Birobidzhan - The Promised Land

A well-known St. Petersburg writer and journalist Alexander Melikhov, winner of the Writers' Union of St. Petersburg and the Petersburg PEN, in his book "Birobidzhan - The Promised Land" tells of the creation of the Far East, the Jewish Autonomous Region - one of the most daring Soviet resettlement projects and one the saddest of Jewish national utopias.

More on Soviet Jews in the series " Cheysovskaya collection ": Boris Frezinsky , "Mosaic of Jewish lives. Of the twentieth century "

Picking up the theme of " Birobidzhan myth" in the novel "Red Zion," dedicated to the history of the formation of the Jewish Autonomous Region and the fate of its creators and inhabitants, Alexander Melikhov continued her research in his nonfiction book " Birobidzhan - The Promised Land ."

Melikhov places his subject in a fairly broad context , from a book with his own sense of Jewishness and the Jewish question in Russia today , and continuing analysis of the famous Stalin's article "Marxism and the National Question " (1913 ) , which already outlined the main points of the National Bolshevik doctrine , including the idea that a normal nation should have the territorial integrity and common language .

Picturing a lyrical portrait of the young "national home" , the burning enthusiasm of Stalinist industrial buildings, Melikhov complements its extensive documentation and pathetic quotes from local panegyrist - essayists and poets , who sought to " put in place a stone and steel ." But the focus is still given to the historical analysis - after all , this book will not repeat , but to supplement the novel "Red Zion ."

 Melikhov examines various reasons motivate Stalin and Kalinin in the drafting of the Jewish Autonomous Region , including the military- strategic (the need for colonization Amur ) and economic (calculation of the foreign investments in the economy of a young Jewish republic). But mostly , in my opinion , the engine of the project were the Far Eastern Jewish collective dreams and the national dream , and you can not create , destroy and impossible, but which in time can take advantage of that and made the Soviet authorities .

 More on national projects in the series " Cheysovskaya collection ": "The language in revolutionary times " Benjamin Harshava

Read excerpts from the book here.

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The New Jerusalem
Cling to the roots
normalization of the Jews
Birobidzhan. Poetry and Truth
Yet my end is not the end ? Singers of Cupid and Bijan