Odesa Myth

Tuition: $450 | YIVO members: $350**
Students: $225 (Must register with valid university email address)

This is a live, online seminar held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English.

Instructor: Tetyana Yakovleva

Course Description:
Odesa changed from a peripheral geographical place on the edge of the Russian Empire to one of the main Jewish cultural centers at the end of the 19th century. The cultural-historical myth of Odesa represented in various literary texts intensified after 1905 as a result of the revolution and the anti-Jewish pogrom that year. Before the period of upheaval, the Odesa myth was that of a lively Jewish life. Odesa was famous for its economic success, freedom, and cosmopolitanism. After 1905, the Odesa myth shifted mostly to Odesa's underworld and glorious past. The Odesa myth started to flourish without existing and real Jewish spaces, remaining only in memory spaces.

This course provides a survey of the Odesa myth in Jewish literature written originally in Yiddish and Russian. Students will read and discuss selected translated prose, poetry, and press by eminent Jewish poets and writers such as Osip Rabinovich, Mendele Moykher-Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, Semen Iushkevich, Shimen Frug, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and Isaac Babel.

Students will explore texts fundamental for understanding Jewish Odesa and interpret the works in connection with social, historical, and cultural issues. The instructor will provide visual materials, such as texts, pictures, maps, or film clips, in every session.

Who should take this course?
This class is open to anyone interested in the topic as outlined in the course description. The class discussion will be conducted in English, and all course materials will be read in English or in English translation. No previous background knowledge or specific education level is required.

Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

Tetyana Yakovleva is Vice-President and Yiddish Lecturer of the Yiddish Arts and Academics Association of North America (YAAANA) in San Diego. She studied Comparative Literature, Classical, Slavic, Jewish, and Media Studies in Ukraine (Kharkiv National Karazin-University), Germany (University of Regensburg), Italy (University of Bari Aldo Moro), and the USA (University of California in San Diego). She received a PhD in Slavic-Jewish Studies from Regensburg University. Tetyana is currently writing a book about Odessa 1905 in Russian Jewish Literature. Her academic research interests include 20th-century Yiddish, Ukrainian, and Russian literature, Spatial Literary Studies, and Modernism in Ukraine. Tetyana writes in Russian, Ukrainian, German, English, and Yiddish.

**Become a member today, starting at $54 for one year, and pay the member price for classes! You’ll save $46 right now, and more on future classes and public programs tickets.