Metadata: E. S. Raize
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- The Centre “Petersburg Judaica”
- Holding institution (official language):
- Центр «Петербургская иудаика»
- Postal address:
- 191187, St. Petersburg, Gagarinskaia ul., d. 6, k. 1, lit. А; European University at St. Petersburg
- Phone number:
- (812) 386-7637
- Email:
- judaica@eu.spb.ru
- Reference number:
- F. 5
- Title:
- E. S. Raize
- Title (official language):
- Райзе Е. С.
- Creator/accumulator:
- Raize, Efim Samoilovich
- Date(s):
- 1950s/1989
- Language:
- Russian
- Yiddish
- German
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 18 archival storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Graphic material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
[The fonds is being processed; information given is as of March 2017.] Documents in the fonds may be provisionally divided into four thematic groups:
1) Manuscripts and typewritten copies of E. S. Raize’s unpublished anthology Jewish Folklore (including editorial corrections by the author and A. L. Kaplan), which encompasses all genres of Jewish oral folk art; included is an appendix titled: “Songs from Ghettos and Fascist Camps”, as well as materials used in compiling the anthology, in particular, extracts, notes, lists of references, card files, clippings from newspapers and journals, and photocopies of works by artists – N. I. Al’tman, Sh. Girshenberg, M. Kh. Gorshman, A. L. Kaplan, G. A. Kravtsov, Sh. Rosinas, S. B. Iudovin, and others – proposed as illustrations for the book (late 1960s–1970); a review by E. V. Pomerantsev of the anthology Jewish Folklore (1970); copies and originals of publishing contracts that E. S. Raize concluded with the main editorial department for Oriental literature of the Nauka publishing house for the publication of the Jewish Folklore anthology (1968, 1970) and correspondence with the editorial department’s head S. S. Tsel’niker on this issue.
2) Copies of the manuscript of E. S. Raize’s memoirs, in four notebooks, including sections titled “Preface”, “A Family Chronicle”, and “Family Notes” (1954).
3) E. S. Raize’s correspondence with organisations and individuals, including the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR (1964), the V. I. Lenin State Library of the USSR (1965), the editorial board of the journal Sovetish heymland (1968), the Kniga publishing house (1966), the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR (1970), etc., as well as autograph manuscripts of letters from Moyshe Belenki, M. B. Kabalevskii, A. E. Korneichuk, A. L. Kaplan, M. Z. Kviatkovskaia, P. S. Kobzarevskii, K. M. Simonov, L. M. Tsiv’ian, V. S. Shefner, Ilya Ehrenburg, and others (1950s-70).
4) Materials of relatives of E. S. Raize: his wife, F. M. Neusikhina, and daughter, F. E. Raize, including correspondence on E. S. Raize’s creative legacy with the press committee of the USSR Council of Ministers, the editorial-publishing council of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Nauka publishing house’s main editorial department for Oriental literature, Lenizdat, the editorial board of the journal Sovetish heymland, etc. (1972-86); an invitation to a meeting of the founders of the Leningrad Jewish Cultural Society, a draft of the society’s charter, and other documents on activities of the Petersburg Jewish community (1989); biographical information on E. S. Raize (1970s); clippings from the newspapers Vozrozhdenie [Renaissance] and Evreiskie vesti [Jewish News] (Kiev, 1990, 1992) and AMI – Narod moi [AMI – My People] (St. Petersburg; 1992) containing articles about E. S. Raize; family photos; Jewish postcards; etc.
- Archival history:
- Materials of this fonds were transferred to the archive of the Centre “Petersburg Judaica” in 1999.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The writer, poet, translator and collector of Jewish folklore Efim Samoilovich Raize (1904-70) was born in Vinnitsa into the family of a sofer; he received a traditional Jewish education. During his student years in Kiev, he took part in the Zionist movement. In 1929, he was arrested and exiled for three years to the Solovki prison camp. From 1932, he lived in Leningrad, where he made the acquaintance of I. I. Ravrebe and S. L. Tsinberg and became a member of the “Hebrew” circle headed by the poet Ḥayim Lenski. He lived with the poets Dovid Hofshteyn and Shmuel Halkin. He was arrested again in 1934 and charged with engaging in counterrevolutionary and Zionist activities; he was sentenced to three years, but released after one year on the request of Maksim Gorky. Returning to Leningrad, he continued to study Jewish culture. For many years (essentially, his entire life), he collected material for the anthology Jewish Folklore, working in archives and libraries, conducting extensive correspondence and traveling to Belorussia, Ukraine and the Baltics to assemble folkloric materials. In 1943-46, having secured the support of Ilya Ehrenburg, he worked on the collection Jewish Heroes of the Great Patriotic War, which however was never published. In 1948, he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in the camps. He was released in 1955 and officially exonerated in 1963. He published articles in the journal Sovetish Heymland on Sholom Aleichem, Mendele Moykher-Sforim and others.
The research, educational and exhibition centre “Petersburg Judaica” began operations in the 1998-99 academic year as an inter-departmental research and teaching group at the European University at St. Petersburg (EUSP). In late 1999, the centre was registered as a nonprofit organisation to study and promote the cultural heritage of the Jews of Russia and Eastern Europe. From 2000 to 2004, it operated under a joint-operations agreement with the Russian Institute of Art History (RIII) and was located on the premises of that institute (the former palace of Count V. P. Zubov at 5 St. Isaac’s Square). The first exhibition prepared by the centre’s staff, titled “The Great Synagogues. The Third Destruction of the Temple,” opened in the exhibition hall of the Institute of Art History in 2000. Currently the Centre “Petersburg Judaica” exists, on the one hand, as an independent structure; on the other, it operates within the European University at St. Petersburg as the Inter-Departmental Centre for Judaica of the European University at St. Petersburg (MFTs PI). Since 2004, the latter has enrolled students in the European University at St. Petersburg who, while studying in one of the university’s departments, simultaneously engage in a special advanced training program in the field of Jewish studies. The centre is distinguished by its many years of experience in the conduct of field research. The staff of the Centre “Petersburg Judaica” conduct research, educational and exhibition activities, striving to ensure that all three areas of work are interconnected. Since 2000, the centre has held about 40 exhibitions devoted to various aspects of Jewish culture, art, history and ethnography in close cooperation with the State Museum of the History of Religion, the Russian Ethnographic Museum, the State Russian Museum, the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, the ROSFOTO Museum and Exhibition Centre and several museums and art galleries in Israel, France, Switzerland and the United States. In the course of the activities of the Centre “Petersburg Judaica” its staff have organised a research archive and collections of paintings and graphic works of Jewish artists of Leningrad/St. Petersburg of various periods, including works by N. I. Al’tman, S. B. Iudovin, A. L. Kaplan, L. G. Nissenbaum, A. S. Zaslavskii, A. I. Zinshtein, T. V. Pogorel’skaia, L. Ia. Grol’man and A. V. Lukina, as well as a collection of artistic photographs by M. Kheifets. Since 2013, the Centre “Petersburg Judaica” has been a member of the Association of European Jewish Museums.
- Access points: locations:
- Russia
- St Petersburg
- Access points: persons/families:
- Korneichuk, A. E.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are currently being created.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary