1915 Diary of S. An-sky: A Russian Jewish Writer at the Eastern Front

202 Pages·2016·4.218 MB·English

by  S. A. An-sky

Diary of
1915
S An sky
-
.
From left to right: Abram Rekhtman, Solomon Iudovin, S. An- sky, Sholem Aleichem,
Olga Rabinovich, M. A. Ginzburg. © “Petersburg Judaica.”
1915 Diary of
S An sky
-
.
A Russ ian
Jewish
Writer
at the
Eastern
Front
S. A. An- sky
Translated from the Rus sian and with an
Introduction by Polly Zavadivker
indiana university press Bloomington & Indianapolis
This book is a publication of Manufactured in the
United States of America
indiana university press
Office of Scholarly Publishing Cataloging information is available
Herman B. Wells Library 350 from the Library of Congress.
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 usa ISBN 978-0-253-02045-1 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-02053-6 (ebook)
iupress. i ndiana. e du
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
© 2016 by Polly Zavadivker
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing
from the publisher. The Association
of American University Presses’
Resolution on Permissions constitutes
the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication
meets the minimum requirements of
the American National Standard for
Information Sciences—P ermanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ansi z39.48–1992.
For
jeffrey
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Ack nowl edgm ents ix
Note on Translation xi
introduction 1
S. An- sky’s 1915 Diary
1 winter 1915: Galicia 39
2 fall 1915: Petrograd 129
Notes 159
Index 183
This page intentionally left blank
Ac know ledg ments
It is an honor to thank those who have helped to trans-
form a long lost archival document into a book that bears An- sky’s name.
I am deeply grateful to Gabriella Safran, who shared her own copy of
the archival diary with me and enthusiastically encouraged the work of
translating it into En glish. My profound thanks to Carol Avins for her
comments on my first draft of the translation and for the several sources
she shared from her previous research on Isaac Babel’s war diary. As my
graduate adviser and mentor, Nathaniel Deutsch provided critical in-
sights and intellectual inspiration at every stage of this project.
The Introduction and diary translation were greatly improved by
reviews from Eugene Avrutin and an anonymous reader for Indiana
University Press. Sibelan Forrester generously provided feedback that
strengthened the translation, as did Yuri Radchenko and Robert Chan-
dler. Sam Casper, Gennady Estraikh, Kiril Feferman, Victoria Khiterer,
Joshua Shanes, Dmitry Tartakovsky, and Arkadii Zeltser kindly re-
sponded to my inquiries and assisted my search for information in vari-
ous archives and libraries.
The photographs included in this book w ere located with the help of
archivists and librarians in Ukraine, Poland, the United States, and
Israel. I thank Bohdan Shumylovych at the Center for Urban History of
ix