The Shield

By Leonid Andreyev

How does a state turn prejudice into policy, and what happens to those forced to live beneath it? This wide-ranging historical anthology confronts the Jewish question in Russia through essays, studies, reports, speeches and stories, exposing a system in which residence, education, professional life and civil rights were constrained by imperial rule. Political argument stands beside testimony and fiction, allowing public injustice to be examined through both analysis and human experience. Across sharply differing perspectives, contributors address anti-Semitic propaganda, pogroms and the struggle for Jewish emancipation without reducing Jewish life to persecution alone. Military service, economic participation and communal solidarity reveal the contradictions of a society that demanded obligations while withholding equality. Firsthand accounts of wartime displacement and refugee relief bring the consequences of discrimination into immediate focus, while fictional treatments explore persecution, shared humanity and the moral claims of justice. Edited by Maksim Gorky, Leonid Andreyev and Fyodor Sologub, the collection links the campaign against Jewish disabilities to the wider question of political reform. Its movement between legal scrutiny, social observation, humanitarian reporting and imaginative literature creates a layered record of inequality and resistance, extending from the Pale of Settlement to refugee centres in Crimea. The range of forms preserves debate as well as witness, showing how law, public rhetoric and collective action shaped lives under pressure. This book was out of print for decades and is now republished by Alpha Editions. It has been restored for today's and future generations. This edition is not just a reprint - it's a collector's item and a cultural treasure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9309338113
• ISBN13: 9789309338113
• Release Date: March 2027
• Publisher: Alpha Edition
• Length: 90 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"