{"product_id":"questionable-people-svetlana-natkovich-9780815638605","title":"Questionable People: Inventing Modern Jewish Selves in the Russian Empire, 1860-1890","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the 1860s, a series of reforms imposed by Tsar Alexander II dramatically began modernizing and reshaping life in imperial Russia. However, for a generation of Jewish artists and intellectuals educated under earlier doctrines, the reforms became an opportunity to interrogate and construct a new view of Jewish identity. Questionable People: Inventing Modern Jewish Selves in the Russian Empire, 1860-1890 explores how these young intellectuals, the maskilim, used self-expression, fashion, dress, and their artistic work to define themselves. Differentiating themselves from what came before, maskilim crafted Jewish identities within a modernizing Russia. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhile many surveys of the Great Reforms and Jews in the Russian Empire examine assimilation and urbanization, Questionable People focuses on the reformers themselves, their self-construction and work as unique to their era, rather than part of a larger transitional moment. Svetlana Natkovich analyzes the maskilim as a group existing between social and economic classes in a time of change, a generation of thinkers forced to radically assert their self-hoods. Questionable People locates the common ground between the social and intellectual histories of Jewish modernization.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Svetlana Natkovich\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0815638604\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780815638605\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Syracuse University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/16\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Svetlana Natkovich","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46420558610687,"sku":"9780815638605","price":64.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_5f833cda-f01e-4036-a799-4a7279899ead.jpg?v=1734634982","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/questionable-people-svetlana-natkovich-9780815638605","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}