The Nazification of Russia: Antisemitism in the Post-Soviet Era

By Semyon Reznik

Book Overview

THE NAZIFICATION OF RUSSIA tells the inside story of rising Russian ultranationalism, based on the author's twenty years of eye-witnessing, monitoring and research.An educational book about Russian... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0965136086
• ISBN13: 9780965136082
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Challenge Pubns
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Interesting observations on late Soviet antisemitism

Reznik's study is based on ingenious field research and use of primary sources. Before his emigration to the United States in 1982, Reznik worked in the Moscow publishing business as an editor; he also wrote historical novels himself. Through both, professional contacts and private inquiry, he was able to gain a unique familiarity with, and perspective on, his subject. A shrewd investigator and careful archivist, Reznik has produced an absorbing narrative filled with revealing observations, and valuable documents previously unknown to Western analysts. However, the study suffers from its neglect of previously published Western studies on post-Stalinist Soviet antisemitism. Reznik's additions to our knowledge about `Zionology' would have been even more pointed had they been contextualized and confronted with the previously accumulated evidence.

Russia rewakens to Nazi past - Reknown writer warns

Contrary to what is widely believed in the U.S., anti-Semitism and ultranationalism in Russia have not declined after the collapse of the Soviet regime, but gained new momentum, turning into an organized political and social movement. Ultranationalistic forces heavily influence Russian parliament and some key executive offices. They enjoy a considerable support from Russian Orthodox Church, law enforcement agencies and other important institutions. The possibility that they can take over the control over government is quite real. The national-communist leader Gennady Zyuganov receiving 30 million votes is a clear signal. This dangerous trend in today's Russian society has been analyzed in detail in The Nazification of Russia by Semyon Reznik. Mr. Reznik is a historian, journalist and novelist with a Russian-Jewish background. He authored twelve books, including four on the Russian anti-Semitism, which he has been studying fore more than twenty years. The Nazification of Russia--his first book in English-- summarizes his more than 20-year extensive research. Xenophobia and antisemitism have been an essential part of so called Russian idea for at least last two centuries. Hence what is going on today is a natural continuation of a strong tradition. Mr. Reznik's book gives a vivid description of this social disease. Thus, in the chapter "Blood Libel," the author demonstrates, how, on the eve of the 21st century, Russian red-brown ideologists are exploiting the Dark Age anti-Semitic prejudices. Horrible stories of the Jewish cannibalism have been printed in leading communist dailies as Pravda and Sovetskayua Rossia, in widely read youth magazine Molodaya Gvardia, not to mention dozens of smaller "patriotic" publications. Perhaps the most fascinating is the story of numerous "reincarnations" of the so-called Report on Ritual Murders produced 150 years ago for the Czar Nicholas I by a completely forgotten bureaucrat. Later it was reprinted under a glorious name of Vladimir Dal, one of the most prominent figures in Russian culture of 19th century; and today this book--under Dal's name again--has been widely circulating in numerous different editions all over the country, sowing fear and hatred into thousands of ignorant and credulous souls. Mr. Reznik proves that Vladimir Dal had nothing to do with this lampoon. Another fascinating story told in the book might sound familiar to the Jewish Chronicle readers. It is related to a political scandal that erupted a few years ago after the U.S. Information Agency had invited to this country on the taxpayers expense a group of Russian anti-Semitic writers to discuss "Cultural and Ethnic Diversity in the Soviet Union" during a month-long trip. The list of the names included the most outspoken Russian Red-Brown ideologists. The level of ignorance of organizers of the event was really outstanding: It was as some