The Kahans from Baku: A Family Saga

Verena Dohrn

Published by Academic Studies Press 2022

The Kahans from Baku

A Family Saga

Verena Dohrn

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781644697566

Overview
Contents

About this book

The book is a family saga, presenting an insight into the history of Jews in Russia’s oil industry. It leads to forced migration in the turbulent 20th century endured and mastered by a cohesive family over four generations in Russia, Germany, Denmark, France, Palestine, and the United States of America.

Author / Editor information

Dohrn Verena :

Verena Dohrn was Professor of Modern Jewish History in Eastern Europe at Göttingen University, author of Jüdische Eliten im Russischen Reich. Aufklärung und Integration im 19. Jahrhundert and editor of Simon Dubnow‘s Buch des Lebens. Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Materialien zur Geschichte meiner Zeit 1860-1933.

Verena Dohrn was Professor of Modern Jewish History in Eastern Europe at Göttingen University. She is the author of Jüdische Eliten im Russischen Reich. Aufklärung und Integration im 19. Jahrhundert, and editor of Simon Dubnow‘s Buch des Lebens. Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Materialien zur Geschichte meiner Zeit 1860-1933.

Reviews

“Verena Dohrn’s book presents a complex transnational story of Jewish oil merchants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, contributing to the growing scope of research on Jewish family businesses in East and Central Europe. … This book will be an interesting read for a broad audience, providing an intimate insight into the private life of oil magnates in turbulent historical times. It may also introduce a new perspective on Jewish business elites to academic readers. The Kahan story transcends the stereotypical divisions between East and West, showing the example of the well-managed business family corporation, which managed to integrate into a few imperial and national contexts of different countries and adapt to the new situations while preserving their complex cultural integrity.”

— Vladyslava Moskalets, Business History

“Jewish entrepreneurs played a major role in economic development in late Imperial Russia, and the oil barons of the Kahan family were among the most important. And the least studied—until 2018, when Verena Dohrn published her pioneering monograph in German, now being made available in English translation. The research is massive: the book uses family archives (with thousands of documents) as well as state repositories in fourteen countries, complemented by oral history and the contemporary press. All this allows Dohrn to provide a detailed narrative that explains how the family was able to thrive before the 1917 revolution and then to survive after its emigration to the West. Not only specialists but general readers will discover a rich narrative of this family’s everyday life and successful business activities.”
—Gregory L. Freeze, Raymond Ginger Professor of History, Brandeis University

“This fascinating family history takes the reader across countries and continents during the turbulent period of European wars and revolutions, from a small Belarusian shtetl to Baku, Moscow, Petrograd, Berlin, and then on to Tel Aviv and New York. The Kahans were successful entrepreneurs, generous philanthropists and cultural activists who left their mark on modern Jewish life and culture. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written by Verena Dohrn, a prominent German historian of Russian Jewry, this study is not only an important contribution to Jewish history and transnational diaspora studies, but also a captivating reading in its own right."
—Mikhail Krutikov, University of Michigan

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface Jonah Gavrieli Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
In Memoriam Elijahu (Eli) Rosenberg Noa Rosenberg Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
Translator’s Foreword Uri Themal Publicly Available Download PDF	xxi
1. Jacob Kahan. Imprisoned. Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Chaim Kahan. From Orlya to Brest-Litovsk Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
3. Life under War Conditions. Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
4. On the Move. Vilna, Warsaw, Kharkov, Saratov … Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
5. Citizenship and the World of Education— Berlin, Bonn, Frankfurt, Marburg, Antwerp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
6. To Baku Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
7. Zina and the Oilfields. Baku Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
8. Aron and the Black Gold. Baku Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
9. Summer Resorts during the War: Bad Harzburg, Bad Neuenahr, Bad Polzin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
10. Economic Management in Times of War and Revolution. Petrograd Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
11. Across the Front Line—Berlin, Warsaw, Baku, Moscow, Vilna, Kharkov, Kiev Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
12. Expulsion from Russia. Baku, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav, Moscow Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
13. Fresh Start in the West. Caucasian Oil Company. Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
14. Family in Exile. Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	236
15. Nitag. Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	254
16. Devotion to Books. Petrograd, Vilna, Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	272
17. 36 Schlüterstrasse. Expulsion from Paradise. Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297
18. The Mavericks between the Wars—European Corporate Networks: Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, London, Riga, Paris, Amsterdam Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315
19. The Third Expulsion. Paris, Lisbon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	335
20. Eretz Israel. Tel Aviv Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	354
21. Sanctuaries. The Family Is Alive. New York, Tel Aviv, Ma’agan Michael Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	372
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	391
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	393
The Family Tree Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	437
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	439

Language: English
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Audience: College/higher education;General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 482
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 57
Keywords: Modern Jewish history; family; oil industry; Russian Revolution; Forced migration; Zionist movement; publishing houses; diaspora; Nazi Germany; Azerbaijan

eBook

Published: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 9781644697566