City of Rogues and Schnorrers
Russia's Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa
Indiana University Press · Print & ebook · November 14, 2011
Old Odessa, on the Black Sea, gained notoriety as a legendary city of Jewish gangsters and swindlers, a frontier boomtown mythologized for the adventurers, criminals, and merrymakers who flocked there to seek easy wealth and lead lives of debauchery and excess.
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- Who it’s for
- Jarrod Tanny traces how Odessa’s Russian-Jewish culture shaped art and humor across the Soviet era.
- Genres
- Jewish History, Soviet-Era Russia, Russian Lit Crit
- Published
- Indiana University Press, November 14, 2011
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Old Odessa, on the Black Sea, gained notoriety as a legendary city of Jewish gangsters and swindlers, a frontier boomtown mythologized for the adventurers, criminals, and merrymakers who flocked there to seek easy wealth and lead lives of debauchery and excess. Odessa is also famed for the brand of Jewish humor brought there in the 19th century from the shtetls of Eastern Europe and that flourished throughout Soviet times.
Continue reading
From a broad historical perspective, Jarrod Tanny examines the hybrid Judeo-Russian culture that emerged in Odessa in the 19th century and persisted through the Soviet era and beyond. The book shows how the art of eminent Soviet-era figures such as Isaac Babel, Il'ia Ilf, Evgenii Petrov, and Leonid Utesov grew out of the Odessa Russian-Jewish culture into which they were born and which shaped their lives.
Odessa’s Cultural Inheritance
Jarrod Tanny traces how Odessa’s Russian-Jewish culture shaped art and humor across the Soviet era.
Come here for
- Odessa’s hybrid Judeo-Russian culture from the nineteenth century onward
- The city’s Jewish humor and its shaping of four Soviet-era artists
Expect
- Historical perspective on Odessa’s cultural life
- Discussion of Isaac Babel, Il'ia Ilf, Evgenii Petrov, and Leonid Utesov
Where it sits
| Jewish History | 80% |
|---|---|
| Soviet-Era Russia | 40% |
| Russian Lit Crit | 23% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Jewish History
- Russian History
- Jewish Literary Criticism
- Authors
- Jarrod Tanny
- Publisher
- Indiana University Press
- Published
- November 14, 2011
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Jewish History