AN OUT-OF-DATE STORY-WRITER
Shaikevitch is the author of interminable, unsigned novels, which are published in daily installments in the east side newspapers. He is so prolific that he makes a good living. There was a time, however, when he gladly signed his name to what he wrote. That time is over, and the reason for it is best brought out by a sketch of his history.
He was born in Minsk, Russia, of orthodox Jewish parents. He began to write when he was twenty years old, at first in pure Hebrew, scientific and historical articles. He also wrote a Hebrew novel, called the Victim of the Inquisition, to which the Russian censor objected on the ground that it dealt with religious subjects.
Compelled to make his own living, young Shaikevitch, whose nom de plume has always been "Schomer," began to write popular novels in the common jargon, in Yiddish. At that time the Jews in Russia were, even more than now, shut up in their own communities, knew nothing of European culture, had an education, if any, exclusively Hebraic and mediæval and were outlandish to an extreme. The educated read only Hebrew, and the uneducated did not read at all. Up to that time, or until shortly before it, the Jew thought that nothing but holy teaching could be printed in Hebrew type. A man named Dick, however, a kind of forerunner of Shaikevitch, had begun to write secular stories in Yiddish. They were popular in form, intended for the ignorant populace who never read at all. Shaikevitch followed in Dick's lines, and made a great success.
He has written over 160 stories, and for many years he was the great popular Yiddish writer in Russia. The people would read nothing but "Schomer's" works. The ignorant masses eagerly devoured the latest novel of Schomer's. It goes without saying that, under the circumstances, these books could be of very slight literary value. They were long, sentimental effusions, tales of bad Christians and good Jews, with a monotonous repetition of stock characters and situations; and with a melodramatic and sensational element. They probably corresponded pretty closely to our "nickel" novels, published in some of our cheapest periodicals, and intended for the most ignorant element of our population. Some of their titles are A Shameful Error, An Unexpected Happiness, The Princess in the Wood, Convicted, Rebecca.
"Schomer" was so successful that he had many imitators, who never, however, succeeded so well. The publishers sometimes tried to deceive the ignorant people into thinking that a new novel of Schomer's had appeared. On the cover of the book they put the title and the new author's name in very small letters, and then in very large letters: "In the style of Schomer." But it did not work. The people remained faithful to the books of the man whom they had first read.
When Shaikevitch, or "Schomer" himself, describes the purpose and characters of his work he talks as follows:
"My works are partly pictures of the life of the Jews in the Russian villages of fifty years ago, and partly novels about the old history of the Jews. Fifty years ago the Jews were more fanatical than they are now. They did nothing but study the Talmud, pray and fast, wear long beards and wigs and look like monkeys. I satirized all this in my novels. I tried to teach the ignorant Jews that they were ridiculous, that they ought to take hold of modern, practical life and give up all that was merely formal and absurd in the old customs. I taught them that a pious man might be a hypocrite, and that it is better to do good than to pray. My works had a great effect in modernizing and educating the ignorant Jews. In my stories I pictured how the Jewish boy might go out from his little village into the wide, Gentile world, and make something of himself. In the last twenty-five years, the Jews, owing to my books, have lost a great deal of their fanaticism. At that time they had nothing but my books to read, and so my satire had a great effect."
Shaikevitch is not entirely alone in this good opinion of his work. Dr. Blaustein, superintendent of the Educational Alliance, said that he owed his position as an educated and modern man to reading novels when he was a boy. Dr. Blaustein lived in a small Russian village, and one day he read a story of "Schomer's" which represented a Jewish boy going out into the world and criticizing his Hebraic surroundings. That was the beginning of Dr. Blaustein's "awakening." Other intelligent Russian Jews probably had this same experience, altho now as mature men they would all, no doubt, grant only a very small, if any, artistic quality to the famous Yiddish writer.
A few years after Shaikevitch's great popularity two men began to write in Yiddish stories which really had value for the intelligent and educated—Abramovitch and, particularly, his pupil Rabinovitch. It was this work which, in some sort of form, did intelligently for the more educated Jews what Shaikevitch had done for the lowest stratum. Rabinovitch published a book in which he brought Shaikevitch to trial. He literally "tore him up the back" as far as literature is concerned—pointed out the tasteless, cheap, sensational character of his work, and held him up generally to ridicule.
N. M. SHAIKEVITCH
As the Jews became better educated this critical feeling about Shaikevitch's work grew more general. It is significant of the progress towards modern things made by the Jews that even the very ignorant no longer admire Shaikevitch's work as much as formerly. He is "out of date," so much so that he now does not sign the stories he publishes in the Yiddish newspapers, which, nevertheless, are still popular among the most ignorant.
The intellectual Socialists of the Jewish quarter in New York also had their fling at the popular writer, and helped to put him into obscurity. Now it is a common thing in the Ghetto to hear a Socialist say that Shaikevitch wielded a more disintegrating and unfavorable influence on the Jews than any other writer. But, nevertheless, the calm old man, who has a wife and several grown children, who are making their way in the new world, still sits quietly at his desk, drinking Russian tea and doing his daily "stunt" of several thousand words for the Yiddish newspapers.
The reason given by Mr. Shaikevitch for coming to America is that he began to be interested in play writing, when the Yiddish stage was prohibited in Russia. The actors left Russia then and came to America, and some of them later wrote Shaikevitch, who was one of the earliest Yiddish playwrights, to join them in New York. He did so, and has written twelve plays, which have been produced in this city. Some of the better known of them are: The Jewish Count, Hamann the Second, Rebecca and Dreyfus. Shaikevitch is interesting mainly as representing in his work an early stage of the popular Yiddish consciousness.