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68
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1990
Jewish Studies Program
Begins In Moscow
New York (JTA) — The
first Jewish studies program
in more than 50 years was
established at a Moscow
university Wednesday. But
following the storming of the
Moscow writers' union by
Pamyat in January, it is
unclear what reception it
will receive.
"I am convinced that the
best representatives of the
Russian intelligentsia will
support our institution even
if there are public insults
and attacks," said Natalya
Basovskaya, vice president
for curriculum at the
Moscow State Institute of
History and Archives.
Basovskaya was in New
York for the formal signing
of the joint program in Jew-
ish studies between the
Moscow State Institute, the
Jewish Theological Semi-
nary of America and the
YIVO Institute of Jewish
Research.
According to Basovskaya,
some academics at the
Moscow State Institute are
distrustful of the innovative
program. "You can hear an
ironic comment or someone
scribbling a piece of graf-
fiti," she said through an
interpreter.
"My hope is that gradually
our action and activity will
change their minds. I con-
sider them enslaved to old
conceptions and susceptible
to political blind spots in our
history."
The Moscow State In-
stitute, a university with
5,000 students that spe-
cializes in the teaching of ar-
chival skills and the identi-
fying and cataloging of
historical documents, will be
the first joint degree-
granting program between
an American and Soviet
university.
"Nothing less than the
process of perestroika in the
Soviet Union is the basis for
what we are undertaking,"
said Victor Mouraviev, vice
president for academic af-
fairs at the institution.
Long known for its pro-
gressive liberal political
leanings, the Moscow In-
stitute has been in the
forefront of the fight against
the rising forces of nation-
alism and anti-Semitism in
the Soviet Union.
Its president, Dr. Yuri
Afanasyev, is a leader of the
Democratic faction of the
Supreme Soviet and many of
its faculty members took
part in the Feb. 4 demon-
stration against Pamyat and
the storming of the writers'
union at Manzeh Square.
"Starting this program is
one way to conquer these
forces, overcome this fear
and act on our consciences,"
said Basovskaya.
Between 1920 and the mid-
1950s, the Stalinist govern-
ment gradually destroyed
Jewish life and culture in
the Soviet Union. In the
1920s, the Zionist movement
was liquidated; in the 1940s
and '50s, Jewish writers and
scholars were arrested, pa-
pers seized and what re-
mained of Yiddish culture
banned.
"We are trying to retrieve
the pieces that are left and
restore them to the Jewish
people," said David
Fishman, a professor of Jew-
ish history affiliated with
JTS and YIVO, and the
originator of the program.
Every other semester, one
or two professors from JTS
and YIVO will teach in
Moscow. The Moscow In-
stitute's faculty will com-
plement their courses with
lectures in history and ar-
chival skills.
The Soviet students will
also spend one year of the
four- year program studying
in New York at JTS and
YIVO. The program is slated
to begin in the fall of 1991.
The purpose of the under-
taking, said Fishman, is to
train Soviet students, both
Jewish and non-Jewish, in
the skills necessary to digest
and catalog the vast quanti-
ty of Jewish manuscripts
now surfacing in the Soviet
Union.
In March 1989, approx-
imately 40,000 pages of
YIVO archival material was
discovered at the Lithuanian
Book Chamber, the Lithua-
nian equivalent of the
Library of Congress.
And in January, 16,000
folders of Jewish archival
material containing records
from Lithuanian yeshivas,
schools and credit unions
and the manuscripts of
Yiddish authors were
discovered in the Central
State archives in Vilna.
"This was proof to us that
the documents that we
thought had been destroyed
after the Second World War
had survived, and seemed to
be centered around Vilna,"
said Samuel Norich, exec-
utive director of YIVO.
"And this is not an excep-
tion," said Fishman. "There
are many archives in Russia
that have been closed to