The Velizh Affair

Name: The Velizh Affair
Price: 49.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9798897837526

Blood Libel in a Russian Town

Eugene Avrutin, Aleksandra Glebovskaya

$49.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

Russian

Academic Studies Press
05 March 2026

Social & cultural history; Religious intolerance, persecution & conflict

On April 22, 1823, a three-year-old boy named Fedor finished his lunch and went to play outside. Fedor never returned home from his walk. Several days later, a neighbor found his mutilated body drained of blood and repeatedly pierced. In small market towns, where houses were clustered together, residents knew each other on intimate terms, and people gossiped in taverns, courtyards, and streets, even the most trivial bits of news spread like wildfire. It did not take long before rumors emerged that Jews had murdered the little boy.

The Velizh Affair reconstructs the lives of Jews and their Christian neighbors caught up in the aftermath of this chilling criminal act. The investigation into Fedor's death resulted in the charging of forty-three Jews with ritual murder, the theft and desecration of church property, and the forcible conversion of three town residents. Drawing on an astonishing number of newly discovered trial records, historian Evgeny Avrutin explores not only the multiple factors that caused fear and conflict in everyday life but also the social and cultural worlds of a multi-ethnic population that had coexisted for hundreds of years.

This beautifully crafted book provides an intimate glimpse into small-town life. The case unfolded in a town like any other town in the Russian Empire where lives were closely interwoven, where rivalries and confrontations were part of day-to-day existence, and where the blood libel was part of a well-established belief system.

By: Eugene Avrutin
Translated by: Aleksandra Glebovskaya
Imprint: Academic Studies Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 228mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9798897837526
Pages: 242
Publication Date: 05 March 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Evgeny Avrutin is Professor of Modern European Jewish History and the Tobor Family Scholar in the Program in Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois. He is the author and co-editor of several volumes, including Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia (2010) and Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond: New Histories of an Old Accusation (2017). The Velizh Affair: Blood Libel in a Russian Town was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.