Victoria Khiterer
Stanford University
Final Report of my research during The Friends
of the Princeton University Library Fellowship on the topic: "The History of
Hassidism in Ukraine in the second part of the 19th to early 20th
century."
During my fellowship (June 2002) I worked one month in the
Princeton Universities libraries. It was very successful and productive experience
for me.
The Princeton University Libraries contain one of
the largest and most important collections in the US in the history and philosophy
of the Jewish religious movement Hassidism. This collection has 1789 entries
in the history and philosophy of Hassidism and many dozens of this books devoted
the history Hassidism in Ukraine. Almost all these monographs are located in
the Firestone library (Near East and other collections) and in the Forrestal
Annex Library. I used many dozens of books in the History of Hasidism in Ukraine
in four languages: English, Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian. However the Princeton
Rare Books and Manuscripts collections do not contain manuscripts or rare books
about the history Hassidism in Ukraine. All books on this topic, even of the
beginning of the 19th century are located in the other Princeton
libraries. Thus the book "Sefer Keter Shem Tov Ba'al Shem Tov", that was published
in 1800, is located in the Forrestal Annex Library. The Forrestal Annex Library
has many other books in the history of Hassidism from the 19th to
the beginning of the 20th centuries, which I used in my work.
All of the staff of the Princeton University Libraries to
whom I referred regarding my project were very attentive and provided me their
help. I'd like to give my special gratitude to the former Chair of the Friends
of the Princeton University Library Fellowship, John Delaney, who to acquainted
me with the Princeton University libraries, and to the Hebrew Language Bibliographer
Nancy Pressman Levy, who acquainted me with the Near East Collection of the
Firestone library.
During my Fellowship I also had a scholarly contacts with
my colleagues in different Departments of Princeton. I talked about my project
with the Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures Professor
Carol Emerson, Professor Antony Grafton, Professor Stefan Kotkin, Director of
the Program in Jewish Studies Froma I. Zeitlin. All of them gave me the good
advise regarding my work.
The result of my work during the Fellowship was the preparation of the article:
"The fight of the Russian authorities against Tzaddikism in the late 18th
to early 20th Centuries" that I attached to this report. I am going
to publish this article in a Jewish scholarly journal and of course I will note
that this article was prepared with support of the Friends of the Princeton
University Library Fellowship. I am very grateful to the members of the Search
Committee of the Fellowship for the opportunity for me to work at my project
using the fine collections in the Princeton University libraries.
libraryf@princeton.edu
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