Isaiah (Shaya, Yeshaya, Yeshayahu) Gruber

This paper brings together two phenomena not commonly regarded as closely connected: linguistic patterns in ancient Biblical transmission, and Jewish-Christian relations as manifest in Polish-Israeli dynamics. After summarizing the nature of Jewish-Greek language in the Septuagint (LXX) and related texts, the discussion proceeds to an explanation of the “bifurcation of meaning” that arose between Jewish and Christian interpreters who read the same words. This exegetical and translational reality exerted a strong real-world effect on Jewish-Christian interaction throughout history. Medieval and modern Polish-Jewish and Polish-Israeli relations continue to bear the stamp of such ancient linguistic and theological reconfigurations. Today a renaissance of Jewish cultural life in Poland has energized Christians as well as Jews, opening up new possibilities for collaboration and mutual understanding. At the same time, political tensions related to conflicting versions of the past – particularly the Holocaust and its memory – have laid bare fundamental contradictions between and within Israeli and Polish self-perceptions. The paper argues that study of Biblical languages and early Judeo-Christian traditions is of great relevance for the current situation and for prospective future progress in fellow feeling and inter-national understanding.

Yitshak ben Sirota is an imagined Jew (composite historical figure) of eleventh-century Eastern Europe. His own travels and the stories he hears from others cover Rus', Poland, Byzantium, and Western Europe. Yitshak’s imagined autobiographical account corresponds closely with extant documentary evidence and provides information and perspective on the contemporary interactions of men and women, Jews and Christians, masters and slaves, and other groups.

This article is intended as a thought experiment on the meaning of the Russian concept narod, generally translated “people,” during the Time of Troubles (Smutnoe vremia) of the early seventeenth century. The topic is significant, since in this period the Muscovite politico-religious elite propounded a notion of vox populi as a legitimizing and even decisive force in determining the right course of action for the entire realm. Two closely related concepts, the so-called zemskii sobor (Assembly of the Land) and the idea of Holy Russia or Rus’, have been much debated in historiography. I argue that these historiographic discussions could benefit from more emphasis on the fundamental linguistic concepts of the time, as distinct from the later conceptualizations of historians. The present reconsideration of the meaning of narod, or who was included within notions of “the people,” suggests that language as much as anything else played a role in the dramatic historical shifts that have shaped Russian culture to this day.
Keywords: Time of Troubles – Russian Orthodox Christianity – zemskii sobor – vox populi – people – narod – Holy Russia

Inspired in part by conversations with David Goldfrank, this essay considers aspects of how attitudes toward biblical language contributed to representations of national and religious identity in late medieval and early modern Muscovite Russia. At roughly the same time in history that revived Hebrew and Greek study in Western Europe helped to stimulate the Renaissance and Reformation, bookmen in East Slavia also reconsidered the original languages of sacred writings. Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, such interest was neither unknown nor marginal within Muscovite religious culture. Hebrew-Russian glossaries circulated in leading monasteries from at least the thirteenth century; major infusions of Greek (and other) words and definitions in the sixteenth century transformed these texts into multilingual dictionaries. This mainstream tradition in Russian Orthodoxy can be linked to such important religious figures as Nil Sorskii and Maksim Grek. I argue that by “appropriating” biblical languages and terminology, often via inaccurate translations, Muscovite Russian literati created and defended their distinctive identity vis-à-vis Jews and Greeks, who were considered God’s former chosen peoples. These findings suggest reconsideration of the nature and boundaries of faith in Muscovy in the “age of confessionalism.”
Keywords: Bible – East Slavic – Greek – Hebrew – identity – language – Muscovy – religion – Russian Orthodox Christianity

Unquestionably one of Russian modernism’s best-known artists, El Lissitzky created artworks—in a staggering variety of media—that have entranced collectors and inspired other artists for decades. In this book Alexander Kantsedikas, one of the world’s leading experts on the artist, offers the first extended look at his earlier work, which was  more or less exclusively devoted to Jewish subjects, reflecting his religious education and family’s heritage. While a handful of these works are well known and widely published, this phase of his work will be far less familiar even to an audience well versed in El Lissitzky’s oeuvre. Featuring more than five hundred works, lavishly reproduced in color and black and white, the book tracks his evolution from an expressionist style to one that is increasingly more abstract and nonobjective. It also includes rare photographic material of the artist’s family, as well as little-known correspondence from his father and details about his relationship with his first wife, who has heretofore been entirely obscured in the artist’s biography.
"Lissitzky’s Yiddish period […] is an area in need of documentary research, specifically the rise and subsequent fall-off of his enthusiasm for the artistic expression of Jewish secular traditions." – Nancy Perloff, “The Puzzle of El Lissitzky’s Artistic Identity” (2003)

Honorable Mention, 2012 Early Slavic Studies Association Distinguished Scholarship Award
A pivotal period in Russian history, the "Time of Troubles" of the early 17th century has taken on new resonances in post-Soviet Russia. Current national narratives glorify the role of the Russian Orthodox Church during that torturous span of famine, war, and disintegration. But what was the actual history of the Church and of Orthodox Christian religion in crisis? For the first time, and just prior to the 400th anniversary of the end of the Time of Troubles, this book attempts to give a comprehensive picture of the topic on the basis of archival and other evidence. Beginning with Russia's posited status as "New Israel" and continuing to examine the business activities of monasteries, Gruber discovers the motivations behind key political and religious innovations of the period. New "voices" attributed to women and the people marked this as a unique epoch in the troubled history of one of the world's most enigmatic and influential countries. Both accessibly written and deeply scholarly, this book will appeal to a wide readership interested in history, religion, and culture.