{"product_id":"questionable-people-inventing-modern-jewish-selves-in-the-russian-empire-1860-1890-9780815638605","title":"Questionable People: Inventing Modern Jewish Selves in the Russian Empire, 1860-1890","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the 1860s, a series of reforms imposed by Tsar Alexander II dramatically began modernizing and reshaping life in imperial Russia. However, for a generation of Jewish artists and intellectuals educated under earlier doctrines, the reforms became an opportunity to interrogate and construct a new view of Jewish identity. \u003ci\u003eQuestionable People: Inventing Modern Jewish Selves in the Russian Empire, 1860-1890\u003c\/i\u003e explores how these young intellectuals, the maskilim, used self-expression, fashion, dress, and their artistic work to define themselves. Differentiating themselves from what came before, maskilim crafted Jewish identities within a modernizing Russia. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhile many surveys of the Great Reforms and Jews in the Russian Empire examine assimilation and urbanization, \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eQuestionable People\u003c\/i\u003e focuses on the reformers themselves, their self-construction and work as unique to their era, rather than part of a larger transitional moment. Svetlana Natkovich analyzes the maskilim as a group existing between social and economic classes in a time of change, a generation of thinkers forced to radically assert their selfhoods. \u003ci\u003eQuestionable People\u003c\/i\u003e locates the common ground between the social and intellectual histories of Jewish modernization.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSvetlana Natkovich\u003c\/b\u003e is a senior lecturer in the department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa. She has held fellowships at Stanford University, Hebrew University, and the Simon Dubnow Institute in Leipzig.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Syracuse University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51424455557394,"sku":"9780815638605","price":71.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7ce9b893-3c81-4228-a22d-e78ad7efc6c1.jpg?v=1751378466","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/questionable-people-inventing-modern-jewish-selves-in-the-russian-empire-1860-1890-9780815638605","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}