The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century

by Leo Wiener

V. PRINTED POPULAR POETRY

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.