Professionals and Marginals in Slavic and Jewish Cultural Traditions

Professionals and Marginals in Slavic and Jewish Cultural Traditions is the annual publication of the Slavic&Jewish Cultures: Dialogue, Similarities, Differencess project for 2022. It includes papers from the international conference of the same name held in Moscow on December 13, 2021. The book includes twelve articles by Russian and Israeli scholars who work on the social and cultural role of professionals and marginals in various ethno-confessional traditions. The question of the perception of professionals in culture falls under the opposition ones own/anothers, where belonging to ones own or a foreign community or class becomes a defining marker. Traditionally, social strangers, to which representatives of various professions belong, were assigned a special role in calendar, magical, and occasional rites. Thus, professionals and social marginals were not considered outcasts: society assigned them a particular place and role, delegating special cultural functions to them. Like previous publications in this series, Professionals and Marginals in Slavic and Jewish Cultural Traditions is notable for the large amount of field and archival material that it makes publically available for the first time.