The article describes a victimological paradigm in modern Russian-Israeli literature. The proposed opposition present in the two notions i.e. victim–victimizer is based on Eric Gans’s generative anthropology. The dynamics and possibilities of new form of victimological paradigm are analysed on the basis of chosen literary works in new Russian-Israeli literature.

The article deals, dash-like, with the development of Jewish subject matter in Russian literature: from taboo to self-reflection because of belonging to Jewry, from euphemisms of XIX and XX centuries to the open and proud declaration made by the conceptual Jew, Arkan Kariv, in his XXI century prose. Exemplified in fragments of writings by Dina Rubina, Friedrich Gorenstein, Valentin Rasputin, Alexandr Melikhov and Jury Karabchievsky, some facets of Jewish theme are discussed. In Kariv’s novels Interpreter and Once in Bishkek, a Jew — outsider, pariah, and self-reflecting intellectual — turns into a brutal leader named Martyn Zilber. A special subtlety of this novels’ structure is given by the fact of palimpsest: the reader understands that behind the Kariv’s writings is the novel by his father, Jury Karabchievsky, as much as behind Martyn Zilber’s father stands Alexandr Zilber, the hero of Karabchievsky’s novel.

This article discusses the role of women in the life of „Russian-speaking Israel”. The author gives the names of outstanding women — writers, poets, literary critics, representatives of Russian aliyah in Israel, the seventies and nineties. Among them are: Dora Shturman, Lydia Yanovska, Nina Voronel, Elena Axelrod, Maya Kaganskaya. It turns out that women are a significant part of the cultural space of Israel and the Russian literature of emigration.

This article examines Anton Chekhov’s short story (Quag)mire (Тина, 1886), which gave rise to a great deal of controversy among contemporaneous critics and authors. Some of their commentaries were pejorative, in spite of the fact that Chekhov himself regarded the story as successful. Since the critics frequently referred to the reader’s thoughts and feelings, the article proposes to analyse the story by virtue of cognitively-inspired literary methodology, with emphasis laid on (cognitive) empathy. Particularly useful is also the Deictic Shift Theory, which involves the reader’s engagement in the tracing of “relocated” deictic centres, as well as the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Accordingly, Kowalczyk argues, debauchery is a mire can be considered the story’s central conceptual metaphor, while the story’s title, Тина (Tina), literally a (quag)mire, provides a key to its interpretation. In the story, told by the third-person narrator, the reader empathically identifies her/himself with Alexandr Sokolsky, a Russian officer, as if “entering” the deictic field created  "around" him. Together the protagonist, the reader —via a sequence of consecutive deictic shifts — is empathetically familiarized with Susanna, a Russified Jewish woman. Through several actions and utterances, Susanna attempts to question the negative stereotype of a Jew, commonplace in Russia, but fails. Arguably, the reader’s evoking the biblical story of the genuinely virtuous Susanna, implied in Chekhov’s text, entails her/his negative perception of Chekhov’s fictional female. This cultural undercurrent may be deemed responsible for the story’s unfavourable reception by Jewish readers, who interpreted Тина (Tina) in terms of a literary attack on their society. In light of the cognitive-literary approach delineated above, Chekhov’s story in question indeed proves to be anti-semitic.

In this paper the views of Zinaida Gippius on the status, place and role of the Jews in history, expressed in the diaries, journalistic writing and essays were analysed. A reading of these texts leads to the conclusion that the writer had an ambivalent attitude to the Jews. On the one hand, her position, especially soon after the Bolshevik revolution, corresponding to negative stereotypes, but on the other hand overcome it. The journalistic writing and Gippius’ diaries comes belief in the need for reconciliation and in the possibility of achieving it. The hope for a harmonious coexistence of people connects Gippius with religious movements in Russia, the revival of the Orthodox Church and the opening of the Jews to Christianity.

The paper delineates the history of Rachel Boymvol — a poetess, and an author of aphorisms, fables both for children and adults, and a compendium concerning Yiddish idiomatics. Her life — from the fascination with communism in the 1930s to facing persecutions in 1940s and 1950s, and emigration to Israel in 1971 — is one of the many fates of Russian writers of Jewish descent. Previously a noteworthy fabulist, published in millions of volumes, this later forgotten author is slowly regaining her place within Russian literature after 2000.

The article is an attempt of the semantic interpretation of the poem of Inna Lisnianska “Развалилось то, что долго длилось…”. It concerns the role of the Jewish Question in identity formation of the lyrical subject. I was preceded by a rough outline of the Jewish issue in Russian literature. The interpretation demonstrates that the drama of the tumble indicated in the title is opposed by the “elf” of the lyrical subject. That self was formed by the unity of blood, the unity of both cultures and both religions. It was formed by her cry — with all the blood (“всей своей кровью”), where Christian and Jewish elements merge.

Rubina looks at the unpredictable and difficult every-day reality of “Russian Israel” in the 90s from the perspective of Jewish tradition, culture and religion. She creates an image full of equal amounts of both comedy, irony and even grotesque and philosophical and religious thoughts. The novel develops the idea of the destiny of the Jewish people and the unity of Jews with their own land. The novel’s characters are not looking for their own identity — they know very well who they are and where they belong. The background of the novel are descriptions of the regional political and religious conflicts as well as realities (including geographical and topographical) of Israel and faithfully reproduced cultural climate.

The character of Russian-Jewish immigrant constitutes undoubtedly one of the major figures in Israeli cinema. The aim of the studies is to focus on two contemporary Israeli films, i.e. Saint Clara (Clara Hakedosha, 1996) by Ari Folman and Ori Sivan and Circus Palestine (Kirkas Palestina, 1998) by Eyal Halfon from the point of view of intercultural relationships. The selected texts of culture seem to show both Russian and Jewish culture as dynamic and ambiguous phenomena, which are characterised by a number of paradoxes, polar stereotypes and prejudices. At the same time, however, the cultures turn out to be similar to each other in their continuous inner conflict between striving for freedom and the need of self-restraint.

The Russian problem in Polish literature in Israel is first of all concerned with experiences of the writers. The Soviet Russia was on the one hand a place of torment and torture, but on the other it was a chance for may Polish Jews (significant Polish-Israeli writers) to survive. According to the author the writers were either ideological communists, camp prisoners or refugees. The time they spent in the Soviet Union was an inspiration for their literary works, and Russia — paradoxically — was a source of great fascination.