Bloody Joke

Two friends who have ended together a grammar school, - the Jew from a vilage and Russian nobleman from notable family - have decided to do a risky joke: to exchange documents and to live under ane another's name in the unfamiliar environment. For one of them, Russian Popov which has become for year by Rabinovich, turns out completely not harmlessly. The plot of novel Sholom-Aleikhem « the Bloody joke » which he has started to write in 1911 when he has found out about notorious «Beilis file» is those, in brief, and has finished in January of 1913, still before Menachme-Mendl's Beat-foxes, is false accused in « ritual murder » the Christian boy, has been justified by a jury. Sholov-Aleikhem wished to publish « the Bloody joke » in Russian, but during lifetime of the writer it does not happen. The present edition - the fullest and exact translation of one of the best, but till now not enough known in Russia classics of the Jewish literature.