Description
Book Synopsis"This absorbing book is a fine contribution to the growing literature on official identification and the administrative life of the state, including its characteristic product, the paper document."—Jane Caplan, University of Oxford
Trade ReviewIn recent years, scholars of late imperial Russia have paid considerable attention to the empire's nationalities issues and, in particular, the experience of its Jewish communities. This book, based largely on the author's use of regional and central archives in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev, is a significant contribution to the literature.... Much of this slender but delicately nuanced volume is devoted to exploring the creative ways that Jews used the instruments of the czarist regime to their own advantage: 'At times, Jews forged passports, refashioned their social identities, and even converted in an attempt to subvert a maze of legal codes.' The new documents, many Jews soon realized, were 'a ticket for participation in the imperial social order.'.
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Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Making Jews Legible
2. Power of Documentation
3. Movement and Residence
4. Invisible Jews
5. The Jewish Name
Epilogue: Collapse of the Imperial Ghetto
Bibliography
Index
