First Published in 1992. Perhaps two-thirds of present-day British Jewry can trace their origin to lands which now form part of the Soviet Union and which, 80 years ago, belonged to the Empire of the Tsars. Little research has been done to set the Jewish immigration into the context of Anglo-Russian relations and to assess the political and diplomatic implications of the domestic Jewish factor.] It is hoped that the present book will go some way to filling that gap. The work is offered as a contribution not only to Jewish history, but also to the history of Anglo-Soviet relations. Its appearance is timely, coinciding with radical changes taking place within Russia and the Soviet Union today which may well mark a turning point in their political history.

For 50 years, until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Soviet Union ran a campaign of repression, imprisonment, political trials and terror against its 3 million Jews. In Australia, political leaders and the Jewish community contributed significantly to the international protest movement which eventually triumphed over Moscow's tyranny and led to the modern Exodus of Soviet Jews to Israel and other countries. Lipski and Rutland make this largely unknown Australian story come alive with a combination of passion, personal experience and ground-breaking research."The struggle for the freedom of Soviet Jewry was one of the most powerful displays of strength and solidarity by the world Jewish community... even those intimately familiar with the struggle will be surprised to discover in Let My People Go how the Australian Jewish community and its leaders were among the campaign's initiators, and how they saw it through to its successful conclusion. This is a unique testament to how a small group can play a big role in history." - Natan Sharansky, Chairman Jewish Agency for Israel, Prisoner of Zion (1977-86)

Captivated at a young age by Russia, Marianna Tax Choldin immersed herself as a student at the University of Chicago in that country's language and culture. In her book she describes the tension between her strong commitment to freedom of expression and her growing understanding of Russian and Soviet censorship. Fluent in Russian, she travels widely in post-Soviet Russia, speaking with hundreds of Russians about their own censorship history. She writes of the close friendships she formed in Russia, and reflects on her Jewish roots in the country her family had left behind 100 years earlier.

A native of Crimea, the Soviet Jewish poet Ilya Selvinskii (1899-1968), in 1942-43, bore witness to Nazi atrocities in and near the city of Kerch (in eastern Crimea) and in the south of Russia. This included the massacre at the "Bagerovo ditch", an anti-tank ditch west of the city, where the Nazis murdered ca. 7,000 Jews of Kerch in November 1941. What he saw impressed Selvinskii for the rest of his life. He was the first Soviet poet to publish extensively on the Holocaust, most notably his two poems "I Saw It" (1942) and "Kerch" (1945). In general, he somewhat downplayed the fact that the victims were Jews, as did Ehrenburg and other contemporary poets who wrote on the Nazi mass murders. Selvinskii's shock of viewing the Bagerovo ditch was also reflected in his postwar poems, in particular in "Kandava", the first version of which was published in 1946. Selvinskii influenced many other poets who wrote on the Nazi genocide, among them Iosif Utkin and Lev Ozerov. After the war Selvinskii was accused of "cosmopolitanism" and holding an "anti-party line"; he was partially blacklisted. Pp. 263-277 contain the Russian originals and English translations of "I Saw It" and "Kerch".

Historical background : Anatoliy V. Lunacharsky, the cultured commissar -- Valdimir I. Rebikov : the inventor of whole-tone music -- The diatonic Webern : Aleksei V. Stanchinskiy -- Nikolai A. Roslavets : the Russian Shcenberg -- Aleksandr V. Mosolov : the man of steel -- Arthur V. Louri(c)♭ : the decadent out of place -- Leonid A. Polovinkin : the partial avant-gardist -- Vladimir V. Shcherbachev : old wine in new vessels -- Lev K. Knipper : wind from the West -- Boris N. Liatoshinski : the passionate Slav -- Vladimir M. Deshevov : the man of the theater -- Samuil E. Feinberg : the post-Scriabin pianist -- Anatoliy N. Aleksandrov : the post-Rachmaninovian -- Boris A. Aleksandrov : son of the composer of the Soviet anthem -- Aleksandr A. Krein : voice in the wilderness -- Grigoriy A. Krein : toward assimilation -- Yulian G. Krein : precocious cosmopolitan -- Aleksandr M. Veprik : the Ukrainian Bart(c)đk and Bloch -- Mikhail F. Gnessin : the Jewish Glinka -- Ivan A. Vyshnegradsky : microtones -- Nikolai Obukhov : mystic beyond Scriabin -- Iosif M. Schillinger : Gershwin's teacher -- Aleksandr N. Tcherepnine : suave internationalist -- Sergei V. Protopopov : the post-Scriabin composer -- Leonid L. Sabaneev : would-be scientist becomes critic -- Dmitriy M. Melkikh : rhapsodist -- Gavrill N. Popov : contrapuntalist -- Aleksei S. Zhivotov : notorious for one piece -- Efim Golyshchev : the first serialist? -- Georgi M. Rimsky-Korsakov : microtonist

Discusses the Russian Jewish poet (born Eduard Dzyubin, 1895-1934), including the role that antisemitism played in regard to the publication (or non-publication) of his works and to their interpretation. Mentions, in particular, the Russian ultra-nationalist Stanislav Kunyayev, who viewed Bagritskii both as an "alien trespasser in the fields of Russian poetry" and as a self-hating Jew. Focuses on the poems "Origin" and "February" and their relation to the poet's Jewishness, which contemporary and later Soviet criticism minimized. Examines the Jewish trauma of rejection depicted in "February" and the protagonist's reactions to it. Denies the antisemitic view that the Jew in the poem rapes a Russian woman. Rejects the image of Bagritskii as a self-hating Jew, as well as the allegation that he has no place in Russian culture. Bagritskii was hoping for a synthesis, a utopia where a Russian-Jewish identity was possible and welcome. The fate of his works, as well as those of Soviet Jews who outlived him, proved otherwise.

"The title work, "Journey On a Hospital Bed" (1924), a memoir by the Russian writer Lev Lunts, together with articles, letters and stories by the same author. To these are added articles and letters by 20-30 Russian writers with whom Lev Lunts was associated. The total contents consist of 13 articles from 1921-1966, 88 letters from 1923-1924, one long memoir from 1924, and 2 stories from 1921 & 1924, all (with one exception) translated from Russian into English for the first time. Illustrated by approx. 50 photographs of people and 10 reproductions of manuscripts, most from the 1920s. All the articles relate to the group "The Serapion Brothers" and the literary scene in St. Petersburg in the early 1920s. All the correspondence dates from 1923-1924, when Lev Lunts lay dying in a sanatorium and hospital in Germany"--Publisher info.