Back to School with the Bund

Turns out I'm returning to coursework in a few weeks, thanks to a scholarship that came through at the last minute and that will pay for my next course, entitled "Shadow of Versailles (1919-1939)." I'm currently planning on writing on the topic of the Jewish Bund in Romania after WWI.

This topic is a pretty unexplored one, at least in English. While there's a ton of material out there on the Bund in Russia before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917, the trail of them runs a bit cold after the Bolsheviks take over. It's generally agreed that the Bund split into roughly left (pro-Bolshevik) and right (anti-Bolshevik) wings and that the former was absorbed into the party, while the latter was driven underground. What happens to the Bund's right wing is a mystery after then. The greatest volume of material that's available is on the Bund in Poland, where it continues as a major political force through the entire interwar period and forms a large part of the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. The losses are enormous of course, and the Bund is absorbed by the Polish communists after the war.

Romania and the Baltic States are the missing link. In the Baltics, particularly Latvia and Lithuania, the Bund continues as a potent political force in the interwar period. The history of Lithuania's Bund is parallel to that in Poland, particularly given the disputed status of Vilnius between the wars, where the Bund had its stronghold. In Latvia, the Bund holds political power, including legistative offices, until the authoritarian takeover. After that, it isn't really clear what becomes of it, including whether it contributes to Jewish resistance in Riga and environs.

In Romania, the Bund is limited to the border regions annexed to Romania at the end of WWI -- Bukovina (from Austria-Hungry) and Bessarabia (from Russian). I've been reading Dmitry Tartakovsky's excellent dissertation on Jews in Bessarabia and Transnistria (UIUC, 2010) and I've laid my hands on some French sources, which in turn references the five-volume Bund history in Yiddish edited by Hertz et al. So I have a lot of work ahead of me, none of which is likely to be in English.

In the meantime, near the end of September, I'll be posting my discussion posts here as per usual. More later.