Antisemitism and its opponents : reflections in the Russian press : from Perestroika until the present

Among the innovations appearing with perestroika was open discussion of antisemitism in Russia's press. Newly-emerging nationalists groups, and a section of the Russian intelligentsia, centered in the literary unions of the Russian Federation, began publishing voluminous accusations against the Jews as foreign despoilers of Russian culture and/or malevolent seekers of world domination, in the spirit of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Jews served as the scapegoat for a perceived loss of national identity and culture that disoriented these Russians. Opposition to antisemitism came from a newly-public Jewish press, and from those of the Russian intelligentsia who this affirmed the liberal democracy basic to their values. For the first time since the end od the 1920s, Russian courtrooms became a venue of contention between the antisemites and their opponents.