 USD - Paperback / softback

Going to the People

edited by Jeffrey Veidlinger, with contributions by Jeffrey Veidlinger, Elissa Bemporad, Deborah Yalen, Sarah Zarrow, David E. Fishman, Haya Bar-Itzhak, Nathaniel Deutsch, Alexandra Polyan, Maria Yelenevskaya, Simon J. Bronner, Asya Vai...
Feb 2016 - Indiana University Press
$80.00 USD - Hardback
$15.00 USD - Paperback / softback

Other Titles from Jews of Eastern Europe

As the Dust of the Earth

Harriet Murav
Apr 2024 - Indiana University Press
$90.00 USD - Hardback
$45.00 USD - Paperback / softback

Bruno Schulz and Galician Jewish Modernity

Karen Underhill
Feb 2024 - Indiana University Press
$45.00 USD - Hardback

Jews, Race, and the Politics of Difference

Marina B. Mogilner
Jul 2023 - Indiana University Press
$70.00 USD - Hardback
$30.00 USD - Paperback / softback

Other Titles in HISTORY / Holocaust

Jewish Cattle Traders in the German Countryside, 1919–1939

Stefanie Fischer, OtherWallstein Verlag
Mar 2024 - Indiana University Press
$90.00 USD - Hardback
$49.00 USD - Paperback / softback

Home after Fascism

Anna Koch
Nov 2023 - Indiana University Press
$90.00 USD - Hardback
$48.00 USD - Paperback / softback

Violent Space

Anja Nowak
Nov 2023 - Indiana University Press
$90.00 USD - Hardback
$45.00 USD - Paperback / softback