Kosher pork—an oxymoron? Anna Shternshis's fascinating study traces the creation of a Soviet Jewish identity that disassociated Jewishness from Judaism. The cultural transformation of Soviet Jews between 1917 and 1941 was one of the most ambitious experiments in social engineering of the past century. During this period, Russian Jews went from relative isolation to being highly integrated into the new Soviet culture and society, while retaining a strong ethnic and cultural identity. This identity took shape during the 1920s and 1930s, when the government attempted to create a new Jewish culture, "national in form" and "socialist in content." Soviet and Kosher is the first study of key Yiddish documents that brought these Soviet messages to Jews, notably the "Red Haggadah," a Soviet parody of the traditional Passover manual; songs about Lenin and Stalin; scripts from regional theaters; Socialist Realist fiction; and magazines for children and adults. More than 200 interviews conducted by the author in Russia, Germany, and the United States testify to the reception of these cultural products and provide a unique portrait of the cultural life of the average Soviet Jew.

During his reign over the former Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin oversaw the forced resettlement of six million people -- a maniacal passion that he used for social engineering. The Soviets were not the first to thrust resettlement on its population -- a major characteristic of totalitarian systems -- but in terms of sheer numbers, technologies used to deport people and the lawlessness which accompanied it, Stalin's process was the most notable. Six million people of different social, ethnic, and professions were resettled before Stalin's death. Even today, the aftermath of such deportations largely predetermines events which take place in the northern Caucasus, Crimea, the Baltic republics, Moldavia, and western Ukraine. Polian's volume is the first attempt to comprehensively examine the history of forced and semivoluntary population movements within or organized by the Soviet Union. Contents range from the early 1920s to the rehabilitation of repressed nationalities in the 1990s dealing with internal (kulaks, ethnic and political deportations) and international forced migrations (German internees and occupied territories). An abundance of facts, figures, tables, maps, and an exhaustively-detailed annex will serve as important sources for further researches.

"Emil Draitser dreamed of becoming a writer. Born to a working-class Jewish family in the USSR on the eve of World War II, he came of age during the Brezhnev era, often considered the nadir of Soviet culture. Bored with an engineering job, he found refuge in writing, attracting the attention of a Moscow editor who encouraged him to try his hand at satire. He spent the next decade contributing to Crocodile, the major Party-sponsored magazine known for its sharp-tongued essays and caustic cartoons. After he got in trouble for criticizing an important Soviet official, he began weighing the heavy decision of whether to emigrate. In this captivating memoir, Draitser explores what it means to be a satirist in a country lacking freedom of expression. His experience provides a window into the lives of a generation of artists who were allowed to poke fun and make readers laugh, as long as they toed a narrow, state-approved line. In the Jaws of the Crocodile also includes several of Draitser's wry pieces translated into English for the first time." --Amazon.com.