Bolsheviks’ great expectations : Sovietizing Jews in the Ukrainian province, 1919-1930

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Sovietization of Jews in the interwar Ukrainian province. It is concerned with the transformation of Jewish life during the early Soviet nationality policy officially known as korenizatsiia (Rus. nativization, indigenization, lit. “putting down roots”). I discuss the process of making a secular, loyal, Soviet citizen out of a shtetl Jew through Yiddish schools, local councils, the anti-religious campaign, and secular culture. Focusing on three main domains of Jewish life around which the nationality policy was organized on the territories of the former Pale of Settlement—education, religion, and culture—I explore the extent to which Soviet institutions in the 1920s-1930s changed daily practices of the provincial Jewish population in private and public spaces. I argue that contrary to what Bolsheviks hoped for, Sovietization of Jews in the province in the interwar period was far from successful. The local population sometimes openly resisted the novelties, although more often it opted for reconciliation, combining them with their traditional lifestyle. In general, the Jews distrusted the agents of the new power, seeing in them the descendants of the imperial oppressive regime. Sovietization of Jews was inhibited by numerous factors, including distance from Moscow, poor financing, double loyalty of intermediary agents, and opportunism of Jewish elites who used the nationality policy to foster their national revival. More broadly, I argue that the nationality policy was a continuity of imperial discrimination of the Jewish population.