“De-Fiddler-on-the-Roof-ization”

The ways in which István Deák’s scholarship influences East Central European Jewish historiography present a paradox. While on one hand he elevates a deeply human approach to history writing that centers on individuals and their choices and highlights contingencies and patterns of behavior, on the other he is preoccupied with the institutions that hold states together. In this way, Jews largely represent a Staatsvolk, a state people, in his work, whose allegiance to Austria-Hungary proved especially fateful following the monarchy’s demise. Yet, under his mentorship, students became disabused of ideologies and abstraction and study not nostalgic perceptions but Jews as regular people, earnestly and authentically.