audiobook Russia and the Soviet Union: A Historical Introduction from the Kievan State to the Present by John M Thompson in History

Description

Commonly translated as the “Jewish Enlightenment;” the Haskalah propelled Jews into modern life. Olga Litvak argues that the idea of a Jewish modernity; championed by adherents of this movement; did not originate in Western Europe’s age of reason. Litvak contends that the Haskalah spearheaded a Jewish religious revival; better understood against the background of Eastern European Romanticism.Based on imaginative and historically grounded readings of primary sources; Litvak presents a compelling case for rethinking the relationship between the Haskalah and the experience of political and social emancipation. Most importantly; she challenges the prevailing view that the Haskalah provided the philosophical mainspring for Jewish liberalism.In Litvak’s ambitious interpretation; nineteenth-century Eastern European intellectuals emerge as the authors of a Jewish Romantic revolution. Fueled by contradictory longings both for community and for personal freedom; the poets and scholars associated with the Haskalah questioned the moral costs of civic equality and the achievement of middle-class status. In the nineteenth century; their conservative approach to culture as the cure for the spiritual ills of the modern individual provided a powerful argument for the development of Jewish nationalism. Today; their ideas are equally resonant in contemporary debates about the ramifications of secularization for the future of Judaism.