The Jewish Issue Unvarnished: Review on Monograph Secret Policy: from Brezhnev to Gorbachev by G. V. Kostyrchenko

Abstract

Fundamental Doctor of Science (History) G. V. Kostyrchenko’s work is devoted to the Jewish issue as the Soviet national policy segment in the course of three last decades of Soviet Union existence (the 1960s-1980s). The author studies the Jewish problem through public ‒ political situation in the USSR and its political confrontation with the West, its influence on the inner and foreign policy’s facts solution. Monograph consists of two parts. The first one – view from the outside: party-bureaucratic elite activities in attempts to determine the balance between declared general national equality principle and biased relation to the certain nation, manifested in the struggle against Jewish domination in the ranks of creative intelligentsia. The second one – view from inside: situation perceived by the Jewish community itself, Zionist movement as the means of national self ‒ determination and Jewish emigration as contradictory phenomenon where pragmatic estimation dominated over the idea of people reunification in the Historical Motherland. The book definitely proves that all national problems depended in fact on the Soviet system liberalization. Researcher’s objectivity gave G. V. Kostyrchenko possibility to define his position in a very complicated issue. Filled with confirmed documentary facts, reminding of a twisted plot thriller, the monograph will attract attention of not only specialists but also of all those who are not indifferent to the history of our country and its people.

Keywords

• state antisemitism
• zionist movement
• jewish emigration
• creative intelligentsia
• ethno-cultu­ral identity