Horowitz B. Saul Borovoi’s Evolution as a Historian of Ukrainian Jewry in the Early Soviet Period

(Tulane University, New Orleans, USA)

Abstract ♦ Brian Horowitz examines the life of the Soviet historian Saul Borovoi and his intriguing scholarship on the Jews of Ukraine. Professor Horowitz describes the intellectual context in pre-Soviet Odessa and the elements that shaped the evolution of Borovoi’s methodology. Borovoi was born into a literary family that was involved in the movement to resurrect Hebrew as a modern language. In his youth Borovoi fell under the spell of the best historians of his day, Semyon Dubnov, Shaul Ginsburg and Sergei (Israel) Tsinberg. Horowitz shows how Borovoi developed as a historian under the impact of the events of the 1920s and then 1930s. At the forefront of Borovoi’s studies stood economic factors. He also featured the Ukrainian-Jewish relationship that took central significance in Odessa at the time. Horowitz relays Borovoi’s explanation for his survival when many other Jewish scholars either emigrated or died in party purges. However, Horowitz claims that Borovoi’s self-image in his memoir as an outsider and provincial contradicts the facts of his life. Borovoi was a highly regarded historian with professional success and prestige. His life and oeuvre tell us a great deal about the historical profession and Jewish Studies in Russia in the first decades of Soviet rule.

Keywords: Saul Borovoi, Jewish culture, early Soviet period, Jewish-Ukrainian relations, history of the Jews of Imperial Russia.

Horowitz Brian, PhD, Sizeler Family Chair Professor, Tulane University, Member of Association of Jewish Studies. Tel.: +1 (504) 862-3075. E-mail: horowitz@tulane.edu

Citation: Horowitz, B. (2014) Saul Borovoi’s Evolution as a Historian of Ukrainian Jewry in the Early Soviet Period. Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie, no. 3, pp. 376–388.

Submission date: 12.06.2014.

RUSSIAN VERSION

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