Issues of the history of Jewish communities in Siberia of the 20th - early 21st century as viewed by contemporary Russian researchers

The current stage of historiography on the history of the Jewish communities of Siberia can be dated from the mid-1990s to the early 21^st century. During this period, the main areas of research have been formed, historiographic schools established, and the geographical localization of research determined. The purpose of this paper is related to summarizing reconstruction of the research field of the authors who mainly represent the Siberian Judaio studies. This summary will allow us to form an idea of research results on the history of the Jewish communities of Siberia in the 20^th - early 21^st century obtained so far. Historiographic sources of this research include monographs, papers published in journals and in collections of articles issued as a result of scientific conferences, in encyclopaedic publications, as well as author's abstracts of theses and bibliographic indexes, thus, covering a significant range of studies on the issues under consideration. When conducting the analysis, the authors used the principles of historicism, objectivity, integrity, value-based approach, comparative historical and problem-chronological research methods, periodization method, retrospective (reverse) analysis and perspective analysis methods. The author's analysis of the current historiographic situation showed that, based on the composition of studies on the history of Jewish communities in Siberia in the 20^th - early 21^st century, three problematic and conceptual blocks can be clearly identified. The first of them - the dominant one - covers works on the history of the Jewish communities of Siberia during the period preceding October revolution. Authors of those works reflected the trends of intracommunity life, the role and influence of communities in society, and their existence in terms of law. The pre-revolutionary trends in the life of communities can be traced until the 1920s. The second block of works includes studies on the history of the Jewish communities of Siberia in the Soviet (Communist) period. The dominating issue in those works is characterizing the confrontation between the government and communities which manifested during the anticosmopolitanism campaign of 1949-1953. The works of the third block related to the life of the Jewish communities in Siberia during the post-Soviet period are quite few. It is worth noting the emerging trend: the publication of papers generalizing the history of the Jewish communities in Siberia over all the periods of their existence. Currently, research centres are operating both in Eastern and Western Siberia. The period of 2000-2007 should be regarded as the time of most active research due to the fact that several conferences were held on the history of the Jews of Siberia and the Far East. At present, the most pressing issue is that of developing research on the history of the Jewish communities in Siberia during the Soviet period. The need to continue studying the history of the Jewish communities of Siberia in the post-Soviet period also appears a significant task. The overall objective is the preparation of a summarizing collective monograph on the history of the Jewish communities in Siberia.

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