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Jewish‐Ukrainian‐Soviet Relations during the Civil War and the Second Thoughts of a Minister for Jewish Affairs
Author(s) -
Rabinovitch Simon
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
studies in ethnicity and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.204
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1754-9469
pISSN - 1473-8481
DOI - 10.1111/sena.12256
Subject(s) - ukrainian , judaism , spanish civil war , law , government (linguistics) , empire , estonian , political science , history , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology
A century after the dissolution of the Russian Empire and its descent into multidirectional civil war, the memory of what took place in Ukraine during 1917–1922 diverges into very different stories among Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews. By focusing on the example of Avraham Revutsky, a Minister for Jewish Affairs in Ukraine's Directory government, this article suggests that the lines of conflict during those violent years may not have been as clear as they appear now. From Revutsky's previously unknown statement made to Soviet authorities in Berlin in 1922, included in full and translated here, it is possible to glimpse both the complications of Jewish‐Ukrainian‐Soviet relations during the civil war, and how, in the face of the first Soviet show trials, individuals sought to shape the way their wartime actions and motives would be remembered.