157-589: Birobidzhan (Russian: Биробиджан , IPA: [bʲɪrəbʲɪˈdʐan] ; Yiddish : ביראָבידזשאַן , IPA: [ˌbɪrɔbɪˈdʒan] ), also spelt Birobijan ( / ˌ b ɪr ə b ɪ ˈ dʒ ɑː n / BIRR-ə-bih-JAHN ), is a town and the administrative centre of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast , Russia , located on the Trans-Siberian Railway , near the China–Russia border . As of
314-597: A Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic . The Georgian Communist Party opposed the idea, resulting in the Georgian affair . In mid-1921, Stalin returned to the South Caucasus , calling on Georgian communists to reject the chauvinistic nationalism which he argued had marginalised the Abkhazian , Ossetian , and Adjarian minorities. In March 1921, Nadezhda gave birth to another of Stalin's sons, Vasily . After
471-682: A "danger from the right", including from within the Communist Party. The first major show trial in the USSR was the Shakhty Trial of 1928, in which middle-class "industrial specialists" were convicted of sabotage. From 1929 to 1930, show trials were held to intimidate opposition; these included the Industrial Party Trial , Menshevik Trial , and Metro-Vickers Trial . Aware that the ethnic Russian majority may have concerns about being ruled by
628-613: A Cossack marrying a Korean. Likewise, the Soviet Yiddish writer Emmanuil Kazakevich portrayed in a poem the achievement of Birobidzhan being declared the Jewish Autonomous Region on 7 May 1934 as an inter-communal event with the members of the Amur Cossack Host coming out to join the celebrations. Kazkevich's poem had a basis in reality-many members of the Amur Cossack Host hoped that Birobidzhan signalled Soviet interest in
785-405: A Georgian, he promoted ethnic Russians throughout the state bureaucracy and made Russian compulsory in schools, albeit in tandem with local languages. Nationalist sentiment was suppressed. Conservative social policies were promoted to boost population growth; this included a focus on strong family units, re-criminalisation of homosexuality , restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of
942-685: A Georgian, would help secure support from the empire's minority ethnicities. In February 1912, Stalin again escaped to Saint Petersburg, where he was tasked with converting the Bolshevik weekly newspaper, Zvezda ("Star") into a daily, Pravda ("Truth"). The new newspaper was launched in April 1912 and Stalin's role as editor was kept secret. In May 1912, he was again arrested and sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. In July, he arrived in Narym , where he shared
1099-635: A Soviet Zion: Birobidzhan celebrates its Jewish heritage", examined the current status of the city and suggested that, even though the Jewish Autonomous Region in Russia's far east is now barely 1% Jewish, officials hope to woo back people who left after Soviet collapse. Rabbi Eli Riss has set out to return the Jewish culture to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. The current slogan is "make Birobidzhan Jewish again". The people want this to include teaching Yiddish in
1256-530: A campaign of " de-Stalinisation ". Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, which revered him as a champion of socialism and the working class. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained a degree of popularity in post-Soviet states as an economic moderniser and victorious wartime leader who cemented
1413-596: A centralised command economy . Resulting disruptions to food production contributed to a famine in 1932–1933 which killed millions, including in the Holodomor in Ukraine. Between 1936 and 1938, Stalin eradicated his political opponents and those deemed " enemies of the working class " in the Great Purge , after which he had absolute control of the party and government. Under his regime, an estimated 18 million people passed through
1570-534: A collection of narrative poems on themes from the Hebrew Bible and the Haggadah . The advent of the printing press in the 16th century enabled the large-scale production of works, at a cheaper cost, some of which have survived. One particularly popular work was Elia Levita 's Bovo-Bukh ( בָּבָֿא-בּוך ), composed around 1507–08 and printed several times, beginning in 1541 (under the title Bovo d'Antona ). Levita,
1727-508: A daughter, Svetlana , in February 1926. In the wake of Lenin's death, a power struggle emerged to become his successor: alongside Stalin was Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin , Alexei Rykov , and Mikhail Tomsky . Stalin saw Trotsky—whom he personally despised —as the main obstacle to his dominance, and during Lenin's illness had formed an unofficial triumvirate ( troika ) with Kamanev and Zinoviev against him. Although Zinoviev
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#17328595683931884-530: A family friend, where he excelled academically. He faced health problems: an 1884 smallpox infection left him with facial scars, and at age 12 he was seriously injured when he was struck by a phaeton , causing a lifelong disability in his left arm. In 1894, Stalin enrolled as a trainee Russian Orthodox priest at the Tiflis Theological Seminary , enabled by a scholarship. He initially achieved high grades, but lost interest in his studies and
2041-473: A group dinner in the Kremlin in which Stalin flirted with other women, Nadezhda shot herself in the heart. Publicly, the cause of death was given as appendicitis ; Stalin also concealed the real cause of death from his children. Stalin's friends noted that he underwent a significant change following her suicide, becoming emotionally harder. Within the Soviet Union, civic disgruntlement against Stalin's government
2198-485: A lesser extent, the United Kingdom. This has resulted in some difficulty in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries. There is significant phonological variation among the various Yiddish dialects . The description that follows is of a modern Standard Yiddish that was devised during the early 20th century and is frequently encountered in pedagogical contexts. Uvular As in
2355-529: A massive stroke left Lenin partially paralysed. Residing at his Gorki dacha , his main connection to Sovnarkom was through Stalin. Despite their comradeship, Lenin disliked what he referred to as Stalin's "Asiatic" manner and told his sister Maria that Stalin was "not intelligent". The two men argued on the issue of foreign trade; Lenin believed that the Soviet state should have a monopoly on foreign trade, but Stalin supported Grigori Sokolnikov 's view that doing so
2512-746: A medical examiner ruled Stalin unfit for service due to his crippled arm. Stalin was required to serve four more months of his exile and successfully requested to serve it in Achinsk . Stalin was in the city when the February Revolution took place; the Tsar abdicated and the Empire became a de facto republic. In a celebratory mood, Stalin travelled by train to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg had been renamed) in March. He assumed control of Pravda alongside Lev Kamenev , and
2669-737: A member of the Central Committee and as an editor of Pravda . On 26 October 1917, Lenin declared himself chairman of the new government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). Stalin supported Lenin's decision not to form a coalition with the Socialist Revolutionary Party , although a coalition was formed with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries . Stalin became part of an informal leadership group alongside Lenin, Trotsky, and Sverdlov, and his importance within
2826-490: A quicklime production factory, and several foodstuff factories. Khabarovsk is the closest major city to Birobidzhan and provides the closest major airport access to it, which is Khabarovsk Novy Airport (KHV / UHHH), 198 km from the center of Birobidzhan. The Sholem Aleichem Amur State University works in cooperation with the local religious community. The university is unique in the Russian Far East . The basis of
2983-514: A room with fellow Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov . After two months, they escaped to Saint Petersburg, where Stalin continued work on Pravda . After the October 1912 Duma elections , Stalin wrote articles calling for reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; Lenin criticised him and he relented. In January 1913, Stalin travelled to Vienna , where he researched the "national question" of how
3140-626: Is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei, who published a paraphrase on the Book of Job in 1557. Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate in Hebrew but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore developed for which women were a primary audience. This included secular works, such as the Bovo-Bukh , and religious writing specifically for women, such as the צאנה וראינה Tseno Ureno and
3297-475: Is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews . It originated in 9th century Central Europe , and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew (notably Mishnaic ) and to some extent Aramaic . Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages . Yiddish has traditionally been written using
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#17328595683933454-478: Is a public school that offers a half-day Yiddish and Jewish curriculum for those parents who choose it. About half the school's 120 pupils are enrolled in the Yiddish course. Many of them continue on to Public School No. 2, which offers the same half-day Yiddish/Jewish curriculum from first through 12th grade. Yiddish is also offered at Birobidzhan's Pedagogical Institute, one of the only university-level Yiddish courses in
3611-480: Is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with "Ashkenazi Jewish", to designate attributes of Yiddishkeit ("Ashkenazi culture"; for example, Yiddish cooking and "Yiddish music" – klezmer ). Hebrew Judeo-Aramaic Judeo-Arabic Other Jewish diaspora languages Jewish folklore Jewish poetry By the 10th century, a distinctive Jewish culture had formed in Central Europe. By
3768-419: Is incorporated separately as the town of oblast significance of Birobidzhan —an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts . As a municipal division , the town of oblast significance of Birobidzhan is incorporated as Birobidzhan Urban Okrug . The chief economic activity is light industry, including textile and footwear. The city also has a vehicle repair factory, a furniture factory,
3925-411: Is next to a complex housing Sunday School classrooms, a library, a museum, and administrative offices. The buildings were officially opened in 2004 to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast . According to Israeli Rabbi Mordechai Scheiner , the former Chief Rabbi of Birobidzhan and Chabad Lubavitch representative to the region, "Today one can enjoy the benefits of
4082-493: Is printed in Hebrew script.) According to a study by the German media association Internationale Medienhilfe (IMH), more than 40 printed Yiddish newspapers and magazines were published worldwide in 2024, and the trend is rising. The Western Yiddish dialect—sometimes pejoratively labeled Mauscheldeutsch , i. e. "Moses German" —declined in the 18th century, as the Age of Enlightenment and
4239-506: Is pronounced [haɡˈdɔmɜ] . The vowel phonemes of Standard Yiddish are: In addition, the sonorants /l/ and /n/ can function as syllable nuclei : [m] and [ŋ] appear as syllable nuclei as well, but only as allophones of /n/ , after bilabial consonants and dorsal consonants , respectively. The syllabic sonorants are always unstressed. Stressed vowels in the Yiddish dialects may be understood by considering their common origins in
4396-588: Is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e.g., Kalonymos and Yiddish Todres ). Hebrew, on the other hand, was regarded as a holy language reserved for ritual and spiritual purposes and not for common use. The established view is that, as with other Jewish languages , Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. In the case of Yiddish, this scenario sees it as emerging when speakers of Zarphatic (Judeo-French) and other Judeo-Romance languages began to acquire varieties of Middle High German , and from these groups
4553-441: Is trying to make Birobidzhan a 'safe place for Jews' and has already stated that it is one of the few places he has been where he has not experienced any antisemitism. Birobidzhan is the administrative center of the autonomous oblast and, within the framework of administrative divisions , it also serves as the administrative center of Birobidzhansky District , even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it
4710-493: Is uncertain). An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is, used for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when Hebrew and Yiddish appear on the same page. This is commonly termed Rashi script , from the name of the most renowned early author, whose commentary is usually printed using this script. (Rashi is also the typeface normally used when the Sephardic counterpart to Yiddish, Judaeo-Spanish or Ladino ,
4867-662: The Aurora , opened fire on the Winter Palace ; the Provisional Government's assembled delegates surrendered and were arrested. Stalin, who had been tasked with briefing the Bolshevik delegates of the Second Congress of Soviets about the situation, had not played a publicly visible role. Trotsky and other later opponents used this as evidence his role had been insignificant, although historians reject this, citing his role as
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5024-553: The Foundations of Leninism , later published in book form. At the 13th Party Congress in May 1924, Lenin's Testament was read only to the leaders of the provincial delegations. Embarrassed by its contents, Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary; this act of humility saved him, and he was retained in the post. As General Secretary, Stalin had a free hand in making appointments to his own staff, and implanted loyalists throughout
5181-554: The Haskalah led to a view of Yiddish as a corrupt dialect. The 19th century Prussian-Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz , for example, wrote that "the language of the Jews [in Poland] ... degenerat[ed] into a ridiculous jargon, a mixture of German, Polish, and Talmudical elements, an unpleasant stammering, rendered still more repulsive by forced attempts at wit." A Maskil (one who takes part in
5338-676: The Zhenotdel women's department. Stalin desired a " cultural revolution ", entailing both the creation of a culture for the "masses" and the wider dissemination of previously elite culture. He oversaw a proliferation of schools, newspapers, and libraries, as well as advancement of literacy and numeracy . Socialist realism was promoted throughout the arts, while Stalin wooed prominent writers, namely Maxim Gorky , Mikhail Sholokhov , and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy . He expressed patronage for scientists whose research fit within his preconceived interpretation of Marxism; for instance, he endorsed
5495-472: The 11th Party Congress in March and April 1922, Lenin nominated Stalin as the party's General Secretary , which was intended as a purely organisational role. Although concerns were expressed that adopting the new position would overstretch his workload and grant him too much power, Stalin was appointed to the post. Stalin is too crude, and this defect which is entirely acceptable in our milieu and in relationships among us as communists, becomes unacceptable in
5652-664: The 2010 Census , its population is 75,413, and its official language is Yiddish . Birobidzhan is named after the two largest rivers in the autonomous oblast : the Bira and the Bidzhan . The Bira, which lies to the east of the Bidzhan Valley, flows through the town. Both rivers are tributaries of the Amur . Birobidzhan was planned by the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer , and established in 1931. It became
5809-512: The Battle of Warsaw in early August, which ended in a major defeat for the Red Army. Stalin then returned to Moscow, where Tukhachevsky blamed him for the loss. Humiliated, he demanded demission from the military, which was granted on 1 September. At the 9th Party Congress in late September, Trotsky accused Stalin of "strategic mistakes" and claimed that he had sabotaged the campaign; Lenin joined in
5966-636: The Communist International in March 1919; Stalin attended its inaugural ceremony. Although Stalin did not share Lenin's belief that Europe's proletariat were on the verge of revolution, he acknowledged that Soviet Russia remained vulnerable. In February 1920, he was appointed to head the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (Rabkrin); that same month he was also transferred to the Caucasian Front. The Polish–Soviet War broke out in early 1920, with
6123-718: The Decree on Nationality , granting ethnic minorities the right to secession and self-determination. He travelled to Helsingfors to meet with the Finnish Social Democrats , and granted Finland's request for independence from Russia in December. Due to the threats posed by the First World War , in March 1918 the government relocated from Petrograd to the Moscow Kremlin . Stalin supported Lenin's desire to sign an armistice with
6280-602: The Gulag system of forced labour camps , and more than six million were deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union , which together resulted in millions of deaths. Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements, including in the Spanish Civil War . In 1939, his government signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany , enabling
6437-650: The Haskalah ) would write about and promote acclimatization to the outside world. Jewish children began attending secular schools where the primary language spoken and taught was German, not Yiddish. Yiddish grates on our ears and distorts. This jargon is incapable in fact of expressing sublime thoughts. It is our obligation to cast off these old rags, a heritage of the dark Middle Ages. – Osip Aronovich Rabinovich , in an article titled "Russia – Our Native Land: Just as We Breathe Its Air, We Must Speak Its Language" in
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6594-587: The Hebrew alphabet . Prior to World War II , there were 11–13 million speakers. Eighty-five percent of the approximately six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, leading to a massive decline in the use of the language. Assimilation following World War II and aliyah (immigration to Israel) further decreased the use of Yiddish among survivors after adapting to Hebrew in Israel. However,
6751-570: The High Holy Days ) and בֵּיתֿ הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ , 'synagogue' (read in Yiddish as beis hakneses ) – had been included. The niqqud appears as though it might have been added by a second scribe, in which case it may need to be dated separately and may not be indicative of the pronunciation of the rhyme at the time of its initial annotation. Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in Yiddish, and macaronic pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear. These were collected in
6908-568: The Middle High German diphthong ei and long vowel î to /aɪ/ , Yiddish has maintained the distinction between them; and likewise, the Standard German /ɔʏ/ corresponds to both the MHG diphthong öu and the long vowel iu , which in Yiddish have merged with their unrounded counterparts ei and î , respectively. Lastly, the Standard German /aʊ/ corresponds to both the MHG diphthong ou and
7065-476: The North Caucasus , Southern Russia, and Central Asia, reaching their apex in March 1930; these were suppressed by the army. Stalin responded with an article insisting that collectivisation was voluntary and blaming violence on local officials. Although he and Stalin had been close for many years, Bukharin expressed concerns and regarded them as a return to Lenin's old " war communism " policy. By mid-1928, he
7222-525: The Odessan journal Рассвет (dawn), 1861. Owing to both assimilation to German and the revival of Hebrew , Western Yiddish survived only as a language of "intimate family circles or of closely knit trade groups". In eastern Europe, the response to these forces took the opposite direction, with Yiddish becoming the cohesive force in a secular culture (see the Yiddishist movement ). Notable Yiddish writers of
7379-754: The Okhrana , became aware of Stalin's activities and attempted to arrest him in March 1901, but he went into hiding and began living off donations from friends. He helped plan a demonstration in Tiflis on May Day 1901 at which 3,000 marchers clashed with the authorities. In November 1901, Stalin was elected to the Tiflis Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), a Marxist party founded in 1898. That month, Stalin travelled to Batumi . His militant rhetoric proved divisive among
7536-665: The RSDLP's Fourth Congress in Stockholm , where the party—then led by its Menshevik majority—agreed that it would not raise funds using armed robbery. Lenin and Stalin disagreed with this, and privately discussed continuing the robberies for the Bolshevik cause. Stalin married Kato Svanidze in July 1906, and in March 1907 she gave birth to their son Yakov . Stalin, who by now had established himself as "Georgia's leading Bolshevik", in June 1907 organised
7693-423: The Red Terror , arguing that state violence was an effective tool for capitalist powers. Unlike some Bolsheviks, Stalin never expressed concern about the Cheka's rapid expansion and the Red Terror. Having left his role as Pravda editor, Stalin was appointed the People's Commissar for Nationalities. He took Nadezhda Alliluyeva as his secretary, later marrying her in early 1919. In November 1917, he signed
7850-432: The Slavic languages with which Yiddish was long in contact (Russian, Belarusian , Polish , and Ukrainian ), but unlike German, voiceless stops have little to no aspiration ; unlike many such languages, voiced stops are not devoiced in final position. Moreover, Yiddish has regressive voicing assimilation , so that, for example, זאָגט /zɔɡt/ ('says') is pronounced [zɔkt] and הקדמה /hakˈdɔmɜ/ ('foreword')
8007-482: The Soviet invasion of Poland . Germany broke the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, leading Stalin to join the Allies of World War II . Despite huge losses, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending the war in Europe . The Soviet Union, which had annexed the Baltic states and territories from Finland and Romania amid the war, established Soviet-aligned states in Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union and
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#17328595683938164-437: The Stakhanovite movement were introduced. Stalin argued that socialism was being established in the USSR while capitalism was crumbling during the Great Depression . His rhetoric reflected his utopian vision of the " new Soviet person " rising to unparallelled heights of human development. In 1928, Stalin declared that class war between the proletariat and their enemies would intensify as socialism developed. He warned of
8321-478: The Yiddish culture and not be afraid to return to their Jewish traditions. It's safe without any anti-Semitism , and we plan to open the first Jewish day school here." Scheiner also hosted the Russian television show, Yiddishkeit in the region. His student, actually born in Birobidzhan, Rabbi Eliyahu Riss, has taken over the reins since 2010. The orthodox synagogue opened in 2004. Rabbi Scheiner says there are 4,000 Jews in Birobidzhan, just over 5 percent of
8478-540: The administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in 1934, and town status was granted to it in 1937. The 36,000 km of Birobidzhan were approved by the Politburo on March 28, 1928. After the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviet Union contained two organizations that worked with the Jews settling into Birobidzhan, the KOMZET and OZET . The organizations were responsible for distribution of land as well as domestic responsibilities, ranging from moving to medical assistance. Many Jewish Canadians then gave their support to
8635-482: The first five-year plan was launched by Stalin with a main focus on boosting Soviet heavy industry; it was finished a year ahead of schedule, in 1932. The country underwent a massive economic transformation: new mines were opened, new cities like Magnitogorsk constructed, and work on the White Sea–Baltic Canal began. Millions of peasants moved to the cities, and large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery. Many major construction projects, including
8792-451: The high medieval period , their area of settlement, centered on the Rhineland ( Mainz ) and the Palatinate (notably Worms and Speyer ), came to be known as Ashkenaz , originally a term used of Scythia , and later of various areas of Eastern Europe and Anatolia. In the medieval Hebrew of Rashi (d. 1105), Ashkenaz becomes a term for Germany, and אשכּנזי Ashkenazi for the Jews settling in this area. Ashkenaz bordered on
8949-728: The robbery of a bank stagecoach in Tiflis in order to fund the Bolsheviks' activities. His gang ambushed the convoy in Erivansky Square with gunfire and home-made bombs; around 40 people were killed, but all his gang escaped. Stalin settled in Baku with his wife and son, where Mensheviks confronted him about the robbery and voted to expel him from the RSDLP, but he ignored them. Stalin secured Bolshevik domination of Baku's RSDLP branch and edited two Bolshevik newspapers. In November 1907, his wife died of typhus , and he left his son with her family in Tiflis. In Baku he reassembled his gang, which attacked Black Hundreds and raised money through racketeering, counterfeiting, robberies and kidnapping
9106-494: The totalitarian political system he established became known as Stalinism . Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori , Russian Empire , Stalin attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party . He raised funds for Vladimir Lenin 's Bolshevik faction through robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets , and edited the party's newspaper, Pravda . Repeatedly arrested, he underwent internal exiles to Siberia . After
9263-431: The תחנות Tkhines . One of the best-known early woman authors was Glückel of Hameln , whose memoirs are still in print. The segmentation of the Yiddish readership, between women who read מאַמע־לשון mame-loshn but not לשון־קדש loshn-koydesh , and men who read both, was significant enough that distinctive typefaces were used for each. The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish
9420-444: The 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, YIVO . In Vilnius , there was debate over which language should take primacy, Hebrew or Yiddish. Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. Michael Wex writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic vocabulary that
9577-435: The 2nd highest division, the Russian Bandy Supreme League , until the 2016–17 season. However, in 2017–18 the team did not play in the league. Birobidzhan is twinned with: Yiddish language Yiddish ( ייִדיש , יידיש or אידיש , yidish or idish , pronounced [ˈ(j)ɪdɪʃ] , lit. ' Jewish ' ; ייִדיש-טײַטש , historically also Yidish-Taytsh , lit. ' Judeo-German ' )
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#17328595683939734-472: The Ashkenazi community took shape. Exactly what German substrate underlies the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed. The Jewish community in the Rhineland would have encountered the Middle High German dialects from which the Rhenish German dialects of the modern period would emerge. Jewish communities of the high medieval period would have been speaking their own versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they themselves brought into
9891-447: The Bolshevik newspaper offices, smashing machinery and presses; Stalin salvaged some of the equipment. In the early hours of 25 October, Stalin joined Lenin in a Central Committee meeting in Petrograd's Smolny Institute , from where the Bolshevik coup—the October Revolution —was directed. Bolshevik militia seized Petrograd's power station, main post office, state bank, telephone exchange, and several bridges. A Bolshevik-controlled ship,
10048-416: The Bolshevik ranks grew. Stalin's office was near Lenin's in the Smolny Institute, and he and Trotsky had direct access to Lenin without an appointment. Stalin co-signed Lenin's decrees shutting down hostile newspapers, and co-chaired the committee drafting a constitution for the newly-formed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic . He supported Lenin's formation of the Cheka security service and
10205-407: The Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution of 1917, Stalin joined the governing Politburo , and following Lenin's death in 1924 , won the struggle to lead the country . Under Stalin, the doctrine of socialism in one country became central to the party's ideology . His five-year plans , launched in 1928, led to agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation , establishing
10362-426: The Bolsheviks should deal with the Empire's national and ethnic minorities. His article " Marxism and the National Question " was first published in the March, April, and May 1913 issues of the Bolshevik journal Prosveshcheniye under the pseudonym "K. Stalin". The alias, which he had used since 1912, is derived from the Russian for steel ( stal ), and has been translated as "Man of Steel". In February 1913, Stalin
10519-425: The Central Committee by displaying decisiveness and determination. However, he also disregarded orders and repeatedly threatened to resign when affronted. In November 1919, the government awarded him the Order of the Red Banner for his service. The Bolsheviks won the main phase of the civil war by the end of 1919. By that time, Sovnarkom had turned its attention to spreading proletarian revolution abroad, forming
10676-417: The Central Powers; Stalin thought this necessary because he—unlike Lenin—was unconvinced that Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution . The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March 1918, ceding vast territories and angering many in Russia; the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries withdrew from the coalition government. The Bolsheviks were renamed the Russian Communist Party . In May 1918, during
10833-559: The Communist International, Stalin's government exerted a strong influence over Marxist parties elsewhere; he left the running of the organisation to Bukharin before his ousting. At its 6th Congress in July 1928, Stalin informed delegates that the main threat to socialism came from non-Marxist socialists and social democrats , whom he called " social fascists "; Stalin recognised that in many countries, these groups were Marxist–Leninists' main rivals for working-class support. This focus on opposing rival leftists concerned Bukharin, who regarded
10990-413: The Empire in the Revolution of 1905 . Stalin was in Baku in February when ethnic violence broke out between Armenians and Azeris, and formed Bolshevik "battle squads" which he used to keep the city's warring ethnic factions apart. His armed squads also attacked local police and troops, raided arsenals, and raised funds via protection rackets on large local businesses and mines. In November 1905,
11147-410: The Georgian Bolsheviks elected Stalin as one of their delegates to a Bolshevik conference in Tampere, Finland , where he met Lenin for the first time. Although Stalin held Lenin in deep respect, he vocally disagreed with his view that the Bolsheviks should field candidates for the 1906 election to the State Duma ; Stalin viewed parliamentary process as a waste of time. In April 1906, Stalin attended
11304-533: The Jewish population into the Soviet population. The language would ensure 'national in form, socialist in content' was being followed by the Soviet Jewry. Many government officials in the Kremlin were under the impression that Birobidzhan was to become the new center for Soviet Jewish life, which is why Jewish migration to Birobidzhan was strongly pushed during the 1920s. The Jewish religious community in Birobidzhan
11461-417: The Jewish population made up less than twenty percent of the overall population. Shortly after World War II, the Jewish population in the region reached its peak of about 30,000. As of the mid-2010s, only about 2,000 Jews remain in the region, making up about one half of a percent of the population. Yiddish, at that time widely regarded as the lingua franca of the Jewish community, was meant to help integrate
11618-633: The Marxist newspaper Proletariatis Brdzola ("Proletarian Struggle") with Filipp Makharadze . During his exile, the RSDLP had become divided between Vladimir Lenin's " Bolshevik " faction and Julius Martov 's " Mensheviks ". Stalin, who detested many Mensheviks in Georgia, aligned himself with the Bolsheviks. In January 1905, government troops massacred protesters in Saint Petersburg and unrest spread across
11775-643: The Poles invading Ukraine, and in May, Stalin was moved to the Southwest Front. Lenin believed that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support an invasion, but Stalin argued that nationalism would lead them to support their government's war effort. Stalin lost the argument and accepted Lenin's decision. On his front, Stalin became determined to conquer Lvov ; in focusing on this goal, he disobeyed orders to transfer his troops to assist Mikhail Tukhachevsky 's forces at
11932-569: The Politburo approved the "liquidation" of the kulak class, which was exiled to other parts of the country or concentration camps. By July 1930, over 320,000 households had been affected. According to Dmitri Volkogonov , de-kulakisation was "the first mass terror applied by Stalin in his own country." In 1929, the Politburo announced the mass collectivisation of agriculture , establishing both kolkhoz collective farms and sovkhoz state farms. Although officially voluntary, many peasants joined
12089-548: The Proto-Yiddish sound system. Yiddish linguistic scholarship uses a system developed by Max Weinreich in 1960 to indicate the descendent diaphonemes of the Proto-Yiddish stressed vowels. Each Proto-Yiddish vowel is given a unique two-digit identifier, and its reflexes use it as a subscript, for example Southeastern o 11 is the vowel /o/, descended from Proto-Yiddish */a/. The first digit indicates Proto-Yiddish quality (1-=*[a], 2-=*[e], 3-=*[i], 4-=*[o], 5-=*[u]), and
12246-573: The Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach. They had concerns about those who profited from the policy: affluent peasants known as " kulaks " and small business owners, or " NEPmen ". At this point, Stalin turned against the NEP, which put him on a course to the "left" even of Trotsky or Zinoviev. In early 1928, Stalin travelled to Novosibirsk , where he alleged that kulaks were hoarding grain and ordered them be arrested and their grain confiscated, with Stalin bringing much of
12403-580: The Saviour , destroyed in 1931 to make way for the Palace of the Soviets . Religion retained an influence over the population; in the 1937 census , 57% of respondents were willing to admit to being religious. Throughout the 1920s, Stalin placed a priority on foreign policy. He personally met with a range of Western visitors, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells , both of whom were impressed with him. Through
12560-722: The Soviet Union as a major world power. Conversely, his regime has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repressions , ethnic cleansing , and famines which caused the deaths of millions . Stalin was born on 18 December [ O.S. 6 December] 1878 in Gori , Georgia , then part of the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire . An ethnic Georgian , his birth name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili ( Russified as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili). His parents were Besarion Jughashvili and Ekaterine Geladze ; Stalin
12717-610: The Soviet Union by becoming either members or sympathizers with the Communist Party of Canada . Jewish communists believed that the Soviet Union's creation of Birobidzhan was the "only true and sensible solution to the national question." The Soviet government used the slogan "To the Jewish Homeland!" to encourage Jewish workers to move to Birobidzhan. The slogan proved successful in convincing Soviet Jews as well as Jews from other countries. In 1935, Ambijan received permission from
12874-584: The Soviet government to aid Jewish families traveling to Birobidzhan from Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Germany. Jewish workers and engineers traveled to Birobidzhan from Argentina and the United States as well. This campaign by the Soviet government was known as the Birobidzhan Experiment. Although Birobidzhan was meant to serve as a home for the Jewish population, the idea struggled to become reality. There were no important cultural connections between
13031-499: The United States and Latin America came to Birobidzhan because of Bergelson. On his 68th birthday in 1952, Bergelson was among those executed during Stalin's antisemitic campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. In the Russian language play Novaia rodina ( New Homeland ) by the Soviet playwright Victor Fink celebrated Birobidzhan as
13188-577: The United States emerged as global superpowers , and entered a period of tension known as the Cold War . Stalin presided over post-war reconstruction and the first Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another famine and a state-sponsored antisemitic campaign culminating in the " doctors' plot ". In 1953, Stalin died after suffering a stroke, and was succeeded as leader by Georgy Malenkov and later by Nikita Khrushchev , who in 1956 denounced Stalin's rule and initiated
13345-519: The White Sea–Baltic Canal and the Moscow Metro , were constructed largely through forced labour. The last elements of workers' control over industry were removed, with factory managers receiving privileges; Stalin defended wage disparity by pointing to Marx's argument that it was necessary during the lower stages of socialism. To promote intensification of labour, medals and awards as well as
13502-580: The area inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardi Jews , who ranged into southern France . Ashkenazi culture later spread into Eastern Europe with large-scale population migrations. Nothing is known with certainty about the vernacular of the earliest Jews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. As noted above, the first language of the Ashkenazim may have been Aramaic ,
13659-539: The area, more than half the Jewish settlers who relocated to Birobidzhan after the initial settlement did not remain. When the Stalinist purges began, shortly after the creation of Birobidzhan, Jews there were targeted. Following World War II, tens of thousands of displaced Eastern European Jews found their way to Birobidzhan from 1946 to 1948. Some were Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews who were not allowed to return to their original homes. However, Jews were once again targeted in
13816-570: The children of wealthy figures for ransom. In March 1908, Stalin was arrested and imprisoned in Baku. He led the imprisoned Bolsheviks, organised discussion groups, and ordered the killing of suspected informants. He was sentenced to two years of exile in Solvychegodsk in northern Russia, arriving there in February 1909. In June, Stalin escaped to Saint Petersburg, but was arrested again in March 1910 and sent back to Solvychegodsk. In June 1911, Stalin
13973-810: The city's Marxists, some of whom suspected that he was an agent provocateur . Stalin began working at the Rothschild refinery storehouse, where he co-organised two workers' strikes. After the strike leaders were arrested, he co-organised a mass demonstration which led to the storming of the prison. Stalin was arrested in April 1902 and sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia , arriving in Novaya Uda in November 1903. After one failed attempt, Stalin escaped from his exile in January 1904 and travelled to Tiflis, where he co-edited
14130-484: The civil war, workers' strikes and peasant uprisings broke out across Russia in opposition to Sovnarkom's food requisitioning project; in response, Lenin introduced market-oriented reforms in the New Economic Policy (NEP). There was also turmoil within the Communist Party, as Trotsky led a faction calling for abolition of trade unions; Lenin opposed this, and Stalin helped rally opposition to Trotsky's position. At
14287-446: The collectives out of fear they would face the fate of the kulaks. By 1932, about 62% of households involved in agriculture were part of collectives, and by 1936 this had risen to 90%. Many collectivised peasants resented the loss of their private farmland, and productivity slumped. Famine broke out in many areas, with the Politburo frequently being forced to dispatch emergency food relief. Armed peasant uprisings broke out in Ukraine,
14444-505: The coming together of three communities-the Koreans, the Amur Cossacks and the Jews. Each community has its own good and bad characters, but ultimately the good characters from each community learn to co-operate and work with each other. To symbolize the unity achieved, the play ends with mixed marriages with one Jewish character marrying a Korean, another Jewish character marrying a Cossack and
14601-465: The country. Today, the town's fourteen public schools must teach Yiddish and Jewish tradition. Birobidzhan experiences a harsh, monsoon-influenced humid continental climate ( Köppen climate classification Dwb ) that is typified by very large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and severely cold (and dry) winters. January has never had an above-freezing temperature. The bandy club Nadezhda has been playing in
14758-475: The criticism. Stalin felt disgraced and his antipathy toward Trotsky increased. The Soviet government sought to bring neighbouring states under its domination; in February 1921 it invaded the Menshevik-governed Georgia , and in April 1921, Stalin ordered the Red Army into Turkestan to reassert Soviet control. As People's Commissar for Nationalities, Stalin believed that each ethnic group had
14915-422: The document, suggesting that it was written by Krupskaya; Stalin never publicly voiced concerns about its authenticity. Most historians consider it an accurate reflection of Lenin's views. Upon Lenin's death in January 1924, Stalin took charge of the funeral and was a pallbearer. To bolster his image as a devoted Leninist amid his growing personality cult , Stalin gave nine lectures at Sverdlov University on
15072-548: The earliest named Yiddish author, may also have written פּאַריז און װיענע Pariz un Viene ( Paris and Vienna ). Another Yiddish retelling of a chivalric romance, װידװילט Vidvilt (often referred to as "Widuwilt" by Germanizing scholars), presumably also dates from the 15th century, although the manuscripts are from the 16th. It is also known as Kinig Artus Hof , an adaptation of the Middle High German romance Wigalois by Wirnt von Grafenberg . Another significant writer
15229-528: The end of the high medieval period. It is first recorded in 1272, with the oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish, a blessing found in the Worms machzor (a Hebrew prayer book). This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in an otherwise purely Hebrew text. Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or less regular Middle High German written in the Hebrew alphabet into which Hebrew words – מַחֲזוֹר , makhazor (prayerbook for
15386-445: The extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern (Swiss–Alsatian–Southern German), Midwestern (Central German), and Northwestern (Netherlandic–Northern German) dialects. Yiddish is used in a number of Haredi Jewish communities worldwide; it is the first language of the home, school, and in many social settings among many Haredi Jews, and is used in most Hasidic yeshivas . The term "Yiddish"
15543-476: The grain back to Moscow with him in February. At his command, grain procurement squads surfaced across West Siberia and the Urals, with violence breaking out between the squads and the peasantry. Stalin announced that kulaks and the "middle peasants" must be coerced into releasing their harvest. Bukharin and other Central Committee members were angered that they had not been consulted about the measure. In January 1930,
15700-460: The growth of fascism and the far right across Europe as a greater threat. In 1929, Stalin's son Yakov unsuccessfully attempted suicide, shooting himself in the chest and narrowly missing his heart; his failure earned the contempt of Stalin, who is reported to have brushed off the attempt by saying "He can't even shoot straight." His relationship with Nadezhda was strained amid their arguments and her mental health problems. In November 1932, after
15857-565: The intensifying Russian Civil War , Sovnarkom sent Stalin to Tsaritsyn to take charge of food procurement in Southern Russia. Eager to prove himself as a commander, he took control of regional military operations and befriended Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny , who later formed the core of his military support base. Stalin sent large numbers of Red Army troops to battle the region's White armies , resulting in heavy losses and drawing Lenin's concern. In Tsaritsyn, Stalin commanded
16014-536: The land and the Jewish settlers. The growing population was culturally diverse, with some settlers focused on being modern Russian citizens, some disillusioned by modern cultures with a desire to work the land and promote socialist ideals, with few interested in establishing a cultural homeland. Ulterior motives generated by the Soviet government were the primary reasons for the Jewish relocation to Birobidzhan. They were strategically relocated from their native areas of Ukraine , Belarus as Jewish settlement of these regions
16171-483: The language's origins, with points of contention being the characterization of its Germanic base, the source of its Hebrew/Aramaic adstrata , and the means and location of this fusion. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base. The two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been parallel developments in
16328-525: The late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali Oldendorf. During the same period, a tradition seems to have emerged of the Jewish community's adapting its own versions of German secular literature. The earliest Yiddish epic poem of this sort is the Dukus Horant , which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the Cairo Geniza in 1896, and also contains
16485-659: The late 19th and early 20th centuries are Sholem Yankev Abramovitch, writing as Mendele Mocher Sforim ; Sholem Rabinovitsh, widely known as Sholem Aleichem , whose stories about טבֿיה דער מילכיקער ( Tevye der milkhiker , " Tevye the Dairyman") inspired the Broadway musical and film Fiddler on the Roof ; and Isaac Leib Peretz . In the early 20th century, especially after the Socialist October Revolution in Russia, Yiddish
16642-522: The limitations of its origins. There were few Yiddish words for animals and birds. It had virtually no military vocabulary. Such voids were filled by borrowing from German , Polish and Russian . Yiddish was particularly good at borrowing: from Arabic , from Hebrew , from Aramaic and from anything with which it intersected. On the other hand, it contributed to English – American . [sic] Its chief virtue lay in its internal subtlety, particularly in its characterization of human types and emotions. It
16799-423: The local Cheka branch to execute suspected counter-revolutionaries, often without trial, and purged the military and food collection agencies of middle-class specialists, whom were also executed. His use of state violence was at a greater scale than most Bolshevik leaders approved of, for instance, he ordered several villages torched to ensure compliance with his food procurement program. In December 1918, Stalin
16956-512: The long vowel û , but in Yiddish, they have not merged. Although Standard Yiddish does not distinguish between those two diphthongs and renders both as /ɔɪ/ , the distinction becomes apparent when the two diphthongs undergo Germanic umlaut , such as in forming plurals: The vowel length distinctions of German do not exist in the Northeastern (Lithuanian) varieties of Yiddish, which form the phonetic basis for Standard Yiddish. In those varieties,
17113-479: The mid-1950s. In Weinreich's view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two distinct versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary and constructions needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, sometimes not accepted as a fully autonomous language. Yiddish was a rich, living language, the chattering tongue of an urban population. It had
17270-421: The most fit for the journey. The Russian Empire had the largest Jewish population in the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the majority of them were Ashkenazi Jews . Large numbers of them remained even after 2 million of them departed for other countries prior to the formation of the Soviet Union. While thousands of Jews migrated to Birobidzhan, the hardship and isolation caused most to leave. In 1939
17427-586: The most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century, the language was more commonly called "Jewish", especially in non-Jewish contexts, but "Yiddish" is again the most common designation today. Modern Yiddish has two major forms : Eastern and Western. Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern (Ukrainian–Romanian), Mideastern (Polish–Galician–Eastern Hungarian) and Northeastern (Lithuanian–Belarusian) dialects. Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by
17584-521: The most prominent Yiddish writers of the time—the founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms." The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and there was a similar but smaller increase in the English component of Yiddish in the United States and, to
17741-732: The neglected region along the banks of the Amur river. Canadian Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson was vice president of Ambijan, or the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, which was a supplementary group that was combined with ICOR in 1946. His support of Birobidzhan as a new homeland for Jewish families consisted of appearing at meetings in support of the relocation of Jews to Birobidzhan as well as advocating for families who truly wished to travel rather than those who were
17898-456: The number of Yiddish-speakers is increasing in Hasidic communities. In 2014, YIVO stated that "most people who speak Yiddish in their daily lives are Hasidim and other Haredim ", whose population was estimated at the time to be between 500,000 and 1 million. A 2021 estimate from Rutgers University was that there were 250,000 American speakers, 250,000 Israeli speakers, and 100,000 in the rest of
18055-535: The paper's office and took charge of his safety, moving him between Petrograd safe houses before smuggling him to nearby Razliv . In Lenin's absence, Stalin continued editing Pravda and served as acting leader of the Bolsheviks, overseeing the party's Sixth Congress . Lenin began calling for the Bolsheviks to seize power by toppling the Provisional Government, a plan which was supported by Stalin and fellow senior Bolshevik Leon Trotsky , but opposed by Kamenev, Zinoviev, and other members. On 24 October, police raided
18212-487: The party. Favouring new members from proletarian backgrounds to " Old Bolsheviks ", who tended to be middle-class university graduates, he ensured that he had loyalists dispersed across the regions. Stalin had much contact with young party functionaries, and the desire for promotion led many to seek his favour. Stalin also developed close relations with key figures in the secret police: Felix Dzerzhinsky , Genrikh Yagoda , and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky . His wife gave birth to
18369-539: The people, elected by representatives of the workers, soldiers and peasants and held accountable to their representatives. Stalin's editorial in Pravda , October 1917 Stalin helped organise the July Days uprising, an armed display of strength by supporters of the Bolsheviks. After the demonstration was suppressed, the Provisional Government initiated a crackdown on the party, raiding Pravda . Stalin smuggled Lenin out of
18526-432: The position of General Secretary. I therefore propose to comrades that they should devise a means of removing him from this job and should appoint to this job someone else who is distinguished from comrade Stalin in all other respects only by the single superior aspect that he should be more tolerant, more polite and more attentive towards comrades, less capricious, etc. — Lenin's Testament, 4 January 1923 In May 1922,
18683-587: The process of world revolution . In 1927, there was some argument in the party over Soviet policy regarding China. Stalin had called for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong , to ally itself with Chiang Kai-shek 's Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists, viewing a CCP-KMT alliance as the best bulwark against Japanese imperial expansionism. Instead, the KMT repressed the CCP and a civil war broke out between
18840-659: The region, including many Hebrew and Aramaic words, but there is also Romance. In Max Weinreich 's model, Jewish speakers of Old French or Old Italian who were literate in either liturgical Hebrew or Aramaic , or both, migrated through Southern Europe to settle in the Rhine Valley in an area known as Lotharingia (later known in Yiddish as Loter ) extending over parts of Germany and France. There, they encountered and were influenced by Jewish speakers of High German languages and several other German dialects. Both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in
18997-474: The research of agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko despite the fact that it was rejected by the majority of Lysenko's scientific peers as pseudo-scientific . The government's anti-religious campaign was re-intensified, with increased funding given to the League of Militant Atheists . Priests , imams , and Buddhist monks faced persecution. Religious buildings were demolished, most notably Moscow's Cathedral of Christ
19154-469: The right to an " autonomous republic " within the Russian state in which it could oversee various regional affairs. In taking this view, some Marxists accused him of bending too much to bourgeois nationalism , while others accused him of remaining too Russo-centric. In his diverse native Caucasus, however, Stalin opposed the idea of separate autonomous republics, arguing that these would oppress ethnic minorities within their territories; instead, he called for
19311-502: The school systems again as well as celebrating the variety of Jewish holidays. Riss' parents were originally residents of Birobidzhan, but moved to Israel in the 90's along with a large majority of the Jewish population from the Oblast. He came back as the Chief Rabbi with plans of reinvigorating the Jewish culture. There are already plans for a kosher restaurant, supermarket, and mikveh . Riss
19468-415: The second refers to quantity or diphthongization (−1=short, −2=long, −3=short but lengthened early in the history of Yiddish, −4=diphthong, −5=special length occurring only in Proto-Yiddish vowel 25). Vowels 23, 33, 43 and 53 have the same reflexes as 22, 32, 42 and 52 in all Yiddish dialects, but they developed distinct values in Middle High German ; Katz (1987) argues that they should be collapsed with
19625-553: The town's population of 75,000. The Birobidzhan Jewish community was led by Lev Toitman , until his death in September, 2007. Concerning the Jewish community of the oblast , Governor Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov has stated that he intends to "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations". In 2007, the Birobidzhan International Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Culture
19782-432: The training course is study of the Hebrew language , history and classic Jewish texts. The town now boasts several state-run schools that teach Yiddish, as well as an Anglo-Yiddish faculty at its higher education college, a Yiddish school for religious instruction and a kindergarten. The five- to seven-year-olds spend two lessons a week learning to speak Yiddish, as well as being taught Jewish songs, dance and traditions. It
19939-734: The two moved into open opposition to Stalin and Bukharin and launched an unsuccessful attack on their faction at the 14th Party Congress in December. Stalin accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of reintroducing factionalism, and thus instability. In mid-1926, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Trotsky to form the United Opposition against Stalin; in October the two agreed to stop factional activity under threat of expulsion, and later publicly recanted their views. The factionalist arguments continued, with Stalin threatening to resign in October and December 1926, and again in December 1927. In October 1927, Trotsky
20096-619: The two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East. The lines of development proposed by the different theories do not necessarily rule out the others (at least not entirely); an article in The Forward argues that "in the end, a new 'standard theory' of Yiddish's origins will probably be based on
20253-563: The two sides. We have fallen behind the advanced countries by fifty to a hundred years. We must close that gap in ten years. Either we do this or we'll be crushed. This is what our obligations before the workers and peasants of the USSR dictate to us. — Stalin, February 1931 The Soviet Union lagged far behind the industrial and agricultural development of the Western powers. Stalin's government feared attack from capitalist countries, and many communists, including in Komsomol , OGPU , and
20410-617: The vernacular of the Jews in Roman-era Judea and ancient and early medieval Mesopotamia . The widespread use of Aramaic among the large non-Jewish Syrian trading population of the Roman provinces, including those in Europe, would have reinforced the use of Aramaic among Jews engaged in trade. In Roman times, many of the Jews living in Rome and Southern Italy appear to have been Greek -speakers, and this
20567-881: The vowel qualities in most long/short vowel pairs diverged and so the phonemic distinction has remained. There are consonantal differences between German and Yiddish. Yiddish deaffricates the Middle High German voiceless labiodental affricate /pf/ to /f/ initially (as in פֿונט funt , but this pronunciation is also quasi-standard throughout northern and central Germany); /pf/ surfaces as an unshifted /p/ medially or finally (as in עפּל /ɛpl/ and קאָפּ /kɔp/ ). Additionally, final voiced stops appear in Standard Yiddish but not Northern Standard German. Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili ; 18 December [ O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953)
20724-506: The wake of World War II when Joseph Stalin embarked on a campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" . Nearly all the Yiddish institutions of Birobidzhan were liquidated. Among Birobidzhan's proponents was Dudley Aman, 1st Baron Marley . After Lord Marley met with Peter Smidovich and Jacob Tsegelnitski in August 1932, Marley became a proponent of Birobidzhan as a new homeland for Jewish workers and refugees. His visit to Birobidzhan in October 1933
20881-608: The work of Weinreich and his challengers alike." Paul Wexler proposed a model in 1991 that took Yiddish, by which he means primarily eastern Yiddish, not to be genetically grounded in a Germanic language at all, but rather as " Judeo-Sorbian " (a proposed West Slavic language ) that had been relexified by High German. In more recent work, Wexler has argued that Eastern Yiddish is unrelated genetically to Western Yiddish. Wexler's model has been met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Yiddish orthography developed towards
21038-586: The world (for a total of 600,000). The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז ( loshn-ashknaz , "language of Ashkenaz") or טײַטש ( taytsh ), a variant of tiutsch , the contemporary name for Middle High German . Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון ( mame-loshn , lit. "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from לשון־קודש ( loshn koydesh , "holy tongue"), meaning Hebrew and Aramaic. The term "Yiddish", short for Yidish Taitsh ("Jewish German"), did not become
21195-461: The −2 series, leaving only 13 in the −3 series. In vocabulary of Germanic origin, the differences between Standard German and Yiddish pronunciation are mainly in the vowels and diphthongs . All varieties of Yiddish lack the German front rounded vowels /œ, øː/ and /ʏ, yː/ , having merged them with /ɛ, e:/ and /ɪ, i:/ , respectively. Diphthongs have also undergone divergent developments in German and Yiddish. Where Standard German has merged
21352-513: Was ווײַבערטײַטש ( vaybertaytsh , 'women's taytsh ' , shown in the heading and fourth column in the Shemot Devarim ), with square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved for text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with Yiddish books being set in vaybertaytsh (also termed מעשייט mesheyt or מאַשקעט mashket —the construction
21509-565: Was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death. Initially governing as part of a collective leadership , Stalin consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. He codified his Leninist interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism , while
21666-664: Was again arrested in Saint Petersburg and sentenced to four years of exile in Turukhansk in Siberia, where he arrived in August. Still concerned over a potential escape, the authorities moved him to Kureika in March 1914. While Stalin was in exile, Russia entered the First World War , and in October 1916 he and other exiled Bolsheviks were conscripted into the Russian Army . They arrived in Krasnoyarsk in February 1917, where
21823-473: Was appointed as a Bolshevik delegate to the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet , an influential workers' council. The existing government of landlords and capitalists must be replaced by a new government, a government of workers and peasants. The existing pseudo-government which was not elected by the people and which is not accountable to the people must be replaced by a government recognised by
21980-663: Was concerned about Stalin's growing power, he rallied behind him at the 13th Congress as a counterweight to Trotsky, who now led a faction known as the Left Opposition . Trotsky's supporters believed that the NEP conceded too much to capitalism, and they called Stalin a "rightist" for his support of the policy. Stalin built up a retinue of his supporters within the Central Committee as the Left Opposition were marginalised. In late 1924, Stalin moved against Kamenev and Zinoviev, removing their supporters from key positions. In 1925,
22137-470: Was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever, Yiddish theatre and Yiddish cinema were booming, and for a time it achieved the status of one of the official languages of the short-lived Galician Soviet Socialist Republic . Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably Poland ) after World War I led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform orthography, and to
22294-636: Was given permission to move to Vologda , where he stayed for two months. He then escaped to Saint Petersburg, where he was arrested again in September 1911 and sentenced to a further three years of exile in Vologda. In January 1912, the first Bolshevik Central Committee was elected at the Prague Conference . Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev decided to co-opt Stalin to the committee, which Stalin (still in exile in Vologda) agreed to. Lenin believed that Stalin, as
22451-625: Was highly resisted by the majority population. The placement of the Jews in Birobidzhan was meant to serve as a buffer to dissuade any Chinese or Japanese expansion. The region was also a link between the Trans Siberian Railroad and the Amur River Valley, and the Soviet government sought to exploit the natural resources of the area, such as fish, timber, iron, tin, and gold. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, residence of Jews
22608-580: Was impractical. Another disagreement came over the Georgian affair, with Lenin backing the Georgian Central Committee's desire for a Georgian Soviet Republic over Stalin's idea of a Transcaucasian one. They also disagreed on the nature of the Soviet state; Lenin called for establishment of a new federation named the "Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia", while Stalin believed that this would encourage independence sentiment among non-Russians. Lenin accused Stalin of "Great Russian chauvinism", while Stalin accused Lenin of "national liberalism". A compromise
22765-400: Was launched by Yiddish studies professor Boris Kotlerman of Bar-Ilan University . The town's main street is named after the Yiddish language author and humorist Sholem Aleichem . For the Chanukah celebration of 2007, officials of Birobidzhan in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast claimed to have built the world's largest menorah . A November 2017 article in The Guardian , titled, "Revival of
22922-458: Was officially registered in 1946. The religious community suffered persecution in the early 1950s. Jewish culture was revived in Birobidzhan much earlier than elsewhere in the Soviet Union . Yiddish theaters opened in the 1970s. Since the early 1990s, Yiddish and Jewish traditions were required components in all public schools , taught not as Jewish exotica but as part of the region's national heritage. The orthodox synagogue , completed in 2004,
23079-441: Was on the rise as a variety of socialism opposed to the Tsarist authorities . He began attending secret workers' meetings, and left the seminary in April 1899. In October 1899, Stalin began working as a meteorologist at the Tiflis observatory. He attracted a group of socialist supporters, and co-organised a secret workers' meeting at which he convinced many to take strike action on May Day 1900. The empire's secret police,
23236-456: Was organized by Smidovich himself. Marley's assessment of the area was positive, and he became a more avid supporter of the settlement of Birobidzhan. Yiddish writer David Bergelson played a large part in promoting Birobidzhan, although he himself did not really live there. Bergelson wrote articles in the Yiddish language newspapers in other countries extolling the region as an ideal escape from antisemitism elsewhere. At least 1,000 families from
23393-545: Was reached in which the federation would be named the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR), whose formation was ratified in December 1922. Their differences also became personal; Lenin was angered when Stalin was rude to his wife Krupskaya during a telephone conversation. In the final years of his life, Krupskaya provided leading figures with Lenin's Testament , which criticised Stalin's rude manners and excessive power and suggested that he be removed as general secretary. Some historians have questioned whether Lenin wrote
23550-447: Was reflected in naming of locations after him; in June 1924 the Ukrainian city of Yuzovka became Stalino, and in April 1925, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad. In 1926, Stalin published On Questions of Leninism, in which he argued for the concept of " socialism in one country ", which was presented as an orthodox Leninist perspective despite clashing with established Bolshevik views that socialism could only be achieved globally through
23707-446: Was removed from the Central Committee; he was later exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928 and deported from the country in 1929. Stalin was now the supreme leader of the party and state. He entrusted the position of head of government to Vyacheslav Molotov ; other important supporters on the Politburo were Voroshilov, Lazar Kaganovich , and Sergo Ordzhonikidze , with Stalin ensuring his allies ran state institutions. His growing influence
23864-446: Was repeatedly confined to a cell for rebellious behaviour. After joining a forbidden book club, Stalin was influenced by Nikolay Chernyshevsky 's pro-revolutionary novel What Is To Be Done? Another influential text was Alexander Kazbegi 's The Patricide , with Stalin adopting the nickname "Koba" from its bandit protagonist. After reading his Das Kapital , Stalin devoted himself to Karl Marx 's philosophy of Marxism , which
24021-489: Was restricted to the Pale of Settlement . As Jews relocated to Birobidzhan, they had to compete with the approximately 27,000 Russians, Cossacks, Koreans, and Ukrainians already residing there for property and land to develop new homes. This complicated the transition for the Jewish population, as there was no significant area to claim as their own. Logistically and practically, settling Birobidzhan proved to be difficult. Due to inadequate infrastructure and weather conditions of
24178-425: Was sent to Perm to lead an inquiry into how Alexander Kolchak 's White forces had been able to decimate Red troops there. He returned to Moscow between January and March 1919, before being assigned to the Western Front at Petrograd. When the Red Third Regiment defected, he ordered the public execution of captured defectors. In September he returned to the Southern Front. During the war, Stalin proved his worth to
24335-446: Was the language of street wisdom, of the clever underdog, of pathos, resignation and suffering, all of which it palliated by humor, intense irony and superstition. Isaac Bashevis Singer , its greatest practitioner, pointed out that it is the only language never spoken by men in power. – Paul Johnson , A History of the Jews (1988) Later linguistic research has refined the Weinreich model or provided alternative approaches to
24492-414: Was their third child and the only one to survive past infancy. After Besarion's shoemaking workshop went into decline, the family fell into poverty, and he became an alcoholic who beat his wife and son. Ekaterine and her son left the home by 1883 and began wandering, moving through nine different rented rooms over the next decade. In 1888, Stalin enrolled at the Gori Church School in a position secured by
24649-433: Was unable to rally sufficient support in the party to oppose the reforms; in November 1929, Stalin removed him from the Politburo. Officially, the Soviet Union had replaced the "irrationality" and "wastefulness" of a market economy with a planned economy organised along a long-term and scientific framework; in reality, Soviet economics were based on ad hoc commandments issued often to make short-term targets. In 1928,
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