Full Product Details
Author: Maxim D. Shrayer
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Imprint: Academic Studies Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 2.10cm
, Length: 23.40cm
Weight: 0.456kg
ISBN: 9781618111692
ISBN 10: 1618111698
Pages: 340
Publication Date: 21 March 2013
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Reviews
Shrayer (Boston College) is the author of several highly-praised books about Russia, the USSR, and Jewish Soviet literature; this new book is equally praiseworthy. Its subject is perhaps unfamiliar to most Holocaust scholars and for that reason alone, this study is welcome. Selvinsky (1899 68), a Soviet Jew, was a devoted Marxist, an intellectual, and a well-regarded poet. He spent much of WWII as a soldier on the front lines, serving as a reporter and in combat. Selvinksy was a witness to the Nazi Einsatzgruppen massacre of as many as 7,000 Jews in a ditch in Kerch in the Crimea, and wrote two famous poems about the 1941 event: Kerch and I Saw It. Shrayer offers readers a comprehensive, thoughtful introduction to Selvinsky s biography, an astute account of Stalinist Russia s wavering attitude toward Jews, and careful analysis of several of Selvinksy s poems. This volume is greatly enhanced by 64 illustrations photographs of the site of the massacre (then and now) and of Selvinsky and his literary circle, and maps and other documents as well as the texts, in Russian and English, of the two Kerch poems. The bibliography is a testament to the meticulous research Shrayer conducted, in archives and on site. E. R. Baer, Gustavus Adolphus College, in CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, November 2013
A sophisticated literary analysis of Ilya Selvinsky's texts, Maxim D. Shrayer's book demonstrates a deep knowledge of the history of the Holocaust in the USSR. It is the first study of poet's career in the context of Shoah memorization. Shrayer's book must be published in Russian translation. -Ilya Altman, Russian Holocaust Center, Russian State University for the Humanities
. . . a valuable contribution to the field of Soviet Jewish studies. Shrayer presents an important Soviet poet who until recently remained virtually unknown in the west . . . the brilliant translations of Sel'vinskii's poems will make a perfect addition to relevant course reading lists. --Marina Aptekman Slavic Review, vol. 73, no. 3 (Fall 2014)
Author Information
Maxim D. Shrayer (PhD Yale University) is Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish studies at Boston College. A bilingual writer and translator, Shrayer has authored and edited a number of books, among them the path-breaking critical studies The World of Nabokov's Stories and Russian Poet/ Soviet Jew, the acclaimed literary memoir Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration, and the collection Yom Kippur in Amsterdam. Shrayer's two-volume Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature won a 2007 National Jewish Book Award, and in 2012 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. For more information, visit www.shrayer.com.
