Odessa Recollected

“It is no exaggeration to call Patricia Herlihy the pioneer of Odesa studies in the US and Western Europe. Her groundbreaking publications encouraged dozens of scholars to dig deeper into the city’s history. Her book Odessa Recollected, a collection of articles and book chapters published from the early 1970s up until the 2000s, is a monument to her life-long occupation with Odesa. … Divided into three sections – culture, community, and commerce – the reader encounters a variety of different approaches to Odesa’s history, among them reflections on the usages of the past in present-day Odesa, statistical and ethnographic works, particularly focusing on the Greek and Jewish populations living in and shaping the city, as well as several economic analyses of Odessa’s regional and global commerce. This collection of essays is as diverse as it is insightful. … Reading Patricia Herlihy’s texts reminds us of her impressive scholarly legacy. Her rich and multifaceted essays are matched by the numerous illustrations of postcards, posters, and pictures printed in the book. They add a vital visual experience of both city and port.”

— Boris Belge, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas

“Odessa Recollected, as the title implies, is a collection of articles—thirteen pieces that were previously published between 1973 and 2014. They are the result of more than fifty years of research into government reports, contemporary newspapers, travel and imaginative literature, official and unofficial histories of Odesa, census reports, almanacs, university records, city directories, consular letters and reports, life histories, and genealogical tables. These well-written articles depict a city replete with opportunities, as well as a small world with many contrasts—from its enterprising and prosperous industrialists, bankers, merchants, and real estate and insurance agents to individuals who too often turned to violence, as happened during the pogroms of 1871, 1881, and 1905. … [The book’s] format lays the underpinnings for what is a brilliant outline of the many peculiarities of this energetic, vibrant, and cosmopolitan oasis of beauty and freedom.”

—J.-Guy Lalande, St. Francis Xavier University, East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies

“With a profound understanding of the multi-ethnic and multilingual character of the city, Herlihy brings together the life stories of famous Odessites with a rich discussion of Odessa’s unique political, sociocultural, and economic conditions across the centuries. In sum, Odessa Recollected: The Port and the People is a crucial read for all those studying or even visiting Odessa, the ‘Pearl by the Sea’.”
— Ivan Kozachenko, Journal of European Studies