A Jew’s Fate in Eurasian Space: Between Hatred and Misunderstanding. Role of Mikhail Vygon‘s Legacy in Understanding Persecution of Jews in Crimea in Twentieth Century

Abstract

In the article, I investigate the role of prosaic oeuvres and memoirs of the famous but now forgotten Yalta-born writer, public figure and teacher of Jewish origin Mikhail Josifovich Vygon (1924-2011), in the reconstruction of the Jewish genocide in Crimea by Nazi criminals during the Great Patriotic War, as well as the later political oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union. An especial attention is paid to Vygon’s testimony of atrocities of the Russians and Ukrainians to the Jews during the German occupation of Crimea. As a result of studying the unpublished works of Vygon, I conclude that the Yalta writer was pessimistic about the future fate of the Jews in Eurasia. Only the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, according to Vygon, where he emigrated in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, put an end to the almost universal political, cultural and social persecution of the Jewish nation in Eurasia.