Di Yiddish-Imperye: The Dashed Hopes for a Yiddish Cultural Empire in the Soviet Union (original) (raw)

The paper explores the historical trajectory of Yiddish-speaking Jews in the Soviet Union, examining the cultural and linguistic developments of Yiddish from the thirteenth century through to the 1950s. It highlights the complexities of Yiddish as both a vernacular language and a vehicle for cultural expression amidst external pressures from predominantly Hebrew and Russian influences, as well as internal dynamics within Jewish communities. Despite a flourishing of Yiddish literature and culture, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Soviet regime's repressive measures fundamentally stifled these developments, culminating in the arrest and execution of key Yiddish intellectuals and a general decline of Yiddish cultural production post-1952.