Der Nister's Soviet Years: Yiddish Writer as Witness to the People

Abstract

businesses, which were the object of boycotts on the part of both Polish and Ukrainian nationalists, developed their own defensive strategies, such as collaborating with the Ukrainian cooperative, Narodna torhivlia, or opening stores with a Ukrainian manager. Dolhanov concludes that economic nationalism in the 1930s did not attain its goals. Ukrainians could not stop the villages’ colonization; Poles could not stop the development of Ukrainian cooperation, and Jewish business in the cities remained strong. Some of the actions, such as an antialcohol campaign directed against Jewish tavern owners, were unsuccessful because of the lack of popular support. “Each to Their Own” presents the complex interrelation between state and non-state nationalism, which resulted in continuous confrontation in the economic sphere that involved most of the political organizations. However, the lack of a Jewish perspective and voice means that Jews are not shown to be equal subjects of modern politics. The book depicts Ukrainian and Polish modern nationalisms competing with the phenomenon of Jewish small storeowners and representatives of a previous order, often overlooking the fact that modern Jewish political movements had also taken a stance in this conflict. Jews, too, tried to solve the problem of the disproportional Jewish professional presence in trade, in part by organizing its own cooperative movements and providing educational programs in crafts such as dress-making. Another problem of the book is its lack of a longer perspective. Though the author shows how economic nationalism was a tool of both nationalizing state and modern movements, it would be helpful to understand the roots of the competition in the state and the evolution of Polish–Ukrainian–Jewish relations in the nineteenth century. For example, interwar Ukrainian cooperatives, and the anti-alcohol movement criticizing the abundance of Jewish liquor establishments, were present from the earlier stages of the Ukrainian national movement in the preceding decades. As noted, this is one of the first studies in Ukrainian historiography dedicated to the economic aspect of Ukrainian nationalism. Future researchers may wish to look more closely at the level of acceptance of new political doctrines, which in turn will enrich our understanding of how economic policy intersects with politics. In the meantime, this book will be helpful not only for scholars of nationalism in interwar Poland but also for those dealing with economic issues that shaped and influenced interethnic relations.