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S. An-sky was by the time of the First World War a well-known
writer, a longtime revolutionary, and an ethnographer who pioneered
the collection of Jewish folklore in Russia's Pale of Settlement.
In 1915, An-sky took on the assignment of providing aid and relief
to Jewish civilians trapped under Russian military occupation in
Galicia. As he made his way through the shtetls there, close to the
Austrian frontlines, he kept a diary of his encounters and
impressions, written in Russian. His diary entries present a
detailed reflection of his daily experiences. He describes
conversations with wounded soldiers in hospitals, fellow Russian
and Jewish aid workers, Russian military and civilian authorities,
and Jewish civilians in Galicia and parts of the Pale. Although
most of his diaries were lost, two fragments survived and are
preserved in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.
Translated and annotated here by Polly Zavadivker, these fragments
convey An-sky's vivid firsthand descriptions of civilian and
military life in wartime. He recorded the brutality and violence
against the civilian population, the complexities of interethnic
relations, the practices and limitations of philanthropy and
medical care, Russification policies, and antisemitism. In the late
1910s, An-sky used his diaries as raw material for a lengthy memoir
in Yiddish published under the title The Destruction of Galicia.
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