One of my main fascination with the history of mentalities - my favorite historical method of interpretation - is how it integrates the simple, apparently disparate, facts into a longer perspective, the so-called braudelian ´longue durée'. Thus, the general understanding of a long period of time deepens in relation to the ongoing mapping of spiritual and material facts, recreating the mental and intellectual environment of an epoch.
The multi-awarded In the Midst of Civilized Europe by Jeffrey Veidlinger is such an example of exceptional reconstruction of facts, based on a rich and newly discovered reservoir of sources, particularly interviews and personal testimonies. Facts often featured in historical references of Jewish history and regional Eastern/Russian European history like the pogroms between 1918 and 1921 to acquire a premonitory role in the Shoah. The more than 100,000 Jews killed during the pogroms were just the sad premonition of the 6 millions.
Particularly at the begining of the 20th century, the Jewish history of this part of Europe is written in one pogrom after another. The ones between 1904 and 1914 for instance, including the notorious Kishinev pogrom - magistrally described in the dramatic poem by Bialik In the City of Slaughter - , prompted a massive immigration to the Land of Israel, during the so-called second Aliya - HaAliya HaShniya. But the pogroms continued and took a higher intensity during the three years analysed in the book. The murder of innocent Jews was followed by massive looting of properties and devastation of the shtetl, whose image of a craddle of Yiddishkeit is about to take its last breath. It is a pattern that will be easily accepted few decades later, a couple of countries away, in Germany and replicated at different levels in many Central and Eastern European countries.
A warning that history may be undestood not only in terms of past occurrences but also from the point of view of the dots that should be connected to understand a bigger picture where past, present and future are dangerously melting together.
In the Midst of Civilized Europe was shortlisted for this year, 46th edition, of The Wingate Literary Prize, awarded to the best book - either fiction or non-fiction - translating the idea of Jewishness to the general reader. The prize was established in 1977 by late Harold Hyam Wingate and it is currently run in association with JW3, the Jewish Community Centre.
Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own
