Collection of Postcards – Photographs from the Jewish Autonomous Region (Birobidzhan) and the Jewish Agricultural ...

Collection of Postcards – Photographs from the Jewish Autonomous Region (Birobidzhan) and the Jewish Agricultural Settlements in Ukraine – U.S.S.R., 1930s
42 postcards with photographs from Birobidzhan and the Jewish agricultural settlements in Ukraine and Crimea. Printed in Moscow, with the cooperation of the OZET, [ca. 1930s]. Russian.
The photographs that are printed on the postcards depict the various settlements and their residents (group photographs, photographs taken during work in the fields, and more). On several of the postcards appear photographic portraits of Communist leaders and activists, including Joseph Stalin and Semyon Dimanstein, chairman of the OZET committee and head of the Yevsektsiya.
During World War I, the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil war, hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their sources of income. During the early 1920s, public figures and Jewish communists tried to promote the idea of turning the impoverished Jews into farmers and in 1924 the KOMZET - Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on the Land - was established. During the first meeting of the KOMZET management, it set the goal to turn 100,000 Jewish families into land-working farmers. During that same year, the OZET (the public Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land in the Soviet Union) was established, to assist in the execution of the KOMZET's goals. The activity of these organizations, as well as the activity of the Agro-Joint (the executive branch of the Joint in the Soviet Union) led to the establishment of Jewish agricultural settlements in Crimea and South Ukraine, including settlements in the counties of Kalinindorf, Nay-Zlatopol and Stalindorf (the three were announced Jewish counties during the years 1927-1930). In 1934, the Jewish autonomous region in the Russian Far East was established, its capital being Birobidzhan. Stalin's Great Purge during the 1930s, during which the OZET and KOMZET were closed down and Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, put an end to the development of the autonomous Jewish region. In contrast, the Jewish agricultural settlements in Ukraine continued to exist until the area was conquered by the Germans in 1941.
42 postcards, 10X14 cm. Good overall condition (the postcards were not used). Blemishes and minor stains to several of the postcards. Stamps on verso of several of the postcards. One postcard has a horizontal fold line, traces of glue and scrapings in the paper on verso and pen writing.
Literature: "From the Wilderness of Ukraine and Crimea to a Country of Hardship – Birobidzhan…" (Hebrew), by Matityahu Mintz. "Israel", issue 21, Spring 2013, published by The Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel.