The most comprehensive book ever written about the emigration of the Russian Empire’s Jews
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Coming soon from the author of the award-winning Saving Mona Lisa: The Battle to Protect the Louvre and its Treasures from the Nazis
Between 1880 and 1924, roughly 2.5 million Jews in the Russian Empire fled their homes. Yet incredibly, not a single book to date has focused fully or as broadly on the story of this epic migration.
Based on extensive research at some of the world’s foremost Jewish and other academic libraries and archives, The Empire and the Exodus is the first book to focus comprehensively on why Jews left the Russian Empire (pogroms were not the main reason – the book dispels this and other myths) and how they did it. It examines in detail who left and from where, how they obtained information and planned their journeys, the routes they took and what their odysseys were like.
The Empire and the Exodus gives a detailed look at what a long journey in steerage was like. But that was only the last step: for many the journey began with a heart-rending goodbye to loved ones, a horse-drawn wagon or walk to the nearest town with a railroad, lugging the few worldly belongings they hadn’t sold, then a long, difficult rail journey (many in locked train cars) to a port city, all of which are described in detail. The book also explains why so many of the 2.5 million who fled did so illegally and, as a result, how journeys often involved bribes, forged documents, covert border crossings at night and sometimes walks of hundreds of miles or more before getting to a port city, where they were often duped by swindlers.
The book addresses the complex and changing economic and political forces within the Russian Empire and abroad that affected their emigration decisions. Some of these forces were powerful; others were on a more human scale, like the London Jewish organization that placed letters in Yiddish-language Russian newspapers pleading with people to stop coming to England because they would face poverty even worse than at home.
Along with many other topics, the book discusses the planning of those who looked towards the US and those who headed to other horizons, including Palestine, Canada, South America, Australia and South Africa, among others.
As importantly, The Empire and the Exodus brims with excerpts from correspondence and memoirs that give voice to immigrant ancestors from the Russian Empire and the family members they left behind.
Praise for Chanel’s previous book, the award-winning Saving Mona Lisa: The Battle to Protect the Louvre and its Treasures from the Nazis
“…a work of substance and scholarship that should be part of every art history collection and required reading for anyone who cares about Western civilization.” — Booklist, starred review (American Library Association)
“…reads like a thriller…” — Times Literary Supplement
"...will prove to be a monument to courage. Especially recommended to the attention of non-specialist general readers with an interest in World War II history and true tales of extraordinary heroism, "Saving Mona Lisa: The Battle to Protect the Louvre and its Treasures During World War II" should be considered an essential, core addition to academic library 20th Century European History collections." — Midwest Book Review
"... a fascinating historical account...Saving Mona Lisa tells a compelling true story of ordinary citizens (in this case, museum professionals) doing extraordinary things..." — ARLIS Reviews (Art Libraries Society of North America)