Auction 61 - Rare and Important Items
Postcard Collection - Photographs from the Jewish Autonomous Region (Birobidzhan) and the Jewish Agricultural Settlements in the Ukraine - U.S.S.R., 1930s
Opening: $3,800
Unsold
42 postcards with photographs from Birobidzhan and the Jewish agricultural settlements in the Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. Printed in Moscow, in cooperation with OZET, [ca. 1930s]. Russian.
Collection of postcards depicting agricultural settlements in Birobidzhan, in the Ukraine and in the Crimean peninsula. The photographs printed on the postcards show the various settlements and their residents (group photographs, photographs showing work in the fields, and more). One of the postcards shows a photograph of the plane "Der Birobidzhaner" (prior to its flight to the Ukraine). Some of the postcards show photographic portraits of Communist leaders and activists, including Joseph Stalin and Semyon Dimanstein, chairman of the OZET council and head of the Yevsektsiya.
During the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War, hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their sources of income. In the early 1920s, Jewish Communists and public figures attempted to promote the idea of retraining the impoverished Jewish social strata for work in agriculture, and in 1924 the Komzet was founded - the Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on the Land. During its first session, the Komzet directorate set the goal of retraining about 100,000 Jewish families for agricultural work. In the same year, the OZET organization was founded (the Public Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land in the Soviet Union). OZET was supposed to assist in implementing the goals set by the Komzet. The activities of these organizations, as well as that of the "Agro-Joint" (the executive branch of the JDA in Soviet Russia) brought about the founding of Jewish agricultural settlements in the Crimean peninsula and in southern Ukraine, including settlements in the provinces of Kalinidorf, Neizlatopol (Novo-Zlatopol) and Stalindorf (all three were declared Jewish provinces in the years 1927-1930). In 1934, the Jewish Autonomous Region was established in the Russian Far East, with the city of Birobidzhan as its capital. Stalin's great purges of the 1930s, during which the organizations OZET and Komzet were closed and Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, put an end to the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region. By contrast, the Jewish agricultural settlements in the Ukraine continued to exist until the occupation of these regions by the Germans in 1941.
42 postcards, 14X10 cm. Good overall condition (the postcards were never used). Defects and light stains to some of the postcards. Ink stamps to reverse of some of the postcards. One of the postcards is slightly damaged (with a horizontal folding line, gluing marks and paper peeling to the postcard's reverse, and pen inscriptions).
See: "From the Prairies of the Ukraine and Crimea to the Land of Hardship - Birobidzhan: On the History of the Yevsektsiya's Yearning for a National Jewish Republic in the Soviet Union", by Matityahu Mintz. "Israel", booklet 21, spring 2013, published by the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel.
Collection of postcards depicting agricultural settlements in Birobidzhan, in the Ukraine and in the Crimean peninsula. The photographs printed on the postcards show the various settlements and their residents (group photographs, photographs showing work in the fields, and more). One of the postcards shows a photograph of the plane "Der Birobidzhaner" (prior to its flight to the Ukraine). Some of the postcards show photographic portraits of Communist leaders and activists, including Joseph Stalin and Semyon Dimanstein, chairman of the OZET council and head of the Yevsektsiya.
During the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War, hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their sources of income. In the early 1920s, Jewish Communists and public figures attempted to promote the idea of retraining the impoverished Jewish social strata for work in agriculture, and in 1924 the Komzet was founded - the Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on the Land. During its first session, the Komzet directorate set the goal of retraining about 100,000 Jewish families for agricultural work. In the same year, the OZET organization was founded (the Public Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land in the Soviet Union). OZET was supposed to assist in implementing the goals set by the Komzet. The activities of these organizations, as well as that of the "Agro-Joint" (the executive branch of the JDA in Soviet Russia) brought about the founding of Jewish agricultural settlements in the Crimean peninsula and in southern Ukraine, including settlements in the provinces of Kalinidorf, Neizlatopol (Novo-Zlatopol) and Stalindorf (all three were declared Jewish provinces in the years 1927-1930). In 1934, the Jewish Autonomous Region was established in the Russian Far East, with the city of Birobidzhan as its capital. Stalin's great purges of the 1930s, during which the organizations OZET and Komzet were closed and Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, put an end to the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region. By contrast, the Jewish agricultural settlements in the Ukraine continued to exist until the occupation of these regions by the Germans in 1941.
42 postcards, 14X10 cm. Good overall condition (the postcards were never used). Defects and light stains to some of the postcards. Ink stamps to reverse of some of the postcards. One of the postcards is slightly damaged (with a horizontal folding line, gluing marks and paper peeling to the postcard's reverse, and pen inscriptions).
See: "From the Prairies of the Ukraine and Crimea to the Land of Hardship - Birobidzhan: On the History of the Yevsektsiya's Yearning for a National Jewish Republic in the Soviet Union", by Matityahu Mintz. "Israel", booklet 21, spring 2013, published by the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel.