I Saw It: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah (Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures, and History) - Softcover

Maxim D. Shrayer (PhD Yale University) is Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish studies at Boston College. A bilingual writer and translator, Shrayer has authored and edited a number of books, among them the path-breaking critical studies The World of Nabokov’s Stories and Russian Poet/ Soviet Jew, the acclaimed literary memoir Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration, and the collection Yom Kippur in Amsterdam. Shrayer’s two-volume Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature won a 2007 National Jewish Book Award, and in 2012 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. For more information, visit www.shrayer.com.

"A sophisticated literary analysis of Ilya Selvinsky's texts, Maxim D. Shrayer's book demonstrates a deep knowledge of the history of the Holocaust in the USSR. It is the first study of poet's career in the context of Shoah memorization. Shrayer's book must be published in Russian translation." (Ilya Altman Russian Holocaust Center, Russian State University for the Humanities)

“What does it mean to bear witness to the Shoah? What does it mean to bear witness to the genocide of Jews in the Soviet Union? These two questions are at the center of Maxim Shrayer’s illuminating study of the Jewish-Russian poet Ilya Selvinsky’s work and biography that combines literary analysis with historical and biographical research. Shrayer excels in his response to questions that have occupied . . . scholars of Soviet-Jewish history and of the Nazi genocide in German-occupied Soviet territories. The crux for the latter achievement is a detailed reconstruction of the effects that the poet’s account of the genocide had on the larger public and on his own life and career. . . . The book is valuable to broad audiences interested in the history of the Holocaust, the history of Soviet Russian-Jewish literature, and the literature of the Holocaust. As the first study of a Soviet-Jewish poet’s career who publicly spoke about the Holocaust, the book is an important contribution to recent efforts to scrutinize how the Shoah was represented and perceived in the Soviet Union.” (Anika Walke The Russian Review, January 2014 (Vol. 73, No. 1))

"Through the example of Ilya Selvinsky, Maxim Shrayer has made an important contribution to our understanding of the workings of Soviet literary life at the intersection of poetry and policy. . . . In recovering Selvinsky’s story, Shrayer has himself served as a witness to a hidden past.” (Katharine Hodgson The Times Literary Supplement (April 18th 2014))

“I Saw It is a major contribution to our knowledge and understanding of how Soviet Jewish writers and the regime in general responded to the Nazi massacres of Jews in German-occupied Soviet territory. As a soldier, poet, and journalist, Ilya Selvinsky was often on the front line, struggling to comprehend the enormity of the destruction and suffering around him. Based on painstaking and comprehensive research, Maxim D. Shrayer does a superb job of conveying the challenges of being a Soviet patriot and a Jew in the face of Hitler’s onslaught.” (Joshua Rubenstein)

"Maxim D. Shrayer is responsible for some of the best work in the area of Russian Jewish studies. . . . This book is . . . a pioneering and though-provoking text. . . . Shrayer performs a meticulous reconstruction, with breadth and passion, blending scholarship with a personal attachment to the theme. . . . Using diaries, newspapers, unpublished archival material, field research and immanent reading of literary texts, Shrayer creates a full picture of Soviet cultural life." (Bruno Gomide Cadernos de Língua e Literatura Hebraica, n 12 (2015))

“Maxim D. Shrayer’s impassioned, eloquent, and rich study of Ilya Selvinsky’s war-time poems contributes to [the] new history of Holocaust poetry and significantly broadens it. . . . Is [Selvinsky] the case of trauma, fear, or deeply held convictions? What is the relationship between Soviet and Jewish identities?” Shrayer’s meticulously researched and beautifully argued book urges the reader to ponder these complicated questions, thus deepening the field of both Holocaust and Soviet literary studies.” (Marat Grinberg (Reed College) Slavic and East European Journal, 58.3 (Fall 2014))

“Ilya Selvinsky was a Soviet Jewish poet writer who wrote explicitly about the Holocaust at a time when most Soviet writers avoided the subject. Though Selvinsky was in and out of political trouble, his undeniable talent and Stalin’s grudging admiration allowed him to survive. Maxim D. Shrayer tells his story vividly, comprehensively and convincingly. Unlike many literary studies, this deeply researched book is accessible, gripping and free of jargon. We learn not only about Selvinsky and other wartime writers, but also about Soviet policy toward the Holocaust and how it changed; the tense relations between the Party-State and writers; and the complexities of Jewish identities in the USSR.” (Zvi Gitelman, Professor of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Michigan)

“This beautifully close reading of a major Soviet poet restores for us an important vision of the Holocaust.” (Timothy Snyder)

“In I Saw It, Maxim D. Shrayer meticulously and unflinchingly chronicles the Nazi massacre of Jews in Kerch, Crimea, and its reflection in Ilya Selvinsky’s extraordinarily powerful poems. Selvinsky, a convinced communist generally willing to compromise, suffered considerably for his stubborn attempts to bring the Shoah to the attention of the Soviet reading public. Shrayer brings together social, political, historical, and poetic questions, producing a memorable book that will fascinate a broad range of readers." (Michael Wachtel, Princeton University)

Shrayer (Boston College) is the author of several highly-praised books about Russia, the USSR, and Jewish Soviet literature; this new book is equally praiseworthy. Its subject is perhaps unfamiliar to most Holocaust scholars―and for that reason alone, this study is welcome. Selvinsky (1899–68), a Soviet Jew, was a devoted Marxist, an intellectual, and a well-regarded poet. He spent much of WWII as a soldier on the front lines, serving as a reporter and in combat. Selvinksy was a witness to the Nazi Einsatzgruppen massacre of as many as 7,000 Jews in a ditch in Kerch in the Crimea, and wrote two famous poems about the 1941 event: “Kerch” and “I Saw It.” Shrayer offers readers a comprehensive, thoughtful introduction to Selvinsky’s biography, an astute account of Stalinist Russia’s wavering attitude toward Jews, and careful analysis of several of Selvinksy’s poems. This volume is greatly enhanced by 64 illustrations―photographs of the site of the massacre (then and now) and of Selvinsky and his literary circle, and maps and other documents―as well as the texts, in Russian and English, of the two Kerch poems. The bibliography is a testament to the meticulous research Shrayer conducted, in archives and on site." (E. R. Baer CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, November 2013)