Doba-Mera Medvedeva belongs to a vanishingly small group of memoirists who are neither elite nor highly literate, but whose observations from the ground cast a vivid light on a lost world. The book reveals the quarrelsome underside of shtetl life at a time of scarce resources, and describes how Doba-Mera survives two pogroms and two world wars. Around 1905, barely a teenager but already earning a living, she joins Marxist circles and takes part in clandestine activities. Through her eyes we experience the class divisions in shtetl and synagogue, as well as aspects of everyday life such as education, courtship and marriage, housing, food, illness, and the organization of the working life and working conditions in sewing shops.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Translator’s Note
My Babushka and Her Memoirs
Michael Beizer
A Unique Memoirist in Turbulent Times
Alice Nakhimovsky
A DIARY OF MY DAYS
Doba-Mera Izrailevna Medvedeva (Gurevich)
About the author
Historian Michael Beizer of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, is the author of numerous books and articles on Russian Jewry. His Jews of St. Petersburg, out in three languages, was a groundbreaking study of a group whose existence, at the time, was barely acknowledged. His latest book is Relief in a time of Need: Russian Jewry and the Joint, 1919-1924 (Slavica, 2015).
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