The People of the Book in the World of Books is a Russian bimonthly publication for serious readers with Jewish interests. Our English website includes only the summaries of the published articles. To access the complete text of them, please visit the Russian version of this website.


120

February 2016

This issue of the magazine includes:


• Sholem Aleichem Forever: A Forgotten Pamphlet


2016 marks the one hundredth anniversary of Sholem Aleichem’s death. In honor of the occasion, the magazine has revived its special section on the legacy of this classic Yiddish writer. In this issue, we feature a new Russian translation of Sholem Aleichem’s famous anti-war pamphlet Der feter Pini mit der mume Reyzi (Uncle Pini and Aunt Reyzi). It was published in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, and was soon placed on the list of banned books by the Russian authorities.


Response: Instead of an Obituary


The Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco passed away on February 19, 2016. In light of his recent death, any mention of his name, even in a brief, sarcastic review, can be read as an obituary. In fact, this hard-hitting text was being written when Eco was still alive and could have been published before he died. It deals not with Eco himself but with his Russian translator Elena Kostioukovitch or, to be more exact, with her introduction to Eco’s novel The Prague Cemetery, published in Russian for the first time in 2012 and republished in 2015. The novel focuses on the history of the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion and, in terms of its content, is the most “Jewish” of the writer’s works. For some reason, the translator ventured to explain to Eco’s readers the identity of the Jews and their history in Europe. The reviewer cites the numerous historical errors in Kostioukovitch’s preface. “It’s a shame for the late writer: illiterate prattle should not be made to embellish a work by one of Europe’s most educated men,” he concludes.


Looking through Russian Literary Magazines: Novels and Articles of Jewish Interest


Jewish Calendar of Significant Dates: March–April 2016


Bibliography: 25 New Books