New Book on Ukrainians and Jews from 1917 to 1920

[Robert De Lossa]

New Title Announcement - HURI Publications
8-17-99
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A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times,
1917-1920.

Henry Abramson

With the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, Jewish and Ukrainian political
activists worked to overcome a long history of mutual antagonism by
creating a new form of government based on the principles of Autonomism, a
political theory which attempted to address the unique problems of
multi-national states. A Ministry of Jewish Affairs was established within
the new Ukrainian National Republic, currency was printed with Yiddish as
well as Polish and Russian inscriptions alongside the Ukrainian, and other
measures were adopted to satisfy the national aspirations of Jews and other
ethnic minorities of the fledgling Ukrainian state. This bold experiment in
nationality relations, however, ended with the anarchic violence that swept
the country. Amidst civil war and foreign intervention that resulted in
unprecedented cruelty on a mass scale, roving bands attacked various
minorities, resulting in the worst massacres of Jews in Europe in almost
three hundred years. Paradoxically, some forty percent of recorded pogroms
against Jews were perpetrated by troops ostensibly loyal to the very same
government that was simultaneously extending unprecedented civil rights to
the Jewish population.
        A Prayer for the Government explores this paradox, using formerly
restricted Soviet archives, the extensive documentation of the YIVO
Institute for Jewish Research in New York City and the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, and secondary sources in Slavic and Jewish languages. It sheds
new light on the relationship between the successive Ukrainian governments
and the communal violence and discusses in depth the role of Symon
Petliura, the Ukrainian leader who was later assassinated by a Jew claiming
revenge for the pogroms. This work will be of value to all those interested
in this crucial period of Ukrainian and Jewish history, and is richly
illustrated with period photographs, explanatory maps, and graphs.

[Co-published with the Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University]

280 pp., maps, illus.; ISBN 0-916458-88-1 (hardcover) $34.95; ISBN
0-916458-87-3 (softcover) $18.95


Available from:
Harvard University Press
79 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
tel. 1-800-448-2242; fax. 1-800-962-4983
Harvard University Book Code: ABRPRA (hc), ABRPRX (pb)

INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS should contact Harvard University Press for local
sales representatives.

____________________________________________________
Robert De Lossa
Director of Publications
Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
1583 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-496-8768; fax. 617-495-8097
reply to: rdelossa at fas.harvard.edu
http://www.sabre.org/huri/