Reading Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry

This course will be an intensive, close reading of Isaac Babel’s masterpiece, Red Cavalry (1926). Written in the aftermath of the 1917 Revolution and the failed 1920 Polish war, in which Babel took part, Red Cavalry is one of the great works of Jewish-Russian modernist literature. It recounts many of Babel’s own experiences during the 1920 campaign but goes far beyond simple reportage or realistic portrayal to represent the profound spiritual, moral and social disruptions of the modern period. We will pay attention specifically to the literary elements of Babel’s unique style and explore how this style contributes to the development of his themes of war, the Revolution, the fate of the Jewish people, and the narrator’s own tragically conflicted inner drama of identity, conscience, and commitment.

Jonathan Brent is the Executive Director of The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. From 1991 to 2009 he was Editorial Director and Associate Director of Yale Press. He is the founder of the world acclaimed Annals of Communism series, which he established at Yale Press in 1991. Brent is the co-author of Stalin’s Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953 (Harper-Collins, 2003) and Inside the Stalin Archives (Atlas Books, 2008). He is now working on a biography of the Soviet-Jewish writer Isaac Babel. Brent teaches history and literature at Bard College.

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