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

More episodes of New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies

• Yiddish Ethnography and An-ski · May 29, 2026
• Gennady Estraikh, "The History of Birobidzhan: Building a Soviet Jewish Homeland in Siberia" (Bloombury, 2023) · April 26, 2026 · 1h 0m
• Stephen F. Jones, "The First Social Democracy: The Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921" (Harvard UP, 2026) · April 21, 2026 · 1h 5m
• Kristan Stoddart, "Russia's Hybrid Warfare Offensive Against the West" (de Gruyter, 2025) · April 19, 2026 · 1h 21m
• Donald Sassoon, "Revolutions: A New History" (Verso Books, 2025) · April 14, 2026 · 56 min
• Katharina Wiedlack, "Under Western Eyes: Vulnerable Minorities and the Russian State in New Cold War Cultures" (Academic Studies Press, 2025) · April 12, 2026 · 41 min