The Carnival and the Trickster: A Case Study of the Horodziej Pogrom, July 1920

Based on an analysis of the pogrom in Horodziej between 9 and 15 July 1920, this chapter explores how the head of the local fire brigade, Samuel Lederman, came to assume the role of unofficial leader of the community and attempted to limit anti-Jewish violence generally and the mass rape of Jewish women specifically. Initially there was a reluctance on the part of Jews to document mass rape because it was held to be shameful for the victims. However, this changed with its widespread occurrence and with the growing understanding that it had become a weapon of war. The chapter uses Bakhtin’s category of the ‘carnivalesque’, expanding it to encompass the usurped or perverted carnival of inter-ethnic violence, in order to understand Lederman’s rationale in deceiving the perpetrators of the pogrom.