HIST 355

Fall 2025 All Classes

All Classes

Soviet Jewish History

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Credit: 3 hours.

An examination of how Jewish life and culture contributed to the creation of the world's first socialist society. Makes use of primary sources, scholarly essays and monographs, archival documents, literature, memoirs, film, and visual culture as a way of introducing students to Soviet Jewish History, from the reign of the last tsar, Nicholas II, to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Special topics to be examined include: the breakup of the Pale of Settlement during the Great War; the role of Jews in revolution and revolutionary culture; Soviet nationality policy; shtetl culture; antisemitism; everyday life; the purges of the 1930s; the Jewish experience in World War II; the Holocaust; and mass emigration.

Same as JS 355.

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HIST 355 class schedule data for fall 2025
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	61125	Lecture-Discussion	A	10:00AM -10:50AM	MWF	1090 Lincoln Hall	Strakhova, A	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/25/25-12/10/25 Section Info: Topic: Soviet Jewish History Description: When the Soviet Union was established in 1922, its Jewish population numbered 2.5 million, making it the third largest in the world, after the United States and Poland. A relatively benevolent period of indigenization (korenizatsiia), when Yiddish schools and culture received state sponsorship, was followed by the Great Purge and the death of prominent Jewish writers and poets. The Nazi occupation and the destruction of at least two million Jews in the Soviet Union overshadowed the persecutions of the 1930s. State antisemitism following the creation of the State of Israel and the Soviet Jewry movement defined Jewish history in the Soviet Union after the Holocaust. Exploring these and other topics in the history of Jews in the Soviet Union, this course traces the following questions: How were Jewish identities transformed during the Soviet period? What did it mean to be a Jew in the Soviet Union? How did Soviet Jewry persevere and restore after the collapse of the USSR?