ABSTRACT
David Bergelson's Soviet period has largely been regarded as an era of decline, in which a once-great writer of infinite promise succumbed instead to the dictates of Soviet socialist realism. Prints Ruveni represents not only a stark change in artistic direction for Bergelson, but can also be read as an implicit repudiation of the ideologies he had earlier espoused, and of the entire Soviet system for which he had served as a spokesperson. Bergelson's Prints Ruveni was never performed on the stage of the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, nor have there been any major productions of the play elsewhere, while the text was not even published in the Soviet Union. The conflict between religious faith and political or military action informed Bergelson's interpretation of the historical episode he chose to dramatize. The theme of atonement, reflection, and new beginnings was a timely one as much for Bergelson's Soviet Jewish audiences as for Bergelson personally.
