WHO ARE THE "EVREYTSY" (JEWS), OR EXPERIENCE OF CULTURAL SYNTHESIS IN THE AMUR REGION
The article is devoted to the analysis of cultural synthesis, which emerged in the Jewish Autonomous Region. Cultures-participants in this synthesis are the cultures of the Amur peasantry and Jewish settlers of 1920s - 1930s. The first community was formed in the last decades of the XIX century in the conditions of mass migration of the peasantry to the Amur lands. Huge benefits, relative weakness of power on the eastern outskirts of the Russian Empire led to the formation of a unique community based on the principles of self-organization, distancing itself from any authority. But that community was destroyed during the Sovietization and suppression of anti-Bolshevik uprisings. As a result of the repressions and flight of peasants to China, the region turned out to be uninhabited, and the “relic” of the community participated in the synthesis, reproducing the most archaic and sustainable social and economic practices (setting for autarky, mutual support, egalitarianism, network principles of social interaction, hunting, fishing and gathering in terms of self-sufficiency). The resettlement of Jews from the former “Pale of Settlement” for Soviet power had a completely utilitarian meaning: the reduction of overpopulation in the western regions, the settlement of the “empty” Far East. There was an additional reason for the resettlement of “working Jews” - it was necessary to detach a former resident of the “Pale of Settlement” from the community based on religion. As a result, the project of creating a new Jewish culture was implemented - “national in form and socialist in content”. At the same time, the internal ties and economic practices of the new settlers were formed under the strongest influence of the local peasantry. As a result there appeared such a structure where the Jewish component was responsible for communication with the outside world, and the peasant one was responsible for the economy of the region and communication inside the community.