Читать книгу The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century - Wiener Leo - Страница 10

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THE author of a recent work on the history of culture among the Galician Jews[44] has pointed out how at the end of the last century the Mendelssohnian Reform, and with it worldly education, took its course through Austria into Galicia, to appear half a century later in Russia. This quicker awakening in the South was not due to geographical position alone, but in a higher degree to political and social causes as well. The language of enlightenment was at first naturally enough a modernized form of the Hebrew, for the literary German was not easily accessible to the Jews of Galicia in the period immediately following the division of Poland. Besides, although books had been printed in Judeo-German for the use of women and 'less knowing' men, the people with higher culture, to whom alone the Mendelssohnian Reform could appeal, looked with disdain on the profane dialect of daily intercourse. When, however, the time had come to carry the new instruction to the masses, the latter had become sufficiently familiar with the German language to be able to dispense with the intermediary native Jargon.[45] Consequently little opportunity was offered here for the development of a dialect literature.

While the Jews of the newly acquired provinces were becoming more and more identified with their coreligionists of German Austria, their Russian and Polish brethren in the Russian Empire were by force of circumstances departing gradually from all but the religious union with them, and were drifting into entirely new channels. Previous to the reign of Nicholas I., their civil disabilities barred them from a closer contact in language and feeling with their Gentile fellow-citizens, while their distance from Germany excluded all intellectual relations with that country. The masses were too downtrodden and ignorant to develop out of themselves any other forms of literature than the one of ethical instruction and stories current in the previous century. In the meanwhile the Haskala, as the German school was called, had found its way into Russia through Galicia, and such men as J. B. Levinsohn, A. B. Gottlober, M. Gordon, Dr. S. Ettinger, had become its warmest advocates. They threw themselves with all the ardor of their natures upon the new doctrine, and tried to correct the neglected education of their childhood by a thorough study of German culture. It was but natural for them to pass by the opportunities offered in their country's language and to seek enlightenment abroad: the Jews were a foreign nation at home, without privileges or duties, except those of paying taxes, while from Germany, their former abiding-place, there shone forth the promise of a salvation from obscurantism and spiritual death. Henceforth the word 'German' became in Russia the synonym of 'civilized,' and a 'German' was tantamount to 'reformed' and 'apostate' with the masses, for to them culture could appear only as the opposite of their narrow Ghetto lives and gross superstition.

The inauguration of the military regime by Nicholas was in reality only meant as a first step in giving civil rights to the Jews of his realm; this reform was later followed by the establishment of Rabbinical schools at Wilna and Zhitomir, and the permission to enter the Gymnasia and other institutions of learning. The Jews were, however, slow in taking advantage of their new rights, as they had become accustomed to look with contempt and fear on Gentile culture, and as they looked with suspicion on the Danaid gifts of the government. The enlightened minority of the Haskala, anxious to lead their brethren out of their crass ignorance and stubborn opposition to the cultural efforts of the Czar, began to address them in the native dialects of their immediate surroundings and to elicit their attention almost against their will. Knowing the weakness of the Jews for tunable songs, they began to supply them with such in the popular vein, now composing one with the mere intention to amuse, now to direct them to some new truth.[46] These poems, like the dramas and prose writings by this school of writers previous to the sixties, were not written down, but passed orally or in manuscript form from town to town, from one end of Russia to the other, often changing their verses and forming the basis for new popular creations. The poet's name generally became dissociated from each particular poem; nay, in the lapse of time the authors themselves found it difficult to identify their spiritual children. An amusing incident occurred some time ago when the venerable and highly reputed poet, J. L. Gordon, had incorporated a parody of Heine's 'Two Grenadiers' among his collection of popular poems, for a plain case was made out against him by the real parodist. Gordon at once publicly apologized for his unwitting theft by explaining how he had found it in manuscript among his papers and had naturally assumed it to be his own production.[47] Another similar mistake was made by Gottlober's daughter, who named to me a dozen of current songs which she said belonged to her father, having received that information from himself, but which on close examination were all but one easily proven as belonging to other poets.[48]

Most difficult of identification are now Gottlober's poems,[49] he having never brought out himself a collective volume of his verses, although he certainly must have written a great number of them as early as the thirties when he published his comedy 'Dās Decktuch.' Those that have been printed later in the periodicals are either translations or remodellings of well-known poems in German, Russian, and Hebrew; but even they have promptly been caught by the popular ear. The one beginning 'Ich lach' sich vun euere Traten aus,' in which are depicted humorously the joys of the Jewish recluse, has been pointed out by Katzenellenbogen as a remodelling of a poem that appeared in a Vienna periodical;[50] the sources of some of the others he mentions himself, while the introductory poem in his comedy is a translation of Schiller's 'Der Jüngling am Bache.' From these facts it is probably fair to assume that most, if not all, of his other poems are borrowings from other literatures, preëminently German. This is also true of his other productions, which will be mentioned in another place. Nevertheless he deserves an honorable place among the popular poets, as his verses are written in a pure dialect of the Southern variety—he is a native of Constantin in the Government of Volhynia—and as they have been very widely disseminated.

No one has exercised a greater influence on the succeeding generation of bards than the Galician Wolf Ehrenkranz, better known as Welwel Zbarżer, i.e. from Zbaraż, who half a century ago delighted small audiences in Southern Russia with his large repertoire. There are still current stories among those who used to know him then, of how they would entice him to their houses and treat him to wine and more wine, of which he was inordinately fond, how when his tongue was unloosened he would pour forth improvised songs in endless succession, while some of his hearers would write them down for Ehrenkranz's filing and finishing when he returned to his sober moods. These he published later in five volumes, beginning in the year 1865 and ending in 1878. While there had previously appeared poems in Judeo-German in Russia, he did not dare to publish them in Galicia except with a Hebrew translation, and this method was even later, in the eighties, adopted by his countrymen Apotheker and Schafir. Ehrenkranz has employed every variety of folksong known to Judeo-German literature except historical and allegorical subjects. Prominent among them are the songs of reflection. Such, for example, is 'The Nightingale,' in which the bird complains of the cruelty of men who expect him to sing sweetly to them while they enslave him in a cage, but the nightingale is the poet who in spite of his aspiration to fly heavenwards must sing to the crowd's taste, in order to earn a living. In a similar way 'The Russian Tea-machine,' 'The Mirror,' 'The Theatre,' and many others serve him only as excuses to meditate on the vanity of life, the inconstancy of fortune, and so forth.

'The Gold Watch' is one of a very common type of songs of dispute that have been known to various literatures in previous times and that are used up to the present by Jewish bards. They range in length from the short folksong consisting of but one question and answer to a long series of stanzas, or they may become the subject of long discussions covering whole books. In 'The Gold Watch' the author accuses the watch of being unjust in complaining and in allowing its heart to beat so incessantly, since it enjoys the privilege of being worn by fine ladies and gentlemen, of never growing old, of being clad in gold and precious stones. Each stanza of the question ends with the words:

Wās fehlt dir, wās klapt dir dās Herz?

The watch's answer is that it must incessantly work, that it is everybody's slave, that it is thrown away as useless as soon as it stops. So, too, is man. Upon this follows what is generally known as a Zuspiel, a byplay, a song treating the contrary of the previous matter or serving as a conclusion to the same. The Zuspiel to 'The Gold Watch' is entitled ''Tis Best to Live without Worrying.' There is a series of songs in his collection which might be respectively entitled 'Memento mori' and 'Memento vivere.' Such are 'The Tombstone' and 'The Contented,' 'The Tombstone-cutter' and 'The Precentor,' 'The Cemetery,' and 'While you Live, you Must not Think of Death.' The cemetery, the gravedigger, the funeral, are themes which have a special fascination for the Jewish popular singers, who nearly all of them have written songs of the same character.

Another kind of popular poetry is that which deals with some important event, such as 'The Cholera in the Year 1866,' or noteworthy occurrence, as 'The Leipsic Fair,' which, however, like the previously mentioned poems, serves only as a background for reflections. There are also, oddly enough, a few verses of a purely lyrical nature in which praises are sung to love and the beloved object. These would be entirely out of place in a Jewish songbook of the middle of this century had they been meant solely as lyrical utterances; but they are used by Ehrenkranz only as precedents for his 'Zuspiele,' in which he makes a Khassid contrast the un-Jewish love of the reformed Jew with his own blind adoration of his miracle-working Rabbi. These latter, and the large number of Khassid songs scattered through the five volumes, form a class for themselves. The lightheartedness, ignorance, superstitions, and intemperance of these fanatics form the butt of ridicule of all who have written in Judeo-German in the last fifty years, but no one has so masterfully handled the subject as Ehrenkranz, for he has treated it so deftly by putting the songs in the mouth of a Khassid that half the time one is not quite sure but that he is in earnest and the poems are meant as glorifications of Khassidic blissfulness. It is only when one reads the fine humor displayed in 'The Rabbi on the Ocean' that one is inclined to believe that the extravagant miracles performed by the Rabbi were ascribed to him in jest only. Owing to this quality of light raillery, the songs have delighted not only the scoffers, but it is not at all unusual to hear them recited by Khassidim themselves.

Ehrenkranz also has some songs in which are described the sorrows of various occupations—a kind of poetry more specially cultivated by Berel Broder. Of the latter little is known except that he composed his songs probably at a time anterior to those just mentioned, that he had lived at Brody, hence his name, and that he had never published them. They were collected by some one after his death and published several times; however, it is likely that several of them are of other authorship, as is certainly the case with 'The Wanderer,' which belongs to Ehrenkranz. As has been said above, he prefers to dwell on the many troubles that beset the various occupations of his countrymen, of the shepherd, the gravedigger, the wagon-driver, the school teacher, the go-between, the usurer, the precentor, the smuggler. They are all arranged according to the same scheme, and begin with such lines as: 'I, poor shepherd,' 'I, lame beadle,' 'I, miserable driver,' 'I, wretched school teacher,' and so forth. The best of these, and one of the most popular of the kind, is probably the 'Song of the Gravedigger.' Of the two songs of dispute, 'Day and Night' and 'Shoemaker and Tailor,' the first is remarkable in that each praises the other, instead of the more common discussions in which the contending parties try to outrival one another in the display of their virtues.

The style of these two Galicians and their very subject-matter were soon appropriated by a very large class of folksingers in Russia who amuse guests at wedding feasts. Before passing over to the writers in Russia we shall mention the two other Galicians who, writing at a later time, have remained unknown beyond their own country, but one of whom at least deserves to be known to a larger circle of readers. The one, David Apotheker, in his collection 'Die Leier,' pursues just such aims as his Polish or Russian fellow-bards and is entirely without any local coloring. The poems are written in a pure dialect, without any admixture of German words, but their poetic value is small, as they are much too didactic. Of far higher importance and literary worth are the productions of his contemporary, Bajrach Benedikt Schafir. Being well versed in German and Polish literature, he generally imitates the form of the best poems in those languages and often paraphrases them for his humble audiences. His language is now almost the literary German, now his native dialect, according as he sings of high matters or in the lighter vein. In the introduction to one of his earlier pamphlets written in a pure German, he says that in Germanizing his native dialect it has been his purpose so to purify the Jargon that it should become intelligible even to German Jews. The most of his songs were collected in 'Melodies from the Country near the River San.' These he divided into four parts: Jewish national songs, songs of commemoration, songs of feeling, and comical songs—the first three, with an elegy on the death of Moses Montefiore, forming the first part, the comical songs the second part, of the collection.

The most of the comical songs are in the form of dialogues in which a German, i.e. a Jew of the reformed church, discusses with a Khassid the advantage of education; in others he describes the ignorance of the latter. Many of them do not rise above the character of theatre couplets, but in the lyrical part the tone is better, and in some of his songs he rivals the best folksingers of Russia. His 'Midnight Prayer' and 'Greeting to Zion' are touching expressions of longing for the ancient home, just as 'Przemysl, You my Dear Cradle,' and 'Homesickness,' are full of yearning for his native country. Of the four songs of commemoration, two deal on the famous accusation, in 1883, of the use of Gentile blood by the Jews in the Passover ceremony, one describes the fire in the Vienna Ring theatre, while another narrates a similar catastrophe in the town of Sheniava.

As early as 1863[51] there was printed in Kiev a volume of songs under the name of 'The Evil-tongued Wedding-jester,' by Izchak Joel Linetzki. Before me lies a somewhat later edition of the book: it is published in a form of rare attractiveness for those days and bears on the title-page a picture of two men, one in European dress, the other in the garments of a Khassid, in the attitude of discussion. This illustration has appeared on all the subsequent editions of the same work; it expresses the author's purpose, which becomes even more patent in his prose works, to instruct the Khassidim in the advantages of culture, however, the few poems in the book devoted to this differ from the usual unconditional praise of reform, in that they point out that the servile imitator of the Gentiles is no better than the stubborn advocate of the old regime. Two of the poems are versified versions of the Psalms, and there are also the usual songs of reflection, and a song of dispute between the mirror and the clock. Two of the poems sing of the joys of May, presenting the rare example of pure lyrics at that early time. These alone will hold a comparison with the best of Ehrenkranz's songs; the others are somewhat weak in diction and loose in execution.

Few poets have been so popular in Russia as Michel Gordon and S. Berenstein were in the past generation, the first singing in the Lithuanian variety of the language, the second in a southern dialect. Both published their collections in Zhitomir in 1869, and Gordon wrote an introductory poem for the book of his friend Berenstein. In this he indicates the marked contrast that exists in the productions of the two. While the first writes to chide superstition and ignorance, the other sings out of pity for his suffering race; while the one sounds the battle-cry of progress, the other consoles his brothers in their misery; the one, fearing prosecution from the fanatic Khassidim whom he attacks, sent his poems out into the world anonymously, the other signed his name to them. And yet, however unlike in form and content, they were both pervaded by a warm love for their people whom they were trying to succor, each one in his own way.

Gordon's[52] poems are of a militant order:[53] he is not satisfied with indicating the right road to culture, he also sounds the battle-cry of advance. The keynote is struck in his famous 'Arise, my People!' 'Arise, my people, you have slept long enough! Arise, and open your eyes! Why has such a misfortune befallen you alone, that you are asleep until the midday hour? The sun has now long been out upon the world; he has put all men upon their feet, but you alone lie crouching and bent and keep your eyes tightly closed.' In this poem he preaches to his race that they should assimilate themselves in manners and culture to the ruling people, that they should abandon their old-fashioned garments and distinguishing characteristics of long beard and forelock, and that they should exchange even the language in which he sings to them for the literary language of the country.

Assimilation was the cry of all the earnest men among the Russian Jews before the eighties, when the course of events put a damper on the sanguine expectations from such a procedure. Many of his other poems are of a humorous nature and have been enormously popular. In 'The Beard,' a woman laments the loss of that hirsute appendage of her husband, who, by shaving it off, had come to look like a despised 'German.' 'The Turnip Soup' and 'I Cannot Understand' are excellent pictures of the ignorance and superstitious awe of the Khassidim before their equally ignorant and hypocritical Rabbis; other poems deal with the stupidity of the teachers of children, and the undue use of spirituous drinks on all occasions of life.

Two of his earliest poems are devoted to decrying the evil custom of early marriages, in which the tastes of the contracting parties are not at all considered. In the one entitled 'From the Marriage Baldachin,' he paints in vivid colors the course of the married life of a Jew from the wedding feast through the worries of an ever-increasing family, and the helplessness of the father to provide for his children, with the consequent breaking up of the family ties. The catching tune to which the poem is sung, and all folksongs are naturally set to music, generally by the authors themselves, and the lifelike picture which it portrays, have done a great deal to diminish the practice; while the other, 'My Advice,' addressed to a girl, advising her to exercise her own free will and reasonable choice of her life's companion, has helped to eliminate misery and to introduce the element of love in the marital stage.

In his advocacy of reform, Gordon had in mind the clearing of the Jewish religion from the accumulated superstitions of the ages which had almost stifled its virgin simplicity, not an abandonment of any of its fundamental principles in the ardent desire for assimilation. True culture is, according to him, compatible with true piety, and a surface culture, with its accompanying slackness of religious life, is reprehensible. When he saw that so many had misunderstood the precepts of those who taught a closer union with the Gentiles in that they adopted the mere appearances of the foreign civilization and overthrew the essential virtues of their own faith, he expressed his indignation in 'The True Education and the False Education,' of which the final stanza is: