FOLKLORICA_7F


Fialkova, Larisa and Maria Yelenevskaya.  In Search of the Self: Reconciling the Past and 
Present in Immigrants’ Experience. Tartu: ELM Scholarly Press.  2013.  Bibliography.  282 
pages.  ISBN 978-9949-490-80-6 
 

With this book Fialkova and Yelenevskaya add yet another entry to their continued study 
of how émigrés from the former Soviet Union make sense of their lives in new surroundings.  As 
in their other books, the authors use the interviews that they conducted with project participants 
and online discussion forums where Russian-speaking newcomers share experiences and advice.  
In the last two chapters of the book they add a new dimension and work primarily with published 
sources.  One of these chapters discusses literary works written by émigrés while the other 
analyzes jokes and cartoons printed in newspapers and circulated online. 

The authors begin by giving a history of their collaborative efforts, describing how they 
met and how they became a team.  They also speak briefly about their methodology and about 
studies of the immigrant experience written by other scholars.  This introduction is followed by a 
chapter on place.  Here we learn the history of immigrant settlement in Israel.  We read the 
immigrants’ own accounts of progressively improved living conditions: they describe how they 
started with very modest quarters and gradually became homeowners and landlords.  As in other 
studies by these two authors, most of the chapter is devoted to quotations.  Respondents discuss 
their preferences, with the young typically wanting to live in large cities, while families gravitate 
toward smaller towns.  Fialkova and Yelenevskaya’s interviewees talk of their perceptions of 
various types of neighbors, both Israeli and Arabic.  They complain about lack of transportation 
and Jewish restrictions on holy day travel.  Some cities that might otherwise be attractive are 
made less so by their proximity to the border and the accompanying potential for missile strikes 
and the authors’ sources discuss the fears of people living in such cites and their ways of coping. 

The chapter on legal anthropology is my favorite.  Fialkova and Yelenevskaya do their 
typical descriptions of people dealing with unfamiliar systems and approaches to life and provide 
ample quotations where new immigrants describe their experience with Israeli courts.  But they 
also add the extra dimension of describing and analyzing ideas of justice that Jews arriving from 
the former Soviet Union developed in their earlier country of residence.  As the authors explain, 
in the countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, there was the law, meaning the formal 
legal system that no one really respected or trusted, and there was also justice, a kind of moral 
given which all good people were expected to recognize and uphold.  It is the desire for justice 
that drives many of the people whose stories are quoted in this book and they tell of pursuing 
litigation to achieve justice, even at great personal cost.  Needless to say, sometimes their efforts 
are successful and sometimes not.  But in many instances their dealings with the Israeli legal 
system are complicated by expectations of certain behaviors from fellow post-Soviet immigrants, 
expectations that are not always met. 

Holidays are the subject of the next chapter.  Immigrants have mixed feelings. They are 
delighted that the Jewish holidays, which had to be marked surreptitiously in the Soviet world, 
can be celebrated openly in Israel.  Yet many miss holidays that were important in their former 
homeland but are not part of Israeli culture.  These include the celebration of New Years, the 
Soviet, non-religious version of Christmas, and holidays of historical importance, such as 
Victory Day, marking the end of the Second World War.  Some newcomers turn to alternative 
rituals, and this chapter has a section on a New Age group that had been popular in Russia.  
Called the followers of Simoron, this group struggles to attract a following on Israeli soil.   

Chapter Four deals with a topic that is new to the authors.  Fialkova, writing alone, looks 



at literary works written by Russian Jews who emigrated to Germany rather than to Israel.  If 
constructing a new identity is difficult for people who move from the former Soviet Union to 
Israel, it is doubly so for those who chose to move to Germany because of the Second World 
War and the Holocaust.  While it seems that the desire to leave Russia or other post-Soviet states 
takes precedence over avoidance of a country with an anti-Semitic past, coming to terms with 
this desire does require artistic exploration.  Many ex-Soviet authors chose to chronicle these 
explorations by writing in German, thus emphasizing their acceptance of a German identity.   

Chapter Five is also a single-author effort.  Here Yelenevskaya looks at the humor of 
Israelis who emigrated from Russia.  Jokes, many dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, draw on 
anti-Arabic sentiment developed prior to immigration to Israel.  They also often use existing 
Russian jokes or offer a word play on familiar Russian phrases.  The jokes, like so many other 
folk expressions, are ambivalent and target Israel as well as its enemies.   

Fialkova and Yelenevskaya’s book is another worthy contribution to the important work 
on diasporas that the authors have already published.  With the movement of peoples, not just 
from Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union to Israel, but across the globe, 
studies such as this are crucial to understanding the current human situation.  While all of the 
material here is good and important, some chapters are better than others.  As already noted, I 
especially liked the chapter on negotiating one’s way through the legal system and dealing with 
firmly held concepts of justice.  I found the final two chapters the least satisfying.  I do not know 
if I have developed a taste for the style of the two authors when they write jointly and miss that 
style when each writes alone.  Perhaps these chapters are less to my liking because they do not 
have the rich personal data that comes with extensive quotations from persons interviewed by the 
authors.  Fialkova argues that using literature lets the author speak for him or herself and avoids 
the power dynamic that is found when an interviewer guides the course of the discussion.  This 
may be true, but I do miss the voices of the respondents when they speak spontaneously rather 
than through polished literary works.  These slight personal quibbles with the approach of this 
book aside, I do highly recommend the volume under review.  It explores new topics and it 
provides the reader with an update on the lives of émigrés from the former Soviet world.  As 
immigrants change their place of residence over time (the topic of the first chapter in this book), 
so their attitudes and concerns also change.  Immigration is not a static phenomenon that can be 
captured in one study and this book is a welcome update that gives us a glimpse into the current 
life of Russian Jews in Israel and elsewhere.   
 
Natalie Kononenko 
University of Alberta 
Edmonton, Alberta 
Canada