Winner of a National Jewish Book Award "Fascinating.…A humane and tragic survey of a great and tragic subject." —Jan Morris, Literary Review
From Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to Zionist renegade Vladimir Jabotinsky and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, an astonishing cast of geniuses helped shape Odessa, a legendary haven of cosmopolitan freedom on the Black Sea. Drawing on a wealth of original sources and offering the first detailed account of the destruction of the city's Jewish community during the Second World War, Charles King's Odessa is both history and elegy—a vivid chronicle of a multicultural city and its remarkable resilience over the past two centuries.
Charles King is a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University. A frequent media commentator on global issues, he is the author of Gods of the Upper Air, Odessa, Midnight in the Pera Palace, and other books. He lives in Washington, DC.
Table of Contents
Author's Note 11
Maps 13
Introduction 17
Part I City of Dreams
Chapter 1 The Sinister Shore 23
Chapter 2 Potemkin and the Mercenaries 37
Chapter 3 Beacon 53
Chapter 4 The Governor and the Poet 71
Chapter 5 "There Is Nothing National about Odessa" 97
Part II The Habitations of Cruelty
Chapter 6 Schemes and Shadows 127
Chapter 7 Blood and Vengeance 151
Chapter 8 New World 177
Chapter 9 The Fields of Transnistria 201
Chapter 10 "I Would Like to Bring to Your Attention the Following" 229