Social Work Practice with Older Soviet Immigrants

ABSTRACT

With the recent sociopolitical changes in the Former Soviet Union, significant numbers of older Soviets have arrived in the U.S. with their families. Soviet immigrants who enter the U.S. are no longer automatically considered political refugees, which has limited their entitlement to services. Recent changes in public welfare and immigration policy place the responsibility for care of elderly members solely on the family. While caring for older adults is stressful for any family, new immigrants may be especially burdened since they have limited knowledge of services, few coping resources to provide adequate care, and little experience resolving cultural conflicts with their older parent. By using a practice model designed to evaluate late-life caregiving situations, two case scenarios are presented to examine practice and service delivery issues of older Soviet immigrants and their families.     

Soviet Marxism and population policy

American demographers have maintained that Marxism, notably Soviet Marxism, is consistently pronatalist. The Soviet view is said to be that population growth is not a problem and that birth control policies in either developed or developing societies are to be rejected; the “correct” (i.e., socialist) socio‐economic structure is the true solution to alleged population problems. Such representations of Soviet thought greatly oversimplify the Soviet position as well as fail to discern the changes in Soviet thought that have been occurring. Since the 1960's Soviet writers have increasingly acknowledged that population growth is, to a considerable degree, independent of the economic base of society and that conscious population policies may be needed to either increase or decrease the rate of population growth. Even socialist societies can have population problems. And where population growth is too rapid, as in the developing countries, policies to slow such growth are needed because of the threat to economic development. However, the Soviets continue to stress that birth control policies must go hand‐in‐hand with social and economic development policies if they are to be effective.     

The writer as the people's therapist: Der Nister's last decade, 1939–49

ABSTRACT

World War II and the Holocaust caused profound changes in the style and themes of Der Nister's writing. He reevaluated his symbolist legacy and emerged as one of the most powerful and tragic voices in Soviet Yiddish literature. His transformation from a respected but marginal literary figure into a self-styled national leader became complete with his adventurous journey to the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan in the Soviet Far East, which he envisioned as a site of new Jewish revival. His illusions were crushed by his arrest in 1949.     

At the Crossroads of Three Worlds (1943)* By Frederick/Bedřich Fried,New York

Israel and the USSR—An Exercise in Palm‐Reading. Arthur Jay Klinghoffer, with Judith Apter. Israel and the Soviet Union: Alienation or Reconciliation? Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985. 303pp. Index.

Finding a New World. Victor Ripp, From Moscow to Main Street: Among the Russian Emigrés. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984. 247pp.

The Jewish Contribution to Soviet Culture. Jack Miller (ed.). Jews in Soviet Culture. New Brunswick (US) and London (UK): Transaction Books for the Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1984. viii + 331 pp. Tables. Name Index. $24.95; £18.00.

Reassessing a Difficult Relationship. Howard Aster, Peter J. Potichnyj. Jewish‐Ukrainian Relations. Two Solitudes. Oakville, Ontario, Canada: Mosaic Press, 1983. 72pp. No price indicated.

Dissent—No Isolated Phenomenon. Ludmilla Alexeyeva. Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1985. xxii + 552pp. Index. £32.95, $35.00.     

EXHIBITION REVIEW

Encyclopaedic Account of Soviet Middle East Policy. Robert O. Freedman, Moscow and the Middle East: Soviet Policy Since the Invasion of Afghanistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 438pp. $59.50 hardcover, $16.95 paperback.

Understanding the Jews of Eastern Europe Heiko Haumann, Geschichte der Ostjuden, 1st edition. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990. 3rd ed., 1992. 213pp. Bibl. Index. DM14.18.

On the Road to Self‐Destruction Henry R. Huttenbach (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies: Ruling Ethnic Groups in the USSR. London: Mansell, 1990. xvi+302pp. Ind. £35.00 hardcover.

On the Eve of the Holocaust. Ben‐Cion. Pinchuk. Shtetl Jews under Soviet Rule: Eastern Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. viii+186pp. Bibl. Index. (Jewish Society and Culture). £30.00.

’Rocking a Dead Baby’: The Trauma of a Generation Jaff Schatz, The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Generation of Jewish Communists of Poland. Lund: Lund University, Department of Sociology, 1989. 428pp. Bibl.     

In search of a lost people: Jews in present‐day Ukrainian historiography

A Relationship on Two Levels. Galia Golan, The Soviet Union and the Palestine Liberation Organization. An Uneasy Alliance. New York: Praeger, 1980. vii + 289pp. £15.25.

The Soviet ‘Black Book’ on the Holocaust. Vasily Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg (comp. and eds.), Chernaya kniga (The Black Book), annotated and indexed by Mark Kipnis and Hayah Lifshits. Jerusalem: Tarbut Publishers, 1980. xx‐vii + 547pp. Illus. Name Index. Place Index.

A Valuable Account of Jewish Heroism. Reuben Ainsztein, The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt. New York: Holocaust Library, 1979. 238pp. Bibl. $4.95.

The Reality of National Bolshevism. Mikhail Agursky, Ideologiya natsional‐bolshevizma (The Ideology of National Bolshevism). Introduction by Leonard Schapiro. Paris: YMCA Press, 1980. 321pp. Notes. Bibliography.

Communist Zionism in the USSR. Baruch Gurevitz, National Communism in the Soviet Union, 1918–28. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1980. xiii+ 121pp.     

Filming a Stalinist War Epic in Ukraine: Ihor Savchenko’s The Third Strike

Abstract

The article examines the production history of Ihor Savchenko’s film Tretii udar [The Third Strike, 1948], a World War II epic and the most significant project of the Kyiv Film Studio in the first post-war years. Using the example of The Third Strike, the author demonstrates how Stalinist cinema as an institution influenced Soviet film directors’ thematic and ideological choices as well as their style. Specifically, the supervision of such projects by the USSR’s political centre served to integrate Ukrainian film makers into Soviet cinema by fostering Soviet versions of the country’s political and social history and by preventing Ukrainian film makers from pursuing stylistic practices that might have become foundational to Ukrainian cinema. Filming a Stalinist war epic in postwar Ukraine was especially difficult in view of the Soviet struggle against Ukrainian nationalism. By featuring soldiers of different nationalities, The Third Strike underscored the idea of the “fraternal friendship of the Soviet peoples” during the war, which became a canonical element in Soviet depictions of the war. In this way, Ukrainian artists ingratiated themselves with the Soviet authorities and proved their loyalty to Russia.     

‘Children of dorćol’: A case for individual agency in preserving jewish tradition in socialist Yugoslavia

Portrait of a Hero. Martin Gilbert. Shcharansky: Hero of Our Time. London: Mac‐miilan, 1986. xviii + 467pp. New York: Viking Press, 1986. 418pp. Il‐lus. Maps. Appendices. Bibl. Index. £14.95; $24.95.

Unique Series of Source Material. Jacob Ingerman (ed.). Evrei i evreysky narod—Materialy iz sovetskoy pechati (Jews and the Jewish People—Excerpts from the Soviet Press*), vol. 100, July‐December 1982. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, Centre of Research and Documentation of East‐European Jewry, 1985. 330pp.

Jews and Jewish Themes Portrayed in Soviet Literature. Jakub Blum and Vera Rich. The Image of the Jew in Soviet Literature: The Post‐Stalin Period. New York: KTAV Publishing House for the Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1984. viii +276pp. Name Index.     

The Representation of the Holocaust in the Soviet Press, 1941–1945

Abstract

The article presents the first in-depth examination of the representation of the Holocaust in the Soviet press during the period of its perpetration, 1941–1945. The article illustrates that alongside growing anti-Semitism, both among the population and the regime, Soviet journalists, primarily Il'ya Ehrenburg and Vasilii Grossman, reported on the suffering and murder of European Jewry. The article examines the Soviet presentation of Nazi racial theory and compares it to the representation of Nazi racial theory in the American and British press during the war. The article looks at the reasons behind Soviet press coverage of the Holocaust, such as the use of atrocities to motivate the people to fight. It also examines the way in which the Soviet press used the Nazi persecution of the Jewish population as a means of distinguishing the fascist and socialist systems and highlighting the equality of all peoples, which it claimed existed in the Soviet Union. The article examines the Soviet representation of the behaviour of the Jews under occupation, focusing on the three main attributes — resistance, dignity and the brotherhood of the peoples. In general, the article strives to illustrate that the Soviet press reported on the Holocaust during the war and recognized the racial nature of the Nazi persecution and extermination of European Jewry.     

The ‘Old New Russian Town’: Modernization and Architectural Preservation in Russia’s Historic North West, 1961–1982

Abstract

The emergence of a Soviet preservationist movement, which gained institutional coherence in the mid-1960s, appears to stand at odds with the ideas of rationalization and standardization that informed the Khrushchev-era urban development programme. Yet, as I argue in this article, these two strands of post-Stalin era Soviet culture were not as antagonistic as they may first appear. In Khrushchev’s Russia, the preservation of architectural heritage was rationalized as a means of strengthening the foundations of Soviet society by rooting it in the national past. Rather than detracting from the goal of building communism, cultural heritage was made an integral part of that process, a focus of national pride and source of social solidarity.     

Post-Soviet Nostalgia in Israel? Historical Revisionism and Artists of the 1.5 Generation

ABSTRACT

The article examines contemporary Israeli poetry and visual art by Russian-Jewish artists of the 1.5 generation, artists who were born in the Soviet Union but resettled in Israel during the 1990s. By focusing on the representation of the Soviet–Jewish past in their works, I show that in contrast to the largely negative view of the Soviet experience by the previous generations of Russian-Israeli authors, the historical understanding of the 1.5 generation is fundamentally different. This cohort of artists resists the lachrymose portrayal of Jewish life in the USSR and the “Happily Ever After” finale in Israel. Instead, they propose a counter-narrative that is hinged on a romanticized depiction of life in the USSR and disillusionment in Israel that followed. I argue that nostalgic representations of the Soviet–Jewish past by these artists derive from the suffering, humiliation, and rapid downwards social mobility that the Russian-speaking community experienced in Israel.     

Jewish response to the non-Jewish question: “Where were the Jews during the fighting?” 1941–5

ABSTRACT

The war of the USSR against Nazi Germany led to an increase of negative expressions in regard to Jews. Often members of the Soviet population accused Jews of avoiding combat, of cowardice, and of an inherent incapacity to feel patriotic toward Russia. Such a view was an adaptation of prewar anti-Jewish prejudices to war-time conditions. Some Jews, both at the front and in the rear, viewed these expressions as a sign of the emergence of an ethnic inequality that did not exist in the prewar Soviet Union. Increased Jewish sensitivity to one aspect of the theme of equality (the idea that Jews were fighting as well and as bravely as members of other ethnic groups) inclined Soviet Jews to prefer the term and concept of “Soviet” rather than those of “Russian.” The former represented for them a state of all its ethnic groups, including the Jews, while the latter appeared to reflect a priority accorded to a single ethnic group, the Russians. Anti-Jewish attitudes in the Soviet rear and, to some extent, at the front as well, was one factor that led to the reinforcement of the Soviet Jewish identity.     

A Cesspool of Intrigue: Les' Kurbas,Oleksandr Dovzhenko,and the Film Industry in 1920s Soviet Ukraine

Abstract

In the 1920s, theatre innovator Oleksandr “Les'” Kurbas (1887–1937) made three short films for the Vseukrains'ke Foto-Kino Upravlinnia [All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Administration] or VUFKU. His film career was short-lived, however. Lambasting the VUFKU as a “cesspool of intrigue,” Kurbas left film for good to focus exclusively on theatre. His films never gained wide release, and have since been lost. Kurbas’s brief foray into cinema could therefore be considered a non-moment, yet because Kurbas objected not to the medium itself, but to the institutions creating film, his encounter with the VUFKU illuminates the larger process of the formation of the Soviet film industry. Kurbas’s departure from film occurred simultaneously with the arrival of Oleksandr Dovzhenko (1894–1956), and their crossed paths show how the structure of the Soviet film industry shaped artistic possibilities. The institutional transformation of VUFKU into Ukrainfilm, the regional affiliate of the all-Union film monopoly Soiuzkino, signalled a cultural shift: from a film industry in Soviet Ukraine, to a Soviet Ukrainian film industry, one both part of wider Soviet cinema production and slotted specifically into a Ukrainian niche. Ultimately, this article argues that this process of consolidation and centralization in the film industry complicated the development of culture in the Soviet regions.     

Between two worlds: late Soviet Jews in Leningrad

ABSTRACT

In this article, Ann Komaromi reads late Soviet Jewish culture in Leningrad in terms of the “two worlds” Jewish activists negotiated: official and unofficial, Soviet/Russian and Jewish, present and past, etc. While the public rhetoric of the struggle for Soviet Jewry suggested dramatic binaries of death and salvation that resonate with the eschatological extremes of the “Petersburg text,” Komaromi argues for a more prosaic approach to the imaginative and cultural project of reconstructing Jewish identity by people in this context. The article features the recollections of former Jewish activists taken from interviews and memoirs to reveal the range of endeavors in which they engaged, including Hebrew learning and teaching, seminars, demonstrations, Jewish soccer teams, local history walking tours, unofficial book collections, and ethnographic expeditions.     

The struggle of Belorussian Jews for the restitution of possessions and housing in the first Postwar decade

Illusions About the Soviet Position in the Middle East. Amnon Sella, Soviet Political and Military Conduct in the Middle East. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1981. xiii + 211pp. Maps. Tables. Bibl. Appendices. Name Index. Subject Index. £15.00.

A Valuable Piece of Scholarship. Yaacov Ro'i, Soviet Decision Making in Practice: The USSR and Israel, 1947–1954. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1980. 540pp.

Yugoslav Jewry in World War II. Jasa Romano, Jevreji Jugoslavije 1941–1945. Zrtve genocida ucesnici narodnooslobodilackog rata (Jews of Yugoslavia 1941–1945. Victims of Genocide and Freedom Fighters*). Belgrade: Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, 1980. 590 pp. Tables. Bibl. Name Index. English Summary.

Antisemitism of a Great Writer. David I. Goldstein, Dostoyevsky and the Jews. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1980. iv + 231pp. Index. (University of Texas Press Series 3). $17.50, £12.20.

A Tortured Perspective: A Russified Liberal and the Jewish Predicament. O. O. Gruzenberg. Yesterday: Memoirs of a Russian‐Jewish Lawyer. (Edited and with an Introduction by Don C. Rawson. (Tr. from the Russian by Don C. Rawson and Tatiana Tipton). Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1981. xxix‐t‐ 235pp. Map. Chart of Court and Law Enforcement System. Glossary of Names. Bibl. Index. $27.50. £19.25.

On the Eve of Babi Yar. Aleksandr Borshchagovsky, Di Nakht Erev Babi Yar. Drame (The Night Before Babi Yar. A Drama). (Translated from the Russian by Note Lurye). Moscow: Sovetish Heymland, no. 9, pp. 16–56.     

The fate of Belarusian and Yiddish in the Soviet and Post‐Soviet periods

A New ‘Tsar Liberator'?. Seweryn Bialer, Politics, Society, and Nationality Inside Gorbachev's Russia. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1989. xv +241pp. Bibl. Index.

Michael Rywkin, Soviet Society Today. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1989. xii +234pp. Bibl. Index.

Glasnost on Latvian Jewry. Literatūra un Māksla (Literature and Art), no. 48 (2294), Riga, November 1988.

Openness or Concealment?. Raymond Hutchings. Soviet Secrecy and Non‐Secrecy. London: Mac‐millan Press, 1987. 292pp. Bibl. Index. £29.50.

The Making of Czech Jewry. Hillel J. Kieval. The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia 1870–1918. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. x + 279pp. Notes. Bibl. Index. $25.00.     

‘My Judaic Pride Sang’: Eduard Bagritskii and the Making of Soviet Jewish Identity

Maxim D. Shrayer, Russian Poet/Soviet Jew. The Legacy of Eduard Bagritskii. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. XV + 163pp. Notes. Index. Illustrations. ISBN 0–7425–0780–7