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Sergey R. Kravtsov, in the Shadow of Empires—Synagogue Architecture in East Central Europe (Weimar: Grunberg Verlag, 2018), 294 Pages, Ca

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Sergey R. Kravtsov, in the Shadow of Empires—Synagogue Architecture in East Central Europe (Weimar: Grunberg Verlag, 2018), 294 Pages, Ca Sergey R. Kravtsov, In the Shadow of Empires—Synagogue Architecture in East Central Europe (Weimar: Grunberg Verlag, 2018), 294 pages, ca. 100 ills. This 13.5 by 20.5 cm, roughly 300-page book sails is, the in-between condition. Named first as Lvov against the tide of large coffee table books about syna- (Latin: Leopolis) after Leo, the eldest son of Daniel, gogue architecture and its history. The author keeps King of Ruthenia, it was the capital of the Kingdom of visuality low key, although the photographs, both Galicia—Volhynia (Kingdom of Ruthenia) from 1272 archival and new images, as well as drawings and CAD to 1349; it was then conquered by King Casimir III the models represent the ideas he posits clearly. The book Great, who became known as the King of Poland and takes a middle way between the strict architectural Ruthenia. From 1434, it was part of the Kingdom of approach and that of cultural history. Both groups of Poland. In 1772, after the first partition of Poland, the readers will find new insights that paint a rich picture city was renamed Lemberg and became the capital of of Jewish life in the shadow of empires/kingdoms of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria as the German Sprachraum—Austria, from 1867 Austria- part of the Habsburg Empire. Hungary and German Lands, from 1871 the German Westernization and modernization occurred during Reich—and the Russian Empire. this period, including Jewish emancipation coupled An architect and architectural historian, Sergey R. with acquiring the German ideal of Bildung, and Kravtsov is a leading scholar in the field of architec- later with Polish acculturation. In the aftermath of tural research related to Jews from the late Middle World War I, with the massive redrawing of European Ages until our days. His scholarly opus spans more borders, for a short time, Lemberg became the capital than three decades, from about 1987 to 2019. His of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic. Between the work has appeared in the major languages of East two world wars, the city was the center of the Lwów (Central) Europe, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian and Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. In 1931, in English. Moreover, he belongs to the minority of some 50.4% of the population was Catholic, 31.9% scholars in this field who apart from art and cultural Jewish, and 15.9% Greek Catholic, and virtually no historic approaches and methods involve themselves Russian Orthodox. After the German-Soviet invasion of in architectural field research and study existing syna- Poland in 1939, L’viv became part of the Soviet Union, gogue buildings in situ, observing and recording major and 1944–1946 saw a population exchange between and minor architectural elements as well as the urban Poland and Soviet Ukraine. After the fall of Commu- context of Jewish places of worship. This aspect of his nism, in 1991, the city hitherto called Lvov became part research helps him find hints regarding regional/local of the independent nation-state of Ukraine, changing particularities and the agents behind them as well as its name to L’viv. The turbulent history with often interregional influences and parallels, and to draw new changing borders in the ‘shadows of empires’ contrib- conclusions. Relying mainly on primary sources and on uted to a diverse population in terms of ethnicity and the construction of three-dimensional digital models confession, including the Jews, who played a pivotal of progressive stages in the building of synagogues and role in westernization. their consequent reconstructions/alterations guaran- It is no wonder that the book starts out in Leopolis- tees his scientific accuracy. Moreover, this book is not Lwów-Lemberg-Lvov-L’viv and its hinterland, the just a dry architectural historiography, pure erudition province of Galicia as it is referred to in German in action; rather it represents a passion to discover historiography. The author is quick to note, “… the cultural rootedness. In his superb introduction, Ilia historical region of Galicia is a political and geographi- Rodov wittily labels the author as one of the “Last of cal construct, invented in the late eighteenth century Galizianers” in Jewish art history. to include the new gains of the Habsburg Empire” In the Shadow of Empires highlights the cultural (p. 21). However, he adds soon afterward, “… despite aspects of Jews living in Galicia and in part of the the artificial exterior boundaries and interior divi- Pale of Settlement, as well as in countries of the Ger- sion into Eastern and Western Galicia, the construct man Sprachraum and some other areas in the Russian proved to be sustainable even after the decay of the Empire. Kravtsov was born and raised in the city Habsburg Empire in 1918, at least in the mental map known today as L’viv (Львів), which itself exempli- of the Galician Jews, the so-called Galitzianers.” It is fies the idea referred to in the title of the book, that a known phenomenon in European history that Jews © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 IMAGES Also available online—brill.com/ima DOI:10.1163/18718000-12340116 BOOK REVIEWs 211 often preserve the culture and elements of identity and structed through the synagogue architecture of the the spirit of lost empires and its provinces, as was the easternmost provinces of the Habsburg Empire, Eastern case in Austria-Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the “Soviet Galicia, and Bukovina from early emancipation up to Empire.” They do the same in their new domiciles, as World War I. Until the partition of Polish-Lithuanian the United States and in Eretz Israel, either through Commonwealth in 1772, Jewish communities and their formal landsmannschaften or simply by continuing synagogues were overruled by the Catholic Church, certain intellectual traditions. That is understand- and synagogues were limited in terms of size, their able when one considers how long the Jewish people allowable locations in the city, and the richness of preserved their own indigenous traditions and the their architecture. memory of their past dialogues with others. Similarly, In 1781 the enlightened Austrian emperor Joseph II as personified by the author, some Jewish families limited the power of Catholic Church and issued the preserved the remnants of westernized cosmopolitan Patent of Tolerance. In 1789 Jews ceased to be second- culture in post-World War II Soviet Lviv. class citizens, at least legally. However, the price was The first chapter entitled “Synagogues of Galicia as high: Jews lost the autonomy of their Kehillot, becoming Cultural Heritage” offers a general historical overview loyal “Habsburg subjects of Mosaic faith,” a concept of the evolution of Jewish places of worship in the prov- that theoretically stripped the Jews of their ethnic- ince, which in many periods echoes general European ity, reducing Judaism to a mere religion, mainly in its trends. This survey starts in the Middle Ages, when Jews rational trend in the spirit of Vernunftreligion. This expelled from the German Sprachraum found refuge in inevitably led to a split in Jewry into reformists and East Central and Eastern Europe, taking the synagogue traditionalists. Enlightened Jews or maskilim embraced building tradition of the dual-nave arrangement with the German and Austro-German culture, later also two central columns/pillars with them. Jewish-Polish identity, whereas traditionalist, the Chapter Two deals with the Turey Zahav Syna- Hasidim and Mitnagdim (their opponents), refuted the gogue, the most important artifact of this cultural changes. After losing the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, transfer from the German Jewish world to East Cen- the Habsburgs were forced to grant autonomy to some tral Europe at the end of the Gothic period. This provinces (Hungarian Crown in 1867; Galicia in 1873), synagogue, founded by the king’s financier Yitzhak which fostered nationalism, and on the Jewish side with ben Nachman, was built in 1581–1582 in the former the rise of Jewish nationalism and Zionism increased Jewish Quarter in the southeast corner of downtown resistance to assimilation. Kravtsov divides this chap- Lviv, which was settled in the late fourteenth century. ter according to stylistic periods of Baroque Survival The building was subsequently expanded, but its for- and Revival, Neo-Classicism, Rundbogenstil, Romantic tunes changed: in 1606 the Jesuits took it over; in 1609 Historicism (including the “Moorish” style, the sup- owing to Yitzhak’s son Nachman and his wife, Rosa, it posedly Jewish version of Romantic Historicism), and returned to Jewish hands and acquired the nickname National Romanticism. In each, he thoroughly analyses the Golden Rose Synagogue. In 1801, it lost its status as the architecture of synagogues. the main synagogue within the city walls when a new In Chapter Four the reader is taken to Volhynia, the more modern Jewish place of worship was built. The northeastern neighbor of Galicia within the Russian author concludes that the Gothic construction of the Empire with a survey of nineteenth- and twentieth- building in the late sixteenth century was obsolete, as century synagogues there. The author writes: the patron, Yitzhak ben Nachman had been inspired by the Old Synagogue (Stara Synagoga) in Kazimierz, This study was partially inspired by works of a town near the Polish capital Krakow, which was built the 1990s dealing with the imperial politics of in the fifteenth century but was reconstructed shortly Russification in the Western Krai [region], and before Yitzhak’s commission. The Golden Rose was the subsequent “Byzantinization” of its Christian destroyed by the Nazis, and today is a protected ruin sacred architecture.… “The present research in the memorial area. This case study sheds light on centers on synagogue architecture and on the the complex social and historical roots of early modern cultural identities of Jewish communities versus synagogue construction in the region.
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