ABSTRACT

This book presents the lives and works of eleven Jewish women authors who lived in the Soviet Union, and who wrote and published their works in Russian. The works include poems, novels, memoirs and other writing. The book provides an overview of the life of each author, an overview of each author’s literary output, and an assessment of each author’s often conflicted view of her "feminine self" and of her "Jewish self".

At a time when the large Jewish population which lived within the Soviet Union was threatened under Stalin’s prosecutions the book provides highly-informative insights into what it was like to be a Jewish woman in the Soviet Union in this period. The writers presented are: Alexandra Brustein, Elizaveta Polonskaia, Raisa Bloch, Hanna Levina, Ol'ga Ziv, Yulia Neiman, Rahil’ Baumwohl’, Margarita Alliger, Sarah Levina-Kul’neva, Sarah Pogreb and Zinaida Mirkina.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

Jewish women writers in the Soviet Union and the present study

chapter |14 pages

Alexandra Brushtein (1884–1968)

The tears behind the smiles

chapter |14 pages

Elizaveta Polonskaia (1890–1969)

A concealed storm of emotion

chapter |14 pages

Raisa Bloch (1899–1943)

A genius unaware of her talent

chapter |12 pages

Hanna Levina (1900–1969)

A Jewish communist fighter

chapter |15 pages

Ol'ga Ziv (1904–1963)

An unknown Jewish author

chapter |17 pages

Yulia Neiman (1907–1994)

Brilliant philosopher and poetess

chapter |13 pages

Rakhil' Baumvol' (1914–2000)

The joy of creativity and motherhood

chapter |11 pages

Margarita Aliger (1915–1992)

A Soviet poetess devoted to Stalin

chapter |10 pages

Sarah Levina-Kul'neva (1920–??)

Love story in the era of Stalinist prosecutions

chapter |9 pages

Sarah Pogreb (b. 1921)

The history of silence

chapter |13 pages

Zinaida Mirkina (b. 1926)

Suffering as a path toward faith