Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav, "In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union" (Stanford UP, 2026)
About this episode
The episode discusses an anthology that offers a unique perspective on the Holocaust through the short fiction of Jewish writers from the Soviet Union.
In their anthology, In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union (Stanford University Press, 2026), Sasha Senderovitch and Harriet Murav provide an underappreciated perspective on the Holocaust, as it was experienced and remembered in the former Soviet Union. In these works, Jewish authors from Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Belarus, writing in Yiddish and Russian, tell the stories of ordinary people living on after the devastation of the Holocaust. Filled with memories, love, and loss, these narratives describe not only how people died, but also how they continued to live. Despite the official view in the Soviet Union that Jewish deaths should be subsumed under the larger tragedy of Nazi Germany's invasion, Jews in the USSR profoundly engaged with thinking about and memorializing the Holocaust, addressing it in a wide range of literary works. Interviewees: Sasha Senderovich is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures and of International Studies at the University of Washington. Harriet Murav is Center for Advanced Study Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an…
People in this episode
Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield
Guests: Sasha Senderovich, Harriet Murav
Topics covered
- Holocaust
- Jewish literature
- Soviet Union
- memory
- short fiction
Keywords
- Holocaust
- Jewish writers
- Soviet Union
- short fiction
- literary works
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Stanford University Press
Books & works: In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union
Places: Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus
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