LEADER 03972nam 2200649 a 450 001 9910457805503321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-674-06264-7 024 7 $a10.4159/harvard.9780674062641 035 $a(CKB)2550000000074554 035 $a(OCoLC)768119784 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10518221 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000551554 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11344786 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000551554 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10525551 035 $a(PQKB)10729449 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3301011 035 $a(DE-B1597)178268 035 $a(OCoLC)979754457 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780674062641 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3301011 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10518221 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000074554 100 $a20110422d2011 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 14$aThe Jewish dark continent$b[electronic resource] $elife and death in the Russian pale of settlement /$fNathaniel Deutsch 210 $aCambridge, Mass. $cHarvard University Press$d2011 215 $a1 online resource (385 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-674-04728-1 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $t Frontmatter -- $tCONTENTS -- $tMap -- $tINTRODUCTION -- $tI -- $t1. EXPLORING THE JEWISH DARK CONTINENT -- $t2. THE REBBE AS ETHNOGRAPHER/ THE ETHNOGRAPHER AS REBBE -- $t3. A TOTAL ACCOUNT: WRITING DOWN THE PEOPLE'S TORAH -- $t4. THE BOOK OF MAN -- $tII -- $tPREFACE TO THE ANNOTATED TRANSLATION -- $tTHE JEWISH ETHNOGRAPHIC PROGRAM -- $tAFTERWORD -- $tNOTES -- $tACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- $tINDEX 330 $aAt the turn of the twentieth century, over forty percent of the world's Jews lived within the Russian Empire, almost all in the Pale of Settlement. From the Baltic to the Black Sea, the Jews of the Pale created a distinctive way of life little known beyond its borders. This led the historian Simon Dubnow to label the territory a Jewish "Dark Continent."Just before World War I, a socialist revolutionary and aspiring ethnographer named An-sky pledged to explore the Pale. He dreamed of leading an ethnographic expedition that would produce an archive-what he called an Oral Torah of the common people rather than the rabbinic elite-which would preserve Jewish traditions and transform them into the seeds of a modern Jewish culture. Between 1912 and 1914, An-sky and his team collected jokes, recorded songs, took thousands of photographs, and created a massive ethnographic questionnaire. Consisting of 2,087 questions in Yiddish-exploring the gamut of Jewish folk beliefs and traditions, from everyday activities to spiritual exercises to marital intimacies-the Jewish Ethnographic Program constitutes an invaluable portrait of Eastern European Jewish life on the brink of destruction.Nathaniel Deutsch offers the first complete translation of the questionnaire, as well as the riveting story of An-sky's almost messianic efforts to create a Jewish ethnography in an era of revolutionary change. An-sky's project was halted by World War I, and within a few years the Pale of Settlement would no longer exist. These survey questions revive and reveal shtetl life in all its wonder and complexity. 606 $aJews$zRussia (Federation)$vFolklore 606 $aJews$zUkraine$vFolklore 607 $aRussia$xSocial life and customs 607 $aRussia$xEthnic relations 607 $aUkraine$xSocial life and customs 607 $aUkraine$xEthnic relations 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aJews 615 0$aJews 676 $a947.004924 700 $aDeutsch$b Nathaniel$0451449 701 2$aAn-Ski$b S.$f1863-1920.$0894354 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910457805503321 996 $aThe Jewish dark continent$92472424 997 $aUNINA