Digital Videoarchive

On August 12th 2012, an event took place in London to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the execution of thirteen members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee by Stalin's regime. Gennady Estraikh, Associate Professor at New York University, gave a talk entitled "Why did Stalin murder Yiddish writers?". Five of the murdered JAFC members were writers. Five Leaves has recently published new translations of the work of those (and other) writers in a book edited by Joseph Sherman entitled 'From Revolution to Repression: Soviet Yiddish Writing 1917-1952'. This book was launched at the same event.

During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of European and American writers, professionals, scientists, artists and intellectuals made a pilgrimage to experience the "Soviet experiment" for themselves. The reception of these intellectuals and fellow travelers and their encounters in order to analyze Soviet attitudes toward the West are the subject of a new book by Michael David-Fox. Speaker Biography: Michael David-Fox is associate professor in the Department of History and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of "Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929" and a founding editor of the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History.