Focusing on Galicia: Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians, 1772-1918 9781874774402, 9781909821637

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THE INSTITUTE FOR POLISH—JEWISH STUDIES The Institute for Polish—Jewish Studies in Oxford and its sister organization, the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, which publish Po/in, are learned societies which were established in 1984, following the First International Conference on Polish—Jewish

Studies, held in Oxford. The Institute is an associate institute of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and the American Association is linked with the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Both the Institute and the American Association aim to promote understanding of the Polish Jewish past. They have no building or library of their own and no paid staff; they achieve their aims by encouraging scholarly research and facilitating its publication, and by creating forums for people with a scholarly interest in Polish Jewish topics, both past and

present. , |

To this end the Institute and the American Association help organize lectures and

international conferences. Venues for these activities have included Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Institute for the Study of Human Sciences in Vienna, King’s College in London, the Jagiellonian University in

Krakow, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, the University of Lodz, University College London, and the Polish Cultural Centre and the Polish embassy in London. They have encouraged academic exchanges between Israel, Poland, the United States, and western Europe. In particular they seek to help train a new generation of scholars, in Poland and elsewhere, to study the culture and history of the Jews in Poland.

Each year since 1986 the Institute has published a volume of scholarly papers in the series Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry under the general editorship of Professor Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University. Since 1994 the series has been published on its behalf by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, and since 1998 the publication has been linked with the American Association as well. In March 2000 the entire series was honoured witha National Jewish Book Award from the Jewish Book Council in the United States. More than twenty other works on Polish Jewish topics have also been published with the Institute’s assistance. For further information on the Institute for Polish—Jewish Studies or the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, contact . For the website of the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, see

The publication of this volume of Polin was facilitated by a grant from the , LUCIUS N. LITTAUER FOUNDATION

THE LITTMAN LIBRARY OF JEWISH CIVILIZATION

Dedicated to the memory of

Louris THOMAS SIDNEY LITTMAN who founded the Littman Library for the love of God

, and as an act of charity in memory of his father JosePH AARON LITTMAN

PW DDT kM

‘Get wisdom, get understanding: Forsake her not and she shall preserve thee’ PROV. 4:5

The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization is a registered UK charity Registered charity no. 1000784

STUDIES IN POLISH JEWRY

VOLUME TWELVE Focusing on Galicia: Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians 1772-1918 Edited by

ISRAEL BARTAL andANTONY POLONSKY

Published for

The Institute for Polish—Jewish Studies and The American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies

Oxford - Portland, Oregon

The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization |

The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization Chief Executive Officer: Ludo Craddock Managing Editor: Connie Webber PO Box 645, Oxford 0X2 OUJ, UK www.littman.co.uk

Published in the United States and Canada by , The Littman Library of fewish Civilization c/o ISBS, 920 N.E. 58th Avenue, Suite 300

Portland, Oregon 97213-3756 . First published 1999 — First digital on-demand edition 2009 © Institute for Polish—-Jewish Studies 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by

any means, without the prior permission in writing of The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization

The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which tt ts published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

A catalogue record for this book ts available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for , ISSN 0268 1056

ISBN 978-1-874774-40-2 Publishing coordinator: Janet Moth Copy-editing: Laurien Berkeley Proof-reading: Anna Zaranko Index: Bonnie Blackburn Design: Pete Russell, Faringdon, Oxon. Printed in Great Britain by Lightning Source UK, Milton Keynes and in the United States by Lightning Source US, La Vergne, Tennessee This book has been printed digitally and produced in a standard specification in order to ensure its continuing availability.

Articles appearing in this publication are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life.

Dedicated by

SEWERYN KON to the memory of his sister

IRENA KOZLOWSKA-FISZEL and his brother

EDMUND KON

Editors and Advisers EDITORS Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Lublin Israel Bartal, Jerusalem Antony Polonsky (Chair), Waltham, Mass. Michael Steinlauf, Philadelphia Jerzy Tomaszewski, Warsaw

EDITORIAL BOARD

Chimen Abramsky, London Elchanan Reiner, Tel Aviv David Assaf, Tel Aviv Jehuda Reinharz, Waltham, Mass. | Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski, Warsaw Moshe Rosman, Te/ Aviv Glenn Dynner, Bronxville, NY Szymon Rudnicki, Warsaw David Engel, New York Henryk Samsonowicz, Warsaw David Fishman, New York Robert Shapiro, New York ChaeRan Freeze, Waltham, Mass. Adam Teller, Haifa

Jézef Gierowski, Krakéw Daniel Tollet, Paris |

Jacob Goldberg, Jerusalem Piotr S. Wandycz, New Haven, Conn. Yisrael Gutman, Jerusalem Jonathan Webber, Birmingham, UK

Jerzy Kloczowski, Lublin Joshua Zimmerman, New York Ezra Mendelsohn, ferusalem Steven Zipperstein, Stanford, Calif. ,

Joanna Michlic, Bethlehem, Pa. | ADVISORY BOARD

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Warsaw Emanuel Meltzer, Tel Aviv

Jan Blonski, Krakow Shlomo Netzer, Tel Aviv

Andrzej Chojnowski, Warsaw Zbigniew Pelczynski, Oxford Andrzej Ciechanowiecki, London Alexander Schenker, New Haven, Conn.

Norman Davies, London David Sorkin, Madison, Wis. Frank Golczewski, Hamburg Edward Stankiewicz, New Haven, Conn.

Olga Goldberg, Jerusalem Norman Stone, Ankara Jerzy Jedlicki, Warsaw Shmuel Werses, Jerusalem

Andrzej Kaminski, London Jacek Wozniakowski, Lublin

Hillel Levine, Boston , Piotr Wrobel, Toronto

Heinz-Dietrich Lowe, Heidelberg

Preface Polin is sponsored by the Institute of Polish—Jewish Studies, Oxford and by the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies, which is linked with the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University. As with earlier issues, this volume could not have appeared without the untiring assistance

of many individuals. In particular, we should like to express our gratitude to Dr Jonathan Webber, Treasurer of the Institute for Polish—Jewish Studies, to Professor Jehuda Reinharz, President of Brandeis University, and Mrs Irene Pipes, President of the American Association for Polish—Jewish Studies. As was the case with earlier volumes, this one could not have been published without the constant assistance and supervision of Connie Webber, managing editor of the

Littman Library, Janet Moth, publishing co-ordinator, and the tireless copyediting of Laurien Berkeley. We also owe a debt to Gwido Zlatkes for keeping toa minimum the mistakes in the Polish language. Plans for future volumes of Poli are well advanced. Volume 13 will feature a cluster of articles on the Holocaust on the Polish lands. We are also planning volumes on Jews in smaller Polish towns, on Jews in the Polish borderlands, and on Polish—Jewish relations in the United States. We would welcome articles for these issues, as well as for our New Views section. We would also welcome any sugges-

tions or criticisms. In particular, we would be very grateful for assistance in extending our coverage to the areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, both in the period in which these countries were part of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and subsequently. We have made some changes in the organization of our yearbook. Gershon Hundert has resigned from our Editorial Collegium. We very much regret this loss and should like to express our appreciation of his many years of sterling work for Polin. We have added two new members to the Collegium, Michael Steinlauf of Gratz College, Pennsylvania, and Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska of the Marie Curie-Skltodowska University in Lublin. The Review section will be under the control of ChaeRan Freeze of Brandeis University and Joshua Zimmerman of Yeshiva University. Finally, we should like to express our sadness at the passing of Professors Chone Shmeruk and Moshe Mishkinsky, both members of our editorial board and pioneers in the development of Polish Jewish studies, and of Dr Teresa Prekerowa, one of the founders of Zegota, a fine scholar and a noble woman.

POLIN Studies in Polish fewry VOLUME 1 Poles and Jews: Renewing the Dialogue (1986) VOLUME 2 Jems and the Emerging Polish State (1987) VOLUME 3 The Jews of Warsaw (1988) VOLUME 4 Poles and Jews: Perceptions and Misperceptions (1989) VOLUME 5 New Research, New Views (1990) VOLUME 6 Jems in LodgZ, 1820-1939 (1991)

VOLUME 7 jJemish Life in Nazi-Occupied Warsaw (1992)

From Shtetl to Socialism (1993): selected articles from volumes 1-7 VOLUME 8 Jems in Independent Poland, 1918-1939 (1994) VOLUME g Jews, Poles, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal (1996) VOLUME 10 Jems in Early Modern Poland (1997) VOLUME 11 Aspects and Experiences of Religion (1998)

VOLUME 12 Galicia: Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians, 1772—1918 (1999) Index to Volumes 1-12 (2000)

VOLUME 13 The Holocaust and its Aftermath (2000) VOLUME 14 Jews in the Polish Borderlands (2001) VOLUME 15 femish Religious Life, 1500—1g00 (2002)

VOLUME 16 Jewish Popular Culture and us Afterlife (2003) VOLUME 17. The Shtetl: Myth and Reality (2004) VOLUME 18 Jemish Women in Eastern Europe (2005) VOLUME 19 Polish—fewish Relations in North America (2007)

VOLUME 20 Making Holocaust Memory (2008) , VOLUME 21 1968: Forty Years After (2009) VOLUME 22 Social and Cultural Boundaries in Pre-Modern Poland (2010)

VOLUME 23 Jewsin Krakow (2011)

POLIN

Soe

pte crce st cccsottesesearees see Niy

HHO) OOO ONO Gentle Polin (Poland), ancient land of Torah and learning From the day Ephraim first departed from Judah From a selihah by Rabbt Moshe Katz Geral of the exiles of Poland, head of the Beth Din of the Holy Congregation of Metz

We did not know, but our fathers told us how the exiles of Israel came to the land of

Polin (Poland). |

When Israel saw how its sufferings were constantly renewed, oppressions increased, persecutions multiplied, and how the evil authorities piled decree on decree and followed expulsion with expulsion, so that there was no way to escape the enemies of Israel, they went out on the road and sought an answer from the paths of the wide world: which is the correct road to traverse to find rest for the soul. Then a piece of paper fell from heaven, and on it the words: Go to Polantya (Poland).

So they came to the land of Polin and they gave a mountain of gold to the king,

and he received them with great honour. And God had mercy on them, so that they found favour from the king and the nobles. And the king gave them permission to reside in all the lands of his kingdom, to trade over its length and breadth and to serve God according to the precepts of their religion. And the king protected them against every foe and enemy. And Israel lived in Polin in tranquillity for a long time. They devoted themselves to trade and handicrafts. And God sent a blessing on them so that they were

blessed in the land, and their name was exalted among the peoples. And they traded with the surrounding countries and they also struck coins with inscriptions in the holy language and the language of the country. These are the coins which have on them a lion rampant towards the right. And on the coins are the words

, ‘Mieszko, King of Poland’ or ‘Mieszko, Krol of Poland’. The Poles call their king ‘Krol’.

When they came from the land of the Franks, they found a wood in the land and on every tree, one tractate of the Talmud was incised. This is the forest of Kawczyn, which is near Lublin. And every man said to his neighbour, ‘We have

X Polin come to the land where our ancestors dwelt before the Torah and revelation were granted.” _ And those who seek for names say: “This is why it is called Polin. For thus spoke Israel when they came to the land, “Here rest for the night [Po /in].” And this means that we shall rest here until we are all gathered into the Land of Israel.’ Since this is the tradition, we accept it as such. S. Y. AGNON, 1916

Contents

Note on Names and Place-Names XV

Table of Major Place-Names XVil

Note on Transhteration X1X PART I

FOCUSING ON GALICIA: JEWS, POLES, AND UKRAINIANS, 1772-1918

Introduction: The Jews of Galicia under the Habsburgs 3 ISRAEL BARTAL and ANTONY POLONSKY

Austrian Galicia 25

Dimensions of a Triangle: Polish—Ukrainian—Jewish Relations in JOHN-PAUL HIMKA

Austrian First Impressions of Ethnic Relations in Galicia: The Case of

Governor Anton von Pergen AQ

FRANZ A. J. SZABO

Joseph I, 1772-1790 61

The Jewish Question in Galicia: The Reforms of Maria Theresa and

Situation 73

STANISLAW GRODZISKI

Ludwig Gumplowicz’s Programme for the Improvement of the Jewish HANNA KOZINSKA-WITT

in Galicia | 79

Enlightenment, Assimilation, and Modern Identity: The Jewish Elite JERZY HOLZER

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy after 1867 86 JOZEF BUSZKO

Politics, Religion, and National Identity: The Galician Jewish Vote in

the 1873 Parliamentary Elections 100

RACHEL MANEKIN

Xi Contents

Galicia 120

From Austeria to the Manor: Jewish Landowners in Autonomous TOMASZ GASOWSKI

Ivan Franko 137

A Ukrainian Answer to the Galician Ethnic Triangle: The Case of YAROSLAV HRYTSAK

Galician Jewish Migration to Vienna 147 KLAUS HODL

and Vienna 164

Yiddish as an Expression of Jewish Cultural Identity in Galicia

| GABRIELE KOHLBAUER-FRITZ

PART II

NEW VIEWS Bernard Singer, the Forgotten ‘Most Popular Jewish Reporter of the

Inter-War Years in Poland’ 179

JANINA KATARZYNA ROGOZIK

Johann Anton Krieger, Printer of Jewish Books in Nowy Dwor 198

for 1912 212

EMANUEL RINGELBLUM

The Alphabetical List of Payers of the Communal Tax in Warsaw JOANNA HENSEL-LIWSZICOWA

Warsaw, 1882-1914 221

“The City of Illiterates’? Levels of Literacy among Poles and Jews in STEPHEN D. CORRSIN

Poles, Jews, and Russians, 1863-1914: The Death of the Ideal of

Assimilation in the Kingdom of Poland 242

THEODORE R. WEEKS

Jewish Nationality 257

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, 1872-1905: A Polish Socialist for TIMOTHY SNYDER

The Endecja and the Jewish Question 271 ROMAN WAPINSKI

The Return of the Troublesome Bird: Jerzy Kosinski and

Polish—Jewish Relations 284 MONIKA ADAMCZYK-GARBOWSKA

Contents Xill PART ITI

REVIEWS REVIEW ESSAYS

The Historical Besht: Reconstruction or Deconstruction? 297 IMMANUEL ETKES

Polish Jewish Past 307 , JANUSZ KOREK Four Days in Atlantis: Jozef Lewandowski’s Complex Vision of the

On the Bowdlerization of a Holocaust Testimony: The Wartime

Journal of Calek Perechodnik 316 DAVID ENGEL

Judaica in Slovakia 330 ADAM BARTOSZ

BOOK REVIEWS

Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization in the

Mind of the Enlightenment 337 DANIEL STONE

Andrzej Z bikowski, Zydzi 339

ALAN BRILL |

JERZY TOMASZEWSKI

Elijah Judah Schochet, The Hasidic Movement and the Gaon of Vilna 340

the fews in 1840 343

Jonathan Frankel, The Damascus Affair: ‘Ritual Murder’, Politics, and JERZY TOMASZEWSKI

Erich Haberer, Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia 345 CHAERAN Y. FREEZE

Ute Caumanns, Die polnischen Fesuiten, der “Przeglad Powszechny’ und der politische Katholizismus in der Zweiten Republtk. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der katholischen Presse Polens zwischen den Weltkniegen,

1918-1939 347

JERZY TOMASZEWSKI

A Fistorical Reader 349

Wilma Abeles Iggers (ed.), The fews of Bohemia and Moravia: JERZY TOMASZEWSKI

XIV Contents Nehemiah Polen, The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymous

Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto 351 PINCHAS GILLER

Ida Fink, A Scrap of Time and Other Stories 353 THOMAS KLEIN

Jerzy Michalewicz, Zydowskie okregi metrykalne i Zydowskie

gminy wyznaniowe w Galicn 355 PIOTR WROBEL

Storytelling 358

David G. Roskies, A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish JOANNA ROSTROPOWICZ CLARK

1916-1936 362 JERZY TOMASZEWSKI | Literature , 363

| Gershon C. Bacon, The Politics of Tradition: Agudas Yisrael in Poland,

Harold B. Segel (ed.), Stranger in our Midst: Images of the Jews in Polish GWIDO ZLATKES

OBITUARY

Chone Shmeruk 369 MONIKA ADAMCZYK-GARBOWSKA

Glossary 380 Index 387 Notes on the Contributors 375

Note on Names and Place-Names POLITICAL connotations accrue to words, names, and spellings with an alacrity that is unfortunate for those who prefer to maintain neutrality. It seems reasonable to honour the choice of a people regarding its own name, and of a population regarding the name of its city or town, but what should be done when there is no consensus amongst a people, or when a town changes its name, and the name its spelling, again and again over time? The politician may always opt for the latest version, but the hapless historian must reckon with them all. This note, then, is our brief reckoning; out of consideration for our readers we will use only one name per people and one designation for each city. We hope that our decisions convey our respect for all concerned.

NAMES OF PEOPLES AND ORGANIZATIONS Those people living in Galicia, especially in the eastern part, who speak an east Slavic language and are mainly peasants practising Greek Catholicism, go by many names: Carpatho-Rusyns, Ukrainians, Ruthenian Ukrainians, and even occasionally Russians; the official name used by the Habsburgs was ‘Ruthenians’ (die Ruthenen). In their own language they called themselves ‘Rusyny’. The majority of this population has considered itself Ukrainian since the late nineteenth century, although a small but vocal minority maintains that they constitute a distinct people and prefers the terms ‘Ruthenian’ and ‘Carpatho-Rusyn’ for people and language alike. In deference to the majority view, we shall refer to them as Ukrainians, except where the term ‘Ruthenian’ is being discussed and in Rachel Manekin’s chapter, where this term reflects better the political discourse of the early 1870s. (Their co-nationalists on the other side of the border are sometimes referred to as ‘right-bank Ukrainians’, leaving the Galician Ukrainians the corresponding designation with all its delightful Parisian connotations.) The ancestral homeland of this people, and of all other Ukrainians and Russians, bears the name Rus’. The apostrophe indicates palatalization; i.e. the ‘s’ is pronounced with the tongue behind the upper teeth. We will also use ‘Ukraine’ rather than ‘the Ukraine’ and ‘Belarus’, ‘Belarusians’. While most Galician Jews called themselves Jews, some used the phrase ‘Poles of the Jewish persuasion’ or ‘Poles of the Mosaic faith’. Here, too, we shall follow

the practice of the majority and use the term ‘Jew’ regardless of political or cultural affiliation. When referring to various peoples living in one country, we shall use the terms

XVI Note on Names and Place-Names ‘people’, ‘ethnic group’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘nation’, and ‘nationality’. The concept of nationality as reflecting citizenship never reached Galicia, where political rights reflected ethnicity. National consciousness accordingly focused on ethnicity,

language, and sometimes religion, rather than on any sense of commonality among members of different peoples sharing a single country. ‘National’ may thus

appear in this text in the sense of ‘concerning an ethnic group united by or perceived as sharing a political consciousness’. Thus, ‘multinational’ and ‘multiethnic’ become near-synonyms, distinguished only by the connotation of political consciousness (‘nationalism’) implicit in the former. So as to avoid confusion, however, we shall refer to interactions among peoples within a single country as ‘inter-ethnic’ rather than as “inter-national’. Finally, we shall refer to organizations and institutions by their chronologically correct name.

PLACE-NAMES There is no problem with those places for which English-language names, such as Warsaw, are acceptable. But every other place-name in east central Europe raises serious problems. A good example is Wilno/ Vilna/ Vilnius. There are clear objections to all of these names. Until 1944 the majority of the population was Polish; today the city is in Lithuania; ‘Vilna’, though the least problematic, is an artificial construct. In this volume we have adopted the following guidelines, even though they are not wholly consistent. A table of place-names follows the list of guidelines. 1. ‘Towns whose names have an accepted English-language form will be given in that form; some examples are Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow, and St Petersburg. This applies also to bibliographical references; we refer to publication places as, for

example, Munich rather than Miinchen. , 2. ‘Towns that until 1939 were clearly within a particular state and shared the majority nationality of that state will be named in a form that reflects that situ-

| ation; some examples are Breslau, Rzeszow, and Przemysl. In Polish Krakow has always been spelt as such; in English it has more often appeared as Cracow, but the current trend is to follow the local language as much as possible and in keeping with this we shall use the Polish spelling.

3. ‘Towns that are in mixed areas will take the name by which they are known today and which reflects their present situation; examples are Poznan, Torun, Vilnius, and Kaunas. Galicia’s most diversely named city, and one of its most important, boasts four variants: the Polish Lwow, the German Lemberg, the Russian Lvov, and the Ukrainian Lviv. As this city is currently Ukrainian and

most of its residents speak the Ukrainian language, we shall follow that spelling. Other towns that are now in Ukraine take their Ukrainian name; for

Note on Names and Place-Names XVII example, Husiatyn and Tyshmenitsa. The exception to this is Stanyslaviv, whose current name of [vano-Frankovsk is mentioned only once.

4. Some place-names have different forms in Yiddish. When the subject-matter dictates that this form should be used, the corresponding Polish (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian) name is given in parentheses at first mention. Table. Major place-names

| Polish Ukrainian Belarusian Lithuanian Yiddish German

Bolechéw Bolekhiv Bolekhov Bolechow Borszczow Borshchiv

Boryslaw Borislau Braclaw Boryslav BratslavBorislav Bratslav

Brody Brody Brod Brody Brzezany Berezhany Berezhan Brzezany Buczacz Buchach Buchach Buczacz Chelm Kholm Khelm Chodorow Khodoriv

Czerniowce Chernivtsy Czernowitz Czernowitz Czorkéw Chortkiv Chortkov Czortkow Drohobycz Drohobych Drohobich —Drohobycz Grodek Jagiellonski Horodok Grodek Grodek

Halicz Halych Halich Halicz

Husiatyn Husiatyn

Jaroslaw Kolomyja Taroslav KolomyiaYaroslav Kolomay Jaroslau Kolomea

Krakow Krake Krakau Krosno Krosno | - Liady Liady Liady(Lyady)

Lwow Lviv Lemberg Lemberg Miedzyrzec Mezerich Mezerich

, Podlaski (Mezrich) Miedzyb6z Medzhybizh

Polonna Polonne Polonne Przemys| Peremyshl’ Pshemishl Przemysl Przemyslany Peremyshliany

Rohatyn | Rohatyn

Ruzyn Ruzhyn

Rzeszow Riashiv Reshe Rzeszow Sambor Sambir Sambor Sambor Sienawa Syenava

Stuck Slutsk Slutsk

Skalat Skalat Stanislawow Stanyslaviv? Stanislav Stanislau

Stryj Stryj SzklowStryi ShklouStri Shklov

_Toporow Tarnopol Ternopi!’ Tarnopol Tarnopol Toporiv

XVIII Note on Names and Place-Names Table (continued)

Polish Ukrainian Belarusian Lithuanian Yiddish German Tysmenica Tyshmenitsa

Viznic Vizhnits

Wilno Vilnius Vilna Wilna Zablot6w Zabolotiv Zbaraz Zbarazh

Ziocz6w Zhovkva> Zolochiv Zlochov Zolkiew Zolkva Zydacz6w Zhydachiv * In 1962 Stanyslaviv was renamed Ivano-Frankovsk. > In 1951 Zhovkva was renamed Nesterov. It reverted to its original name in 1991.

Note on Transhteration HEBREW An attempt has been made to achieve consistency in the transliteration of Hebrew words. The following are the key distinguishing features of the system that has been adopted:

1. No distinction is made between the aleph and ayin; both are represented by an apostrophe and only when they appear in an intervocalic position.

2. Veit is written v; het is written 4; yod is written y when it functions as a consonant and z when it occurs as a vowel; khafis written kh; tsadi is written ts; kof is written k.

3. The dagesh hazak, represented in some transliteration systems by doubling the

letter, is not represented, except in words that have more or less acquired normative English spellings that include doubling, such as Hallel, kabbalah, Kaddish, Kiddush, rabbi, Sukkot, and Yom Kippur.

4. The sheva na is represented by an e. 5. Hebrew prefixes, prepositions, and conjunctions are not followed by hyphens when they are transliterated, thus betoledot ha’am hayehudi. 6. Capital letters are not used in the transliteration of Hebrew except for the first word and proper nouns in the titles of books, important words in the names of people, places, institutions, and generally as in the conventions of the English

language. |

7. The names of individuals are transliterated following the above rules unless the individual concerned followed a different usage.

YIDDISH Transliteration follows the YIVO system, except for the names of people, where the spellings they themselves used have been retained.

RUSSIAN, UKRAINIAN The Library of Congress system has been used, except that we are not employing character modifiers and a double prime for the hard sign.

BLANK PAGE

PART I

Focusing on Galicia: Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians, 1772-1918

BLANK PAGE

Introduction: The Jews of Galicia under the Habsburgs ISRAEL BARTAL AND ANTONY POLONSKY There can be few other countries where so many and diverse cultural trends have intersected, where the indigenous thought and culture born out of and inspired by its past have been overlaid with such deep layers of both eastern and western

culture. ,

DAVID HOROWITZ, My Yesterday

THE BEGINNINGS OF JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN GALICIA THE great stretch of eastern Europe that extends north from the Carpathian Mountains was known under Austrian rule (1772-1918) as Galicia. In 1919 it became part of Poland and in the words of Abraham Jakob Brawer, geographer | and historian of Galician Jewry who was born there, the name ‘has now become history’. Brawer adds: ‘There are few areas for which diplomats drew maps with such unnatural and unhistorical borders as they did for Galicia.’! This statement is clearly correct in the larger context of the political and ethnic divisions of east Europe, but Galicia took on a distinct character and had the largest concentration of Jews of any region in east central Europe. The nature of this Jewish community and its relationship with the other ethnic groups of the area, particularly the Poles and Ukrainians, forms the subject-matter of the chapters that make up Part I of this issue of Polin.

For centuries the area had a large Jewish population dispersed throughout hundreds of large and small towns, villages, and estates, and the history of this community is inseparable from the history of Polish Jewry: in Galicia, as elsewhere in Poland, the Jews combined the Ashkenazi tradition of study of Mishnah and halakhic literature with mysticism, which played a central role in the Sabbatean movement and the emergence of hasidism. On the other hand, however, several generations of Austrian rule and exposure to the German language and culture left their mark and drew the Jews of the region towards central European culture. * A. J. Brawer, Galitsiyah veyehudeitha: mehkarim betoledot galitsiyah beme’ah shemoneh-esreh (Jerusalem, 1956), 11.

4 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky The Galician Jews lived among two larger groups, the Ukrainians and the Poles, and relations between these groups determined the character of Jewish economic life. The territory north of the Carpathians was, as it still is, an area of transition between the Polish and Ukrainian populations. The Ukrainians constituted the majority in eastern Galicia, with the Poles a sizeable minority, while in the west, beyond the River San, which contained the city of Krakow, from the fourteenth to the early seventeenth century the capital of Poland, the Poles were the overwhelming majority. The eastern part of the area underwent several political changes of sovereignty in the late Middle Ages and was ruled in turn by the kings of Poland and the princes of Rus’ until, in the mid-fourteenth century, the Poles consolidated their rule and maintained it uninterrupted until the Austrian occupation that began with the first partition of Poland in 1772. Each successive regime brought changes that affected the legal status of Galician Jews and had an impact on their spiritual and cultural lives. Jewish settlement in the eastern part of the region, known as Rus’ Czerwona

(Red Russia, Rus’), began under Ukrainian princes in the principality of Volodymyr Halych (from which the area later took its name of Galicia) and increased from the fourteenth century onward. The Jews were a key factor in the broad settlement project launched by Polish nobles from the mid-sixteenth century, and they numbered among the founders of towns on the lands owned by the nobility. In these ‘private’ towns, the Jews acquired extensive rights to practise their religion freely and to engage in commerce without harassment by other urban groups. As in other areas in Poland and Lithuania where entrepreneurial nobles settled the Jews in new towns, the Jews of Galicia fulfilled an important

function in managing property and the means of production: they leased stills, | breweries, flour mills, and sawmills; marketed agricultural produce; imported luxury goods for the use of the nobility; and served as moneylenders and tax and excise collectors. In the feudal society of Poland the Jews of Matopolska (Lesser Poland) and Rus’ Czerwona constituted a distinct stratum with its own religion and customs. While the Poles were nobles with the right to own land, middleclass townspeople, free peasants and serfs, and the Ukrainians were mostly serfs without the right to own land, the Jews leased property and enjoyed equal rights to the town dwellers. Because they had certain interests in common, the Polish nobility protected the Jews from the hostility of the urban population, the periodic uprisings and riots of the Polish and Ukrainian peasants, and harassment

by the Catholic Church. A Jewish wine merchant from Bolekhiv, Dov Ber | Birkenthal, gave a vivid description of the nature of this economic partnership, which endured for many years after Poland had forfeited its independence and Rus’ Czerwona had become eastern Galicia under Austrian rule. Birkenthal recorded the details of his family’s business 1n a private town near the Carpathians:

Introduction 5 And [my father] traded there in Hungarian wines and ordered the building of a fine cellar where the wines were laid down. And sold them each year to the ‘pritsim’ [Polish nobles] ...ata certain profit and grew rich . . . and since in the mountainous property they have few fields fit for sowing, my father was obliged to enter into negotiations with the uncircumcized [Ukrainians] who were his serfs . . . and came to an agreement with the lessees of the salt trade in the town of Bolekhiv that they would supply him with timber from the forest, and in return for a wagon-load of timber to be brought to the salt factory he was to give them one barrel of good-quality salt, and this they did all through the winter, and when summer came... all the uncircumcized from the villages set out with their wagons and they took with them ten barrels of salt, and they travelled to the district of Podolia and exchanged the salt for grain... and from the grain they manufactured spirits, which many people purchased and took to the land of Hungary in large quantities . . . thereby making a profit.”

This encapsulates the essence of Jewish life in the region in the early eighteenth century, based on a simple economy where people bartered for basic commodities and the Jews served as principal intermediaries, handling exchange and production, export and import. The Ukrainians constituted the workforce and the Polish nobles owned the property and purchased the imported goods. The Jews used skill, initiative, and dynamism to build strong economic foundations for their cultural life. Neither pogroms nor war could undermine their position 1n the feudal economic system. Even the Cossack wars of the mid-seventeenth century and the deteriorating situation in the kingdom of Poland, which severely undermined their economic strength, did not stem the expansion of the Jewish community. The rapid recovery of the east Galician Jewish community after the Cossack wars has been described by Shmuel Yosef Agnon, who was born in Buchach: When the land had grown quiet after the riots and the rebellions and the killings and the disruption, some of those who had escaped the sword returned to their towns and to their dwelling places. And so also did the remnants of Buchach. They built themselves homes and shops and, even before that, places for the Torah and for prayer. And they lived for several generations in peace and quiet, apart from the years of war and of uprisings, first in the shadow of the kingdom of Poland, and then in the shadow of Austria.°

The Jewish communities in the private towns, particularly Brody, Buchach, and | Zhovkva (Nesterov), flourished in the eighteenth century, and their populations swelled to several thousand. (In 1772 Brody was the largest Jewish community in the Polish kingdom.) Their trade links extended as far as Persia, China, and

Siberia in the East and Austria, Germany, and Britain in the West. | KRAKOW: A CITY CLOSE TO THE JEWISH HEART Krakow was the seat of the principal line of the Polish royal family from the twelfth century. It became the capital of the united kingdom of Poland in the fourteenth 2 —D.B. Birkenthal, Zikhronot rabi dov mibolehuv, ed. M. Wischnitzer (Berlin, 1922), 27.

3S. Y. Agnon, Ir umelo’ah (Jerusalem, 1973), 13.

6 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky century and retained this position until 1609, when the royal residence was moved to Warsaw. It acquired the status of a city on the German model in 1257. Its situa-

tion on the Vistula and on the trade route to Prague soon attracted an influx of

immigrants from the German lands, including a number of Jews. In 1335 Kazimierz the Great founded the rival city of Kazimierz, then separated from Krakow by branches of the Vistula on what are today Dietel and Starowisina streets. Jews settled in both towns. In Krak6éw they were located near the univer-

sity and Kazimierz himself made frequent use of the Jewish bankers, notably Lewko Jordanis.

| The early history of the Jews in Krakow was marked by persistent conflicts with the Christian burghers and the students of the university, the second to be founded in east central Europe. As early as 1369 the city council in Krakow complained to Kazimierz that, because of the high interest rates demanded by the Jews, the urban patriciate and artisans were becoming impoverished. Jews were required to lend money to students at low rates of interest (25 per cent), but this did not prevent anti-Jewish riots on their part. Economic competition and religious differences also led to frequent clashes with the burghers. In spite of these

difficulties, the Jewish community prospered and its merchants developed commercial links with Breslau, Danzig, Lviv, and Istanbul, but conflicts with the Christian burghers did not abate and were exacerbated in the fifteenth century by

the preacher Jan (Giovanni) Capistrano. In 1485 the Jewish community of Krakow was forced to sign an agreement with the burghers severely limiting Jewish commercial activity and in 1495 the Jews were finally forced out of the town and moved across the river to Kazimierz. Jews had already established themselves in this city and by the end of the fourteenth century had begun construction on a late Gothic synagogue which was completed in 1407. This adjoined Szeroka Street (Breitgasse), which became the centre of Jewish Kazimierz and where by 1480 there was a market-place, a mikveh,

and a cemetery. In the early sixteenth century the Bavarian rabbi Jacob Pollack founded the first yeshiva in the town and remained its head until his death in 1552. It was he who introduced to Poland the form of talmudic argument known as hilukim (fine distinctions). As early as 1503 he was appointed chief rabbi of Poland by Alexander. At this time the community was divided between the older settlers and newer immigrants from Prague. In 1553 a second synagogue was built and four years later the present Old Synagogue was rebuilt in Renaissance style. In 1564 the Jewish quarter was granted the privilege of preventing non-Jews from acquiring residential and business property. Early Jewish population figures are , notoriously unreliable, but by 1570 the Jewish population of Kazimierz is thought to have numbered around 2,000, making it probably the largest community in

Poland. |

In 1567 Zygmunt II authorized the foundation of a second yeshiva in Lublin and one was also established in Lviv. By now Poland enjoyed new prestige in the

Introduction 7 Jewish world. In the fifteenth century a German rabbi had observed of the Jews of Krakow that they were ‘unlearned in the Torah’; by the early sixteenth century the Jews of Istanbul were seeking direction from Krakéw on halakhic questions. It was also becoming a centre of Jewish publishing. The Shulhan arukh, a codex compiled by Joseph Caro of Safed and printed in Venice in 1565, was reprinted in Krakow in 1570~—1. It was then modified for Ashkenazi purposes by one of the leading rabbis, Moses Isserles (1525/1530-72; known from his initials as Rema). His work was described as a mapa (meaning both ‘map’ and ‘tablecloth’) for the Shulhan arukh (the set table). According to a contemporary source, ‘In all the lands of Ashkenaz, we accept and obey the words of our master Rabbi Moses Isserles.’

Isserles was perhaps the most important intellectual figure in sixteenthcentury Jewish Kazimierz (the Jewish district of Krakow). Early on he had acquired considerable wealth from trade, but later devoted himself to religious and scholarly concerns. His connections covered the whole Ashkenazi world and he was related to both Meir Katzenellenbogen of Padua (known as Maharam) and Shlomo Levin, a leading Polish talmudic scholar. Isserles was a staunch defender

of philosophical study and was convinced that much could be learnt from Aristotle. In his view, ‘It is better to study philosophy than to err through kabbalah.’ However, he was not hostile to mysticism, which he hoped to reconcile with philosophy. He was also interested in astronomy and was the teacher of David Gans of Prague, the author of one of the most important Jewish histories of this period. Other distinguished Krakow scholars included Joel Sirkes (1561-1640; known as the Bah, an abbreviation of the title of his major work, Bayit hadash), who was from 1619 rosh yeshiva of Krakow and who opposed the adoption of the Shulhan

arukh, and Yom Tov Lipman Heller (1579-1654). Heller, who was born in Wallenstein in Bavaria, had moved to Nemyriv in 1632 after he was condemned to

death in Vienna for ‘writing against Christianity’. In 1635 he became rabbi in Vladimir in Volynia and in 1643, rabbi of Krakow, succeeding Abraham Joshua ben Jacob Heschel as rosh yeshiva in 1647. Like Isserles, his interests included mathematics, philosophy, and Hebrew grammar. His rationalistic inclinations were demonstrated in his praise for Azariah dei Rossi’s Me’or eznayim (‘Light to the Eyes’), one of the first Jewish works of critical historiography. He also wrote a kabbalistic treatise close in spirit to Moses Cordovero’s Pardes rimonim. He was the author of an astronomical treatise on the moon, a Yiddish translation of Oreh hayim (“Mode of Life’), the first section of Caro’s Shulkan arukh, and three selihot on the Khmelnytsky massacres of 1648. One scholar with more mystical leanings was Isaiah Horowitz (c.1555—1630; known as the ‘holy Shelah’, from the initial letters of the title of his major work, Shenet luhot haberit (“The Two Tablets of

the Law’)). He moved to Krakow from his birthplace in Prague and studied there with Solomon Ejidlish. As a judge on the Va’ad Arba Aratsot (Council of the Four Lands), the organization of Jewish communities throughout Poland, he

8 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky condemned bribes and the misuse of rabbinic office. A strong mystic and kabbalist, he settled in Safed in 1621. The Jews of Krak6w continued to prosper and in 1609 their trading rights were extended. This prosperity occasioned new conflicts with the burghers, which are

| reflected in the anti-Jewish polemics of Sebastian Miczynski, author of Zmierciadto korony polskiey (“The Mirror of the Polish Crown’), an anti-Jewish tract published

in Krakow in 1618. By 1644 seven main synagogues had been established, the largest and most impressive being the High and Kupa synagogues, built around the turn of the sixteenth century, and the Ajzyk synagogue, built in the midseventeenth century. By this time Krakow had become one of the most important Jewish religious and cultural centres north of the Alps. The historian Majer Bataban describes the community in Krakow as being led by four roshim, five tovim, and fourteen kahal members. Each month the responsibility for administration was assumed by one of the roshim, who took a public oath

to fulfil his duties as parnas hahodesh conscientiously. Other leading members of the community took responsibility for tax assessment, supervision of charity, and maintaining order in the market. The hierarchical nature of this communal organization was reflected in the court system, with its three levels graded according to the amount of money involved in a case. Kazimierz was one of the principal

communities in the Council of the Four Lands and was galil (head of the province) of Malopolska. These various arrangements for the government of the community were systematized in the ordinance of 1595.

, After the pogroms in 1648 the Jewish community shared in the general economic decline of Krakow and experienced growing religious intolerance. In 1663 one of its members, Mattathius Calahora, was burned at the stake after he was

| accused of desecrating the host. The community got increasingly into debt, partly as a result of the large sums that were being expended on communal defence and partly because of injudicious borrowing. Yet at the same time its involvement in trade and crafts expanded. Jews took a significant part in most of the trading activities in Krakow, including furs and hides, wax, soap, salt, tobacco, haberdashery, and silver and gold; they also worked as goldsmiths and were involved in largescale import—export trade and in the arenda (leasing of estates) system. This economic expansion went along with growing economic disparity within the community.

LVIV, A JEWISH MOTHER CITY Lviv, the principal city in Rus’ Czerwona, was, like Krakow, a ‘royal’ city and, unlike the private towns, the status of its Jews was defined in a charter granted by the king. Jews as well as Karaites had lived there for many generations before the Ashkenazi immigrants arrived, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

_ the newcomers absorbed the old non-Ashkenazi element. The Jews of Lviv

Introduction 9 constituted only one of several national groups, including Armenians, who had been invited by the kings of Poland to develop the city as an international commercial centre. For a time there was even a group of Sefardi Jews, many of whom engaged in international wholesale trade; they included rich merchants importing from and exporting to the Ottoman empire through the Balkans. Through their agents in Lviv, Jews from Istanbul exchanged silk and perfumes from the East for goods from western Europe. More prosperous Lviv Jews also provided financial services, gave credit, and collected royal and municipal taxes and excise, while many Jews worked as artisans in fierce competition with Christian guilds. A description of the houses in Lviv’s Jewish quarter is given by Dov Sadan (Schtock): Polish noblemen, and the German and Armenian merchants who mingled with them, built themselves spacious, luxurious houses. Nearby, in the alleys bordering on the market, which still retained remnants of the past, lived my forefathers, crammed together, their houses touching, the roofs on either side of the alley casting shadows that blocked out the light from the narrow street. Every breath of fresh air was precious . . . and even in these alleyways... here and there were traces proving that even in these dire straits there was a yearning for grace and beauty . . . I took pleasure in the sight of gates with Latin inscriptions, the gargoyles, and the carved fountains—but closest to my heart were glimpses of past beauty which had been preserved in the ghetto—a door, a doorknob, a symbol, and suchlike, and in that gloomy atmosphere these relics were like appeals for light and air.4

From the beginning two Jewish communities had evolved in the city: one consisted mainly of the richer Jews living within the city walls and the other consisted of the artisans, pedlars, and petty traders living in the outlying quarters. These two communities shared the tax burden demanded by the Polish authorities; at

the same time there was often friction between them. As in other towns in the Polish kingdom, several prosperous and aristocratic families dominated society in

Lviv. In the mid-sixteenth century the family of Isaac ben Nahman (Nachmanovitz), whose members had extensive business dealings in the region, rose to prominence. In 1571 Isaac built a magnificent synagogue, designed by an Italian architect, next to his home. In the second half of the seventeenth century one of the congregants was R. David ben Samuel Halevi, author of the Turez zahav, a

commentary on the Shulhan arukh. The synagogue, which survived in all its splendour until the Second World War, bore his name, but was known popularly as “Di Gildene Roiz’ (the Golden Rose) after Isaac’s daughter-in-law. The two communities in Lviv dominated all the Jewish settlements in Rus’ Czerwona and ran their affairs. Lviv was head of the Va’ad Medinah (Council of the Province) and was also represented in the Council of the Four Lands, and several council meetings took place in the city in the seventeenth century. Lviv also became an important centre of religious studies and some of the greatest scholars in Poland served as rabbis of the two Lviv communities. * D. Schtock (Sadan), Mima ‘agal ha ne’urim (Tel Aviv, 1944), 178-0.

10 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky In our city there was also held a gathering of the wise men of our generation and the leaders of Israel, for in that place there assembled from time to time the sages and leaders of the four lands of Poland, who came together each year to oversee the affairs of the communities and to make arrangements and introduce amendments to strengthen our religion, and to attend to the maintenance of the yeshivas and the appointment of rabbis in each town, and to deal with matters pertaining to halakhah. And they also consulted together on the printing of new books and decided whether they were worthy of the community.°

The 1648 pogroms brought tragedy to the Jews of Lviv. The Cossack army, under Khmelnytsky, besieged Lviv, which was packed with refugees from all over the district, and destroyed the suburbs. The Cossacks demanded that the Polish

townspeople hand over the Jews, but the Poles refused and in the end the Cossacks | left with a huge ransom. Many residents died of disease or in fires during the siege and peace was not finally restored until the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1656 the city again came under siege by the Hungarian army and in 1664 there were religious pogroms conducted by Jesuit students, townsfolk, and peasants. Several hundred Jews were murdered and many more injured. Again in 1695 Tartars invaded Lviv and attacked its inhabitants, and a few years later, in 1704, the city was captured by Swedes. The intensification of Catholic hatred of Jews fed the blood libel, in which Jews were accused of using Christian blood for reli-

gious rituals, and in its turn the blood libel provided an excuse for pogroms throughout eighteenth-century Poland, including Lviv. Several members of prominent Jewish families were killed in pogroms in 1710 and 1728.

In the early eighteenth century the Christian townspeople waged an increasingly fierce struggle against their Jewish rivals and, except for a brief respite during the reign of Jan Sobieski, succeeded in having rigorous bans imposed on Jewish economic activity. As a consequence, the Jewish community lost its economic power, and its influence over the other Rus’ Czerwona communities waned accordingly. Jews left the city and settled in the private towns, where they enjoyed

the protection of the nobles. The communities of Brody, Zhovkva, Buchach, Ternopil’, and Komarno now competed for authority with Lviv and their leaders

ran the regional council. But even then Lviv remained an important centre of religious learning. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the chief rabbis were Tsevi Hirsch Ashkenazi (Hakham Tsevi), father of R. Jacob Emden, and Jacob Joshua Falk, author of Pene: yehoshua. From the 1730s almost until the Austrian conquest in 1772 R. Hayim Rapoport served as chief rabbi of Lviv. During his term of office Lviv cathedral hosted a disputation with adherents of the Sabbatean messianic pretender Jacob Frank, after which hundreds of Jews

who had been secret followers of Shabbetai Tsevi rejected halakhah and converted to Christianity. Frank’s appearance in Poland revealed the strength of kabbalistic influence in Rus’ Czerwona and of the links between the Jews of that region and the Sefardi Jews across the border in the Ottoman empire. > §. Buber, Anshei shem: ha’ir levov ugedoleihah (Krakow, 1894).

Introduction II GALICIA UNDER AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN RULE, 1772-1848 In 1772 Austria annexed the districts of Krakow, Sandomierz, and Lublin in Malopolska, and a large part of Rus’ Czerwona, and incorporated them into its own territory under the name Galizien. From that time until the end of the First World War Galicia (excluding Krakow, which was a free city until 1846, and areas

which became part of the Russian empire after 1815) remained under Austrian rule. In his chapter John-Paul Himka provides an overview of the complex triangular relationship which developed in these years between the Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians. This period saw the shaping of the Galician Jewish community and

| the development of the cultural and social image of the modern ‘Galician’ as it endured until the Holocaust. Between the Austrian annexation at the end of the eighteenth century and the establishment of independent Poland incorporating Galicia, the Jews of this region felt the winds of change from western and central

Europe on the one hand, and on the other absorbed the beliefs and customs of hasidism, the religious movement grounded in Jewish mysticism. Galician Jews found themselves required to become part of a centralized state, and to forswear communal autonomy and the freedom to conduct their lives in accordance with halakhah. In their chapters, Franz Szabo describes the critical and indeed prejudiced view the Austrian authorities had of Galician society and the place of Jews in it, and Stanistaw Grodziski analyses the nature of the reforms imposed on the Jewish community by Maria Theresa and Joseph II. In spite of these attempts at forcible integration, Jews continued to live their lives in accordance with Jewish tradition and to speak Yiddish, their age-old language. They suffered under restrictive economic edicts and other types of discrimination from both Austrian and Polish rulers, but some Jews still proved shrewd and successful entrepreneurs. Though caught in the struggle between the Polish and Ukrainian national movements, as Himka shows, the Jews had to conduct their political and cultural lives under the rule of yet another people, the Austrians. The Jews trod the path to integration in the societies in which they lived, but they also generated their own Jewish national movement, which sought new ways of coming to terms with the changes. David Horowitz, who spent his childhood and youth in Drohobych and Lviv, has captured the atmosphere of eastern Galicia wonderfully: The Jewish communities were caught between the pincers of these two alien peoples in their poverty-stricken towns, barely eking out a living on the margins and in the crevices of the economy, in petty trade, in brokerage, and in /ufigeshe/t [lit. ‘businesses surviving on air’| which were hard to define and from which it was even harder to earn a meagre crust of black bread. This was the fate of thousands and tens of thousands of poor Jews. Yet the spiritual life of this community was rich and varied. It produced spiritual movements which were all-encompassing, as if they sought to compensate for material poverty with richness of spirit and thought, knowledge and learning. Hasidism and the Haskalah, like

12 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky streams of living water, nurtured this joyous creativity with mystical experience and with sober rationalism. The young intelligentsia, whose roots lay deep in the soil of popular experience but branched out towards an alien culture, inclined to assimilation on the one hand and Zionist nationalist aspirations on the other. This ferment led to the search for a direction in an alien world and to the burgeoning of ideas that generated influential movements and ephemeral ideologies. ®

The history of Galician Jews under Austrian rule can be divided into two periods according to their relations with the authorities and their links to the majority populations of the region. In the first period, from the annexation to Austria in 1772 to 1848, the Jewish population experienced constant pressure from the bureaucracy. This was the beginning of the cultural and political influence of the imperial centre in Vienna. At this time Krakow was an independent

city-state and developed in its own particular manner. In the second period, which began during the ‘Spring of Nations’ in 1848 and ended with the First World War, relations between the Austrian authorities and the Jews improved greatly, the latter receiving full political rights in 1867; on the other hand, the Jews now drew closer to Polish political forces, culture, and language. Between 1772 and 1848 the Austrians treated the Jews of Galicia in ways characteristic of European absolutist regimes. In order to derive the maximum economic advantage from their presence and to reduce the non-productive element to a mini-

mum, the Austrian government levied special taxes on the Jews and placed restrictions on occupations connected to the retail trade, peddling, and leasing of property and the means of production. They took over the supervision of Jewish marriages and expelled Jewish beggars from eastern Galicia. All these issues are discussed in Stanistaw Grodzisk1’s chapter. During the reign of Emperor Joseph II (1780-90) the influence of ‘enlightened absolutism’ manifested itself in ‘reforms’ imposed on the Jews that were designed to improve their social and economic behaviour and transform them into ‘worthy’ members of society. The government established schools for Jewish children

under the supervision of Naftali Herz Homberg, ended the long tradition of autonomy of the communities, introduced the conscription of Jews into the armed

| forces, and attempted to set up agricultural settlements for shiet/] Jews. On the other hand, secondary schools and institutions of higher learning began to admit Jews, and they were encouraged to enter certain professions, especially medicine.

However, Joseph II’s successors did not carry through his reforms and antiJewish restrictions became gradually less ‘enlightened’, particularly after the end of the Napoleonic wars and the Vienna Congress of 1815. The official attitude towards the Jews only accelerated the gradual detachment of Galicia from the trade routes that linked its cities with the north and the west, a drift begun by the separation of Galicia from the Polish kingdom. Economically Galicia started to lag behind other parts of the Habsburg empire and to import goods from areas where ® D. Horowitz, Ha’etmol sheli (Jerusalem, 1970), 12.

Introduction — 13 the Industrial Revolution was already in full swing. While some cities, such as Brody, enjoyed preferential economic status and continued to flourish, most trade centres of the period preceding the divisions, such as Zhovkva, began to decline at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this period of growing economic difficulty the hasidic movement spread throughout Galicia, winning converts amongst the Jews in towns and villages, and within decades became a decisive element in the religious and social life of the region. The hasidic communities were consolidated around tsadikim, charismatic leaders who acted as substitutes for the administrative leadership that had been abolished. The hasidic dynasties, such as Roke’ahs of Belz, the Friedmanns of Ruzhin-Sadgora, Husiatyn, and Chortkiv, and the Hagers of Vizhnits, preserved the traditional lifestyle, costume, and language, and resisted attempts by the regime to Germanize the Jewish population. The early leaders of the Jewish Enlightenment movement, many of whom came from communities such as Lviv, Krakow, Brody, and Ternopil’ which maintained trade links with the cities of Germany and Austria, perceived the hasidim as enemies of Enlightenment and fought tenaciously against them. In 1813 Joseph Perl of Ternopil’, a prosperous man with contacts in the Austrian bureaucracy who established a modern school in the spirit of the Enlightenment, informed in detail on the damage which the hasidim were causing the state through their irrational conduct and composed a number of savage satires mocking their beliefs and customs. All this was to no avail and the religious movement continued to spread rapidly. The Austrian occupation, which introduced the principles of enlightened absolutism to the entire regime, also brought change to Lviv. Despite the economic edicts aimed at curtailing the growth of the urban Jewish population, and despite their being cut off from Polish and German markets, commerce and crafts continued to develop. Members of the economic élite, which controlled community affairs, were until the mid-nineteenth century conservative in their religious and cultural outlook. However, an intelligentsia emerged from among the merchants, who were influenced by contact with German Jewry, and from among the members of the liberal professions, and this intelligentsia lent new strength to the liberal elements. Disputes broke out between the reformists and the conservatives and in 1848, at the height of the controversy, R. Abraham Kohn, one of the reformists, died of poisoning. In 1772, in the first partition of Poland, Kazimierz, which contained the Jewish

population of Krakéw, had been assigned to Austria, while Krak6éw itself. remained in Poland. An international border now ran along the branches of the Vistula with devastating effects on the economic position of the Jews of Kazimierz, who by now numbered perhaps 3,500. Krakow shared in the patriotic revival of the last years of the reign of Stanislaw August and strongly supported the uprising of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who made an appeal for Jewish backing in the Old Synagogue in Kazimierz. After the third partition Kazimierz was annexed

14 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky by Austria, but in 1809 became part of the Napoleonic duchy of Warsaw. In 1815 it was established as a free city only to be annexed again by Austria in 1846 following a national revolution there. It remained part of the Habsburg empire until 1918. During this period Krakow became something of a backwater. Memories of its

great past as the historic capital of Poland and the place where the Polish kings were buried gave it special significance in the Polish imagination, but it remained

a relatively small town. In 1833 it had a population of 38,000, which grew to 50,000 in 1870, 85,000 in 1900, and 120,000 in 1g10. This was considerably smaller than Lviv, which was also the provincial capital. The Jewish population increased from 8,500 in 1818 (28.6 per cent of the population) to 26,000 in 1900 and 32,000 in 1910. In the period of self-rule the Polish ruling class of the free city was divided over the question of whether Jews could be granted civil rights when

they had reformed their society or only after political integration had been achieved. In 1817 the Statute for the Followers of the Law of the Old Testament

(Starozakonny) was enacted. It abolished the kahal, which it replaced with a committee for Jewish affairs whose authority extended only to religious and charitable matters, and which was composed of the rabbi, two other Jews, and a civil servant; the Jews were subordinate to the local administration and judiciary. Rabbis were still elected to the community, but had to demonstrate to the civil authorities their knowledge of Polish and German. Jews were not eligible to be elected to the House of Representatives which governed the free city, and the restrictions on their place of residence which had been in operation before the

partitions were maintained. ,

The period in which Krakow was a free city did see some acculturation. In 1839 the Society for the Spreading of Useful Crafts among the Israelites, modelled on a similar body founded ten years earlier in Lviv, was formed, followed in 1840 by the Society for Self-Education among Jews. Amongst the members of the latter society were a number of the Jewish upper class, including Filip Bondy, Jonatan

Warschauer, Jozef Oettinger, Maurycy Krzepicki, Szachna Markusfeld, and Jozue Funk. In 1830 a Jewish public elementary school had already been founded in Kazimierz and five years later a Jewish public Realschule was also set up. In

1837 these establishments were merged and became a craft and commercial school, which by 1849-50 had 375 pupils. In 1831 an ardent Polish patriot, R. Dov Ber Meisels, was elected rabbi and in 1844 a modern Orthodox synagogue, the Tempel, was opened. In its ritual this synagogue followed traditional Jewish practice, but it also introduced some important changes in the organization of worship. The bimah was now place in front of the ark to facilitate the delivery of sermons, at first in German and later in Polish. A place for the choir was also built

in the eastern wall and women were seated in a gallery, rather than behind a

| curtain.

For the most part Jews enthusiastically supported the revolution of February 1846 in the free city. On 23 February the Revolutionary Council had issued an

Introduction 15 appeal “To our Israelite brothers’, which promised the abolition of all distinctions between Jews and other citizens, the first such act on the Polish lands. In response

some 500 Jews, including Oettinger, Warschauer, Funk, and Krzepicki of the Society for Self-Education, joined the army of insurrection. This was enthusiastically welcomed by R. Meisels, and he and Krzepicki called on Jews to support the revolution ‘as befits the free and brave sons of the motherland’. This did not prevent some of the more reactionary Polish émigrés, such as Wiktor Szokalski, a member of Adam Czartoryski’s entourage in Paris, from accusing the Galician Jews of responsibility for the jacquerie which followed the outbreak of revolution in Krakow and Austrian Poland. The humiliating collapse of the revolution and the incorporation of Krakow

munity. |

| into Austria were followed by Austrian reprisals against those who has supported the revolution. Some Jews were imprisoned and all restrictive anti-Jewish laws re-established. In addition, a fine of 50,000 florins was levied on the Jewish com-

AUSTRIAN RULE, 1848-1918

The revolution of 1848 formed a landmark in the political, social, and cultural development of the Jews of Galicia, particularly in Lviv and Krakow. Jews were politically divided during the revolution: some took an active part in the struggle, aligning themselves with the Poles, while others did not support the national asp1rations of the Poles and adopted a pro-Austrian stand, fearing the increasing strength of Polish antisemitism and an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence. Jews were particularly prominent in the revolution in Krakow. On 3 May 1848, the anniversary of the adoption of the Polish constitution of 1791, the Krakow Society for Self-Education among Jews issued an appeal. At this moment, when the peoples of Europe were freeing themselves from ‘oppression by tyrants’; and the Jews, too, were being granted rights for which they had waited so long, it was the duty of an Israelite to evoke in himself love for the motherland, to immerse himself in patriotism for the country in which he was born and awake among his co-religionists a holy zeal for the cause of freedom . . . We shall show the world that we have the Maccabees’ blood in our veins, that our hearts, like the hearts of our forefathers, respond warmly to

everything that is noble and sublime. ’ ,

R. Meisels was elected to parliament in Vienna from Krak6éw in the autumn of 1848, where he expressed clearly the views of those Jews who supported more moderate Polish aspirations and the revolutionary constitution of April 1848: the future of our Polish motherland can only be secured through organic work [work to raise the economic, social, and cultural level of the country], not through the dissolution of society . . . Realizing the needs of humanity in its present phase, I am an ardent believer in * Quoted in A. Eisenbach, The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1780-1870 (Oxford, 1991), 364-5.

16 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky the principles of freedom, in the development of political rights, in all citizens having a share in these rights . . . I regard these principles as true democracy, which, far from _ diminishing, raises everything, which does not destroy but constructs and consolidates the new constitution by love.®

As in 1846, these hopes were dashed. The revolution was crushed and, although

not all Jewish restrictions were re-established, full emancipation would have to wait another twenty years. It was achieved in 1867 in Cisleithanian Austria and accepted in the following year by the local Galician Seym, now under the control of the Polish nobles. Legal equality was followed by further acculturation and, in contrast to other Jewish communities in eastern Europe, the Jews in Galicia played a part at all levels of national political activity. They still wavered between identification with the German Austrian central government and the Polish provincial administration in Galicia. In her chapter Hanna Kozinska-Witt describes how Ludwig Gumplowicz, who was to become one of the founders of sociology, _ saw the problem of Jewish integration and Polonization. Later, the third, Ukrainian alternative emerged. Advocates of alignment with Austria sometimes supported Ukrainian political forces, as happened 1n the elections of 1873, described in Rachel Manekin’s chapter. Yet, as Yaroslav Hrytsak demonstrates in his chapter, even Ivan Franko, a Ukrainian writer sympathetic to Jewish aspirations, still felt highly ambivalent about Jews in general and 1n particular about the possibility of Jewish—Ukrainian co-operation. Galicia anticipated Russia by several decades in modern political organization and association, but traditional elements in society also played their part. Despite the slow pace of their enfranchisement, the Jews adopted German culture rapidly, while increasing their contact with Polish culture. Some aspects of this accultura-

tion process are described in the chapter by Jerzy Holzer. The trend towards Polish culture accelerated with the achievement of full emancipation at the end of the 1860s, but weakened again in the 1880s, when hostile attitudes towards the

Jews in the mould of modern antisemitism emerged in Polish society. Jozef Buszko explores the complex character of politics in multi-ethnic Galicia.

In 1867 the pro-Austrian section among the advocates of German culture established in Lviv the Shomer Yisrael (Guardian of Israel) association, which augured the beginning of modern political activity in Galicia. Its members disseminated German culture and acted to further the integration of Jews in the local, regional, and imperial political system. They published a German-language

newspaper, Der Israelit, set up a club and library in Lviv, and supported the postepowa (Progressive) synagogue in the city. On the political plane they collaborated with Polish organizations. A second, exclusively pro-Polish group was con-

solidated at that time and founded the Doreshei Shalom (Peace-Seekers) association, from which developed the Polish Jewish organization Agudas Ahim (Association of Brothers). 8 Eisenbach, Emancipation, 355.

Introduction 17 In order to combat the movement towards cultural assimilation, the traditionalists rallied their forces under the leadership of R. Szymon Sofer (Schreiber) of Krakow and R. Joshua Roke’ah of Belz. They adopted modern political modes of action, published their own paper, Mahazike1 hadat, and cooperated with the Poles by voting in elections to the Austrian parliament. The role of the Orthodox in the elections of 1873 emerges strikingly in the chapter by Rachel Manekin. Jewish communal politics was less polarized in Krakow than elsewhere in Galicia and integrationist and pro-Polish views were stronger here than in Lviv. The gmina

(communal body) was dominated by integrationists under the chairmanship of Szymon Samelson and both they and the Jewish Orthodox were represented on the city council. By 1865 Polish had already been introduced as the language of instruction in the Jewish school in Kazimierz and in the same year it became the language of the gmina. In 1868 the Tempel, where most of the integrationists prayed, decided to appoint as its preacher Szymon Dankowicz, a graduate of the Warsaw Higher School (the proto-university established during the liberalization of Russian Poland

in the kingdom of Poland which followed Alexander II’s accession), who was known for his fervent support for Polish patriotic aspirations and who had taken part in the 1863 uprising. Moreover, as Rachel Manekin shows, in the 1873 elections to the Austrian Reichsrat Szymon Samelson and his Orthodox deputy, Salomon Deiches, refused to participate in the creation of the Central Jewish Electoral Committee, which allied itself with Ruthenian (Ukrainian) politicians. In their view, expressed in a letter to the committee, the goals which they and it both sought could be better achieved through an alliance with ‘Polish Christians’. Their stance was applauded by Czas, the main organ of the Krakéw political leadership, which expressed satisfaction with the way the local Jewish community had rejected Shomer Yisrael’s position supporting Germanization of the Jews and the centralization of the monarchy as was favoured by the German liberals.

Jews played a major role in the economic development of Krak6éw in these years and were in the grocery, haberdashery, leather, textile, and clothing trades; they also participated actively in the import and export of wine, textiles, timber, and feathers. They were an important section of the professional classes and a major element of the artisan classes.

From the 1880s the new Jewish politics began to make its mark on Krakow. The new rabbi of the Tempel, Ozjasz Thon, became the principal spokesman for the Zionists. Socialist ideas also began to make inroads within the community and when in 1905 the Jewish Social Democratic Party was formed, a significant number of its 4,000 Galician members were to be found in Krakow. Neo-Orthodoxy also began to make its mark, with its view that the only way to protect the faithful against the ravages of the modern world was to adopt some of its techniques, both

in political organization and in education. R. Shimeon Sofer, leader of the Orthodox Jews in Krakow, sat in the Reichsrat for the Snyatyn—Kolomyia— Buchach area as a member of the Polish club.

18 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky The freedom of political association granted to the Jews of Galicia in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the fact that they were granted access to schools and universities and to government posts, opened up several possible routes to integration. Some were drawn to the imperial culture and emigrated to central Europe, particularly to Vienna, in order to practise liberal professions;

some assimilated into Polish culture, while others sought to combine an Orthodox | lifestyle with an open attitude towards European culture. But notwithstanding these changes, tens of thousands of Galician Jews still adhered to the old way of life, drew their livelihood from the estate economy or from occupations connected with villages and small towns, and suffered greatly from the economic backward-

| ness of the region. At the same time, the abolition of the labour tribute and the restrictions on Jewish landholding led to the emergence of a class of Jewish landowners. As Tomasz Gasowski demonstrates in his chapter, nearly one-fifth of the large estates in Galicia on the eve of the First World War belonged to Jews. These Jewish landowners had by then become an established feature of Galician society. Literary and journalistic activity flourished in the first decades after the 1848 revolution and was embraced by the second and third generation of the Galician

Enlightenment movement. This included, among others, the writers Reuven Asher Brodes, Mordecai David Brandstaedter, and David Ishaya Silverbusch. Hebrew weeklies and monthlies devoted to Jewish studies, such as Meged yerahim, Otsar hokhmah, and Hamevaser, began to appear, most of them published in Lviv. Yiddish papers also began to come out, the first of them, Dz Tsaytung, in the revolutionary year itself. Lviv became an important publishing centre, partly

because in 1836 Russia had imposed stringent restrictions on the printing of Hebrew and Yiddish books. Krakow also became a publishing centre, especially of Polish books. The disinclination of large numbers of Galician Jews for cultural assimilation

| as envisaged by the Poles, together with the growing impact of modern antisemitism on the political life of Poland, formed the background to the burgeoning of Jewish nationalism in Galicia. The Association for Settlement in the Land of Israel was founded as early as 1875 in Przemysl, on the border of eastern and western Galicia. Its first members included several active members of the associa-

tions for Jewish cultural integration, who were influenced by the moderate Enlightenment trends that had been evident in Galicia since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In this context it is illuminating to read the farewell piece written in 1884 by the editor of Ojczyzna (‘Homeland’), the paper of the proPolish Agudas Ahim association. In it he writes that the Jews had only two possible choices: to convert to Christianity or move to Erets Yisrael.? From the 1890s on, Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) groups started springing up throughout the region, and at the beginning of the twentieth century the Zionists began to take 9 N.M. Gelber, Toledot yehudei brodi (Jerusalem, 1955), 84.

Introduction 19 part in political life and in elections to the Austrian parliament. The Poles, vehemently opposing independent Jewish political organization, supported the pro-

Polish circles in the Jewish communities. Concomitant with the national movement, a Jewish labour movement emerged among the artisans’ and workers’ unions and continued in the form of Jewish associations affiliated to Polish socialist parties. In 1903 a labour Zionist movement was founded and the following year

the Galician Po’alei Zion party was established. As in other segments of east European Jewry, nationalist radicalism and social radicalism came together, creating the infrastructure for the politicization of Jewish life. By the eve of the First World War there was a network of Jewish parties, clubs, and organizations, with branches all over Galicia, where all kinds of political and cultural activity took place. Zionists, socialists, German- and Polish-speaking intellectuals, pious Jews, and Hebrew scholars were to be found in the towns and cities. Despite decades of intensive activity on the part of intellectuals and government functionaries, the Jews remained a separate group with distinct features—a national group among other such groups. Even in the multinational cities of Lviv and Krakow, where

Jewish integration went furthest, clearly defined limits maintained a distinct Jewish presence.

Yet the central problem for Jews in Galicia, as for most of Galicia’s other inhabitants, remained the struggle to earn a living. Galician poverty became proverbial in the second half of the nineteenth century and caused serious dislocation and disruption to Jewish society; emigration was one of the principal ways out. The favoured destination of most Jews was the New World, but many also made their way to the growing metropolis of Vienna. Klaus Hodl’s chapter discusses why they took this course and the problems they faced there.

At the turn of the twentieth century Lviv was among the liveliest centres of Jewish activity in eastern Europe, together with Odessa, Warsaw, and St Peters-

burg. Its old-style Aeders flourished alongside more modern schools, public libraries, and even a Yiddish theatre, built in 1890. The large number of Jewish students at Lviv University (about one-fifth of the student body in 1897) attests to

the intercultural contact that the intelligentsia enjoyed; many Jewish students attended other central European universities. Both Hebrew and Yiddish journals and papers, as well as anthologies in Polish, were published in Lviv. Hebrew authors, including Joseph Hayim Brenner and Gershon Shofman, lived and wrote in Lviv, while Jewish scholars studied and taught Polish literature and classical languages at the local university. Given the strength of Polish culture among Jews and the later importance of Zionism, with its stress on Hebrew, Yiddish culture developed much more slowly than in the tsarist empire, as is described in the chapter by

Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz. This encounter between the deeply rooted Jewish culture, with its long tradition of autonomy, and the Polish and German manifestations of European culture made Lviv a perfect microcosm for modern historical research on the Jews of the Polish—Lithuanian kingdom. The fathers of modern

20 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky historiography conducted a considerable part of their research in the city, although some, such as Mojzesz Schorr and Majer Balaban, later moved to Warsaw. The antiquities of the Jewish quarters of the city and the treasures of the local synagogues, which had been an inseparable part of the everyday life of the Jews, became sources of inspiration for historical research and national renaissance. Krakow, too, although smaller and less dynamic, became a major cultural cen| tre less affected by the worsening Polish—Jewish relations found elsewhere in the decades before 1914. The integrationists remained the strongest political force in Jewish politics here, one of them, Josef Sare, being elected deputy mayor in 1905. But their position was now under threat, not only from the exponents of the new

Jewish politics, the Zionists and socialists, but also from the neo-Orthodox. | Voices were also being raised within the community against the alliance with the Polish upper class, whose hold on Galician politics was coming under increasing

pressure. One of the first Jewish deputies to break with the Polish club in the Austrian parliament was Adolf Gross of Krakow, who from 1903 sat in the Reichsrat as a representative of the Independent Jews, still favouring Jewish integration, but regarding Jewish political support for the aristocratic Polish club as undemocratic and short-sighted. From 1905 this group of Jewish democrats published the weekly journal Tygodnik.

DAYS OF DISTRESS During the First World War eastern Galicia was the battleground of the Austrian and Russian armies. The region changed hands several times and tens of thousands of Jewish refugees abandoned their homes and fled to other parts of the

Austro-Hungarian empire. Those who did not leave suffered at the hands of Russian troops, who raped and murdered them and plundered and destroyed their homes; some were deported to Russia. Famine and epidemics claimed many lives. Special committees were established to help the victims of war and Russian Jews set up other committees to put pressure on the Russian military command

to stop the pogroms against the Jews. The writer Shai An-ski, who played an important part in these rescue efforts, recorded the fate of the Jews of Galicia at this time in his book 7he Destruction of the Jews in Poland, Galicia and Bukovina: The outrages committed in Galicia are almost unimaginable. A large area with a million Jews, who only yesterday enjoyed all individual and civil rights, is now surrounded by a fiery wall of blood and iron, cut off from the world and under the domination of animals in the form of Cossacks and soldiers. The impression we gained 1s that an entire tribe was being severed from the people of Israel.'©

Not only did the war undermine the Jewish economy in Galicia, but it also affected the demographic structure of the population. Many communities 10'S. An-Ski, Hurban hayehudim bepolin, galitsiyah ubukovinah (Berlin, 1929), i. 14.

Introduction 21 dwindled and the proportion of Jews in rural areas dropped. To make matters worse, after the ending of hostilities the Jews found themselves trapped between the Poles, who were about to win political independence, and the Ukrainians, who for a time established an independent republic in the eastern part of the region. ‘The sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob began to feel that although they were not part of the one camp—with the exception of the small faction of the Association of Poles of the Jewish Persuasion—or the other, the two camps were like upper and lower millstones, and they, the Jews, were being ground between them.”*? Lviv became the site of a protracted pogrom, during which 100 Jews were murdered and hundreds more injured.

, EPILOGUE With the end of the war the Jews of Galicia found themselves no longer under the rule of a multinational empire, where they had enjoyed equal rights and official tolerance, but now members of a nation-state with a particularly severe minority

problem. This problem was more acute in the east, where the Jewish minority lived alongside a larger Polish minority and a Ukrainian majority in a province ruled by Poles. The economic role of the Jews gradually shifted to the majority groups, and the Polish authorities banned Jews from government posts. During the inter-war period the Jewish community in both regions of Galicia failed to recover from the effects of the war. Their economic plight worsened because of the new Polish taxation policy, which adversely affected commerce, and because of growing economic competition from Polish and Ukrainian cooperatives. In the ©

1930s the economic boycott of Jewish businesses grew, as did restrictions on Jewish admissions to high schools and universities. Right-wing Polish and Ukrainian parties incited anti-Jewish activity, and in Lviv students occasionally rioted against Jewish businesses. Because of restrictions on emigration to the West, which tightened in the 1930s, and the limited possibility of emigration to Palestine, this was not a feasible solution to the Jewish predicament. But, as elsewhere in Poland, the economic crisis and the hostility faced by the

Jews reinforced their independent spirit and they established a wide-ranging network of welfare, mutual-aid, and economic support associations in the towns of Galicia which helped Jewish artisans and merchants to survive. Jewish political

activity also expanded, and the various parties attracted tens of thousands of members. The educational networks of the Hebrew-language, Zionist-oriented Tarbut and the Orthodox Agudas Yisrael set up dozens of schools throughout eastern Galicia. As Jewish political and cultural activity intensified and alienation from Polish society grew, the trend towards Polonization declined. Immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939 41 Schtock (Sadan), Mima’agal hane’urim, 239. This refers to two demonstrations of Poles and Ukrainians that took place in Lviv in the closing days of Austrian rule in Galicia.

22 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky the German army invaded eastern Galicia, only to retreat a few days later, but not before wreaking havoc on the lives and property of Jews. The Germans retained

control of western Galicia and Krakow became the capital of the General Government, the rump Polish area established by the Germans to serve as a possible bargaining-counter with the Western Powers and as a source of raw materials and slave labour. The Soviet army seized eastern Galicia on 17 September. As in all parts of Poland annexed to the Soviet Union under the Ribbentrop—Molotov agreement, the Jews won a temporary reprieve from the Germans, but paid a

price: within a few months hundreds of thousands of Jews encountered the sweeping changes which their co-religionists over the Soviet border had experi- _ enced two decades before. There commenced a rapid upheaval in the economic and social structure, and the Jews were particularly affected because of their occupations and social activity. The leaders of the Jewish community and active members of Jewish national

organizations and political parties suffered a grim fate. Jewish political activity was banned and leaders of Zionist parties and of the Bund were arrested and exiled. All educational and cultural activity connected to the various movements was suspended. Some of the pupils transferred to state schools where the language of instruction was Yiddish, but many moved to the general school system. On the other hand, the Soviet regime abolished all restrictive quotas (although some quotas would later resurface) and opened the institutions of higher learning to Jews, and the number of Jewish students increased greatly. While Hebrew culture suffered a heavy blow, Yiddish culture flourished in line with the spirit of the Soviet regime. Among the many refugees who arrived in eastern Galicia from Nazi-occupied Poland were Yiddish writers and actors who joined the local writers and artists. A state Yiddish theatre was set up in Lviv, headed by Ida Kaminska, also a refugee. However, the Soviet authorities placed obstacles in the path of religious practice and all subsidies for religious institutions ceased, but the synagogues continued to be supported by their congregations and religious ceremonies were still held. The Nazi invasion of June 1941 and the beginning of the ‘Final Solution’, the mass murder of the Jews of Europe, brought about the effective end of Galician

Jewry. The Jews of western Galicia had already been subjected to two years of brutal Nazi oppression and in the three terrible years between the summer of 1941 and the summer of 1944 the Nazis wiped out almost the entire Jewish population of the area. In the first days of the Nazi occupation of eastern Galicia local inhabitants—Ukrainians and sometimes Poles—killed thousands of Jews in pogroms, justifying their actions by charging that the Jews had collaborated with the Soviet regime over the previous two years. In August 1941 the Germans incorporated

eastern Galicia into the General Government as the district of Galicia and extended their anti-Jewish edicts to the region. They set up a Judenrat (Jewish self-rule body) in each community and directed men and women between 14 and

Introduction 23 60 into forced labour. The mass execution of Jews from the former Soviet region, including Jews from small towns and villages, continued into the autumn of 1941.

In the final months of 1941 and the beginning of 1942 the Nazis set up work camps, to which they dispatched tens of thousands of Jews as forced labourers to dig up stones and lay roads under harsh conditions. The concentration of Jews into ghettos began at the same time. In March 1941 a ghetto had already been established in Krakow, while in Lviv construction of the ghetto began in November. In the same month the Germans began to build the Belzec death camp north-west of Lviv and in the spring of 1942 they began to implement the Final Solution, deporting groups of east Galician Jews classified as ‘unfit for work’ (children, old people, and the sick) to the camp. Throughout that year the remnants of the population lived in ghettos in large and medium-sized

towns. Hunger, cold, and disease killed many and the desperate attempts of

Jewish committees to distribute food through public kitchens and to provide medical aid had little impact. In the summer of 1942 the Germans accelerated the extermination and even sent Jews employed in the war effort to death camps. For two weeks in August SS units and the German police operated in conjunction with the Ukrainian police to send 50,000 of Lviv’s Jews to Belzec in the great Aktion. The Judenrate, whose members had been forced to take fateful decisions on mass deportations, were liquidated, and during 1943 the Germans turned those ghettos still in existence into labour camps and began to run them directly. (In Lviv the ghetto was con-

verted into a labour camp.) At the beginning of June German and Ukrainian police units began liquidating the ghetto in Lviv, but encountered armed resistance from the remnants of the Jewish population; another camp in Lviv, Janowska, was liquidated in November. By the summer of 1943 most of those left in the ghettos had been killed, with only slightly more than 20,000 remaining in

the labour camps; by the end of 1943 they too had been killed. They tried to escape to the forests, seeking hiding-places or crossing over to the ‘Aryan’ side, but the hostile atmosphere and the thoroughness of the German search for Jews in hiding almost completely ruled out escape. ‘In the absence of any possibility of escaping their cruel fate, and after hopeless wandering through the sea of human

hatred, most of the unfortunate fugitives were forced to return to the ghetto, where they perished in the subsequent actions,’ wrote a Jewish physician who survived the Stanyslaviv ghetto.!”

Quite a few of the Jews who survived did so thanks to Polish or Ukrainian acquaintances who hid them, or to Germans displaying rare qualities of humanity. Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, head of the Uniate Church in eastern Galicia, issued an epistle condemning the murder of Jews and through his influence 150 Jewish lives were saved. In Brody the German forest supervisor risked his life to help hundreds of Jews. These and other demonstrations of humanity stood out 12 A. Liebesman, Jm yehudei stanislavuv biyemei kelayah (Beit Lohamei Hageta’ot, 1980), 89.

24 Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky against the background of hostility and the desperate predicament of the Jews in the face of systematic extermination. When the Soviet army entered Galicia in the spring and summer of 1944, a few

| thousand Jews came out of hiding, some 2 per cent of the number who had been living in Galicia only three years previously. In Lviv, home to 100,000 Jews in 1931, only 3,400 remained when the Soviets entered at the end of July 1944, including only eighty-five children and adolescents. But these survivors were not yet secure. The Ukrainian underground units led by Stepan Bandera, who had already killed Jews trying to escape to the forests, continued to fight the Soviet regime and to vent their fury on the remaining Jews, most of whom emigrated to _ other countries. In Krakéw, too, only a residual community remained. In the physical devastation many synagogues had been destroyed; streets in which Jews had lived for centuries had been damaged and shtet/s reduced to rubble. This was accompanied by the plundering of cultural and art treasures and, when the Soviets returned, they did not permit the renewal of Jewish cultural life even to the extent to which it had been allowed between 1939 and 1941. This marked the end of a centuries-old community distinguished by cultural richness and creativity in its spiritual and everyday life. Galician Jewry, which blended deep-rooted tradition with the cultural influence of the nations among which it dwelt, is gone for ever, but its heritage has been borne by emigrants, refugees, and survivors far beyond the bounds of eastern Europe. Today, too, both in Poland and in Ukraine, Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians have begun to restore this precious legacy. This volume is one small contribution to the task.

Dimensions of a Triangle: Polish—Ukrainian—Jewish Relations in Austrian Galicia JOHN-PAUL HIMKA THE Austrian crown land of Galicia does not have the best reputation in literature. In Jaroslav HaSek’s famous novel The Good Soldier Svejk and his Fortunes in the World War Major-General von Schwarzenberg ‘had a mania for transferring

officers to the most unpleasant places. On the slightest pretext, an officer was already saying goodbye to his garrison and was on his way . . . to some drinksodden, forlorn outpost in the filthy wilds of Galicia.’ Unpleasant it may have been, but Galicia was not insignificant in east central

Europe. With a territory of almost 80,000 square kilometres and a population exceeding 8 million in 1914, it was the largest province in the lands and kingdoms represented in the Reichsrat. Galicia took its name from the medieval Ukrainian principality of Halych, situated north of the Carpathian Mountains 1n the westernmost extension of Kievan Rus’. Austria acquired the territory from the first partition of Poland in 1772. The Austrian crown land included not only much of the old Galician Rus’, but also some ethnically Polish territories in the west that had never been connected with the Galicia of the Middle Ages. In Austrian Galicia Poles and | Ukrainians each accounted for over 4o per cent of the population and Jews for over

10 per cent. (See Tables 1-3.) There was also a small German minority in the crown land and, historically, an Armenian minority, which had more or less assim-

ilated to Polish nationality by the nineteenth century. In eastern Galicia, which corresponded more to medieval Galicia, Ukrainians made up about 65 per cent of the population, Poles about 20 per cent, and Jews well over ro per cent. In what follows I sketch the relationships between the three major nationalities

of Austrian Galicia—Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews—with respect to social and political intercourse, religion, and culture. This is not a sketch of the history of Galicia under Austrian rule, nor of the history of any of the three nationalities; it is restricted to the problem of interaction between these nationalities and much that is important in Galician, Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish history is necessarily omitted. Within these limits I hope to present as full and balanced an account of the Galician triangle as possible.

26 JFohn-Paul Himka Table 1. Galician population by nationality, 1825-1857

Year Poles Ukrainians Jews Total? 1825 1,800,000 1,740,000 270,000 3,850,000 1846 1,994,802 2,441,771 335,071 4,875,149 1857 1,981,076 2,085,431 448,973 4,632,866 Note: These early statistics are, of course, very inexact. “Incl. Germans and other minorities.

| Source: M. Korduba, ‘Rozvii ukrains’koho naselennia v Halychyni za ostannikh sto lit’, Svit, 213-14 (15 July 1926), 4-7.

Table 2. Galician population by religion, 1880-1910

Year RomanCatholics Greek Catholics Jews Total?

1880° 2,706,977 2,518,408 686,596 5,938,461 1890° 2,999,062 2,790,577 770,468 6,607,816 1900° =. 33,345,780 3,108,972 811,183 7,315,939 1910° 3,731,569 3,379,613 871,895 7,980,447 Sources:

*Incl. protestants and members of other denominations. > Korduba, ‘Rozvii ukrains’koho naselennia v Halychyni;, 4—7.

© ‘Die Ergebnisse der Volkzahlung vom 31 December 1890’, pt. 1: ‘Die summarischen Ergebnisse der Volkszahlung’, Osterreichische Statisttk, 32 (1892), 124, 171.

4 Volodymyr Okhrymovych, ‘Z polia natsional’noi statystyky Halychyny’, Studi z polia suspil’nykh nauk 1 statystyky, 1 (1909), 67.

Table 3. Galician population by language, 1880-1910

Year Polish Ukrainian German _ Total? 1880 3,058,400° 2,549,707° 324,336" 5,938,461° 18904 = 3,509,183 =. 2,835,674 227,600 6,607,816

1900° 3,988,702 3,074,449 211,752 7,284, 703 1910° 4,672,500 3,208,092 90,114 7,980,477 Note: Yiddish was not recognized as a language in the Austrian censuses, and most Jews reported Polish as their language. Aside from this, the Galician census statistics inflated the number of Polish speakers. For a detailed discussion of the language statistics, see E. Brix, Die Umgangssprachen in Altosterreich zwischen Agitation und Assimilation. Die Sprachenstatistuk den zisleithanischen Volkszahlungen, 1880 his 1910, Veroftentlichungen der Kommission ftir neuere Geschichte Osterreichs, 72 (Vienna, 1982), 353-89. Sources:

*Incl. persons who reported some other language.

> G. A. Schimmer, ‘Die einhcimische Bevélkerung Osterreichs nach der Umgangssprache’, Statistische Monatschrift (1881), 106. © Korduba, ‘Rozvii ukrains’koho naselennia v Halychyni’, 4-7. 4 Tie Ergebnisse der Volkszahlung vom 31 December 1890’, 124, 171. © Osterreichisches statistisches Handbuch, 20 (Vienna, 1901), 5.

The Polish-Ukrainian—fewish Relationship 27 SOCIETY AND ECONOMY Galicia belongs to that curious belt of east central Europe extending from Lithuania to Transylvania and composed of the eastern reaches of pre-1772 Poland and

pre-1918 Hungary, where there has traditionally been a high degree of congruence between nationality and position in the socio-economic structure. This is

also a zone where serfdom profoundly shaped the human environment, most evidently the system of social divisions but also the deep structures of the psychology, culture, and politics of the region.

The gentry of Galicia were Poles. They owned most of the landed estates throughout the province, sharing only a little with Jews around the start of the twentieth century. Of the three major Galician nationalities, the Poles were always the most powerful politically and the most assertive culturally. There was also, however, a substantial Polish peasant population, mainly concentrated in western Galicia, and Poles also inhabited the cities and towns of western Galicia

and the larger cities of eastern Galicia; these urban Poles included artisans, merchants, and professionals. The Ukrainians were largely a peasant nation, with a thin layer of clerical and (by the 1840s) secular intelligentsia. The Jews, neither lords nor peasants, occupied the interstices of the feudal economy, intermediary positions between seigneur and serf as well as positions in the money economy, which remained marginal until the 1860s.' (See Tables 4 and 5.”) While three nationalities constituted different socio-economic communities,

with different cultural levels and interests, their interactions involved more than mere difference. These were antagonistic societies, communities whose eco-

nomic interests frequently collided. The main axis of this antagonism was the landlord—peasant relationship. The Polish-style serfdom that existed in Galicia until 1848 was based on the coercion of labour rents from the peasantry. Like any

system of forced labour, it depended on the systemic exercise of violence against the labourers and inspired profound hatred of the landlord class among the peasantry.? For their part, the landlords constructed for themselves an image of the peasants as mere brutes. The emotional energy engendered in this epoch seems to 1 For an account of the rich variety of Jewish occupations in a small Galician town (Snyatyn) at the turn of the century, see J. Schoenfeld, Jemish Life in Galicia under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in the Reborn Poland, 18g8—1939 (Hoboken, NJ, 1985), 22—38.

* For a well-rounded portrait of Galician society in the late 19th and early 20 centuries, see J. Buszko, Zum Wandel der Gesellschafistruktur in Galizien und in der Bukowina, Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Report no. 343 (Vienna, 1978). 3 The classic studies of Galician serfdom are by L. von Mises, Die Entwicklung der guttsherrlichbduerlichen Verhaltnissen in Galizien, 1772-1848, Wiener Staatswissenschaftliche Studien, 4/2 (Vienna, 1902), and R. Rosdolsky [Rozdolski], Stosunki poddancze w dawnej Galicjt (Warsaw, 1962); trans. in German as Untertan und Staat in Galizien. Die Reformen unter Maria Theresia und Joseph II (Mainz, 1992). On the conflict between landlords and peasants, see the documentary collection O. A.

Kupchyns’kyi, A. H. Sisets’kyi, and F. I. Steblii (eds.), Klasova borot’ba sehanstva Skhidnot Halychyny, 1772-1849: Dokumenty 1 materialy (Kiev, 1974).

28 John-Paul Himka | Table 4. Occupation and nationality of Galicians, 1900

Occupation Poles Ukrainians Jews All Galicians

No. % No. . % No. % No. %

Agriculture 2,569,386 77 2,880,476 95 116,098 14 5,603,385 78

Industry 327,598 10 58,270 2 232,917 29 641,729 9

Trade 111,406 3 6,078 0 279,571 35 394,622 5 Professions 97,162 3 21,791 l 44,517 6 155,622 2

Other 228,016 7 55,256 2 132,923 16 429,767 6 , Note: This table contains adjusted figures for Poles and Ukrainians. I have taken the number of Poles and Ukrainians by language and subtracted the number of Jews who gave Polish and Ukrainian as their language of intercourse (respectively, 76.6 and 5 per cent of the Jews). The results are necessarily inexact. These figures include dependants, but exclude those in the military. Based on information from J. Buzek, ‘Stosunki zawodowe i socyalne ludnosci w Galicyi wedlug wyznania i narodowoSci, na podstawie spisu ludnosci z 31 grudnia 1900 r.’, Wiadomosct statystyczne o stosunkach krajowych, 20/2 (1905), tables.

Table 5. National structure of the occupations, 1900 (%)

Nationality Agriculture’ Industry’ Trade‘ Professions’ Other

Poles 46 51 Ukrainians 5128 9 262 14 53 13

Jews 2 36 71 29 31 Note: See note to Table 4. * Incl. forestry, fishing, and related activities. > Primarily artisanal production; also includes innkeeping. © Incl. communication. 4 Incl. civil service, clergy, and the free professions.

have been accumulated, as if on a flywheel, to be released in deadly spurts over the course of the next century. Even after 1848 the landlord—peasant conflict did not completely abate. Seigneurs and their former serfs struggled bitterly for fifteen years over possession of forests and pastures, and until the very collapse of the empire peasants continued to feel the whip on their back when they worked their former masters’ demesnes for wages. The bad feeling between landlord and peasant accrued primarily to the Polish— Ukrainian relationship.* Not only did the Polish manor confront the Ukrainian

cottage in eastern Galicia,? but Ukrainian nationalism embraced the social 4 See J. Radziejowski, ‘Ukrainians and Poles, the Shaping of Reciprocal Images and Stereotypes’, Acta poloniae historica, 50 (1984), 116-17.

5 In 1902 (and again in 1906) agricultural labourers went on strike in eastern Galicia. This was, and was perceived as, both a social conflict between peasants and landlords and a national conflict between Ukrainians and Poles.

The Polish-Ukrainian—fFewish Relationship 20 antagonism in a way that Polish nationalism never could. From the point of view of the Polish national movement, the antipathy between the gentry and the people was an obstacle, an embarrassment, even a tragedy. This became particularly evident in the insurrection that broke out in western Galicia in 1846. On one side stood the flower of the Polish gentry, ready to unite with and liberate their serfs in the name of a common struggle against national oppression; on the other were

resentful and volatile Polish peasants who exploded into ferocious violence against their class oppressors, their would-be liberators and noble brothers. Contemporary Polish patriots found this moment so difficult to accept that they created legends to explain it away: they blamed outside forces—Metternich and his agents—for stirring up the peasants; many also claimed that the peasants who attacked the nobles were not really Poles but Ukrainians.® By contrast, in the Ukrainian national mythology peasants rebellions were exalted. The national poet Taras Shevchenko even glorified the cruelty of the haidamaky, the peasant and Cossack rebels who slaughtered Polish nobles in the eighteenth century as well as social bandits who were still doing so in the nineteenth (e.g. Shevchenko’s poem ‘Varnak’).’ From the very first, from 1848, Ukrainian political leaders did not hesitate to integrate the peasantry, with its grievances and aspirations in the socioeconomic sphere, into the national movement. With the blessing of their national leaders, every year in May the Ukrainian peasants of Galicia (but not their Polish counterparts) solemnly commemorated the anniversary of their emancipation from serfdom; virtually every Ukrainian village in eastern Galicia conspicuously erected a cross in memory of liberation. The bloody shirt of serfdom was kept in clearer view in Ukrainian Galicia than in Polish Galicia. The peasantry’s grudge against the manor affected Jews as well, since Jews sometimes managed or leased estates from the nobility and in the late nineteenth century even began to buy them.® Although at most a few thousand Jews leased or © R. Rosdolsky, Engels and the Nonhistoric Peoples: The National Question in the Revolution of 1848

(Glasgow, 1987), 57-64. The difficulty of coming to terms with 1846 is still evident in Polish histori-

ography on the subject. T. W. Simons Jr., “The Peasant Revolt of 1846 in Galicia: Recent Polish Historiography’, Slavic Review, 30/4 (Dec. 1971). 795-817. Since Simon’s article was published, a leading authority on modern Polish history, in a standard reference work, repeated as fact the preposterous claim of Polish nobles of the 1840s that Jakub Szela received a medal from the Austrian government for his leadership of the Galician jacquerie. P. S. Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918 (Seattle, 1974), 135. 7 Shevchenko came from right-bank Ukraine and remained in the Russian empire all his life. But

his poetry had a powerful influence in Galicia after his death in 1861. He was not only the national poet but the greatest hero in the national pantheon for all Galicians who identified with the Ukrainian movement. 8 On Jews who ran estates, see J. Goldberg, ‘Die jiidischen Gutspachter in Polen—Litauen und die Bauern im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, in M. Alexander, F. Kampfer, and A. Kappeler (eds.), Kleine Volker in der Geschichte Osteuropas. Festschrift fiir Gunther Stokl zum 75. Geburtstag, Jahrbiicher fiir Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge, suppl. 5 (Stiittgart, 1991), 13-21.

30 John-Paul Himka owned estates in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,’ peasants emphatically identified Jews with the manor.?°

The Jewish innkeeper, prominent in almost every Galician village and the source and referent of stereotypes, became the object of complex animosity. Since innkeepers had to lease the right to purvey alcoholic beverages from the manor, they acted and were perceived as agents of the landlord. The Polish and Ukrainian

clergy, and later populist and nationalist activists, accused them of inducing demoralization, and anti-alcohol campaigns often assumed an anti-Jewish colour. Furthermore, the innkeepers, in their primary role as well as in subsidiary capacities (as moneylenders or shopkeepers), represented the new money economy that was changing the village, creating both opportunity and dislocation. This new money economy, which gathered force after the 1860s, exacerbated socio-economic tensions between Jews, on the one hand, and Poles and Ukrainians,

on the other. There were two aspects to this process. First, the Jews were the foremost representatives in Galicia of the money economy, in both its relatively neutral manifestations (such as commerce) and in those the peasantry experienced

negatively (such as moneylending, which resulted in peasant debt and loss of land).1! Secondly, under serfdom Poles and Ukrainians had never been the economic rivals of Jews, since their respective places in the economy were so rigidly

defined and discrete; but in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a rivalry did develop, particularly as Poles and Ukrainians entered commerce. Non-Jewish shopkeepers appealed to national solidarity to attract customers and frequently urged the boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.

Both the Ukrainian and Polish national movements fanned socio-economic animosity towards Jews. The Poles in particular found that Jews, as estate lessees, moneylenders, and innkeepers, made excellent scapegoats. The antagonism that Polish peasants might otherwise have directed at the landowning Polish gentry

could be deflected onto them and thus the formation of an integrated Polish nation could be postponed.

For their part, the Jews formed in their minds the stereotype of the ‘clumsy and stupid peasant who was commonly an object of contempt’!” and fear, ° In the mid-1880s it was estimated that there were about 300 Jewish estate-owners and over 500 lessees, ‘Juden als Ackerbauer’, Der Israelit, 20 (30 Oct. 1885), 6. By 1902 Jews owned 438 estates. F.

Fridman, ‘Landvirtshaft, kolonizatsye un grundbazits bay di galitsianishe yidn (Arum der helft fun des rg-tn yorhundertn)’, Yunger historiker, 2 (Warsaw, 1929), 140. 10 J.-P. Himka, Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century

(Edmonton, 1988), 148-9, 151, 154-9. In nearby Moldavia the peasant revolt of 1907 was directed against the landlords but primarily victimized Jews. C. Iancu, Les Juifs en Roumanie, 1566-1919: De Vexclusion a l’émancipation, Etudes Historiques, 4 ([ Aix-en-Provence], 1978), 230-3. 11 For a perceptive discussion of peasant antipathy to Jews, see F. Golczewski, Polnisch—jtidische Beztehungen, 1881-1922. Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Antisemitismus in Osteuropa, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des dstlichen Europa, 14 (Wiesbaden, 1981), 60—3. 12 C. Shmeruk, ‘Jews and Poles in Yiddish Literature in Poland between the Two World Wars’, in Polin, i (Oxford, 1986).

The Polish-Ukrainian—Jewish Relationship 31 and applied this stereotype to Géalicia’s pre-eminent peasant people, the Ukrainians.

a POLITICS The first nation to think and act politically in Galicia was the Poles. Their politics consisted of efforts to restore Polish statehood, at first by alliance with Napoleon and later, in the 1830s and 1840s, by a series of insurrectionary conspiracies. ‘The

activities of the Poles, especially the conspiracies of the 1830s, influenced the fledgling Ukrainian movement in Lviv, the ‘Ruthenian Triad’.!° From the middle of the nineteenth century, with the revolution of 1848-9 and the start of the constitutional era in the 1860s, all three nationalities were drawn

into politics. During the 1848-9 revolution Poles, with the exception of the peasantry, allied themselves with the revolutionary forces in Europe and the empire. Although they sympathized with the Hungarian insurrection, the fresh

impact of the events of 1846 instilled them with caution. They formed the National Council to represent the Galician population, but found their plans upset by a rival representative body, the Supreme Ruthenian Council, established by the Ukrainians and supported by figures in the Austrian government. During the revolution the Ukrainians formulated their first political demand, the division of Galicia into separate eastern and western provinces, in which, respectively, Ukrainians and Poles would be dominant. The Supreme Ruthenian Council collected hundreds of thousands of signatures on petitions in favour of the partition of Galicia, pursued Ukrainian political and socio-economic aims in the Austrian parliament, and courted public opinion. The Poles were genuinely surprised by

the political force of the Ukrainian movement, which had been marginal and largely cultural prior to 1848, and they explained its intrusion onto the political scene as resulting from the intervention of reactionary Austrian politicians. Count Franz Stadion, it was said, invented the Ruthenian nationality as part of the tra-

ditional Austrian policy of divide and rule. In reality, however, although the Ukrainian movement in 1848-9 did benefit from the patronage of the imperial authorities, this was not the source of the energy that so astonished contemporaries. The newly emancipated peasants perceived the Polish National Council as an institution of landlords and the Supreme Ruthenian Council as their own. The Ukrainian leadership instinctively and wisely supported the peasantry’s aspirations, particularly its demand for a large share of the forests and pastures whose ownership was in dispute. In terms of all-European and Habsburg politics, the

Ukrainian movement was counter-revolutionary, but in terms of the concrete situation in east central Europe it had a remarkably radical socio-economic programme. It was in the course of the revolution that the image was born of the 13 J. Kozik, The Ukrainian National Movement in Galicia, 1815-1849, ed. L. D. Orton (Edmonton, 1986).

32 John-Paul Himka Habsburgtreu Ukrainians, the Tyroleans of the east. But this reputation was a product of the peculiar constellation of interests that emerged during the revolution; it had little political meaning thereafter. Politics as such disappeared for a decade after the suppression of the revolution, until the defeats of 1859 and 1866 forced Austria to reform its political structure. In the constitutional wrangling of the 1860s there was a resurgence of the

, 1848 Ukrainian—Polish conflict. Ukrainians still championed the partition of Galicia and saw in the German centralists their natural allies. Polish political parties, however, all insisted on the integrity of Galicia. The Polish democrats wanted this large province to enjoy formal autonomy along the lines of the Hungarian kingdom, with Polish political hegemony. By the late 1860s, following demonstrations organized by the democrats and after the appearance of a new and imaginative Polish conservative party, the Stanczyks, the Habsburgs settled the - question of the status of Galicia: it would be a unified province with far-reaching

but informal autonomy under the solid control of the Polish gentry. Vienna’s position was understandable: the Polish gentry constituted the only stratum in Galicia with the necessary cultural and material prerequisites for the exercise of power. But Ukrainian political leaders felt betrayed by this settlement, especially in light of their loyalty to the dynasty during the recent revolution, and many now

began to look to Russia to champion their interests. The Russophile tendency dominated Ukrainian politics from the 1860s to the 1880s and among its hallmarks was an uncompromising antipathy to all that was Polish.

The Poles, for their part, turned the pro-Russian sympathies of a large part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to what seemed to be their own advantage. As | Austrian—Russian relations deteriorated in the 1870s and 1880s, Polish political leaders pointed to the Russophile Ukrainians as a dangerously disloyal element in a particularly vulnerable location, along the Russian border. ‘They made the case in Vienna that they, the Poles, were the only reliable element in the crown land and that the erstwhile Tyroleans of the east had become traitorous irredentists. In

the 1880s the Polish authorities in Galicia conducted a major offensive against Ukrainian Russophilism; in 1882 alone they prosecuted leading Russophiles on

| charges of high treason and purged suspected Russophiles in the Ukrainian higher clergy. The persecution of Russophiles accelerated the rise of another Ukrainian polit-

ical movement, narodovisvo (national populism). The new movement bore no sympathies for Russia, championed the concept of a completely separate Ukrainian

nationality, and worked hard and effectively to acquire a solid base among the peasantry. This dynamic movement became hegemonic in Galician Ukrainian politics by the end of the 1880s and remained so until after the collapse of the empire. Although at first national populism was not as fanatically anti-Polish as

Russophilism, the conservative gentry of eastern Galicia, the Podolians (or Podolaks), saw the implicit threat. By the early 1890s the influential Podolians had

The Polish-Ukrainian—fewish Relationship 33 already decided that the waning Russophile movement was the lesser of two evils, and the Galician lieutenants!* Leon Pininski (1898-1903) and Andrzej Potocki

(1903-8) deliberately supported the Russophiles to counter the flourishing Ukrainian movement proper, national populism.'° The rise of national populism meant the spread of the Ukrainian national idea and political consciousness to the broad masses of the east Galician population. But a similar process was also taking place in Polish society. Until the end of the 1880s Polish politics in Galicia was largely the monopoly of two conservative gentry parties, the KrakOw-based Stanczyks and the Lviv-based Podolians. ‘The

democrats, prominent in 1848-9 and again in the 1860s, were pushed to the margins of Galician political life. At the end of the 1880s, however, a Polish populist movement emerged, inspired by an emigrant from the Congress kingdom, Bolestaw Wystiouch. In 1890 a social-democratic party emerged among the Poles. The Galician Social Democrats came ideologically closest to Pilsudski’s wing of the Polish Socialist Party, that is, they combined socialism with Polish national-

ism. In 1905 right-wing Polish nationalists founded the National Democratic Party, which enjoyed particular popularity among the Polish minority in eastern Galicia. In short, Polish nationalism and political consciousness began permeating new layers of Polish society below the gentry and intelligentsia. By the turn of the century both Ukrainian and Polish society in Galicia consisted of mobilized, politicized nations, with the result that national antagonisms intensified. The Ukrainians increased their demands: they wanted not only the partition of Galicia but independent statehood if possible;'® like the Czechs, they wanted their own university in the capital city of their province; they wanted, too, a proportional share of seats in the parliament and the diet. Polish political parties of almost all stripes felt that the Ukrainians were pushing too far too fast and held on to as much as they could of what Poles had traditionally possessed, their stan postadania. From the late 1890s on the Polish—Ukrainian conflict in Galicia broke out into sporadic violence: a shot fired at the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko, the killing of Ukrainian peasants during elections, rioting and gunplay at the university, and the assassination of Lieutenant Potocki by a Ukrainian student in 1908. Both Ukrainian and Polish political parties, on the left even more than on the right, fostered paramilitary training of youth and prepared the cadres who would confront each other in the Polish—Ukrainian war that was to break out in 1918 within weeks of the collapse of Austria-Hungary. Although conflict was the main characteristic of Polish-Ukrainian political relations in Galicia, there were also some moments of compromise. Around 1870, 14 By ‘lieutenant’ I mean German Staithalter, Polish namiestnik, Ukrainian namisnyk. 19 J. Gruchala, Rzqd austriacki i polskie stronnictwa polityczne w Galhept wobec kwestu ukraimskiej, 15go—1g1 4, Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Slaskiego w Katowicach, 981 (Katowice, 1988). 16 Hrystak, ‘ “Molodi” radykaly v suspil’no-politychnomu zhytti Halychyny’, Zapysky naukovoho tovarystva im. shevchenka, 222 (1991), 71-110.

34 JFohn-Paul Himka when still a minority movement in Ukrainian Galicia, the national populists sought an accommodation with the more progressive of the Polish democrats. But as an unpopular alliance of political marginalities it bore no fruit. From 1890 to 1894 Ukrainian national populists came to an understanding with the Polish club. But this ‘new era’ ended in mutual recriminations, with the Ukrainians feeling that the Poles were making only superficial concessions and the Poles finding the

Ukrainians’ demands to be unrealistic and radical. With world war in the air, Vienna sought to make peace between the leading nationalities of its easternmost province, and in 1914 it did in fact engineer an important compromise between

Poles and Ukrainians that increased Ukrainian representation in the Galician diet!” and pledged the creation of a Ukrainian university. But this compromise foundered, along with the empire, in the course of the war. From the late 1870s, when they first appeared in Galicia, Polish and Ukrainian socialists had tried to work together. In fact, however, their relations were at best stormy; they formed separate socialist parties and quarrelled almost as much as they cooperated, with relations deteriorating over time.’® Jewish politics began with a struggle for emancipation during the revolution of 1848-9 and the reforms of the 1860s. During the revolution and the Galician diet

sessions of 1866-8 Jewish political leaders allied themselves with the Polish democrats and, in the late 1860s, with the modernizing wing of the conservative gentry, the Stanczyks. Only these two Galician political currents, however inconsistently and incompletely, supported the efforts of Jews to achieve legal equality with the Christian population. Opposed to Jewish emancipation were those political groups that had remained impervious to the liberal ideas coming to the fore in Austria in that era: the older generation of Krak6w conservatives, the Podolians of eastern Galicia, and the Ukrainians. In the last case, the Ukrainians’ strong identification with the peasantry (indeed, some of their political representatives were peasants) also inclined them to oppose Jewish emancipation, particularly with regard to Jewish participation in municipal government and ownership of land. By 1868, however, the Jews did achieve formal emancipation.'% For most of the nineteenth century the Jews allied themselves unequivocally with the Poles against the Ukrainians. In 1848-9 Jewish political leaders supported the Polish National Council, in the 1860s they supported the movement for a Polish-dominated autonomous Galicia, and in elections to parliament and the diet (with the exception of the 1873 elections to parliament”°) they supported Polish candidates over Ukrainians in eastern Galicia. 17 For details, see J. Buszko, Sejmowa reforma wyborcza w Galici, rgos—19g14 (Warsaw, 1956). 18 J.-P. Himka, Socialism in Galicia: The Emergence of Polish Social Democracy and Ukrainian Radicalism, 1860-1890 (Cambridge, Mass., 1983).

19 F. Friedman, Die galizischen Juden im Kampfe um ihre Gleichberechtigung, 1848-1868, Veroffentlichungen der Dr S. A. Bettelheim Memorial Foundation, 3 (Frankfurt, 1929). 20 The Jews and the Ukrainians were both allied with the German centralists in this election, not particularly with each other.

The Polish-Ukraimian—JFewish Relationship 35 Multiple factors determined this alliance with the Poles. For one thing, the Jews were a small, vulnerable minority in a region where the Poles, especially after 1867, were the dominant element politically, culturally, and socially. For the Jews

to hitch their wagon to the politically marginalized, oppressed, and plebeian Ukrainians would have made no sense, even had the latter been well disposed to them. But the Ukrainians were anything but Judaeophiles. Not only was there social antagonism between peasants and Jews, but the Ukrainian political leadership had long lacked the sophistication to understand the Jewish question in ways more consonant with the liberal thinking that had emerged even in some Polish circles. Moreover, until fairly late in the nineteenth century the leadership of the Ukrainian movement consisted overwhelmingly of priests (their importance at the local level continued into the twentieth century) and this clerical influence on the Ukrainian movement did not foster a more enlightened attitude towards the Jewish population. Furthermore, in the formative decades of the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s the Ukrainian movement was dominated by Russophiles, whose leanings reinforced their antipathy towards and alienation from the Jewish commu-

nity. Characteristically, when the Galician authorities launched their major assault on the Russophile movement in 1882, many east Galician Jews, horrified by the pogroms across the border in Russia the previous year, informed against suspected Russophiles, and in turn the Russophile press raged against them.?! Aside from the circumstance that the Poles were powerful and the Ukrainians weak and hostile, the Jewish—Polish political alliance in nineteenth-century Galicia was also determined by the peculiar electoral practices of that place and time. The dominance of the Polish gentry in Galician politics partly derived from

the ability of Polish noblemen to be elected by peasants (of both Polish and _ Ukrainian nationality), with whom, however, they stood in an objectively adversarial relationship. That this was possible at all was due to the electoral law, which divided the electorate into curiae more or less corresponding to social classes. In the peasant curia the franchise was indirect, so that in the final stage of the electoral process only a small number of peasant electora had to be influenced to vote for the gentry’s candidate. These electors were, simply and unabashedly, bribed to vote as the gentry wished; and where the political consciousness of the peasantry was too developed to allow the purchase of votes with vodka, sausage, money, or access to woods and pasture, various other forms of electoral chicanery were employed, including the theft of electors’ polling cards.” In all these operations Jews, especially the more influential innkeepers and lessees and managers of estates and forests, served as the almost indispensable 21 ‘This topic has never been researched. However, while looking into the ecclesiastical ramifications of the anti-Russophile campaign of 1882, I came across rich materials regarding the Jewish—

Russophile antagonism in both the Ukrainian Russophile press (S/ove) and the Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv Ukrainy u m. L’vovi, fond 146 (Halyts’ke namisnytstvo). 22 “Electoral sausage’ (Wahlwurst, or vyborcha kovbasa) was a genuine item in the Galician political lexicon.

36 JFohn-Paul Himka instruments of the Polish gentry.2? This fact not only worked to cement the Polish—Jewish electoral alliance but drove deeper the wedge between Jews and the

Ukrainian nationalists. This pragmatic alliance has, however, an even greater import. It objectifies the larger social fact that often those Jews who enjoyed influ-

ence in their own community by virtue of their exalted social position—and innkeepers and manor Jews did—could not act as entirely independent agents, but rather depended for their status on the favour of the Polish landlords. Competition to lease the right of propination (i.e. running an inn) and competition to lease and manage estates both waxed extremely fierce; one cannot imagine an innkeeper or arendar (orendar in Ukrainian) risking the seigneur’s good will by refusing to work for the election of a given candidate. Yet there was still more to it than that. In the latter half of the nineteenth century many of the Jews who were involved in politics were genuine Polish patriots. This represented a peculiar conjuncture in the development of Jewish politics in

Galicia. It was not until the very end of the century that any form of Jewish national movement emerged, whether socialist or Zionist, yet nationalism already

exerted a powerful attraction from the middle of the century on, and those Galician Jews who because of their education or social position came under its spell quite naturally adopted the Polish variant, especially in this period before the exclusivity of Polish nationalism had crystallized. Furthermore, since early in the century, the Galician Jewish élite had been exposed to the ideas of the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) emanating from Germany, which called for linguistic, cultural, and civil acculturation to the non-Jewish majority. Although at first this process took the form of assimilation to German culture (as was quite reasonable in Austrian Galicia, particularly before the 1860s), already by mid-century it was evolving towards a Polish cultural assimilation.** The 1880s saw the heyday of

the Polish assimilationist movement among educated Galician Jews,”° which, especially in its early stages, included the adoption of Polish political goals.*° Almost all the ties binding Jews to Poles politically began to come apart at the same time, around the turn of the century. One of the most powerful solvents was 3 For documentation, see J.-P. Himka, ‘Ukrainian—Jewish Antagonism in the Galician Countryside during the Late Nineteenth Century’, in H. Aster and P. J. Potichnyj (eds.), Ukrainian—fewish Relations in Historical Perspective, 2nd edn. (Edmonton, 1990), 142-4. 24 A characteristic transitional figure was Moritz Rappaport, a Jewish doctor in Lviv and enthusiastic Polish patriot who, however, gained fame in the 1840s—1860s for his poetry in the German lanuage. ° 25 J. Tenenbaum, Galitsye, mayn alte heym, Dos poylishe yidntum, 87 (Buenos Aires, 1952), 73-4.

See also E. Mendelsohn, ‘Jewish Assimilation in L’viv: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman’, in A. S. Markovits and F. E. Sysyn (eds.), Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, Mass., 1982). 26 The exceptional 1873 elections to parliament, in which the Jews allied with the German cen-

tralists against the Poles, represented the last political act of the German-oriented assimilationist movement. Dr Emil Byk of Shomer Yisrael, who played a major role in the 1873 elections, later evolved into a Polish-oriented assimilationist.

The Polish-Ukrainian—Jewish Relationship 37 the extension of the franchise: first the introduction of the fifth curia, based on universal male suffrage, in 1897, and then the complete replacement of the curial system by general universal male suffrage in 1907. Although these reforms extended to parliamentary elections only, while the curial system was retained in elections to the Galician diet, the reforms still altered the balance of political forces in Galicia, and for that matter in all of Austria. The new electoral politics accelerated the politicization of the masses and broke the monopoly of power traditionally enjoyed by the Polish sz/achta. The Ukrainians began to make palpable gains; Polish peasants finally entered politics; and for the first time even the Jewish masses joined political movements representing their own specific interests. Of course, the coming of universal male suffrage should be understood not

just as a sudden change but also as the culmination of a process that had been going on since at least the 1860s and included the introduction of compulsory education, local self-government, civil freedoms, and representative assemblies with restricted franchise. The turn of the century also saw a strong dose of antisemitism injected into Galician Polish political culture. Although there had always been anti-Jewish

currents in Polish political circles, a new era began with the emergence of ‘national democracy’. The National Democrats proudly championed modern political antisemitism and considered it a component of Polish patriotism. Because of the Ukrainian—Polish antagonism, these right-wing nationalists were hegemonic among the Polish minority in eastern Galicia; in particular, the powerful east Galician gentry, the Podolians, supported them. The growing influence of

virulent antisemitism in Galician Polish politics cooled the ardour of Polish assimilationists. Whereas at the start of the constitutional era educated Galician Jews might be fervent Polish patriots but barely able to speak the language, by the eve of the First World War Jewish intellectuals all had a mastery of Polish but fewer retained tender feelings for Poland.

In the early twentieth century the Ukrainian movement was also much changed from what it had been in the first decades of the constitutional era. It was now overwhelmingly Ukrainian in orientation; the Russophiles were not entirely gone but they were politically insignificant and snubbed by conscious Ukrainians. Priests were leaders only at the village level; in fact, in the party executives and major editorial boards anticlericals held sway.?’ Ukrainian politics had also gained 2” The editor of the leading literary review Literaturno-naukovyi visnyk was the well-known freethinker Ivan Franko. The head of the Shevchenko Scientific Society was Mykhailo Hrushevsky, a

historian from Russian Ukraine who was antipathetic to the Uniate Church. The first modern Ukrainian political party was the anticlerical Radical Party, founded in 1890. Its right wing broke off in 1899 and formed the National Democratic Party with Hrushevsky and the national populists. The National Democrats constituted the largest and most effective Ukrainian political party in Galicia. (It should be noted that the Ukrainian National Democrats were liberal, democratic nationalists and,

except for the accident of their name, had little in common with the chauvinist Polish National Democrats.)

38 John-Paul Himka experience and sophistication. It was now firmly placed on the left of the political

spectrum, with liberal-democratic and socialist ideas prevailing. Moreover, modern political antisemitism was represented only on the fringes of Ukrainian

Party. |

politics, in the vestiges of the Russophile movement, where the influence of the Russian Black Hundreds could be felt, and in the minuscule Christian Social

Under these new circumstances the possibility finally emerged for political alliances between Ukrainians and Jews. In 1907 the Ukrainian parties and the Zionists entered into an electoral alliance,2° and Ukrainian and Jewish Social Democrats cooperated against the pretensions of Polish Social Democrats to dominate social democracy in Galicia. When Austria collapsed and a Ukrainian—

Polish war broke out over Lviv, the Jews declared their neutrality. The Poles, however, felt the Jews had in fact sided with the Ukrainians and punished them , with two days of pogroms once the Ukrainian forces were driven out of the city.?9

RELIGION The three nationalities of Galicia represented, by and large, three separate religious cultures: Roman Catholicism, Greek Catholicism (Uniatism), and Judaism.*° Relations among them were, and had been even long before the Austrian period, acrimonious.

When Austria acquired Galicia, the Ukrainian Uniate church that existed there was to a considerable degree the product of an earlier conflict between Poles

and Ukrainians and between Western and Eastern Christianity. The origins of Ukrainian Uniatism go back to the end of the sixteenth century, when for a variety of reasons, the Orthodox hierarchy of the Belarusian and Ukrainian territories

of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth decided to unite with the Roman Catholic Church. In this first (incidentally, very creative) phase of Uniatism, in which the initiative towards church union sprang primarily from the Ukrainian

| side, Galicia did not participate, remaining a stronghold of Orthodoxy. The church union in the remaining Ukrainian lands was soon to be shaken to its foun-

dations by the seventeenth-century Cossack revolt under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, which, among other goals, sought to suppress the union and restore orthodoxy as the sole religion on Ukrainian territory. Only at the turn of the eighteenth century, after Poland lost left-bank Ukraine and the remnants of

| the Cossacks were suppressed on the right bank, did the union extend to the western Ukrainian territories, including Galicia. The Uniate Church in Galicia thus 28 LL. P. Everett, ‘The Rise of Jewish National Politics in Galicia, 1905-1907’, in Markovits and

Sysyn (eds.), Nationbuilding and the Pohitics of Nationalism.

29 Golczewski, Polnisch—judische Beziehungen, 185-205. . 30 There were, however, some Poles of the Greek rite (Marshal Rydz-Smigly was one) and some Ukrainian-speaking peasants of the Latin rite (the so-called /atynnyky). The vast majority of Poles, however, were Roman Catholic, and the vast majority of Ukrainians Greek Catholic.

The Polish-Ukrainian—Fewish Relationship 39 began as a product of the Polish reconquest. It lacked the dynamism of the earlier

Uniatism. In fact, it amounted to little more than a politically safer form of Eastern Christianity, a church suited for the serf population of the eastern border-

lands, and, like its faithful, it was, in spite of the efforts of some outstanding bishops, poor, neglected, powerless, and ignorant.*!

Austria acted in some respects like the handsome prince of fairy tales who rescues the poor relation from drudgery and subservience and restores her to an honourable place. The enlightened absolutists Maria Theresa and Joseph II, immediately upon acquiring Galicia, set to work to elevate the status of the Ukrainian church. Maria Theresa rechristened it the Greek Catholic Church to symbolize its full equality with the Roman Catholic Church. Both she and her son

established regular seminaries so that Greek Catholic priests could possess as good an education as their Roman Catholic counterparts. They freed them and their children from all feudal duties and rents, and Joseph II established regular salaries for them so that they were no longer beggars. Under old Poland the Roman Catholics had been led in Lviv by an archbishop and the Ukrainians only by a bishop. Here, too, the Austrians established full equality and in 1808 restored the Greek Catholic metropolis of Halych. These improvements in the affairs of the Ukrainian church were not greeted with sympathy by the Latin-rite hierarchy in Galicia. The Roman Catholic archbishop of Lviv, Waclaw Sierakowski, fought tooth and nail against some of the reforms benefiting the Uniates, making rep-

resentations to both Rome and Vienna. For its part, the Ukrainian hierarchy developed a great attachment to the Habsburg dynasty. When in 1809 Polish insurgents occupied Lviv and tried to force the Greek Catholic metropolitan Antoni Anhelovych to swear an oath of loyalty to Napoleon, the metropolitan refused and fled the city. The insurgents caught up with him and arrested him, but in the end he received a decoration from the emperor for his steadfast conduct.

The newly educated Ukrainian clergymen, the products of the Austrian Enlightenment, became the first Ukrainian intelligentsia and, in the 1820s and 1830s, the first awakeners of Ukrainian nationality. They also formed the political leadership of the Ukrainian movement during the revolution of 1848-9 and for some decades thereafter. Aside from their participation in the political aspects of the Polish—Ukrainian conflict, whose contours have been sketched in the previous section, they also acted as principals in the more confessional dimensions of this conflict. While doing the work typical of the first phase of national revivals—researching their history and wrestling with problems of language and national identity— the Ukrainian clergymen quite naturally reflected upon the history and identity of

their particular church, with its hybrid status between the Eastern and Western 1 Particularly two bishops of Lviv: Atanasii Sheptytsky (1715-46) and Leo Sheptytsky (1749-79).

40 John-Paul Himka branches of Christianity. Many came to the conclusion that the most valuable elements of their Ukrainian church derived from the Eastern heritage. They initiated a movement to purge their liturgical services of Latin accretions that had accumulated over the long period of unequal coexistence with the Roman Catholic Poles. This movement first emerged in the 1830s, but it resurfaced with more power in the 1860s, by which time it had developed a politically motivated and categorically anti-Polish thrust. Easternizing priests, especially, but not only, those connected with the Russophile movement, modified existing ritual practices to conform with a purer Eastern model, donned the headgear worn by Orthodox priests, and erected the three-barred crosses commonly associated with Orthodoxy. These innovations (or, in the eyes of the Easternizers, restorations) were not only condemned by Rome but fiercely persecuted by the Polish administration in Galicia. Many villages in eastern Galicia in the 1870s and 1880s witnessed con-

frontations between the parish and civil authorities when the latter arrived to remove three-barred crosses from churches. The Polish—Ukrainian confessional conflict reached a climax in the Chelm

affair of the 1860s and 1870s. Uniatism had been suppressed in most of the Russian empire before the middle of the century. Only one Uniate eparchy survived, that of Chelm, situated within the boundaries of Congress Poland. Here the process of Latinization of the Uniate Church had progressed very far, and the clergy was to a great extent Polonized. Many Chelm clergymen sympathized with Polish patriotic agitation in 1861 and the insurrection of 1863-4. The Russian government determined to combat Polish influence in the Chelm region and to this purpose recruited a few hundred Ukrainian teachers and clergymen from Galicia to purify the Eastern rite in Chelm of Latinizations and to instil in the Uniate population an anti-Polish, Russian consciousness. Although economic motivations played an important and perhaps even paramount role in the emigration to Chelm, confessional and ideological factors also exerted their influence: the Galician emigrants, a youthful group on the whole, were given the free hand they

lacked back home to purify the Uniate ritual, and they could also vent their antipathy to the Roman Catholic Poles while enjoying the benevolence of the authorities. Of course the Poles of Galicia and in the other partitions were horri-

fied by this anti-Polish collusion between Galician Greek Catholics and the Russian government. In 1875 matters went further than many of the Galician emigrants originally anticipated: the Russian government pursued the logical conclusion by abolishing the union altogether in the diocese of Chelm. The Galician emigrants faced the choice of entering the Russian Orthodox Church or

returning to Galicia. The majority chose to become Orthodox and remain in Russia.*?

The Chelm affair not only widened the chasm between Polish Roman Catholics 32 1. Glinka, Diocesi ucraino-cattolica di Cholm (liquidazione ed incorporazione alla Chiesa russoortodossa), sec. XIX, Analecta Ordinia S. Basilii Magni, ser. 2, sect. 1: Opera, 34 (Rome, 1975).

The Polish-Ukrainian—fewish Relationship 4I and Ukrainian Greek Catholics in Galicia; it also seriously compromised the latter in the eyes of the Vatican—and of Vienna, which worried about the attraction that Russia exercised on the inhabitants of the eastern borderlands. When in 1882 the

most radical of the Russophiles, the Greek Catholic priest loann Naumovych, encouraged a Ukrainian village to announce its wish to convert to Orthodoxy, the Polish political and ecclesiastical leadership of Galicia had no trouble convincing their superiors in Rome and Vienna to take swift and decisive measures to sanitize the Ukrainian church and put an end to pro-Orthodox, pro-Russian proclivities. The authorities forced the Greek Catholic metropolitan and his closest advisers to resign and they turned the Ukrainian Basilian monastic order over to the Polish Jesuits, whom they also entrusted with missions in the Galician countryside. The

church excommunicated Naumovych and appointed a new, carefully chosen hierarchy.** All these and other measures did succeed in curbing the Russophile tendencies in the Greek Catholic Church, but they also exacerbated the resentment of the Ukrainians against Polish overlordship, which now seemed to have been extended to their church. Indeed, on the advice of Polish political and religious leaders, the Vatican took steps towards introducing celibacy into the traditionally married Greek Catholic clergy in the 1890s, and the two metropolitans appointed at the turn of the century were a veteran of the Polish National Guard of 1848 and a Polish count who changed from the Latin to the Greek rite in order to enter a Jesuit-controlled Basilian monastery. It is difficult to document, but not unreasonable to suspect, that the wave of anticlericalism that swept Ukrainian Galicia in the 1890s and 1900s was partly due to the Ukrainians’ perception that the Poles now controlled their church. The Polish count, Andrei Sheptytsky, who occupied the metropolitan throne of Halych from 1901 until his death in 1944, became one of the most outstanding figures of twentieth-century Ukrainian history.** The background to his appointment has never been researched, but it is likely that the Polish ruling circles in Galicia thought they were putting their own man at the head of the Ukrainian church.*° In a sense, they were right. No Greek Catholic prelate knew the upper 33 In connection with his excommunication Naumovych wrote a classic exposition of the antiRoman position of the Galician Easternizers: Appelliatsiia k pape L’vy XIII russkago uniatskago sviashchennika mestechka Skalat (l'vovskoi mitropolu v Galitsii) Ioanna Naumovicha protiv veltkago otlucheniia ego ot tserkvi po obvineniiu v skhizme ([Kiev?], 1883). This ‘appeal to Pope Leo XIII’ was also serialized, with some omissions, in the Russophile newspaper S/ovo (1882), nos. 119-37. 34 P_R. Magosci (ed.), Morality and Reality: The Life and Times of Andrei Sheptyts’kyi (Edmonton, 1989). Andrei came from the same Sheptytsky (Szeptycki) family as the 18th-century bishops of Lviv, Atanasii and Leo. In the intervening century the family had gone over completely to the Latin rite. He was named metropolitan by Pope Leo XIII on 17 Dec. 1900 and formally installed on 17 Jan. 1901.

3° Sheptytsky was only 36 when he was appointed metropolitan. In 1898 the ailing metropolitan Sylvestr Sembratovych wrote to the Oriental Congregation in Rome about the problem of succession. He recommended against Sheptytsky, who was ‘a bit young and immature’ and enjoyed little sympathy among the Ukrainians. Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv Ukrainy u m. L’vovi, 201/4b/1159, 27-8. ©

42 John-Paul Himka reaches of Polish society in the way that Sheptytsky did, and no Greek Catholic prelate ever took up the cause of Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation with such deep personal conviction as he. But Sheptytsky also sincerely embraced Ukrainian nationality and did everything in his power to support those aspirations of his adopted people that he considered just and consonant with a Christian worldview. The result was that those Polish circles which had initially welcomed his accession to the Ukrainian metropolitanate because he seemed to be ‘their man’ soon came to hate him with that special hatred reserved for renegades. In the Sheptytsky era the Polish-Ukrainian confessional conflict grew more overtly political than ever it had been in the past. The Roman Catholic archbishop of Lviv, Jozef Bilczewski, contributed to the National Democrats’ campaign to Polonize largely Ukrainian eastern Galicia by establishing an unprecedented number of new Roman Catholic parishes and chaplaincies there. In the struggle over electoral reform Polish and Ukrainian bishops stood on opposite sides of the barricades. In 1906 a leading spokesman of the Polish episcopate, Archbishop Jozef Teodorowicz, publicly opposed universal male suffrage for elections to parliament, while the three Ukrainian bishops travelled to Vienna to lobby the emperor for it.2° In 1913 Bilczewski, Teodorowicz, and the rest of the Polish episcopate, opposed to concessions to the Ukrainians, scuttled the compromise then being worked out to reform elections to the Galician diet. Not only did the

Ukrainian bishops support the reform project, but Sheptytsky picked up the pieces of the shattered compromise and refashioned and promoted it until it was approved by a majority in the diet in 1914. In connection with the census of 1910 the Greek and Roman Catholic archbishops of Lviv issued circulars with blatantly

opposing viewpoints. Sheptytsky held that all Roman Catholics who spoke Ukrainian should be counted as Ukrainians, while Bilczewski wanted them counted as Poles.*” Bilczewski and Sheptytsky also clashed during the Ukrainian— Polish war that followed the collapse of the old order.*®

Throughout the Austrian period Roman Catholicism and Greek Catholicism

competed for adherents. Although the practice was forbidden by Rome, Ukrainian pastors tried to lure Roman Catholics to the Greek rite,*? while Polish 36 Teodorowicz was archbishop of Lviv of the Armenian rite. In spite of the difference in rite, Teodorowicz was not only a member of the Polish episcopate but an influential formulator of its stance on political and moral issues. See Buszko, Sejmowa reforma wyborcza, 66-7. Interestingly, one of the most distinguished figures among the Podolian gentry was Dawid Abrahamowicz, also a Pole of Armenian extraction. 37 E. Brix, Die Umgangssprachen in Altésterreich zwischen Agitation und Assimilation. Die Sprachen-

statistik in den zisleithanischen Volkszahlungen, 1580 his rgro. Veroffentlichungen der Kommission fiir neuere Geschichte Osterreichs, 72 (Vienna, 1982), 372—4. 38 This is a topic that deserves separate study. Bilczewski’s correspondence with Sheptytsky during the Ukrainian—Polish war is preserved in Tsentral’nyi Derzhavnyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv Ukrainy u m. L’vovi, fond 358.

39 This is freely admitted in the memoirs of a turn-of-the-century Greek Catholic priest: O. Prystai, Z Truskavisia u suit khmaroderiv: Spomyny z mynuloho i suchasnoho, 4 vols. (Lviv, 1935-7), ii.

The Polish-Ukrainian—fewish Relationship 43 pastors tried to lure Greek Catholics to the Latin rite. Such ‘soul-snatching’, as it

was called, had less to do with religion per se than with Ukrainization and Polonization. In 1863 Roman and Greek Catholic bishops signed an agreement, the so-called Concordia, to stop this practice. Probably without it soul-snatching would have been an even more common phenomenon than it was, but otherwise the Concordia cannot be considered an effective piece of ecclesiastical legislation. Both the Roman and Greek Catholic churches in Galicia shared the traditional Christian attitudes towards Jews. From the beginning of the Austrian period until well past the middle of the nineteenth century, Greek and Roman Catholic bishops issued pastoral letters that reflected medieval Christian prejudices; for example, they barred Jews from appearing on the streets during Corpus Christi processions _ and forbade Christians from entering into domestic service in Jewish households. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century the Christian—Jewish conflict also took on more modern forms. Priests active in the anti-alcohol campaign often engaged in anti-Jewish agitation. As local activists of the national movements, priests also tended to support the boycott of Jewish shops. Moreover, in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries both the Christian churches in Galicia began to identify Jews as agents of secularization and anti-Christian doctrines, especially socialism.*°

CULTURE In the early 1840s a German traveller remarked: ‘Whoever imagines Galicia to be an uninteresting country is very much mistaken. The mere contemplation of the influence of the different elements of the population upon each other cannot fal to be deeply interesting to every thoughtful mind.’*! Austrian Galicia was a rich crossroads of culture. Not only did Polish, Ukrainian,

and Jewish culture come together here, but the region also enjoyed the strong presence of both Austro-German and Russian culture. The cross-cultural fertilization produced a vibrant cultural life and a great many interesting artists and intellectuals. The capital of Galicia, Lviv, boasts a unique collection of west and east European architectural monuments: here the Polish Romanesque, Renaissance, baroque, and rococo rub shoulders with Austrian classicism and the Secession as well as traditional Byzantine Ukrainian and even Armenian archi- | tecture. 49 A. Kudlaszyk, Katolicka mys! spoteczno-polityczna w Galicji na preelomie XIX I XX wieku, Prace

Naukowe Instytutu Nauk Spolecznych Politechniki Wroctawskiej, 24, Monograph No. 14 (Wroclaw, 1980), 154. From a pastoral letter of the Ukrainian episcopate: “The supreme leaders [of the socialists] are Jews and masons who directly conduct a war with Jesus Christ and His holy church.’ Poslanue pastyrs’ke Andreia Sheptyts’koho . . . Konstantyna Chekhovycha ... Hryhoriia Khomyshyna . . . do Virnykh svotkh eparkhiu o vyborakh do parliamentu (Zhovkva, 1907).

41 J. G. Kohl, Austria, Vienna, Prague, Hungary, Bohemia, and the Danube: Galicia, Styria, Moravia, Bukovina, and the Military Frontier (London, 1844), 442.

44 JFohn-Paul Himka While social, political, and religious differences sharply divided the three major nationalities of Galicia, culture played a more ambiguous role. On the one hand, it did divide, in the obvious sense that the three nationalities had their own individual cultural worlds keeping them apart. On the other hand, there was both a constant process of borrowing and influence encouraged by cohabitation and, beginning about the 1830s and accelerating in the 1860s, a general trend toward Europeanization and Austrianization that affected all three nationalities and created a new cultural common ground among them. The vast majority of Galician intellectuals were, after all, alumni of only two universities, those of Lviv and

Krakow. |

At the start of the Austrian period the three cultures were relatively isolated from one another. Both the Ukrainians and the Jews lived in deeply traditional, religiously structured cultures at some remove from general European cultural developments. Both of these nationalities spoke languages that were not, or only exceptionally, used in print. Of the three major Galician nationalities, only the Poles, and really only the Polish gentry, had a cultural life approximating that _ of the rest of Europe, with a written, secular literature on the European model, classical music, sculpture, even familiarity with the major languages of European culture: Latin, French, and later German. But even the Galician Polish culture of the early Austrian period was relatively backward and isolated, sapped by the inward-looking Sarmatianism of the gentry and cut off from the intellectual ferment that leavened what remained of Poland between the first and third parti-

tions. German culture also, of course, had a presence in the province. Even though it was a poor provincial relative of the rest of German culture and a minority culture in Galicia, it was important in the early decades of Austrian rule, partly because of the Germanization policies of Joseph II and the influx of civil servants from Austria proper and Bohemia, but partly too because even ina stunted form it

stood out in the cultural backwater of Galicia. Until the end of the empire and even after, Austrian culture remained a factor in Galicia, and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the region produced a number of notable writers in German, including Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Karl Emil Franzos, and Joseph Roth. The development of professional theatre might serve as a very rough indicator of the ‘Europeanization’ of the national cultures in Galicia. A German theatre was established in Lviv in 1776, a Polish theatre in 1809, a Ukrainian theatre in 1864, and a Jewish (Yiddish) theatre (Gimpel’s Theatre) only around 1890. The process of the development of modern national cultures for the Ukrainians

and Jews included in each case a transitional period during which the national élite was absorbed into one of the foreign but ‘higher’ cultures of Galicia. In the case of the Ukrainians this was into the linguistically related Polish culture. In the

first half of the nineteenth century Ukrainian seminarians and clergymen spoke Polish amongst themselves and in general immersed themselves in the Polish

The Polish-Ukraimian—JFemish Relationship 45 cultural milieu. The beginnings of a national revival in the 1830s and 1840s, but particularly the revolution of 1848 and the constitutional struggles of the 1860s, put an end to this process of cultural Polonization and initiated the process of

building a Ukrainian high culture equal in all respects to the Polish model with which all educated Ukrainians were intimately familiar. Indeed, it has been suggested that the emergence and break from the Polish cultural milieu was one

of the factors leading to the hegemony of the Russophile orientation of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the 1860s to 1880s: “The rupture with Polish society was so difficult that the generation of Ukrainian intellectuals which had effected the break tended to lean to the opposite direction.’4” In the case of the Jews, as has

already been noted, their educated élite identified first with the linguistically related German culture and then with Polish culture. Only towards the end of the nineteenth century, in conjunction with the emergence of modern Jewish politics,

were there attempts at creating a modern Jewish culture. | Where possible the three nationalities led separate cultural lives. They each

had, for example, their own periodical press (the Jewish press came out in German, Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish). There was, to my knowledge, only one journal in the history of Galicia that included prominent contributors from all three nationalities: the short-lived Przeglad Spoteczny, which Wystouch published in Lviv in 1886—7.*° Characteristically it appeared in Polish, a language in which educated people of all three nationalities could write; neither Ukrainian nor Yiddish nor Hebrew could have served as a vehicle for a Galicia-wide meeting of minds. In fact, every all-Galician cultural institution had a largely Polish character. The University of Lviv is a case in point, although the Ukrainians preferred to have their own university and agitated vehemently for this from 1go1 to 1914. The opera, too, remained largely Polish. For singer Salomea Krusceniski, the daughter of a Greek Catholic priest, to land the title role in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly at the opera’s famous reopening in Brescia she first had to serve an apprenticeship in Polish opera, first in Lviv and then in Warsaw. Numerous individuals, of course, straddled or crossed cultures. A Jewish doctor, Polish patriot, and German poet could all be invited to dinner with only one place-setting. The same, of course, can be said of a combined Polish count and Ukrainian archbishop. (Andrei Sheptytsky also, incidentally, wrote letters in Hebrew to Galician Jews and in his mother tongue, French, to his family.) The greatest west Ukrainian poet, Ivan Franko, was known to the Polish and AustroGerman reading public as a prolific and perceptive journalist; he also translated 42 L. Rudnytsky, “The Ukrainians in Galicia under Austrian Rule’, in Essays in Modern Ukrainian History ed. P. L. Rudnytsky (Edmonton, 1987), 330. In confirmation of this thesis one might note that loann Naumovych had sided with the Poles in 1848.

48 Contributors included the Poles Ludwik Krzywicki and Zygmunt Balicki, the Ukrainians Mykhailo Drahomanov and Ivan Franko, and the Jews Wilhelm Feldman and Alfred Nossig. Wystouch’s newspaper, Kurjer lwowskt, also had Ukrainian and Jewish contributors in the 1880s and 18gos.

46 Fohn-Paul Himka © from Yiddish. Wilhelm Feldman, a product of the Jewish ghetto, became a prominent Polish critic and the author of what for long was the standard history of Polish political thought; he was, moreover, markedly Ukrainophile in his views. Roman Rosdolsky, who became not only an eminent historian of Josephine agrarian policy but a brilliant interpreter of Marx’s economic theory, was a nationally conscious Ukrainian who, however, published all his major works in Polish and German; he also wrote a study on Marx, Engels, and the Jewish question and spent time in Auschwitz for having aided Jews in Nazi-occupied Krakow.

These, however, were exceptions. The general tendency towards the end of Austrian rule in Galicia was to increasing cultural division. Whereas at the outset

of the Austrian period the isolation of the three national cultures had resulted from long-term historical processes, at the close of the period the cultures isolated themselves rather more by choice. The intensity and growing consciousness of social, political, and religious differences among the nationalities favoured the rise of cultural nationalism and autarky.

CONCLUSIONS Galicia was not the only setting for a Polish—-Ukrainian—Jewish triangle. A similar

national configuration existed across the Russian border in Right-Bank Ukraine. In Russia’s Ukraine, however, the Poles constituted a definite minority, almost entirely gentry, without the equivalent of the Polish peasant population of western Galicia. For this reason, and also because serfdom lasted longer and assumed a harsher nature under Russian than Austrian law, the social antagonism between Ukrainians and Poles grew even more acute than in Galicia (at least until the 1860s). The Ukrainians of the Right Bank had been largely Uniate before coming under Russian rule, but the Russian government largely suppressed Uniatism here in the 1790s and completed the process in 1839; thereafter the Ukrainians of the Right Bank were Russian Orthodox. Hence, the religious difference between Poles and Ukrainians became more emphatic in the Right Bank than in Galicia; it was not a rivalry between different rites of the same church under the ultimate jurisdiction of Rome. But the most crucial dissimilarity between Galicia and the Right Bank lay in their respective political environments. The Russian government persecuted all three nationalities. Although at first the Right-Bank Poles enjoyed considerable advantages in the cultural, especially educational, sphere, these were erased by the retaliatory measures the Russian

government took after defeating the Polish insurrection of 1830-1. These

| measures also included the arrest, exile, and confiscation of the property of thousands of Polish nobles who had participated in the insurrection. (It was also in this context that the Russians completely abolished the Uniate Church in the Right Bank.) After the defeat of the 1863 insurrection the Russian government

launched an even more drastic anti-Polish policy in the Right Bank, which

The Polish-Ukratnian—JFewish Relationship 47 included executions, deportations, the abolition of all Polish organizations, and a ban on the Polish language. Certain advantages accrued to the Ukrainians of the Right Bank as a result of the government’s vendetta against the Poles. As part of the ‘Russification’ programme in the 1830s and 1840s, institutions were established, notably Kiev University and the Archaeographical Commission in Kiev, that played a distinguished role in the Ukrainian revival in the Russian empire. Also, the Ukrainian peasantry in the Right Bank benefited from the coincidence that their emancipation from serfdom was regulated in the aftermath of the Polish insurrection of 1863; here the largely Polish landlords did not enjoy as favourable a reform as landlords elsewhere in the empire. But overall Russian policy was anti-Ukrainian, even going so far as to ban the Ukrainian language from print in 1863 and again, more thoroughly, in 1876; the ban lasted until 1905. The language was prohibited in schools, churches, and government offices altogether. Ukrainian activists, including the poet Shevchenko, a native of the Right Bank, faced arrest and exile, and others were forces into exile abroad. Ukrainian organizations of any , sort were illegal until 1905 and still harassed by the police thereafter. As for the Jews, they were hemmed in by numerous legal restrictions, and the state authorities at best turned a blind eye to the activities of pogromists. The contrast with Galicia is striking. Here, from the 1860s on, the Polish gentry enjoyed the favour of the central authorities; the Ukrainians none the less retained the right to use their language in all spheres of public life and to organize for their political, social, and cultural advancement, while the Jews gained emancipation and state protection of their lives and property. Seen in this context, the triangle in Austrian Galicia, for all its manifold antagonisms, appears relatively healthy.

The national tensions in Galicia increased over time during the period of Austrian rule, but much of their content can be attributed to growing pains. In particular, the whole political dimension of these antagonistic relations, which was superimposed on the existing socio-economic and religious differences in the mid-nineteenth century, represented a tremendous advance for all three | nationalities, even for the Poles. The increasing participation of all elements of the population in political life necessarily brought with it an exacerbation of national conflict, but this situation remained much superior to that existing in the Right bank, where political life of the European type was virtually absent. The presupposition of Galicia’s national—political antagonism constituted, in other words, a progressive democratization. The politicization of national conflict also meant a relatively orderly working-out of differences. Violent peasant rebellions and pogroms were almost absent in Galicia once conflict shifted to the political plane, where elections, newspapers, and organizations replaced sharpened, straightened-out scythes and heavy cudgels.*4 4¢ An exception was the wave of pogroms in western Galicia in 1898. Although it had its roots in electoral agitation, it involved one of the least politicized strata of Galician society, the Polish peasantry. On the pogroms, see Golczewski, Polnisch-jtidische Beziehungen, 64-84.

48 Fohn-Paul Himka Similarly, the Polish-Ukrainian antagonism would never have reached the pitch it did without the socio-economic, ecclesiastical, political, and educational reforms instituted in Austria; these transformed the Ukrainian peasant folk into a well-organized, disciplined nation capable of pursuing its own interests. One need

not even look across the Russian border for an apt counter-example. The Ukrainians of Transcarpathia, in the Hungarian half of the empire, were cordoned off from this elevating process and, without political rights and education, remained a mere object of history until after the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy. Transcarpathia thus escaped the tumult of Galician-style national conflict, but the stillness was that of the sickbed or worse. Even the increase in socio-economic antagonism to the Jews in the second half of the nineteenth century resulted largely from indisputably progressive measures, particularly the legal emancipation of the Jews (the right to own land and the lifting of restrictions on occupation) and economic reform (the abolition of serfdom and the fostering of a money economy). Moreover, the march towards conflict did not advance inexorably. By the very last years of Austrian rule in the province some signs suggested that the nationalities might work out a modus vivendi. Particularly noteworthy were the Polish— Ukrainian compromise of 1914, which might have laid the foundations for a reasonably peaceful coexistence in Galicia had war not intervened, and the beginnings of a Ukrainian—Jewish rapprochement.

In the post-Austrian history of Galicia outside interference was more decisive than any natural, internal Galician tendencies of development. When Galicia ended up, not without bitter resistance from the Ukrainians, in an independent Polish state, the balance between Poles and Ukrainians was tipped all the way in

| favour of the Poles. As a result, possibilities for a peaceful modus vivendi became slim if any. As for the Galician Jews, their miserable existence as pariahs in inter-

war Poland came to a terrible end when Nazi Germany occupied Galicia. The , Soviet occupation of eastern Galicia destroyed the traditional Polish presence in the region and much else besides.

Austrian First Impressions of Ethnic Relations in Galicia: The Case of Governor Anton von Pergen FRANZ A. J. SZABO IN A ceremony held on the main square of Lviv on 4 October 1772 Count Johann

Anton von Pergen officially proclaimed on behalf of his Habsburg monarchs, Maria Theresa and Joseph II, that the ‘Kingdoms of Galicia and Lodomeria’ had been officially ‘reintegrated’ into the possessions of the apostolic king of Hungary, who had had legal claim to the Rus’ principalities of Halych and Volodymyr since the Middle Ages. This pretext, of course, could hardly disguise the political reality,

which Habsburg officials readily admitted to themselves. The Habsburg monarchy, in its capacity as a European great power, had reluctantly participated in the territorial partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the interests of stability and the balance of power in eastern and south-eastern Europe. But, as

the great foreign minister of the monarchy, Prince Wenzel Anton KaunitzRietberg, admitted twenty years later, Galicia was ‘a land torn from a free republic’ whose ‘immediate connection with Poland’ could hardly be denied.' On the other hand, no matter how problematic an acquisition on the other side of a natural frontier like the Carpathian mountain chain had been, Prussian and Russian territorial growth now made it imperative that Vienna not only hold on to Galicia indefinitely but also do everything in its power to foster the economic growth and prosperity of the new realm.’ Even before the signing of the formal Austrian—Russian—Prussian partition agreement in August 1772 preparations for administering the new province had

begun in Vienna. As foreign minister, Kaunitz argued that the domestic and | foreign considerations pertaining to Galicia would remain integrally linked for some time, that Galicia remained geographically peripheral to the core of the monarchy, and that its political, social, and economic conditions so radically differed from those of the rest of the monarchy that the new territory should be | 1 Austrian State Archives, Vienna, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (HHSA), Kabinettsarchiv: Kaunitz Voten zu Staatsratakten box 6, 1791, no. 418, Kaunitz Staatsrat Votum, 11-15 Feb. I7QI.

% HHSA, Staatskanzlei: Vortrage, box 113, Kaunitz to Maria Theresa, 2 Sept. 1773.

50 Franz Szabo administered on its own for some time, by his own ministry, much like Belgium and Lombardy.® Though Maria Theresa granted this request, her son and coregent, Joseph II, soon had second thoughts and began to express bitter opposi-

tion to the plan. Instead of the looser bond envisioned by Kaunitz, Joseph favoured a tighter integration of Galicia with the rest of the monarchy and, instead of subordinating the new province to the foreign ministry, he wished to create a separate chancellery for it in Vienna. In an emotional confrontation with his mother, Joseph succeeded in obtaining the final say on all matters concerning the internal administration of Galicia, but he then rejected Kaunitz’s offer to resign this responsibility immediately and instead ordered him to continue overseeing the province’s administration for ‘a few months’. In fact, Kaunitz remained head of the Galician department until November 1773.4 As governor of the new province, Kaunitz nominated the man who had been executive officer of his ministry since 1766, Count Johann Anton von Pergen.? Pergen had begun his diplomatic career as a Habsburg agent in the Holy Roman Empire but was moved to Vienna in 1766 during a personnel shake-up of the foreign ministry. A talented and ambitious but devious and unprincipled sycophant, Pergen had soon grown dissatisfied with his position and started bombarding Kaunitz with laments about his unfulfilled career ambitions.® There is thus reason to believe that Kaunitz regarded this transfer as providing Pergen the opportunity he had requested. In the event, however, Pergen’s tenure as governor proved to be a disaster: prodigious in producing grandiose plans, but with negligible actual achievements, he seemed more enmeshed in the social and public dimensions of his post than in its actual political and administrative purposes, __ which he left almost entirely to his personal secretary.’ In fairness to Pergen it must be pointed out that he was aware of the differences of opinion between his nominal superior, Kaunitz, and the young co-regent, Joseph II, and may have been paralysed by uncertainty on how to cope with this situation.> Whatever his

1946, 19.

3 H. Rumpel, ‘Die Reisen Kaiser Joseph II. nach Galizien’, University of Erlangen Ph.D. thesis,

4 A.R. von Arneth, Geschichte Maria Theresias (Vienna, 1863—79), viii. 414-22; Die dsterreichische

Zentralverwaltung, ed. H. Kretschmayr, pt. u: Von der vereinigung der osterreichischen und bohmischen Hofkanzlei bis zur Einrichtung der Ministertalverfassung, vol. iii: F. Walter (ed.), Vom Sturz des Directoriums in Publicis et Cameralibus (1760/1761) bis zum Ausgang der Regierung Maria Therestas.

Aktenstiicke (Vienna, 1934), 296, H. Glassl, Das osterreichischen Einrichtungswerk in Gahzien, 1772-1790 (Wiesbaden, 1975), 27-57; E. Matsch, Der auswdrtige Dienst Osterreich (-Ungarn’s) (Vienna, 1986), 65-7.

> On Pergen, see P. P. Bernard, From the Enlightenment to the Police State: The Public Life of Fohann Anton Pergen (Urbana, IIl., 1991).

® HHSA, Sonstige Sammlungen: Grosse Korrespondenz, Fasz. 406, Pergen to Kaunitz, n.d. [1770-1]. * Glassl, Das dsterreichischen Einrichtungswerk, 71-3.

8 This is certainly the impression left by HHSA, Sonstige Sammlungen: Grosse Korrespondenz, Fasz. 406, Kaunitz to Pergen, 12 July 1773.

Ethnic Relations in Annexed Galicia 51 degree of personal culpability, the effect, in any case, was that he fell between two stools and satisfied neither Joseph nor Kaunitz.°

The impatient Joseph had considered undertaking an inspection tour of Galicia for some time after its occupation by Habsburg forces but seems to have abandoned the idea by the winter of 1773. Then, while inspecting Hungary and Transylvania that spring, he had a sudden change of heart and descended on Lviv at short notice.'° As usual, the highly demanding Joseph came with great expectations and anticipated an extensive report on Galician conditions by Pergen. ‘To mollify a zealous emperor, Pergen quickly compiled what he called ‘a description of the five classes of local inhabitants in accordance with what I have been able to discover with great effort through written and oral reports’.1! The description,

running to some 150 folio pages and divided into 240 separate sections, was entitled Beschreibung der Kénigretche Galizien und Lodomerien, nach dem zustand, in welchem sie sich zur Zeit der Revindicirung durch Ihro Kaisl. Konigl. Apostolischen Mayestat, und besonders im Monat Julius 1773 befunden haben (‘Description of the

Kingdoms of Galicia and Lodomeria, in accordance with the condition in which they found themselves at the time of the Reintegration by his Imperial, Royal, Apostolic Majesty and particularly in the month of July 1773’).'” _ Precisely how much effort Pergen put into it, however, remains open to question. Though the report was first discussed in some detail by Ludwig Finkel and subsequently used by most students of the Habsburg administration of the new province from Brawer to Glassl,!* what was not clear from these earlier studies was that Pergen was really more a collator than an author. He lifted substantial sections of the submission verbatim from the reports of his own subordinates or from other Austrian observers of the Polish scene. Much of the information had already been gathered the previous summer by military officers in the occupation force under General Andras Hadik, as well as by two Hungarian officials, ‘Treasury Councillor Jozsef Torok and Transylvanian Gubernatorial Councillor Alexander Heiter. Pergen had studied these reports, and in August 1772 he had already used this material to produce a brief description of Galicia, the thrust of which did not differ greatly from the Beschreibung of 1773.'4 In the fall of 1772 a new group of officials, for the most part extremely assiduous former members of Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf’s recently abolished Hofrechenkammer (Imperial Court of Audit), ” HHSA, Staatskanzlei: Vortrage, box 112, Joseph to Maria Theresa, 5 Aug. 1773, and box 113, Kaunitz to Maria Theresa, 2 Sept. 1773. 10 Arneth, Maria Theresia, viii. 413, x. 87-8; Rumpel, ‘Die Reisen Kaiser Joseph’, 40-3; Glassl, Das osterretchischen Eimrichtungswerk, 68-0.

, 1! HHSA, Familienarchiv: Hofreisen, box 5, Pergen to Joseph, 3 Aug. 1773. 12 Tbid. ‘8 L. Finkel, ‘Memoryat Antoniego hr. Pergena, pierwszego gubernatora Galicyi, o stanie kraju’, Kwartalnik historyczny, 14 (1900), 24-43; A. J. Brawer, Galizien mie es an Osterretch kam (Leipzig, 1910); Glassl, Das osterreichischen Einrichtungswerk. Some excerpts were also printed by R. Rosdolsky [Rozdolski], Stosunki poddancze w dawne; Galicji (Warsaw, 1962), 11. 47-60.

4 Arneth, Maria Theresia, x. 76-80; Rumpel, ‘Die Reisen Kaiser Joseph’, 17-27; Rosdolsky, Stosunki poddancze, i. 11-12.

52 Franz Szabo was dispatched to Lviv to assist Pergen. These set to work on various investiga-

tions of local conditions almost as soon as they arrived. This group included Georg Adelbert von Beekhen, Carl August Eytelberger, Joseph Ignaz Knopp, and

Franz Scheiner. In addition, an official from the Prague mint, Ignatz Werner Kendler, had been investigating coinage problems, while numerous other experts

had already produced extensive reports on Galician salt mines and crown estates.'° In June 1773 Kaunitz dispatched one of his most trusted advisers, the

cameral estate administrator and agrarian reformer Anton Koczian, to help Pergen set up the local administration in Galicia, and was soon told by the latter that what little had been done in Galicia had been done not by Pergen but by these officials.1° Beyond this Pergen also relied on unsolicited reports submitted by ambitious locals on the hunt for a government post.!’ The most significant contribution of all, however, was a fifty-page manuscript submitted by a self-styled Habsburg ‘patriot? and Bohemian native who had resided in Poland for some seventeen years as a translator attached to the Austrian embassy in Warsaw, the

abbé Antonin Vaclav Betansky (Antoni Waclaw Betanski), later bishop of PrzemySl, from which Pergen plundered substantial portions.'® For this reason the impressions captured in Pergen’s Beschreibung can hardly be regarded as his own perspicacious observations; rather, they represent a compilation and distillation of the views of Habsburg officialdom as a whole. Although, in typical eighteenth-century fashion, Pergen’s Beschretbung casts

the principal problems of the newly acquired province as social, economic, and political rather than ‘national’, it nevertheless demonstrates a clear awareness of the ethnic dimensions of the situation. Ethnicity was not an eighteenth-century preoccupation, but awareness of ethnic differences was certainly well developed. The Austrians had few reliable statistics from which to proceed,’® but their estimate of a population of about 2 million was relatively accurate;?° that Poles were a minority in this ‘reincorporated’ piece of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth was obvious from the start. Preliminary enquiries showed that over two-

thirds of this population consisted of Ukrainians, whom the Austrians carefully distinguished from Poles on three levels: first, the language of the Ukrainians was ‘markedly different’; secondly, the ethnic difference coincided with a confessional 15 HHSA, Familienarchiv: Hofreisen, boxes 5—6, passim; Brawer, Galizien, 15-17. 16 Glassl, Das dsterreichischen Einrichtungswerk, 71-3.

~ 1 Finkel, Memorial Antoniego hr. Pergena, 28. 18 HHSA, Familienarchiv: Hofreisen, box 5, [Antonin Vaclav Betansky ,] Abregé de l’idée sur le gouvernement relativement aux royaumes de Gallicie et de Lodomerie. Many of Pergen’s most piquant

observations and ironic turns of phrase are plagiarized from this report. On Betansky, see F. X. Zachariasiewicz, Vitae Episcoporum Premishensium ritus latint (Vienna, 1844), 176-81.

19 HHSA, Familienarchiv: Hofreisen, box 5, Graf J. A. Pergen, Beschreibung der Kéonigreiche Galizien und Lodomerien, nach dem zustand, in welchem sie sich zur Zeit der Revindicirung durch

3, 4. 20 Beschreibung, sect. 5.

Thro Kaisl. Kénigl. Apostolischen Majestat, und besonders im Monat Julius 1773 befunden haben, sects. 1,

Ethnic Relations in Annexed Galicia 53 difference between Greek and Roman Catholic, ‘except for a few families’;?/ and thirdly, Ukrainians had completely different customs and traditions. In addition, small German and Armenian minorities (which the officials estimated at under 1,000 families each) lived in the region. But the most marked feature of the new province was the large number of Jews there. Pergen’s report repeated the 1765 official Polish figure of approximately 140,000 Jews organized into 180-90 kehilot,

for the most part concentrated in the same areas where the peasant population was, according to the Austrians, ‘exclusively’ Ukrainian.””

Ethnic relations, as the Habsburg officials saw them, thus played themselves out on two principal levels: the three-way relationship between Ukrainian peasants, Polish lords, and the Jewish communities between them in the countryside, and the Polish—Ukrainian relations within the framework of the church. A third sphere of interaction was the urban centres, although, in the Austrian assessment, only six towns beyond Lviv could even vaguely be called that: Jaroslaw, Rzeszow, Tarnow, Krosno, PrzemySl, and Zamos¢.”* Here Pergen noted no specific ethnic

distinctions, and the Austrian descriptions concern mainly the rivalry between Christians and Jews. The urban Christian populations also included a declining number of Germans and Armenians,” but for the most part the report focused on the relationships between Polish and Jewish burghers. | At the apex of this ethnic hierarchy, Pergen claimed, stood the Polish nobility. No hyperbole can begin to convey the utter contempt in which Austrian officialdom held Polish nobles and the degree to which it regarded them as the root of all evil in Galician society. The nobility, which alone enjoyed ‘the famous Polish liberty’, looked with conceit and contempt on the ‘mere abject mortals’ who made up

the rest of the population, according to Pergen and his sources.”° Although all Polish nobles were constitutionally equal—and, from the Austrian point of view, the legitimacy of their claims to nobility all equally suspect?°—it was obvious to _ Pergen that they really broke down into three tiers with a few magnate families at the top, below them a well-to-do middling nobility, and finally a large, poor gentry class, little better off than peasants.”’ The lesser nobles always served as slaves to those more powerful,?® but they all shared similar faults: groundless conceit, insatiable pride, boundless arrogance, abysmal ignorance, unlimited greed, and a disposition to drunkenness.”° Since a Polish noble’s ‘self-indulgence, vindictiveness, and injustice’ knew no bounds,®° the report claimed, it was not surprising that, with very few exceptions, all classes of Polish nobles indulged in unlimited and arbitrary exploitation of Ukrainians.*1 What little the Ukrainian peasants

21 Tbid, sects. 10, 81. 22 Tbid., sect. 6. 23 The Zamoéé district was lost to the grand duchy of Warsaw in 1809 and fell outside the r9thcentury boundaries of Galicia.

24 Beschreibung, sect. 132. 25 Tbid., sect. 30. 26 Tbid., sects. 49, 56, 80. 27 Tbid., sects. 31, 63. 28 Tbid., sect. 50 29 Tbid., sects. 30-71 passim.

89 - Thid., sect. 50. 31 Tbid., sects. 166, 45, 175.

54 Franz Szabo could have for themselves related directly to the extent of demand for their labour.*? Beyond that, despite theoretical protection for peasants under the law, Polish nobles felt bound by neither ‘laws, nor customs, nor promises’, gave no consideration to feelings of humanity,** and assiduously guarded this status quo | by carefully preventing any form of peasant education or even religious instruction in the countryside.*4

Under these circumstances, Ukrainians had ‘sunk into the most miserable slavery’, and it was hardly surprising that they were ‘impoverished, poorly housed, poorly clothed, given to drunkenness, lazy, and indifferent’—in brief, ‘living more an animal than a human existence’.®? Habsburg officials were pre-

| pared to concede that appearances might be worse than the reality because, under circumstances such as these, it was in the peasants’ interest to present themselves

as poorer than they actually were: | Since anything the peasant saves only excites the greed of the lord or his official, he naturally seeks to conceal or to consume it. Why should he seek to acquire any surplus, as the possession and enjoyment of it is so uncertain? Accustomed to frequent inhumane beatings for petty matters he reacts only to the threat of a raised cane.*©

This awareness, however, hardly affected the overall assessment. Peasants seemed to be condemned to strategies of passive resistance, and in this arsenal their most effective weapon was flight. They threatened flight constantly, always appeared prepared to depart on a moment’s notice, and never kept anything they could not take with them under such circumstances." Effectively this was the only mitiga-

tion of exploitation that Ukrainian peasants could count on—and, indeed, the closer to the eastern borders they found themselves, and the more realistic flight from the manor actually was, the better their treatment at the hands of the Polish lords and their officials.2°> Otherwise peasants hardly dared to make complaints, partly because they barely knew what injustice was done them, partly because what remnants of the judicial system existed on paper were wholly ineffectual and even counter-productive in practice.*” Habsburg officials realized that the excep-

tions to this rule, the nobles who attempted to treat their serfs in a reasonably just | manner, could still not change the tenor of the relationship between Polish lord and Ukrainian peasant. Those fortunate enough to escape the harshest features of noble exploitation had had less fortunate fathers or grandfathers and, whatever one’s personal fate, one had every reason to fear the worst for one’s children.*® In Pergen’s view, the extensive Jewish communities in precisely those areas where the peasant—lord antagonism coincided with the Polish—Ukrainian dichotomy complicated these Polish—Ukrainian relations in the countryside further.*! Pergen perceived the relationship between Polish lords and the Jewish 32 Beschreibung, sect. 167.

33 Thid., sect. 166. 34 Tbid., sect. 195. 35 Thid., sects. 193, 166, 73, 194.

36 Thid., sect. 195. 37 Tbid., sect. 167. 38 Tbid., sect. 168.

39 Tbid., sects. 191-2, 206. 4° Thid., sect. 196. 41 Tbid., sects. 6, 9.

Ethnic Relations in Annexed Galicia 55 communities as symbiotic, although he clearly understood that what favouritism Polish lords may have shown Jews resulted rather from self-interest than any philosemitism or even passively benign attitude towards the Jews. At heart the Polish nobles were antisemitic, favouring Jews only because the latter’s precarious legal position permitted the lords to extort more from them and because, if the need arose, the whole community could be driven away in short order without even the pretext of legal niceties. Jews could hence serve as more pliable instru- _ ments of noble arbitrariness because the nobles could hold them hostage to whim

quite effectively.* ,

Jews understood the nature of noble patronage very clearly and realized that it was in their interest to make themselves as indispensable as possible.4* Here the Austrian officials noted that this interdependency rested on numerous pillars: the arendar system (the Jewish lease of monopoly rights), their skill at exploiting a political and social system that rested on wholesale bribery at every turn, their competitive superiority in numerous crafts and trades, and, above all, their extensive recourse to noble and clerical capital at what Austrians considered an artificially inflated interest rate of 7 per cent.*4 In any case, the respective ethnic communities stayed trapped in a vicious circle of self-interest and survival. Everyone cheated everyone else, and no predictable laws, such as the law of supply and demand, seemed to apply.*° Thus, for example, Jews sold unripe lumber at extortionate profit in a high-demand market, which they in turn had purchased from Ukrainian peasants who had stolen it from forests, which in turn the Polish nobility had illegally appropriated from royal domains over the years.4° Anything resembling a public spirit or public conscience was wholly absent. Standards of sanitation, hygiene, and medical care were accordingly abysmal.” These realities determined the relationship between Jews and Ukrainian peas-

ants entirely, and hence Pergen viewed that relationship as exploitative. His observers singled out peasant alcohol-dependency as the most prevalent mechanism of this exploitation, the propensity to drink being regarded as the vice par excellence of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth.*® Drink and drunkenness permeated all segments of society. They were literally the lubricant of all social

42 Tbid., sect. 129. 43 Ibid., sects. 209-21.

“4 Ibid., sects. 143, 213-16, 221-5. For comparison, during the Seven Years War Austria was _ forced to have recourse to war loans at 5 and 6 per cent, but undertook an interest-rate reduction in 1766 that left the highest interest rate outstanding on portions of the national debt at 4 per cent. See A. Beer, ‘Die Staatsschulden und die Ordnung des Staatshaushaltes unter Maria Theresia’, Archiv fir osterreichische Geschichte, 82 (1895), 18-32; J. Schasching, Staatshildung und Finanzentwicklung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des osterreichischen Staatskredit in der 2. Halfte des 18 Jahrhundert (Inns-

briick, 1954), 40-4; P. G. M. Dickson, Finance and Government under Maria Theresia, 1740-1780 (Oxford, 1987), ii. 51~7.

49 Beschreibung, sect. 150. 46 Tbid., sects. 22, 151. 47 Thid., sects. 146-9, 155, 161-2. 48 Tbid., sects. 15, 90, 101, 140, 163, 197, 221, 226-7. On this whole problem, see H. Levine, ‘Gentry, Jews, and Serfs: The Rise of Polish Vodka’, Review, 4 (1980), 223-50.

56 | | Franz Szabo relationships from Polish diets, through municipal assemblies and courts, to guild meetings.*? Since the libation of choice was highly potent grain-based distilled liquor, and liquor retail rights were unregulated and unrestricted in towns, or

were readily leased on the manor, sellers found no difficulty in creating an alcohol-dependency among Ukrainian peasants—both male and female.°° They

generously dispensed liquor on credit until the dependency was established, whereupon the victims frequently fell into unmanageable debt, gave away their possessions down to their missals and rosaries, and even sacrificed the nutritional requirements of their own families in order to support their addiction.°! On the other hand, Ukrainian peasants preferred to work for Jews rather than Christians,

not only because the Jews indulged them in their alcohol-dependency more generously, but also because the Jews neither enforced nor even demanded that the Ukrainians fulfil their religious duties.>” This absence of genuine Christian piety became a particularly sore point with

Habsburg officials. Galician society from top to bottom was rife with external pieties but lacked any real internal devotion, they claimed.°*® This was as true for Polish Roman Catholics as for Ukrainian Greek Catholics and, however bad the rivalry between the two, they shared similar vices: ignorance, selfishness, drunkenness, indifference, and scheming.” In the rivalry between Polish Roman and Ukrainian Greek Catholics, however, the latter invariably drew the short straw. All nobles were Roman Catholic. Ukrainian Catholics thus lacked not only the kind of fiscal support their rivals could muster but also the kind of patronage and protection only powerful nobles could provide.®° They had fewer benefices and other sources of income, and as a result the Ukrainian Catholic clergy and hierarchy grew even more inclined to fiscal abuses than their Latin counterparts.°®

Under the circumstances, there tended to be fewer new recruits, and married Ukrainian Catholic priests degenerated into a self-perpetuating caste without proper clerical discipline whose demeanour—and, particularly, whose propensity

to drink—hardly differed from that of a common peasant.®’ The Ukrainian Catholic faithful therefore faced the serious disadvantages of fiscal exploitation and poor pastoral care.°® In addition, Ukrainian peasants were also condemned to lesser agrarian productivity because the Julian calendar and their own special set of saints created a series of holy days that differed from the Latin rite, effectively causing a supplementary economic waste, since Ukrainians ‘very seldom worked on Latin holy days’ either.°®

A final area where the Beschretbung explores the theme of ethnic relations to - some extent is in the discussion of life in urban centres. In the broader economic 49 Beschreibung, sects. 38, 59, 64, 75, 124, 143, 192.

°° Ibid., sects. 17, 124, 127, 140-1. 51 Tbid., sects. 226~7. 52 Ibid., sect. 228.

53. Tbid., sects. 57, 73, 78. 4 Tbid., sects. 75, 98. °° Tbid., sect. 81. °6 Tbid., sects. 96, gg—102. 57 Tbid., sects. tor, 105-6. 58 Tbid., sect. 98. 5° Tbid., sect. 80.

| Ethnic Relations in Annexed Galicia 57 context Habsburg officials paid special attention to the decline of the towns and the bourgeois class in general in Galicia. The reasons for the decline, of course, were primarily social and economic, but the process also highlighted some particular points of ethnic relations. Here the small Armenian and German minorities also came into play. ‘The Armenians were portrayed by the Austrian onlookers as a cohesive community that largely isolated itself from the rest of the population and whose modest industriousness was exemplary.®° Germans, on the other hand, tended to assimilate into the Polish bourgeoisie—if not always in language then certainly in the Poles’ worse habits—and lost most of the proverbial German virtues in the process.®°! Habsburg officials considered both the Armenian and German minorities statistically insignificant, however;®? the principal urban

geoisies. ,

ethnic relationship of interest was that between the Polish and Jewish bourThe economic contest between these two groups had already lost much of its competitiveness by the time the Austrians arrived, and Pergen’s report noted the virtually complete triumph of Jewish entrepreneurs. Products of Polish craftsmen invariably fell short of those of their Jewish competitors, and many crafts and trades had become or were becoming exclusively Jewish concerns.®* Although both groups appeared primitive and backward to Habsburg officials, Polish craftsmen and entrepreneurs seemed to be more ‘clumsy, lazy, expensive, deceitful,

and drunken’ than Jewish ones.® Again, the officials viewed this bourgeois degeneration as the result primarily of the noble legal and economic assault on municipal autonomy, in which Jews profited and prospered largely because of the already noted beneficial symbiotic relationship with the Polish nobility.©°

In short, Habsburg officials regarded the society of their newly acquired province as a primitive, economically skewed anarchy, characterized by a complete ‘corruption of morals’, unchecked baseness and egotism, ‘lawless oligarchy’,

and ‘deeply imbedded prejudices’.6© From the point of view of the Habsburg officials—including Pergen himself, who had arrived in Galicia from the western crown lands—in this society all interaction, whether social or ethnic, seemed to consist mainly of exploitative relationships based on extortion, graft, fraud, and naked force. ‘These views and impressions should not be regarded as simple condescending smugness, and still less as embodying typically ‘German’ prejudices

6° Tbid., sects. 8, 86, 132. 61 Tbid., sect. 143. 62 Tbid., sects. 7-8, 132. 68 Thid., sects. 123, 129-30, 143, 151-2, 154-5, 223. 64 Tbid., sects. 143, 149-50, 155, 163.

6 Tbid., sects. 126-31. The contentious and complex historiography on this relationship has recently been brought into focus by G. Hundert, “The Implication of Jewish Economic Activities for Christian—Jewish Relations in the Polish Commonwealth’, in C. Abramsky, M. Jachimczyk, and A.

Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Poland (Oxford, 1986), and by M. J. Rosman, The Lords’ Jews: Magnate—Jfewish Relations in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), whose findings corroborate many of these observations. 66 Rosman, The Lords’ Jews, introd.

58 Franz Szabo about Poland.®’ Of course, to some extent, the ethnic clichés that did exist in the eighteenth century were bound to play their subconscious role in these officials’ assessment. But if we are to judge from the well-known early eighteenth-century

Volkertafel displayed in the Heimatsmuseum of Bad Aussee,®*® the Pergen Beschreibung deviates from the clichés as often as it confirms them. In fact, the key

to understanding the bitter tone of the document is the obsession with underdevelopment that permeated Habsburg officialdom in the eighteenth century— and particularly during the era of enlightened absolutism.

Habsburg élites, bureaucrats, economists, and political thinkers had been only too painfully aware of the relative backwardness of their central European commonwealth. The policies and ideology of the Counter-Reformation confes-

sional state that had contributed to the successful ‘making of the Habsburg monarchy”®’ in the seventeenth century became unequal to the challenges of the fierce competitive world of proto-national states in the eighteenth. One result was

the belated implementation of a cameralist—mercantilist reform programme, based on the model of the ‘well-ordered police states’ of Protestant Germany, which sought to internalize ‘the values and norms of the modern, productionoriented, dynamic political culture’ originating in the intellectual revolution of the sixteenth century.’° The reform pace introduced in the 1740s and 1750s then accelerated and its scope widened by the influx of Enlightenment ideas from the 1760s on, but an awareness of underdevelopment was still uppermost in the polit-

ical calculations of the Habsburg regime—indeed, some historians have even argued that it was a precondition of ‘enlightened absolutism’.”

What Habsburg officials thought they encountered in Galicia was nothing short of a vision of their own recent past, of a backward, pre-modern society. In 67 The same might also be said of the subsequent travel literature of the 1780s and 1790s, which echoes the Beschreibung in remarkable detail. This includes F. Kratter, Briefe tiber den itzigen Zustand von Galizien (Leipzig, 1786); A. H. Traunpaur, Dreyssig Briefe tiber Galizien oder Boebachtungen eines unpartheyischen Mannes, der sich mehr, als nur ein paar Monate in diesem Konigretche umgesehen hat (Vienna, 1787); B. Hacquet, Neueste phystkalisch—politische Reisen in den Jahren 1788 und 1789 durch die dacischen und sarmatischen oder nordlichen Karpathen (Nuremberg, 1790-6; vols. 1i-iv cover the years to 1795); J. Rohrer, Bemerkungen auf ener Reise von der turkischen Granze tiber die Bukowina

durch Ost- und Westgalizien, Schlesien und Mahren nach Wien (Vienna, 1804); and S. Bredetzky, Reisebemerkungen tiber Ungern und Galizien (Vienna, 1809). For the assessment of this literature, see

W. Gawlitsch, ‘Ostgalizien im Spiegel der deutschen Reiseliteratur am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts’, University of Vienna Ph.D. thesis, 1943. 68 A reproduction of the Volkertafel was first published in W. Koschatztky (ed.), Maria Theresia

und Ihre Zeit (Salzburg, 1979), 446. It is now widely available in poster form in central Europe. | 69 R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy (Oxford, 1979). 70 M. Raeff, “The Well-Ordered Police State and the Development of Modernity in Seventeenth

and Eighteenth Century Europe: An Attempt at a Comparative Approach’, American Historical Review, 80 (1975), 1221-43, and The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germantes and Russia, 1600-1800 (New Haven, 1983).

“4 K. O. F. von Aretin, Der aufgeklarte Absolutismus (Cologne, 1974), 22-7; D. Kosary, ‘Felvilagosult abszolutizmus—felvilagosult rendiség’, Torténelmi szemle, 19 (1976), 675-720.

Ethnic Relations in Annexed Galicia 59 consequence they sought, as they had already done in Austria and Bohemia and

to a lesser extent in Hungary, to rationalize social structures by imposing a Soztaldisziplimerung (‘social discipline’) on inchoate traditionalist populations, with the intention of increasing both control and productivity.’ Above all, the continued references to ‘idleness’ and ‘dissipation’ (especially alcoholism) and to the lack of genuine religious piety at all levels of society demonstrate a typically cameralist obsession with the need for the ‘social disciplining’ of a pre-modern agrarian mentality. If the long-range agenda of this effort was ‘to foster and give full scope to the creative energies of the individual members of society by means of the state’s direction’,’* the key to its success was the populace’s internalization of the new rigorous social norms. Yet this could only be achieved by the transformation of mere ‘subjects’ into more autonomous ‘citizens’, and here lies the central obsession underpinning Pergen’s Beschreibung. As Pergen pointed out in the introduction to his survey of Galicia, his intent was to describe conditions in so far as they were in need of reform. In other words,

the report focused on the main priorities of the prospective reform agenda of enlightened absolutism in Galicia. These Pergen summarized very succinctly: they were to bring order to chaos in the interests of justice and prosperity.” Pergen’s chief, Kaunitz, the initial head of the Habsburg Galician department, articulated clearly what this meant in practice for Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians in Galicia. It was in the interest of Vienna to co-opt rather than confront the Polish nobility, and therefore to approach its social status with as gradualist an integrative process as would be compatible with the emancipatory social, and developmental

economic, aims of the monarchy. The Polish nobility had to be re-educated, enlightened, purged of its irresponsible selfishness—in a word, ‘socially disciplined’—but not irretrievably alienated.’° Ukrainians had to be emancipated from ‘slavish oppression’ and their ‘rights of humanity’ had to be restored.’® Their church had to be fostered and placed on an equal footing with the Roman Catholic—and both reformed on the already well-established ‘Josephinist’ model.” Jews had to be ‘transformed from a specific nation into a mere distinct 72 There is a growing literature on this concept, first coined by G. Oestreich, ‘The Structure of the Absolutist State’, in Neostoicism and the Early Medern State, trans. D. McLintock (Cambridge, 1982), 258-73. See O. Brunner, Adeliges Landleben und europaischer Geist (Salzburg, 1947); M. Rassem, ‘Bemerkungen zur “Sozialdisziplinierung” im frihmodernen Staat’, Zeitschrift fur Politik,

30 (1983), 217-38; J. van Horn Melton, ‘Absolutism and “Modernity” in Early Modern Central Europe’, German Studies Review, 8 (1985), 83-8, and ‘Arbeitsprobleme des aufgeklarten Absolutismus in Preussen und Osterreich’, Mitteilungen des Instituts fur osterretchische Geschichtsforschung, go —

(1982), 49-75; C. Sachsse and F. Tennstedt (eds.), Sozial Sicherheit und soztale Disziplinierung (Frankfurt, 1986); and W. Schulze, ‘Gerhard Oestreichs Begriff “Sozialdisziplinierung in der friihen Neuzeit” ‘, Zeitschrift fir historische Forschung, 14 (1987), 265-302.

73 Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State, 257. 4 Beschreibung, introd. HHSA, Staatskanzlei: Vortrage, box 113, Kaunitz to Maria Theresa, 2 Sept. 1772. © Rosdolsky, Stosunki poddanicze, ii. 27-9, 31-3, 36-7, 62-3.

77 HHSA, Staatskanzlei: Vortrige, box 114, Kaunitz to Maria Theresa, 12 Jan. 1774. Cf. F. A. J. Szabo, Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, 1753-1780 (Cambridge, 1995), 235—6.

60 Franz Szabo confession’, which should then enjoy the same rights and duties as other faiths in the monarchy.’® This agenda was, of course, cast primarily in socio-economic terms, though its consequences for ethnic relations were to be far-reaching. The Enlightenment faith that prosperity and tolerance could ‘improve’ the

‘moral character’ and life of all inhabitants of the province was central to a_ _ Habsburg eudemonism that regarded ethnic relations as being fundamentally determined by political and economic conditions, and believed the worst features of such relations to be mere ephemeral manifestations of these conditions. Jews,

Poles, and Ukrainians in Austrian Galicia thus remained subject to the twin premisses of the Habsburg regime, however difficult the specific details of their implementation were to prove in the subsequent century and a half: the organization and reconstruction of society for ongoing productivity, and the establishment of a framework of impartial justice—in brief, a Rechtsstaat. Though the observations of Habsburg officialdom captured in Pergen’s Beschreibung were seldom very wide of the mark, in some ways their perceptions were even more important than the reality, because it was these perceptions that set the parameters within

| which Austria’s rational constructivism of Galicia’s political culture was undertaken. Subsequent chapters in this issue of Polin reveal that Galicia was not to be free of the paradoxes such endeavours generate, but perhaps these observations serve

to stress that we should keep sight of the fact that the framework of the theme under review was the Habsburg monarchy, and that the peculiar developments of Galicia in this period could take the course that they did, for better or for worse,

only because it was part of the Habsburg monarchy. : *8 HHSA, Kabinettsarchiv: Kaunitz Voten zu Staatsratakten, box 5, nos. 1712 and 2415 from year 1784, Kaunitz Staatsrat Vota, 3 June and 5 July 1784; box 6, no. 3575 from year 1792, Kaunitz Staatsrat Votum, 18 July 1792. See H. Kohn, “Beitrage zur Geschichte der Juden in Osterreich unter Kaiser Joseph IT’, University of Vienna Ph.D. thesis, 1919, 112; J. Karniel, ‘Fiirst Kaunitz und die Juden’, fahrbuch des Instituts fiir deutsche Geschichte, Tel-Aviv, 12 (1983), 22-3.

The Jewish Question in Galicia: The Reforms of Maria Theresa and

Joseph II, 1772-1790 STANISLAW GRODZISKI

IN 1772 the Austrian army, carrying out the first partition of the Polish republic, received an order to halt at the banks of the Vistula.! This meant that Krakow

would remain in Poland, though on its very border. Occupying this part of | Malopolska (Lesser Poland), General d’Alton noticed that the river branched in Krakow and that its original course ran between Krakow and Kazimierz; he therefore occupied Kazimierz.” For the residents of Krakow, the location of the border literally at the foot of Wawel Castle created an extraordinarily precarious situation: the city’s entire southern supply base was severed. For Jews in particular it was Catastrophic: they resided in Kazimierz, which was now under Austrian rule, but had stores and workshops in Krakow, which was under Polish rule. Would they be allowed to cross the border and conduct business in Krakow? This state of affairs gave rise to numerous local disputes and the Christian townspeople went to Warsaw to appeal to Great Crown Chancellor Andrzej Mitodziejowski to solve the problem. The Jews, by contrast, went to Vienna to petition Joseph II, as co-regent

of the empress Maria Theresa. In the end both petitions proved useless; the choice of roads, however, was characteristic. My focus here is on the reforms imposed by the Austrian authorities, who did not recognize the institutions and legal norms that had been inherited from Polish

times in the annexed territory of Galicia. Specifically, I shall examine those reforms that pertained to the legal status of the Jewish population and can be separated quite easily from the wider Theresian—Josephine reforms.® The status

of the Jews was by no means a secondary issue. The consequences of these 1 This incident is recounted in M. Balaban, Historia Zydéw w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu, 1304-1568 (Krakow, 1936), 11. 358 and passim.

2 Kazimierz, today a part of Krakow, was established by Kazimierz the Great in 1335 as a satellite town adjacent to Krakow. From the turn of the 15th century it was inhabited by Jews. 3 The views expressed in this chapter are based to a significant degree on conclusions previously published in my book Historia ustroju spoteczno-politycznego Galicji,1772—1848 (Warsaw, 1971), QQ—1 30.

62 Stanislaw Grodziski reforms may be appraised on several levels, taking into consideration, first, the economic, social, and legal situation of the Jewish population in Galicia; secondly, that population’s degree of loyalty to the new authorities; thirdly, Jewish coexistence with the Polish population (and, to the degree that the Ukrainian nationalist

movement developed, also with the Ukrainian population); and fourthly, the situation of Galician Jewry in comparison with the position of Jews under the Polish republic before partition and with the situation of those Jews who found _ themselves under Russian rule after 1795. The thoughts that follow are limited to an ordered presentation of the reforms regarding Jewish legal status, as well as a few broader, and more or less debatable, reflections. Of necessity, I cover only a modest fragment of the subject.

The legal status of Jews inhabiting Poland slowly began to take shape in the Middle Ages and was based on monarchical privileges which were either general or local. Although such terminology was not used at the time, the Jews effectively constituted a legally separate fifth social estate alongside the nobility, clergy, townspeople, and peasants.* Of course they were also a religiously separate group. In the late eighteenth century, however, Austrian authorities were to make no reference to the existing legal position of Jews arising from the period of Polish

rule; if the reforms discussed here improved or worsened the position of Jews relative to Polish times, it occurred more or less by coincidence. This is because these reforms arose out of two premisses: the ideological principles of enlightened

absolutism and the total suppression of the old Polish legal institutions, which were seen as irreconcilable with the strong, centralized Austrian system. _ Galicia, appropriated at a time when enlightened absolutists had already sig-

nificantly rebuilt Austria’s own socio-legal system, needed to catch up. The Austrians wished to harness the new acquisition securely to the metropolis and to make it resemble other possessions of the Habsburg crown as quickly as possible, and frenetic lawmaking ensued. There were also further goals pertaining to the

legal status of the Jewish population. | At the end of the eighteenth century the entire Habsburg empire contained around | million Jews, according to official Austrian estimates; half that number lived in Galicia. Directly after the first partition Jews accounted for a significant percentage of the population of Galicia: over 3 per cent in the western part, about g per cent in the east, where there were even settlements in which Jews were the

majority.” This imbalance between eastern and western Galicia reflected the 4 T deal with the question of the extent to which the Jews of the old republic may be treated as a separate social class in my paper ‘The Krakéw Voivode’s Jurisdiction over Jews: A Study of the Krakéw Voivede’s Administration of Justice to Jews’, in A. Polonsky, J. Basista, and A. LinkLenczowski (eds.), The Jews in Old Poland, tooo—1975 (London, 1993). —® Compare with M. Stéger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung der galizischen Judenschaft, \ (Tarnow, 1833), 60 (table on the number of Jews by district according to counts in 1789, 1821, 1826, and 1827), 61-2. From tables in M. Balaban, Dzieje Zydéw w Galicgi rzeczypospoltte; Krakowsktej,

The Jewish Question in Galicia 63 history of private towns and villages in Polish times. Jews who wished to live in private settlements belonging to wealthy nobles and magnates had been eagerly accepted and were granted privileges, while in the western part of Malopolska many towns excluded Jews, maintaining the privilege de non tolerandis FJudaeis (of not tolerating Jews).®

| For the Austrian authorities, the presence of such a substantial Jewish population was a new phenomenon. They found the Galician Jews difficult to manage and wished to submit them to a full census and full administrative control, to which Jews were unaccustomed, and to subjugate them to certain laws from which Poland had exempted them. In Austria, from the end of the Middle Ages until the second half of the eighteenth century, Jews had no legal protection and were dependent on the good will of the Christian population. They were also prohibited from settling in particular towns and were ejected from whole provinces, as happened in central Austria in 1496. Generally, however, as so-called homines Jiscales, they paid their rulers a high per capita tax and in exchange obtained varied privileges binding the local powers.’ It was not until the second half of the rule of

the empress Maria Theresa (1740-80), in the time of the Austrian annexation of

Galicia, that the government launched reforms to update the legal status of Austria’s Jews.

With only superficial information on the numbers, distribution, and economic situation of Galician Jewry, the authorities reacted reflexly and laws proliferated with the aim of reducing the Jewish population. Austria based its policy on principles already accepted by Prussia, permitting Jews to emigrate to Poland unhindered, while forbidding Jewish immigration into Austria except for those wealthy individuals who could pay a high immigration tax. The same principle held for business trips: it was relatively easy to travel beyond Galicia, but the passport

system bound Jews and hindered free movement within the borders of the 1772-1868 (Lviv, 1916), 7-9, it appears that Jews formed the highest percentage of the population (13.2 per cent) in the former Polish provinces of Rus’, Belzec, and Lublin and the smallest (2.5 per cent) in Krakéw province. However, these figures are only approximate. They are based on annual conscription by the Austrian authorities, but Jews, fearing new taxes and the draft, avoided censuses by any means and more than once the census commissioner’s figures were rough estimates. To avoid this, by a decree of 16 Sept. 1784, a Famuiltenbuch (‘family book’) was introduced for each family, in which, it was directed, all changes in family circumstances, as well as tax liabilities, were to be noted. J. Buzek, Wolym polityki &ydowskiej rzqadu austriackiego w latach 1772 do 1788 na wzrost zaludnienia zydomskiego w Galicjt (Krakow, 1903), 95.

° Frequently, however, in towns with the privilege de non tolerandis Judacis, individual Jews were granted permission to reside, as in the case of Zywiec (see the numerous mentions of Jews who lived there in S. Grodziski and I. Dwornicka (eds.), Chronografia albo dziejopis Zywiecki (Zywiec, 1987), 689, s.v. ‘Jews’. This gave rise to complicated legal situations: the town had an old royal privilege of not tolerating Jews but by its own decisions made exceptions for particular families or representatives of specified professions. Accompanying these permits was a description of the quarter in which Jews were allowed to acquire real estate. In this manner a ghetto was formed. * O. Balzer, Historia ustroju Austrit w zarysie, 2nd edn. (Lviv, 1908), 330-1.

64 Stanistaw Grodziski empire.® Foreign Jewish traders who travelled to Galicia faced similar obstacles. At the border they had to present a passport or an affidavit confirming the indispensable nature of their journey, such as an important family matter. During their stay

they were considered a suspicious and undesirable element and were subject to surveillance by district authorities.°

One method that was to shrink the number of Jews was the forced resettlement of the poor. On 8 March 1773, within six months of taking over Galicia,

Austrian officials issued a charter regarding the so-called Betteljuden (beggars), but in practice the charter affected all poor Jews who could not afford to pay the toleration tax.!° These people were to be forcibly expelled across the Polish border. Meanwhile, the Polish republic, which had trouble enough with its own beggars, did not want to accept the poor Jews affected by this __ decision.!! In a radical step conceived in the spirit of absolutism and aimed at reducing the number of Jews, a 1773 prohibition barred Jews from marrying without the permission of the gubernatorial authorities and the payment of a fee to prove the couple’s Steuerfahigkeit (tax capability). However, Jews paid little attention to the ban, entering into ritually sanctioned marriages unregistered by the authorities, '* and the magnitude of this evasion eventually forced the Austrian authorities to relax the prohibition with a regulation of 1789, as well as to recognize some of the principles of Judaic marriage law.'° The policy to reduce the Jewish population in Galicia, although not successful, was carried out over a long period: during the entire reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph II (1780-90) and even by their successors. In addition to a series of pan-

Austrian laws designed to realize this policy, both the emperor and, on the emperor’s recommendation, the province of Lviv issued numerous detailed laws that were binding only in Galicia. All of these laws arose from the legislature’s conviction that ‘the Jewish population should be rendered as harmless as possible 8 Any Jew who wished to move from one locality to another had first to obtain a passport, which on arrival at his destination he turned over to the district office, in exchange receiving permission to

stay (Aufenthaltszettel). The passport, with appropriate endorsement, was returned only at the

moment of departure. These were laws that obviously pertained only to Jews. Jews from Poland , arriving in Galicia for trade purposes paid a high tax, the Ge/eitzo/l. Galician Jews were not allowed to move to Vienna without permission. 9 Stoger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung, i. 19-20. 10 Tbid. ii. 49 and elsewhere: ‘Anordnungen tiber das Armenwesen’. 11 (F. Kratter], Briefe uber den itzigen Zustand von Galizien (Leipzig, 1786), ii. 46-7. Eventually,

immigration to Galicia required individual permits from the governor. Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universahum regnis galictae et Lodomeriae (1801), no. XLII, pp. 111-14.

12 This resulted in laws ordering Jews to follow the same principles of marriage law that obligated Christians (Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universalium (1786), no. XLVI, pp. 194-5) as well as in

divorces granted by rabbis. Those who after divorce entered again into marriage were considered bigamists in Austrian law (ibid. (1788), no. Vv, p. 10). 13 Tbid. (1791), no. XIII, pp. 28-30. This law regulated rather liberally questions of blood relations as a marriage restriction, as well as the institution of writs of divorce.

The Jewish Question in Galicia 65 for Christians’;'4 among the justifications for these rules, however, there can be found no attempt to define how the Jews were harmful. Certainly harsh material sanctions were imposed in case of disobedience. A survey of these laws reveals three distinct aims. The first two were to eliminate Jewish religious differences (i.e. to convert the Jews to Christianity) and to erase their ethnic distinctiveness. These were subordinated to the third, clearly overriding aim: the assimilating Jews were to become similar not to the local

Polish population but to the (few) Galician Germans, so as to become in the future an outpost for the third goal, Germanization. It is worth examining more closely in what ways Austrian legislation went about realizing the goals it had set itself.

Austrian government expressions of its intention to erase Jewish religious difference were indirect, because contemporary Austria was theoretically bound to religious tolerance. Thus it rewarded converts to Christianity by granting them town citizenship free of charge, as well as other specific privileges.!° If the father of a family accepted baptism, then his under-age children were baptized also, even against the will of the mother. The baptism of children at their own request was also permitted, if they had reached their seventh year. (Joseph II later raised the age of consent to 18, and several laws dealt with the rather common phenomenon of baptizing Jewish infants without or against the will of the parents.)!® Furthermore, conversion was possible in only one direction; once baptized, one could not return to the Jewish faith without facing the severest penalties.

The second objective, to eradicate ethnic difference, emerged clearly in a whole range of laws aimed at expunging external marks of Jewishness in costume, custom, lifestyle, name, and language. These measures stemmed largely from the

utopian convictions of Joseph II, who, while still Maria Theresa’s co-regent, wanted to eliminate completely certain variations within the Galician population, suggesting that ‘It would be very desirable if within the noted time period, that is, a year and a day (binnen Jahr und Tag), no one apart from peasants dressed in the

Polish style. Everything should be written in German or in Latin, and anyone who serves in the imperial army should sub conditione sine qua non [as a necessary

condition] be required to accept the French uniform.” Although this rule was intended primarily to counter the Polish nobility’s traditional dress, it treated 14 Balaban, Historia Zydéw w Krakowie ina Kazimierzu. 35. Conviction of their injuriousness was

also expressed in judicial section 217 of the year 1796 for western Galicia, declaring that ‘the testimony of a Jew against a Christian’ was permissible but suspect. M. Koczynski, Ustawa sadowa dla Galicji Zachodniej (Krakow, 1881), 154. 15 Decree on neophytes, 30 Sept. 1780 (Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universalium (1780), no. VII, pp. 45—7); decree of 16 Aug. 1783 (ibid., no. XXXVI, p. 88); and others.

1° Decree of 11 Sept. 1775 (ibid., no. XXIV, pp. 162-7); Grodziski, Historia ustroju spolecznopolttycznego Galicyt, to2.

VW. Lozifiski, Galicjana (Lviv, 1872); S. Grodziski, W Krélestwie Galicji i Lodomerii (Krakow, 1976), 43.

66 Stanstaw Grodziskt Jewish long gaberdine coats identically. Joseph even imagined that all specifically Jewish dress would be eliminated by 1791 except for rabbis.'® The most important example of legislators seeking to erase ethnic differences was a law intended to drive Jews from trade and crafts with the aim of settling them on farms. This measure, undertaken in 1784-5 and personally overseen by the emperor, completely failed to persuade Jews to take up agriculture.!? However, it made much more headway in damaging the traditional position of Jews in

the rural economy: it introduced interdictions against the leasing of land by people who did not personally work it, as well as against the leasing of grain mills, groups of villages, inns, breweries, lumber mills, and so on.2° These laws, harshly enforced through confiscations, considerably reduced the number of Jewish leaseholders and innkeepers in the villages, dislodging close to one-third of the Jewish population from its former livelihood.” The regulations did not, however, affect

the right of nobles to produce and sell alcoholic beverages, although nobody doubted the harmfulness of these beverages to the village population. These measures delineate the vision that Joseph II harboured for the Jewish

population. He wanted to make Jews into farmers or artisans, and to a lesser degree into traders and brokers, who would not differ from their German envi-

| ronment in any way except in religion, and ideally not even in that. Finally, there was the third legislative tendency, aiming at the Germanization of the Jews, which would depend on the rapid introduction of the German language not only in everyday trading but also in education. In keeping with the ‘desire to make the Jews more suitable [for the empire] by means of better enlightening their minds and customs, a German school is to be founded beside each community, as far as possible, for the Jewish youth’.”” A decree of 28 August 1787 ordered each father of a family, or each guardian, to take a surname and to undertake that as of 1 January 1788 he and his entire family and everyone in his charge would use that surname permanently and hereditarily.2? By the same token, on pain of arrest and fines, the decree forbade Jews to use as their surname the name

of their tribe or place of origin. In their place the decree introduced German names, obviously non-noble and rather hastily concocted. “® Stéger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung, ii. 193.

19 Balaban, Historia Zydéw w Krakowie ina Kazimierzu, 38 and later. Stéger, Darstellung der gesetlichen Verfassung, i. 161, cites the numbers of Jewish agricultural settlers in particular districts; these settlers were promised exemption from some taxes. The history of these few colonies in Galicia is discussed by H. Lepucki, Dztatalnosé kolonizacyjna Mari Teresy i Fozefa II w Galicgi, 1772-1790 (Lviv, 1938), 132 and elsewhere. 20 Decrees of 9 Feb. 1784 (Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universalium (1784), no. VII, pp.

26-7) and 24 Jan. 1785 (ibid. (1785), no. XII, pp. 14-16); Stoger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung, 1. 150-1. 1 Buzek, Wptlyw polityki &ydowskiej, 118; 1. Schipper, Dzieje handlu &ydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (Warsaw, 1937), 334-

22 Regulation of 7 May 1789, sect. 11; see also n. 30 below. 23° Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universalium (1787), no. CU, pp. 168-71.

The Jewish Question in Galicia 67 These efforts to obliterate ethnic differences and Germanize the Jews did not

leave out the matter of their self-government, which would certainly have impeded the success of the measures. In the noble Polish republic, in spite of the eighteenth-century dissolution of the Va’ad Arba Aratsot (Council of the Four Lands), a form of Jewish self-rule had lived on, based on general Jewish privileges and confirmed by individual monarchs, then developed by local privileges and sometimes modified by signed agreements with town councils. The basic institution of this system of Jewish self-rule had been the local assembly of elders, with

whose internal organization the Polish government did not interfere. Under Austrian rule this system was immediately changed. In 1776 a broad regulation was issued under the title Allgemeine Ordnung fiir die gesamte Judenschaft der Konigreiche Galizien und Lodomerien (General Ordinance for the Whole of Jewry of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria).”4 Its purpose was to unify, centralize, and subjugate all local government along the lines of Austrian models. At the head of Galician Jewry now stood a single directorship, the General-JudenDirection, composed of the Landesrabin (national rabbi) and twelve elders chosen from the local assemblies. Of these elders, six, the Landesdltesten, governed permanently in Lviv while the rest, the Kreisaltesten, governed in the seats of the six. districts into which Galicia was originally to be divided. The national rabbi was nominated for life, and the elders were chosen for six years in indirect elections by

the Jewish communities. The local assemblies of elders, however, had at their command a number of votes that depended on the sum of taxes paid. The directorship was obliged to fulfil the instructions of the Austrian authories in Galicia: to publish laws, assess and collect taxes, and supervise the local Jewish assemblies of elders, the judiciary (rabbinical courts). This regulation did not endure long. When, in 1782, the administration was reorganized, dividing Galicia into eighteen circuits, Joseph II took advantage of the situation to limit Jewish autonomy further, which he did with the charter of 27 May 1785.”° He abolished the directorship and the rabbinical courts and limited the authority of the local assemblies of elders by placing them under the strict control of the districts. Each assembly of elders chose six candidates, from among whom the district administrator nominated three elders.2° These three carried

out their functions for three years, exercising authority over the assembly of elders as well as over all Jews residing within the district. A community of over 24 Ibid. (1776), no. XX, pp. 76-121. It was published solely in German. The patent that legalized it (ibid. 76) announced: ‘Die Toleranz der Juden erforderte von allen Dingen, dass dieselben mit dem Christenstand in ein unschadliches Verhaltniss gesetzet werden’ (“Toleration demands from the Jews in all matters that their relationship with Christendom should not be harmful’). This regulation — included forty-one broad articles grouped into five chapters regarding directorship (four articles), rules of order (fourteen), financial and tax matters (five), trade and industry (four), and justice and

law (fourteen). 25 Tbid. (1785), no. XLIX, pp. 89-93. 26 The most populous Jewish communities in all Galicia, those of Lviv and Brody, submitted lists of fourteen names from which the district nominated seven elders.

68 | Stanislaw Grodziski 100 Jewish families (and most Jewish communities in Galicia were at least this size) had the right to choose a rabbi for itself.2” Grievances against the rabbis and the assemblies of elders were to be directed to the district administrator. Only a narrow tier of the most wealthy was permitted to participate in these modest institutions of self-rule. Active voting rights in the Jewish assembly of elders were reserved for male heads of household who owned real estate and paid a

certain sum that came to be called the Lichterzundaufschlag (‘light’ tax).?° Moreover, a Jewish man seeking the right to vote had to be known 1n the district as being of irreproachable character, to have no criminal record, to speak fluent

German, and to pay higher taxes. The Austrian government justified these requirements by the fact that anyone elected elder then became financially responsible for the district’s activities.”° This reform, too, was shortlived. On 7 May 1789 the decree ‘kraft welchen den Juden alle Begiinstigungen und Rechte der ubrigen Unterthanen gewahret sind’ (‘in accordance with which the Jews are to be guaranteed the privileges and rights

of other subjects’) became law.°° This proved the last in the long series of measures, ending a dozen years of incessant nervous changes. Seen as the codification of previously issued rules, and thus called a regulation (die josephinische Judenordnung, the Josephine regulation for the Jews), it rescinded a whole range of prior ones and, supported by the warrant of 1785, arranged matters pertaining to Jews in accordance with the spirit of enlightened absolutism. Modern, severe, and casuistic, it moved the interests of the empire into first place. In permitting the practice of Judaism without any impediments, this regulation looked forward to granting equal political rights to Jews. It accomplished this, however, not without caveats and in words not free from traditional prejudice, as we read in the first , section: ‘All Jews, if they agree with the contemporary law and general legislation of the country, may, without the least hindrance, have the freedom to practise their father’s religion and customs instilled since childhood’ (emphasis added). ‘This condition—submission to the current Austrian legal system—was explained in the regulation’s further contents. It allowed them the freedom to settle anywhere (although still limited by old privileges de non tolerandis Judaeis) and lifted the Theresian limitations on marriage. It also took one more step towards weakening Jewish autonomy, however, and subjected Jews in general to the district in admin27 Imperial decrees of 16 Sept. and 16 Nov. 1784, cited in Stéger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung, 1.72.

28 This tax was not introduced throughout Galicia until 1797. Earlier tolerance (protectionist) and domestic taxes were paid, as well as a tax on kosher meat. 29 Stoger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung, ti. 147. 30 Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universalium (1789), no. XLIV, pp. go-111. This extensive

law contained sixty-four paragraphs grouped into seven chapters, namely, religion (paragraphs I-10), education (11-14), community organization (15-22, in the Polish translation of the law mistakenly called ‘district regulation’), population issues (23-30), means of livelihood (31-40), adminis_ trative matters (41~7), and obligations towards the government (48-64).

The Jewish Question in Galicia 69 istrative matters, and to federal courts in judicial matters. Eliminating the local rabbinical offices, it left only the district rabbis. Of the whole elaborate system of self-rule, all that remained was the power to make decisions about religion and schooling, and certain smaller communities were consolidated so as to reduce the number of Jewish assemblies in Galicia. In addition, several of the economic limitations recently introduced to make the Jews ‘as harmless as possible for Christians’ were maintained. Finally, on the basis of the idea that Jews be treated equally with all other subjects, the duty of military service was extended to male Jews within the framework of the obligatory contingent system under the Habsburg monarchy.*! The obliga-

tion to serve in the military—practically lifelong conscription at the end of the eighteenth century—was not universal but weighed on the lowest social classes within Christian society. By this measure Jews were now ‘equalized down’ to the level of the poorest Christian town-dwellers and peasants. The authorities made their decision about Jewish military service just before the regulation went into effect in 1788.°* The law inspired great panic and mass evasion of the first conscription. Military service for the Jews of the former republic was a completely new obligation, without any precedent in their community, and it awoke fear for religious reasons as well. Ritual law forbade Jews from wearing a uniform, eating food not prepared in accordance with kashrut, or working on Saturday. Besides this, the custom of early marriage among Jews meant that men eligible for the draft commonly had several offspring to provide for. All these arguments were listed in extensive petitions, which Jewish representatives managed to present to the emperor, despite bureaucratic barriers. Joseph II did not, however, agree to release the Jews from military service. In a regulation

of 1789 he granted them only limited relief, promising not to scatter Jewish recruits among several divisions (although most often they were delegated to providing transport) and allowing them to honour their Sabbath.** The tendency to equalize the rights of Jews and Christians and to meld Jews into the general society, which was the principal concept behind the 1789 regulation, ultimately broke down when it came to taxation. There the Austrian govern-

ment maintained separate taxes, differentiating Jews from the rest of society. Under the Polish republic, Jews had paid a per capita tax, at a rate settled by the 31 In each land of the monarchy that was covered by this system, a census was first carried out (Militarconscription). After that, supported by the census data (that is, by the ‘conscription books’)

and depending on the needs of the army, a specified number of recruits was demanded of each province. A compulsory draft ensued within the borders of the enlistment region (Werbbezirk, a subdivision of the province), and each such region then delivered the number of men needed to create one regiment. 32 Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universalium (1788), no. XLV, p. 86.

33 Tbid. (1789), no. XLvi, p. 48. Actually, in 1790 Leopold II permitted the payment of a tax in place of military service, but, as a result of the Napoleonic wars, obligatory military service was reinstated in 1804.

70 Stanislaw Grodzisk1 Silent Sejm of 1717,°4 as well as certain minor but numerous payments established by regional councils or imposed in private towns by their owners. In 1764 this system was reformed, and the per capita tax became a permanent duty.*° The moment Galicia came under Austrian rule, taxes increased sharply. A Kop/fsteuer (per capita tax) of one gulden per person was instituted. In 1776 Schutz und Toleranzgebihr (‘protectionist’ tax) was introduced, at a rate of four guldens per landowner, as well as a Vermogenssteuer (property tax) at the same rate. To this were added burdensome marriage taxes.*° Joseph II altered this system twice, in 1784 and in 1789, owing to what he considered low revenues. The per capita tax disappeared. The new regulations maintained the protectionist tax (also known as the ‘tolerance contribution’), together with a ‘domestic’ tax and marriage taxes, and replaced the luxury tax, which had not brought the imperial coffers the expected revenues, with a new tax on the consumption of kosher meat introduced on 1 November 1784.2’ Many times reformed, raised, and classified according to type of meat, this kosher meat tax brought the Austrian treasury considerable income—at great expense to the poorest levels of the ritually observant Jewish

population. Like the subsequently introduced ‘candle’ or ‘light’ tax, which attested to the number of lamps and candles lit for holidays,?° the kosher meat tax was tied to religious rules. These taxes exposed the lie implicit in the principles of the 1789 regulation that set aside the laws differentiating Jews from Christians.

There is no doubt that the Theresian—Josephine legislation, in spite of its inconsistencies, strongly affected the Jews of Galicia. Onto this people—who for gener-

ations had lived within a framework of old, modest, but generally respected privileges—fell an avalanche of rules that changed their legal status, limited their autonomy, raised their taxes dramatically, imposed military service, and interfered deeply even in the sphere of private life. In contrast to the much rarer legal changes during the period of the ‘noble republic’, a powerful administrative apparatus bolstered these legal amendments. It was difficult to evade the laws, dangerous to disobey them. Whereas Jews had previously enjoyed a distant, somewhat

| ineffective royal custody, or a closer, direct manorial one (from the 1600s many Jews administered and operated the latifundia of the magnates), they now lost that advantage. Instead, they were confronted by a district administration that rigor34 ‘This per capita tax was set on the principle of quotas from the various areas of Poland. Three provinces of the Crown—Wielkopolska (Greater Poland), Malopolska, and Rus’—were to pay 110,000 ‘sound Prussian currency’, and this levy was allocated among the Jewish communities within , each province. Volumina legum (Petersburg, 1860), vi. 289-90. 35 Ibid. vii. 44-50, 167~70. This tax was to be based on a newly mandated population census. 36 Stoger, Darstellung der gesetzlichen Verfassung, ti. 77-8. 37 Continuatio edictorum et mandatorum universalium (1784), no. LXXVI, pp. 224-9. At the same time, the krupka, that part of the fee for kosher meat consumption that was paid out for the needs of the Jewish community administration, was eliminated. 38 Ibid. (1797), nO. XXXVI, pp. 52-9; (1798), no. LIN, pp. 84—s.

The Jewish Question in Galicia 71 ously executed the new rules. Particularly difficult was the interference in the economic role Jews had enjoyed until then. Deprived of the possibility of leasing

rights to distilleries and other rural industries, like milling, Jews were forced to , leave the villages en masse, to relocate to the cities and towns, where, as competitors in trade and crafts, they were greeted reluctantly by the burghers and left to swell the ranks of the poor. The Jews did not embrace the alternative of agricultural labour.

Not everywhere, however, did the Theresian—Josephine legislation prove effective. As on many occasions before, legislative policy aimed at erasing the social and ethnic differences between Jews and gentiles did not achieve the intended results. Jewish behaviour, language, and customs remained unchanged. Less scattered than in Polish times, creating more populous if poorer settlements in the cities and towns, Jews could effectively thwart these pressures in spite of their subjugation to the control of the district and the significant weakening of their self-rule, and also in spite of the profound interference with their educational system and the obligation of military service, which was to serve as a tool of assimilation.

Most effective were the Germanization rules. The Jews obediently accepted the ‘German baptism’, the imposition of German-sounding surnames, and used them from then on. Jewish knowledge of the German language, which because of

its similarity to Yiddish had been significant even before 1772, made great progress under Austrian rule. And Germanization facilitated worldly advancement: by 1789 Jews were free to take the doctor of law degree and to practise law. The eventual evolution of a significant Jewish intelligentsia enabled close contacts with centres in Prague and Vienna. It was no coincidence that the saying emerged

among the Austrian intelligentsia that ‘Wir sind alle, mehr oder weniger, in Galizien geboren’ (‘More of less all of us were born in Galicia’).

But even here the goal of Joseph [I], to make the Jews into an outpost of the Germanization of Galicia, was never achieved. In truth, German surnames did not automatically mean Germanization, but it did give these people, settled in Poland for generations while maintaining their separate identity, an even deeper foreign stigma among their Slavic neighbours. This contributed significantly to the widening gap between Jews and Poles, fostering Polish xenophobia, which fed as much on economic as religious undercurrents (although, thanks to an old tradition of tolerance, it did not take on forms as cruel as in many other countries). It was not until this point, and partly also as a result of conflict between Jews loyal to

the Austrian invader and the more recalcitrant Polish middle class, that antisemitism developed in Galicia. It also coincided with the development of national consciousness among the Ukrainian Galicians. Joseph II did not succeed in his intentions, expressed in his 1789 regulation, to make Jews equal with the Christian subjects of the Habsburg monarchy. In a wide range of rulings—mainly, but not exclusively, tax assessments—as well as in the

72 Stanistaw Grodziskt daily practice of the whole government apparatus, economic, social, and legal discrimination lived on. Nevertheless, it guaranteed to the Austrians the loyalty of the Jews halfa century earlier than they gained it from the landed gentry. While, as 1s accepted in academic circles, the general effectiveness of the Theresian— Josephine reforms was limited, their impact on the Jewish population was a great deal more pronounced. Translated from Polish by Jolanta Goldstein

@ e 9 fi

Ludwig Gumplowicz’s Programme for

HANNA KOZINSKA-WITT Most scholarly works about the sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838-1909) address the ‘older Gumplowicz’, in the period after 1874, when he lived in Graz; what he accomplished before his late thirties is hardly ever taken into account. Yet Gumplowicz arrived in Graz a man of mature ideas, continuing to refine there a theory he had formulated much earlier in Krakow. His ‘Krakow oeuvre’ includes brochures and articles that appeared in various Polish magazines and in his own newspaper, Kraj, published in Krakow from 1869 to 1874.1 In Krakow Gumplowicz was, at least for a while, part of several circles, while in Graz he was to live largely as a recluse; moreover, his time in Galicia was the only period when he was

actively engaged in politics. Given these presumably deliberate changes in lifestyle, it seems likely that Gumplowicz would have called upon the experiences of his formative years in his later, more reflective period in Austria. Gumplowicz’s work for Kraj was particularly important because Krakow was ruled almost exclusively by conservative, clerical elements. The ideological battle

between Kraj and Czas, the local conservative publication, clearly defined the | paper’s format. Opposition to the conservative newspaper was not easy but at least as chief editor and political essayist of Krazy Gumplowicz did not have to battle against democratic fractions within his own camp, as would have been the case in This chapter is an expanded version of my article ‘Das Judenverbesserungs programm von Ludwik Gumplowicz in der Krakauer Tageszeitung Kray’, Archiv fir die Geschichte der Sociologie in Oesterreich: Newsletter, 9 (1993), 3-8.

The main sources for the chapter are articles by Ludwig Gumplowicz in Kraj, a daily newspaper published in Krakow from 1869 to 1874. I discuss Kraj in ‘The Emancipation of Galician Jews: Contributions to Positivism in the Daily Newspaper Kraj, 1869-1874’, Institute for Eastern European History, Tibingen University, MA thesis, 1988. * By Gumplowicz’s ‘Krakéw oeuvre’ I mean all his works written up through 1874, even those

published outside of Krakow. Brochures include: Osiem listow z Wiednia (Krakow, 1867); Prawodawstwo polskie wzgledem Zydow (Krakéw, 1867); Konfederacja barska: Korespondencja migdzy

Stanistawem Augustem a Ksawerym Branickim lowczym koronnym w.r. 1768 (Krakow, 1872); Stanislawa Augusta projekt reformy &ydostwa polskiego (Krakow, 1875). See also his writings in Dzatenntk Literacki (Lviv) and Jutrzenka (Warsaw).

74 Hanna Kozinska-Witt Lviv: there existed few democratic groups. Those democrats who disagreed with

him lacked the strength to launch a publication of their own. Thus Kraj took on the task of gathering ‘progressive’ individuals from all over western Galicia to create a future liberal-democratic party. Initially Kraj had aimed to popularize the democratic-nationalist platform of re-establishing Polish independence and creating a democracy, but when Gum-

plowicz became its chief editor, he made it a voice for positivism, in Poland an intellectual movement that went further than the democratic nationalists in daring to criticize the Polish past. To positivists society was an organism whose members had vital functions, and malfunction caused crises. The political demise of the Polish state was to be seen in this light, with the dominance of the sz/achta over other social groups causing the collapse. They believed that they could lay the groundwork for future success by helping previously neglected social groups, such as the peasants and Jews, to develop their political roles through education

and enlightenment, and through the economic and political opportunities that would follow emancipation. The small group of Krakow positivists particularly wanted to win over the Jews to their cause. By contrast, the Warsaw positivists, who were much more numerous and influential, wished first of all to win over the peasants. In both Krakow and Warsaw many positivists belonged to the intelligentsia that had developed from the déclassé szlachta. Gumplowicz, a fervent radical, was clearly susceptible to such positivist ideas, if for no other reason than his own Jewish heritage. They frequently appear in his Krakéw oeuvre, where Kraj articles often deal with Jewishness and the place of the Jews in Polish history and in the present.2 Thus, Kraj became a voice for both

, the self-directed reflections of the sz/achta and the self-criticism of the Reformed Jews. Although both views were to be found among Warsaw publications, they

appeared side by side in one publication only in Krakéw.? | It was in his Krakéw period that Gumplowicz developed the basis for his scholarly world-view and for his thoughts about Jewish identity and its relation to the Christian world. That both his first and last works from this Galician period deal with Jewish identity shows how important it was for him. Like most of his contemporaries, Gumplowicz was extremely critical of the current ‘Jewish situation’—that is, Jews’ living conditions, their place in society, and their morals. Poverty, mismanagement, and disorder were bad enough, but even worse was the cultural and moral corruption of Polish Jews. They lived under the total control of the Jewish traditional élite and suffered from isolation, caused by many factors. Kraj sought to help improve the situation of the Jews in Galicia and in the rest of Poland, and devoted much space to the problem. The reform programme it published was closely tied to contemporary events, from the hope for work typical of 2 The brochures cited in n. 1 all deal with this topic.

3 The first group, sz/achta, is represented by Przeglad Tygodniowy (1866-1905); the second,

Polonized Jews, by [zraelita (1866-1915). ,

Ludwig Gumplowicz’s Programme 75 the years of contemplation following the January revolt of 1863—4 to the bitter disappointments after the first direct elections to the Austrian parliament. In the following paragraphs I present opinions on the Jewish situation as published in Kray, but, since the articles are unsigned, the author—proably Gumplowicz—can only be deduced from the style. The basis of Gumplowicz’s theory was his vision of history, a vision shared by many of his contemporaries. He regarded history as an ongoing process in which progress spurred further development. In this process, which involved all nations and groups, one could identify certain phases by certain phenomena. For Gumplowicz, one such phenomenon was religion. Unlike individual faith, organized

| religion of any sort was merely an institutionalized, transitory sign of its own time, and would disappear under the pressure of reason. Judaism, in the form in which it existed at that time, shaped primarily by the long period of oppression, would meet the same fate. At first, in a period of progress and improved conditions, it would have to change, and then, because it lacked any real significance, it would disappear entirely. This model enabled Gumplowicz to explain the Orthodox and hasidic piety of the Jewish masses, as well as the reform attempts by the upper classes. The reformists were more in harmony with the intellectual climate of the times and therefore deserved praise, he believed, while Jews who espoused traditional forms that had been long out of date were irrational and superstitious. In the long term, any institutionalized religion would become a mere instrument of power if it resisted modernization; in the case of the Jews, it was the Orthodox rabbis who were resisting progress and thus delaying the inevitable course of events. In his earlier writings Gumplowicz had expressed similarly pejorative views about the role of the Catholic Church, especially the Jesuits, in Polish history.* He held the Jesuits responsible for the fact that the Polish nation could not absorb the Jews and thus had to succumb to internal weakness: it had not found the strength it needed at the right moment. For tactical reasons his thesis, which ultimately blamed the church for the loss of Polish sovereignty, had to be toned down for a newspaper in such a clerical town as Krakow. He could write freely only about Orthodoxy and hasidism. For Gumplowicz himself, Jewish identity could only mean ties to the Jewish religion. He denied that Jewishness could be a national identity: although such an identity had existed in the biblical past, it had disappeared over the centuries

of Diaspora wandering. He thus fought for unconditional assimilation with the majority. He defined ‘majority’ as the national group predominant in the surrounding Christian society, not the national group represented by the government. In this regard he was probably influenced by the experiences of the ‘stateless’ nations of the multinational monarchy. Jews living in Poland should identify themselves as Poles and not Germans, even though German culture and Austrian 4 L. Gumplowicz, Prawodamstwo polskie wzgledem Zydéw (Krakow, 1867).

76 Hanna Kozinska-Witt | politics had unquestionably been of great service to Galician Jews. Polish Jews, having long lived on Polish soil along with the Poles, were an integral part of

Polish history whether or not they realized it. This alone obliged them to be Polish. In wishing to be Germans, they would only deliver themselves to German liberal elements and be exploited by foreign interests; it would not contribute to their own evolution, since they needed to assimilate in Poland, with the Poles. In fact, by identifying with the Germans, they would only further strain this Polish

tie, as the Poles among whom they must continue to live would regard it as a betrayal.

According to Kraj, anyone who preached a special Jewish nationality was wrong and probably acted from egotistical, materialistic motives. Such a nationalist stance harmed the mass of Jews, who followed slogans blindly. It encouraged them to adhere to outmoded peculiarities and prevented them from integrating into their Christian environment. One of the worst and most persistent peculiarities was the Yiddish language, particularly dangerous because of its similarity to

German. To Gumplowicz, Yiddish was the corrupt product of slavery, and he linked it to the deterioration of the Jewish intellect. He maintained that the Orthodox rabbis found in Yiddish one of their most valuable means of control— and, indeed, that they regarded all Jewish idiosyncrasies as fertile soil for their own purposes. Kraj fought against the point of view that equated Austrian liberalism with Jewish well-being and the Polish res publica with Jewish oppression. (Since the Austrian liberals had established real equality despite massive resistance from the Galician parliament, this idea had found support in the Austrian liberal press as well as among some Galician Jews.) The Poles were not solely oppressors, Kraj claimed; there were many friends of progress among them, but they could not influence politics because of political domination by obscurantist clergy of all faiths. Only when this obstacle was removed would progressive forces be able to shape an equitable reality. Rather than allowing foreign troublemakers to exploit them, the Jews should strive to improve their own situation by supporting those

elements that would secure them at least tacit equality and thereby promote Jewish integration into the immediate society in which they lived. Such improvement could be brought about only by the liberals who thought in national terms, and whose point of view Kraj primarily represented. In accordance with this view, Gumplowicz sought parallels between the development of the Jewish population and that of other social groups. The development was to follow general rules and phases that, in his opinion, held true for every nation. Although the Jews were already experienced in this respect, their experience was rigid and outdated, and consequently it would be difficult to lead them in a new direction. They should not be expected to descend to an inferior, earlier phase of development such as farming, because they were too highly developed. Thus, unlike the Warsaw positivists, Gumplowicz did not seek to ‘improve’

Ludwig Gumplomicz’s Programme 77 the lot of the Jews by making them agrarians, but rather to elevate them morally, without asking them to relinquish their existing professional structure. Perhaps he felt that agricultural projects would only alter roles within society, not repair its faulty structure. He believed that the Jews’ experiences would allow them to enter the predominant society as a closed group engaged in specific professions. They could thus fulfil a clear function that would complement and support the majority society. Kraj paid considerably more attention to educating and elevating the mind than to advocating concrete economic reforms (although Galicia’s economic stagnation, with no chance to enact reforms, was seen as contributing to the overall problem) and the newspaper reported even the most insignificant initiatives that would help to civilize the Jews.

Who was to initiate and carry through the task of Jewish self-liberation? Gumplowicz assigned that important role to the small Jewish upper class. He praised those few individuals who had managed to break loose from the Jewish masses and raise themselves to a higher moral and financial level, likening their role to that of the progressive intelligentsia in Polish society. As the only aware, enlightened members of Jewish society, they were destined to lead. He had no doubt that their efforts would be supported by educated Christians, and that both these like-minded groups would be supported by the government. Government could contribute to the Jewish economy, and to Jewish morale, by passing regulatory measures and educational initiatives. Supporting Gumplowicz’s published opinions was the koto polityczne, a political circle that included the staff of Kraj. Through the activities of this group Gumplowicz hoped to mobilize the voting public in Krakow and convince them of the importance of Jewish social equality. As his share in this historic process, he

participated in many pro-education committees, such as the Towarzystwo Oswiaty Ludowej (Society for Elementary Education), and also sought election as Jewish representative on the city council. But he believed he should be supported by Christians as well as Jews, and that only his political platform, not his origin, should be the issue in an election. However, his campaign effort was hampered by the fact that he possessed neither popular ideas nor a charismatic personality. Some of the policies Kraj supported were successful, especially when the city government, which was in favour of Polonization, supported the endeavours of

those Jewish activists who were willing to assimilate. Kraj also contributed to reforms within the Jewish community, particularly the restructuring of communal administration to make it more ‘modern’ and logical. As a result of these efforts, the Reform synagogue became the real centre of religious life for the Reformed Jews of Krakow, and regular services and lectures were now held there. But over time the programme advocated by the newspaper became less popular. An article in 1873 blaming Polish society for the partitions and the disappearance of the Polish state started the newspaper’s gradual demise by causing many of the publication’s nationalist readers to withdraw their support. Although the

78 Hanna Kozinska-Witt conservatives in Krakow propagated the same idea, they were religious, aristocratic, and Polish. In the end Gumplowicz gave up, sold Kray, and left Poland. However, the reasons why Gumplowicz emigrated are complex. First of all, he had been academically unsuccessful in Poland, where the Jagiellonian University

had rejected his dissertation on the grounds that it distorted Poland’s past, although they considered it stylistically flawless. Secondly, and perhaps even more significant than the rejected dissertation, was the failure of Gumplowicz’s political aspirations for Polish Jews. While many Jews in Krakow seemed willing to Polonize, in general the Jews of Galicia, where many prominent Jews had supported Austrian liberalism and helped its electoral victory, were not. In addition, Gumplowicz was disappointed by the Polish intellectuals, finding them unwilling to befriend Reformed Jews and relieve their social isolation. At most Poles might

accept Jews as partners in political and public life, not as personal or family friends. Furthermore, even those Reformed Jews who had expressed a desire to assimilate into Polish life did not wish to break with Judaism. They sought a different society but not a life without religious connections. Perhaps most disappointing of all for Gumplowicz was that, while the wheel of events inevitably turned, it did so too slowly and was crushing his people in the process. He came to realize that Polish history without religion was unthinkable.

Non-religious liberalism was suspect not only because of its German origin but also because of its animosity to religion. In Graz Gumplowicz observed: ‘For us, clericalism still has an important task to accomplish, possibly over the next hundred or two hundred years.”°

It was absolutely necessary for anyone who hoped to change the course of history in Krakéw to understand this. Those who were serious about Polish liberalism went to Lviv, where progressive ideas were more readily accepted. Gumplowicz preferred a complete break with Poland, however, and the advantage of Graz was that it offered him the chance to engage in scholarly activities. Although the mission he had set for himself still remained unfulfilled, he did not consider his beliefs mistaken. In Austria Gumplowicz would work to develop and expand the ideas he had originally formulated in Krakow. Translated from Polish by Jolanta Goldstein 5 Letter to Dr Jézef Zaleski dated 17 May 1901, Institute for Sociology, Graz, Archiv ftir die geschichte der Soziologie in Oesterreich, Konvoleit Ludwig Gumplowicz.

.A

Enlightenment, Assimilation, and Modern Identity: ‘The Jewish Elite in Galicia JERZY HOLZER

THE traditional image of Galician Jewry around the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was of an uneducated and ignorant populace. Karl Emil Franzos captured this image with the term ‘half-Asian’ in the late nineteenth century. It is significant that Franzos was born in Volynia and grew up in the shiet/ of Chortkiv. He subsequently moved to Bukovina and his experience of Jewish life in this region was derived from small towns, rather than from the larger urban centres, such as Lviv, Krakow, Brody, or Ternopil’.’

This image does not hold up under investigation. The records at the University of Vienna, particularly those of the faculty of medicine, present an entirely different picture. Although Jews were not admitted to the doctorat programmes in medicine or surgery or to the master of science programme in pharmacology until 1828, there was a way in through the back door and by 1817 the first Galician Jews had obtained master’s degrees at Vienna in surgery and obstetrics. Records from before 1833 reveal at least thirty-eight Jewish Galician master’s recipients, and two additional names are possibly Jewish.? While most of these individuals

came from eastern Galicia, some were from western Galicia (but not from the republic of Krakow, which was then not part of Galicia and even had its own Polish university; it remains to be determined whether any Jewish medical students were enrolled there at the time). An especially large number came from Brody and somewhat fewer from Lviv. Several Jewish recipients of master’s degrees at Vienna were born in the eighteenth century. The University of Vienna also awarded midwife diplomas to eleven Galician Jews prior to 1827. Most of

these women had been born during the eighteenth century and came from Lviv. After 1828 the first Galician Jews received doctorates from the faculty of medicine; twenty had done so by 1838. At the same time the number of Galician Jews obtaining master’s degrees declined from 1833. * K. E. Franzos, Der Pojaz. Eine Geschichte aus dem Osten (Frankfurt, 1988), 1893 preface.

2 University of Vienna Archives, Main Matriculation Register in Medicine, 1779-1833, film 20.

80 Jerzy Holzer The data from Vienna indicate but a fragment of the entire number of secularly educated Galician Jewish academics and doctors. Biographical data for doctors in the Austrian army reveal that a substantial number of Galician Jews graduated from the universities of Lviv and Budapest as surgeons or obstetricians during the early decades of the nineteenth century.? Although the available information concerns army doctors alone, it may be assumed that some of these doctors (especially the obstetricians) maintained civilian practices as well. Non-medical academic disciplines were less accessible to and less popular among Jews. Youths with only a secular secondary education must nevertheless have outnumbered university students, especially in Lviv, Brody and Ternopil’, all centres of Jewish secular learning. Medical studies were difficult and costly,

and Jewish students were not well liked by either the Jewish or the Christian population.

| This information provides some perspective on the failure of the first attempt, by Herz Homberg, to institute a German school system for Jews in Galicia. These schools were established through a regulation enacted in 1787, and over 3,500 children were enrolled in German-language Jewish schools by 1806, the year they were closed. Majer Balaban’s view of Jewish Galicia as culturally isolated seems extreme: ‘Hasidim and mitnagedim [non-hasidic Orthodox Jews] have imposed their will,’ he wrote in 1916; ‘they have long isolated Galicia from the culture of the civilized world.”4 In spite of the resistance to secular education among Galician Jews, there were many within the community who wished to allow their children to profit from the new opportunities open to them. In 1813 a school with German as the language of instruction was established in Ternopil’ with over too students. Two years later a

German grammar school was founded in Brody. In 1820 approximately 300 Jewish children attended regular primary schools with Polish, Ukrainian, and Austrian German students. There are even records of Jewish children having enrolled in schools run by convents and churches. Finally, many biographies indicate the popularity of autodidacticism among Jewish youth. It would be difficult to compile statistics on all these types of education, but, they must have been important in such major centres as Brody, Lviv, and Ternopil’ and possibly also in lesser towns such as PrzemySl, Zhovkva, and Biala. Early Jewish secular education in Galicia was based on a distinctive interpretation of the Enlightenment in which German language and culture were unmistakable influences; Majer Balaban writes that Jews ‘secretly read Schiller and Lessing

hidden inside volumes of the Talmud?’.° It is thus interesting that this German3M. Friihling, Biographisches Handbuch der in der k.u.k. Ocsterreichisch—ungarischen Armee aktiv gedienten Offiziere, Arzte, Truppen-, Technungsfuhrer und sonstigen Militarbeamten judisches Stammes

(Vienna, 1911). .

4 M. Balaban, Herc Homberg i szkoly jézefinskie dla Zydéw w Polsce: Szkice t studia (Warsaw, 1920), 236. | *; M. Balaban, Dezieje Zydéw w Galicji iw rzeczypospolite} Krakowskiej, 1772-1868 (Lviv, 1916), 91.

The Jewish Elite in Galicia 81 oriented trend coincided with the rise of modern Hebraic culture. Although some educated Jews read scientific and literary works in the original German, Jewish enlighteners also translated German texts into Hebrew.® In fact, the most prominent figures from the first Galician generation of the Haskalah wrote mostly in

Hebrew. Best known among these are Menahem Mendel Levin of Satanov (¢.1750-1823), Nahman Krochmal (1785-1840), and Solomon Judah Leib Rapoport (1790-1867; known as Shir), who later became chief rabbi of Prague.’ Hebrew texts probably served the contemporary Galician Jewish élite better than German works. In time even Yiddish adaptations appeared, serving to dissemi-

(zargon).® ,

nate the culture of the modern Enlightenment in the scorned Jewish ‘jargon’ The republic of Krakow enjoyed symbolic independence until becoming part of the province of Galicia in 1846, but the story of Jewish acculturation in Krakow is an integral part of the history of Galician Jewish acculturation to non-Jewish languages generally. (Following its incorporation in 1846 Krakéw would join Lviv as a leader in Jewish cultural and social affairs.) By the early nineteenth century most of Krakow’s Jewish élite read German while also experiencing some Polish linguistic and cultural influences (unlike in Lviv and Brody, where Polish was less of an influence). Samuel Baum, an enlightened Jewish philosopher from Krakoéw, began to publish his works in Polish in 1810. A small number of Jewish children attended Polish parochial schools. In 1830 a Polish-language Jewish school was established, and a college and a business school for Jewish students followed several years later. By the late 1840s between 300 and 400 boys and girls attended these schools.? This enrolment was substantial for a Jewish community of no more than 12,000. Gradually, the German language and a tendency towards cultural Germanization gained ground in Galicia and Krakow. German-oriented religious reformers were called Progressives, and later, by analogy with developments in Hungary, Neologs. Supporters of the Haskalah organized during the 1830s and 1840s and the first ‘Progressive’ synagogue in Galicia was established in Ternopil’, with others soon following in Krakow and Lviv. Sermons were given in German in many places: the Krakow synagogue was referred to as the German synagogue; the one in Lviv as the German Israelite temple.

The trend towards Germanization among the élite did not proceed unhin_ dered. Joseph Kohen-Zedek, a preacher from Lviv who resided in London after ° See later translations of Schiller’s work, C. D. Lippe, Bibliographisches Lexicon der gesamten jidischen Literatur der Gegenwart (Vienna, 1881), 410, 439, and 487. ” Max Weissberg discusses this topic extensively in a study that remains relevant: Die neuhebriische Aufklarungshteratur in Galizien (Leipzig, 1898).

8 Menahem Mendel Levin, the first Galician Haskalah philosopher, even translated sections of the Bible into Yiddish, N. M. Gelber, ‘Mendel Satanower der Verbreiter der Haskalah in Polen und Galizien’, Mitteilungen fir judische Volkskunde, 1 (1914), 43, 50. ° W. Kalinka, Galicja i Krakéw pod panowaniem austriackim (Paris, 1853), 96 ff.

82 Jerzy Holzer 1879, deliberately published his work in Hebrew, despite his affiliation with Haskalah philosophers.'° Other Progressives also preferred to hold services in Hebrew. In Lviv Moritz Rappaport, a doctor and leading Progressive who wrote poetry in German and served as chair of the building committee for the city’s Reform temple, stated: ‘As long as I live, I will resist the mutilation of our prayerbooks and the introduction of prayers in German.’!! The common Jewish popu-

lace, for its part, preferred Yiddish sermons and reacted with concern and indignation to preaching in German. A different situation prevailed in Krakow, where young educated Jews demonstrated in favour of Polish in the synagogue. In Krakow, however, the Jewish intelligentsia started a German club during the turmoil of 1848, two years after Krakow became part of Galicia. This club catered to the spiritual and material interests of the ‘Israelites’, as ‘most knew only German and spoke it daily’. (Strictly speaking, this statement applied exclusively to educated Jews; the others only spoke German in so far as Yiddish was considered a German dialect.) In any event, a few months later this so-called German club proclaimed its Polish patriotism.!” From 1848 on, the Polish influence on Jewish life was more noticeable in the political than the cultural sphere. This became especially clear in the statements of many Jews supporting the Polish uprising in Russian Poland in 1863. The proPolish view was controversial. Neuzeit, a Viennese journal linked with moderate Jewish reform, proclaimed indifference towards the Polish—Ukrainian conflict, in accordance with the opinion prevailing among the Jewish élite in Galicia, who identified with German or neo-Hebraic rather than Polish culture. Just around this time, however, Moritz Rappaport, feeling deeply moved by the unsuccessful uprising of 1863, wrote with Polonophile emotion: ‘A love of fantasy from the Orient, and passion from the Slavs set my soul ablaze. . .. How nostalgia filled my heart at the soft moans of the Sarmatians [Poles], how the spirit rose heavenward at my father’s wondrous utterances. .. . To be both a Pole and Jew is a double crown of melancholy.’!® Sympathy for the Polish rebels was especially strong among the Jews of Krakéw."* It is also significant that immediately after the defeat of the uprising, and later, after the rebels’ release from exile, many Jewish partici-

pants emigrated to Galicia from Russian Poland. | The Hebrew, German, and Polish cultural influences all persisted throughout the final decades of the nineteenth century, although Yiddish remained identified with the uneducated. Nevertheless, the balance between the three factors shifted, with Polonization gaining ground. The main reason was the political transforma10 M. Weissberg, ‘Josef Kohn-Zedek, der letzte neohebraische Publizist der galizischen Haskala’, Monatschnift fiir Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, NS 15 (1911), 330, 347. ‘1 M. Balaban, Historia Lwowskiej synagogi Postepowe) (Lviv, 1937), 21.

12 Balaban, Dzieje Zydéw w Galicji, 161, and Historia Zydéw w Krakomie i na Kazimierzu, 1304-1866 (Krakow, 1936), ti. 681. 13M. Rappaport, Bajazzo. Ein Gedicht (Leipzig, 1863). 14 N. M. Gelber, Die Juden und der polnische Aufstand, 1863 (Vienna, 1923), 143 ff.

The Jewish Elite in Galicia 83 tion in Galicia. In 1867 the province had become autonomous under Polish rule and Polish was designated its official language. Simultaneously, the size of the educated Jewish élite suddenly mushroomed. At the University of Vienna, for example, only four Galician Jews out of a total enrolment of 174 had attended the faculty of medicine, where Jews were most likely to study, during the winter semester of 1877; but over the next few years Jewish enrolment from Galicia increased in both absolute and relative numbers. By the winter semester of 1882 there were forty-eight Galician Jewish first-year students out of a total of 508. That same semester forty-three Galician Jews registered in the faculty of law out of an enrolment of 694.!° Such figures reflect a rapid rise in overall enrolment but an even faster increase in the group of Galician Jews.

These students were born in the 1860s and had attended school in the period of Galician autonomy. They came from all over the province but most were from the eastern part, especially Lviv and Brody. Many of them had distinctly Jewish first names and their fathers were even more likely to have Jewish first names than their offspring. (Jewish first names had been unusual among the few Galician Jews who studied in Vienna a half century earlier.) These students were thus the first educated generation of a much broader ‘élite’ than that represented by previous classes of medical students. Their fathers were merchants, entrepreneurs, and tenant farmers—barely from an educated background, let alone true academics. The documents from Vienna suggest that Germanization was also crucial to the rising number of Jewish students. Most students reported German as their native language. These personal reports are difficult to interpret, however, as _ Yiddish was not an official language. Many students probably spoke Yiddish at home with their parents, most of whom had no secular education. The representative value of the Viennese data is also questionable. Jews who moved to Vienna for their studies might have been self-selecting individuals who identified more with German than Polish culture. To determine this, one would have to compare the Viennese records with the archives of the Polish universities in Krakow and Lviv. On the other hand, the two east Galician gymnasiums with the highest

Jewish enrolments (the Fourth Gymnasium in Lviv and the one in Brody) retained German as the language of instruction. Another reason why some youths

may have opted to pursue university studies in Vienna was family ties to the earlier, often rather Germanized, Galician Jewish migrants to the Austrian capital.

Nevertheless, the number of Galician Jews studying in Vienna decreased over the following years. Complementing that trend was a gradual increase in those

Jews reporting Polish as their native language. Jewish disappointment at the surprisingly rapid rise of German, and especially Austrian, antisemitism may have dissuaded them from matriculating as well. Even contemporary Viennese 15 University of Vienna Archives, Main Matriculation Register, 1882-1883, microfilm; Nationale, winter semester 1882-1883.

84 Jerzy Holzer magazines opined that the Polish intelligentsia was more tolerant of Jews and Judaism.

Although the Hebrew-language culture of the Haskalah was declining, it remained significant. The previous sharp division between educated reformists and Orthodox and hasidim with no secular education ceased to apply in the final decades of the nineteenth century. From Orthodox circles there began to emerge theologians and even orientalists who wrote texts of scholarly value. Solomon Buber of Lviv (the grandfather of Martin Buber) was especially well known. He was highly respected among scholars of the Bible and of oriental studies throughout Europe.?®

| Neo-Hebraic literature in Galicia formed an important link between traditional religious and modern Zionist Jewish culture. To many educated Galician Jews, Hebrew was far from an obsolete religious language. Magazines from the late 1800s in Galicia, as well as in Russian Poland and other Jewish areas of the Russian empire, published original and reprinted Hebrew literature, including novels, poems, and plays. Hebrew texts about the natural sciences were also popular.!” A still greater change occurred around the turn of the century. As the wave of antisemitism reached Galicia, the worsening Polish—Ukrainian conflict in eastern Galicia made life especially difficult for the Jews.!® But the ever-rising pitch of Austrian German antisemitism made a German Jewish identity thoroughly unappealing as well. Accordingly, Jews began to seek a modern, politically unassimilated identity through Zionism and other forms of Jewish nationalism.

The first groups of Galician Zionist youth spoke and wrote in Polish or German while considering Hebrew the Jewish language of the future. The function of neo-Hebraic culture as a link throughout Galicia facilitated its acceptance

as part of the Hebrew-based Zionist cultural programme there more than in Germany and German Austria. The general disapproval of the German and Polish populations for assimilation

by the educated Jewish élite was a driving force behind Jewish nationalism. General European trends, which did not escape the attention of the Jewish élite, played an important role as well. The democratization and nationalism that swept across the continent also affected the Jews, and forced the Galician Jewish élites to establish contact with the masses. The masses already considered themselves

primarily Jewish (in traditional and religious respects), but much of the élite needed to recapture its previously abandoned Jewish identity. Gradually, the 16 The most popular German-language Jewish magazines in Vienna, Die Neuzeit, Osterreichische Wochenschrift, and Die Wahrheit, frequently ran articles on this subject.

7 C. D. Lippe, Bibliographisches Lexicon der gesamten jtidischen und theologisch-rabbinischen Literatur der Gegenwart (Vienna, 1899), 1. 22, 53, 160, 219, 438.

18 The urge to remain neutral became increasingly obvious among Galician Jews. ‘Das Ziinglein an der Waage’, Die Wahrheit (16 Mar. 1906), no. 11, 4 ff.

The Jewish Elite in Galicia 85 Jewish populace of Galicia either combined or replaced its religious Jewish identity with a modern, national sense of Jewishness. Hebrew-language Zionist culture became prominent among segments of the younger generation, but more symbolically than in fact. Part of the Jewish élite also embraced Yiddish culture for the first time in the modern era, especially the socialists, who sought to use it to reach the Yiddish-speaking Jewish proletariat. To appeal to the Jewish masses, the advocates of both Hebrew and Yiddish called for national Jewish autonomy. But despite the new Jewish nationalist movements, the influence of Polish and German language and culture persisted among Jews. Young proponents of the new trends, such as Zionist historian Ignacy Schiper and the socialist economist Henryk Grossman, studied in Krakow and Vienna, for example, and both were fluent in both Polish and German. In short, the cries for linguistic and cultural adaptation to non-Jewish society coincided with a process of dissociation in poli-

tics, ideology, and the vision of the future.

The First World War, its aftermath, and the establishment of the Polish state were all turning-points for Jews and non-Jews alike. They did not, however, alter pre-war trends in Jewish cultural orientation. Translated from Polish by Gwido Zlatkes

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy after 1867 JOZEF BUSZKO

GALICIA received autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1867, the same year the constitution was passed. The autonomy resulted from an agreement between two parties: the imperial government in Vienna and the Poles as represented by the major Galician landowners. In the constitutional era that followed, Galicia’s Polish population enjoyed certain special rights. As a rule only a Pole could be marshal of the Galician nobility, just as, until 1915, it was only Poles who were appointed imperial governors. A Polish minister always sat in the cabinet in Vienna. There were also two cabinet seats in the Galician provincial government for people of Ukrainian nationality—a representative of the Landeshauptmann (chair of the regional diet) and a vice-president of the imperial governorship—but their influence was extremely small. The Ukrainians, not unjustly, accused the governors of pro-Polish, anti-Ukrainian attitudes. The Ukrainian and Jewish populations together counterbalanced the Polish: in 1869 Galicia had approximately 5,450,000 inhabitants, of whom some 2,510,000 were Poles, 2,316,000 Ukrainians (Ruthenians), and 50,000 Germans and others. With such close numbers of Ukrainians and Poles, it is clear that the Jews with their 575,000, whether they wished to or not, determined the balance of power, resulting in a Jewish political role and in general political consequences that are not to be underestimated.

In 1869 Galicia had proportionally the largest Jewish population in the world outside the kingdom of Poland (which was 13 per cent Jewish), with Jews making up over 10.5 per cent of the total Galician population. Jews were both absolutely and relatively more numerous in eastern Galicia than in the western half. In absolute terms, in 1869 the number of Jews in the east was 428,000, almost three times as many as the 147,000 in the west. Also, the Jews constituted a

higher percentage of the overall population in eastern Galicia; in 1869 they formed 12.4 per cent of the total population, which was 65 per cent Ukrainian and 22 per cent Polish. In western Galicia Jews were only 7.5 per cent of the The names of organizations mentioned in this chapter are spelt as transcribed in the period under discussion.

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy 87 population, beside 88.2 per cent Poles and approximately 4 per cent Ukrainians and Germans.' When autonomy was first granted, several Polish political groupings could be distinguished in Galicia. A Polish conservative group pursued a utilitarian policy of realpolitik. Its leader in the regional diet was Count Agenor Gotuchowski, who for tactical reasons partly supported Jewish demands for equality. This group strove to form a decisive Polish—Jewish majority in Galicia, to outweigh the Ukrainians. Consequently, any antisemitism its members felt was carefully masked. A young-conservative group in Krakow, friendly to the Jews in the regional diet,

was supported by the Austrian-oriented ‘Black-Yellows’. Two of its leading politicians, the renowned Polish historian and writer Jozef Szujski and Count Stanislaw Tarnowski, condemned the anti-Jewish decrees of the Lviv municipal council and the regional diet and called for a solution of the Jewish question along liberal lines. In the regional diet this group often acted in favour of the Jews.

The Podolian nobility (the Podolaks) formed a special group among the conservatives. The Podolaks’ economic and national antagonism toward the Ukrainian peasantry created a fanatical conservatism, often bordering on obscurantism. The type of chauvinism regarding the Ukrainian question in the diet was also noticeable in discussion of the Jewish question. From this group (and in later times from the Partia Wszechpolska—Polish National Democratic party, the ‘AllPoland’ party) came the strongest opponents of Jewish and Ukrainian equality with Poles. The number of Liberal Democratic representatives in the regional diet was relatively small. In 1869 the Liberal club numbered some forty members, including all four Jewish representatives, who characterized themselves as Jewish Poles (or ‘Poles of the Mosaic faith’). The club’s programme supported equality of all faiths and nationalities. These organizations were not very long-lived however.” The Polish struggle with the Ukrainians dominated the foreground of political discussion. Every month and every year brought new Polish—Ukrainian conflicts. For their part, the Ukrainians consistently took an anti-Jewish position. Perhaps it was natural that they displayed the same callous attitude towards the Jews they had learned in their struggle for existence against the Poles. They saw the Jews as a foreign body, a threat to their young national unity, which was still very weak. But the opposition of Ukrainian politicians to the Jews also had a strong social foundation; as the children of peasants, they saw the Jews as merchants or money-

| lenders, and therefore the exploiters of the Ukrainian people. 1 T. Pitat, Wiadomosci Statystyczne o stosunkach Galicji (Lviv, 1869), i, i; F. Bujak, Galicja (Krakow, 1908-10), ii. 205; F. Friedmann, Die galizischen Jfuden im Kampfe um thre Gleich berechti-

gung, 1848-1568 (Frankfurt, 1928), 3; P. Wrobel, The Jews of Galicia under Austrian Polish Rule, 1569-1918, Austrian History Yearbook, 25 (Houston, Tex., 1994), 97-138. 2 W. Feldman, Geschichte der politischen Ideen in Polen seit dessen Teilungen, 1795-1914 (Munich, 1917), 115, and Stronnictwa i programy polityczne w Galicji (Krakow, 1908), i, 11. 361.

88 Jozef Buszko The Ukrainian leadership, at that time the Ukrainian priests of the Lviv metropolitanate, had established the St George Party, which considered the Ukrainians part of the Russian nation. The Ukrainian national movement that arose in the

1860s countered this Russophile position, and the influence of the Russian| oriented politicians gradually waned in favour of the nationalist and socialistradical groups.° In 1867 a new regional diet was chosen in Galicia. In its first two sessions of 18 February—2 March 1867 and 22 August—10 October 1868 the diet deliberated over whether to recognize the legal equality of the Jews. Only the Jewish representa-

tives and the Liberals sought complete Jewish equality with the other citizens, viewing it as one of the regional diet’s most important tasks. During the debate on 30 September 1868 the leader of the Liberals, Franciszek Smolka, said: “There has been and there will be no more important question since 1848, when the question of compulsory labour service for the peasants was solved. There is no situation that enters so deeply into our national and social relationships as the Jewish question, whose successful solution in the spirit of freedom and unrestricted equality will guarantee the well-being of our future.’ In his next speech Smolka went further, characterizing the granting of equality to the Jews as a sacred national obligation that the last four-year Polish imperial diet (the Sejm of 1788-92) had imposed on the coming generations. He declared: “The national spirit has assigned to us the completion of this, its last request.’"* The Jewish representatives to the regional

diet—members of the thin stratum of the Polish-assimilated Jewish intelligentsia—always supported the Polish nationalist parties in general matters. In addition, they were openly enthusiastic about Polish nationalism. Negotiations about city statutes opened the door to the general debate about the Jewish question. The conservative side had reservations about unrestricted

Jewish participation in the municipality. First, they argued, the local Jewish boards of education would see to the special concerns of Jews, but there would be

no corresponding purely Christian authority; rather, special Christian matters would be handled by the municipal council. If the Jews were to enter the municipal council, they would participate in debates that dealt with specifically Christian issues—and, if they formed the majority, they would even make decisions about them. Meanwhile, all exclusively Jewish questions would remain outside the jurisdiction of the municipal council and be reserved to the Jewish local boards of education, which would continue to exist. This would be an intol-

erable injustice. In addition, certain Polish national interests determined the stance of the conservative nationalist Poles: they feared for the Polish character of 3 Feldman, Stronnictwa i programy polityczne w Galicji, 380, and K. Levytskyj, [storia politychnoy o dumku hatytskyth Ukraintstv, 18 48—1914 (Lviv, 1926), 1, 11, passim.

4 Mowy z dnia 30 wrzesnia 1868 i z 8 pazdziernitka, 1568 (Lviv, 1869); Protokoly stenograficzne Sejmu Krélestwa Galicji (Lviv, 1869). Speeches of 30 Sept. and 8 Oct. 1868 in Stenographic Records of the Galician Regional Diet. The minutes of these two meetings also appeared in German translation in a separate printing (Lviv, 1868).

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy 89 most Galician cities if Jews entered the municipal organizations, and, as was to be

expected from their proportion of the urban voters, formed the majority. The

Poles wanted to counter this danger by means of restrictions. Soon after the final approval of the individual municipal statute, however, all these restrictions were rendered irrelevant by the new constitutional laws of 1867, which abolished them. A government bill was drawn up and presented to the Galician governor. The bill had to be accepted; otherwise, contrary to the will of the regional diet, the government would have been forced to eliminate the Jewish restrictions, which were incompatible with the spirit of the new constitutional laws. As this was clearly understood in Galicia, the opponents of the Jews could not be too obstinate. But they did not abandon their position without a fight; in a crucial discussion of the Jewish question that lasted two days, the Podolaks and Ukrainians threw all their passion into the debate. Other speakers—Wliodzimierz Gniewosz, Smolka, and the Jewish representatives—viewed the question more from the Polish nationalist standpoint. Smolka spoke last. In a previous speech he

had pleaded for the granting of equality to the Jews, connecting it to Polish national interests. Now he presented a historical survey of the Jews’ relationship with the Polish state and concluded (according to historian Filip Friedmann) with these words: | This is how we view the Jewish question, which appears to be so complex; we do not know how to approach it, and yet it is so easy. We will solve it, as they say, by the honest granting of equality in practice. We do not want to delay; we are not seeking any artificial, mystical means for solving the Jewish question; we are writing no thick, obscure legal books, and if we are still not

right before the law, if we do not intend to be good politicians, we are at least honest Christians, and we will not do to the Jews what we do not wish to be done to us. Therefore,

gentlemen, let us pass the proposal once more without haggling and without amendments.°

The house loudly applauded Smolka’s speech. All present, with the exception

of four representatives, agreed that the proposal just presented by Count Gotuchowski should be accepted in the committee report of the regional diet. ‘More Catholic than the Pope’, Friedmann writes, the regional diet now passed a ‘request for the government to remove all the former provisions concerning the special position of the Jews’.© The committee proposal (actually the government proposal) that the regional diet accepted, which eliminated all anti-Jewish restrictions of the municipal statute, became law on 19 November 1868. After the removal of the final restrictions on the Jews, a group of Jewish leaders suddenly changed their pro-Polish policy. The reorientation became clear at the time of the first direct imperial-diet elections in 1873, when the Jews created an 5 Ibid. ®° F. Friedmann, ‘Die Judenfrage in galizischen Landtag’, in Monatschrift fir Geschichte des

Judentums, 72 (1927), 473. ,

go Jozef Buszko independent campaign organization closer to the Ukrainians than the Poles. The immediate reason for this change was the intervention of the central government

with the Galician authorities on behalf of the Jewish cause. Vienna’s action accelerated the settlement of the matter. It must be emphasized, however, that in general, especially in the period 1848~—70, liberal centralism and German culture

found relatively strong support within the Jewish community. This Jewish | support may be attributed to the effects of the Viennese government’s Germanization policy (from the end of the 1700s to the start of the constitutional era), on

the one hand, and the German-influenced tradition of the Haskalah, with its centres in Berlin and Vienna, on the other. Vienna also furnished funds to the growing political activity among the Galician Jews. The focus of the activity was

| the Schomer Israel (Guard of Israel) in Lviv, which developed a political wing and gravitated towards the German centralists. Schomer Israel was especially active in 1873, when it made a formal electoral alliance with the Ukrainian candidates representing similar centralizing, anti-autonomy tenets, in order to counter the nationally minded Polish candidates.’ This new pro-Ukrainian Jewish political orientation was shortlived, however,

because it came under fire from a considerable segment of the Jewish intelligentsia.® In the next election period, 1879-85, the Jewish leaders had already

given up their separatism from the Poles as well as their alliance with the Ukrainians and with the (Liberal) Constitutional Party in the parliament. From then on they loyally supported the Poles, and almost all the Jewish representatives (with the exception of Nathan Kallir of Brody) belonged to the Polish club and ran as its candidates. Although tactical alliances between Jews and other national groups were a feature of Habsburg politics, there is no other period of similarly uninterrupted collaboration with the dominant nationality in the history of the non-German crown lands. Toa great degree the Jews’ pro-Polish stance was due to the Polonization of the Galician school system, which took place in the 1860s, especially in the secondary schools and universities. As the first Jewish generations emerged from the special Polish-language secondary schools for Jews, which had been begun under the enlightened Jewish intelligentsia, the influence of Polish culture among Jews also grew. In the 1860s and 1870s, when the number of secondary-school and university youth educated in the Polish spirit became larger, Polish-oriented Jewish assimilation gradually began to crowd out the earlier Germanophile orientation. The Jewish Poles developed the means of intensive propaganda, in the form of 7 Feldman, Stronnictwa polityczne, ii. 274. 8 The Polish-assimilated Jewish intelligentsia did not approve of this policy. One of its chief representatives, the former regional-diet representative Szymon Samelson, sent to the Jewish central

committee on 17 July 1875 a letter in which he rejected these centralizing tendencies as a Polish patriot. Albert Mendelsburg, the fifth Jewish Galician representative to the imperial diet, whom the Krakow chambers of commerce and trade had delegated, also turned to the Polish club. Friedmann, ‘Die Judenfrage’, 475.

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy gI newspapers, pamphlets, and associations. An assimilationist movement arose, represented by Agudas Achim, to propagate the ideas of ‘fraternization’ between Jews and Poles; that is, Jewish involvement in Polish political, economic, and cultural life, and the Polonization of the Jews, while at the same time they would retain the Jewish religion. From this movement came many prominent politicians, cultural leaders, and scientists, such as Nathan Loewenstein, Tobiasz Aschkenase, Jonas Fraenkel, Wilhelm Feldman, and many others.’ As Friedmann stresses: ‘So many of the Polonized Galician Jews experienced the romanticism of the Polish struggle for freedom and the ordeal of the Polish people very deeply,

as is shown not only by the poetry of Moses Rappaport, the activity of a Gumplowicz, Oettinger, or Meisels, but also by the number of the Jewish participants from Galicia in the Polish uprising of 1863, and many other things.’ (Much later, there is evidence of the participation of Polish Jewish youth in the Polish paramilitary movement before 1914 and in the battles of the Pilsudski legions during the First World War.) In time the Polonization process affected ‘almost the entire intelligentsia and a part of the middle class’ (in Friedmann’s words). However, Friedmann stresses, ‘it did not penetrate the lower social strata’. The spark of Jewish nationalism glowed deeply within the emotions of the Jewish masses. This national feeling was expressed in connection with religious events. The Holy Land

} and the sacred language remained the unbreakable bonds. Halukah gatherings and emissaries from Palestine wove the invisible threads, attachment to the old literature and keen interest in the new Hebraic literature had not let the old language disappear.?°

Polish—Ukrainian relations took a very different course and were marked by an

intense national struggle. In the 1870s and 1880s the Ukrainian national movement grew so strong that the Ukrainian nationalists succeeded in seating some of their representatives in the regional diet despite heavy pressure from the Poles and election officials. Their leader was Julian Romanchuk, who reached an agreement with Governor Kazimierz Badeni shortly after he took office: the Polish— Ukrainian agreement of 1890. In it Romanchuk proclaimed national Ukrainian separateness on the one hand, and fealty to the Catholic religious union and political loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty on the other. Governor Badeni helped the new Greek Catholic metropolitans Sylvester Sembratovych and Andrei Shep-

tytsky to break away from Russian influences in the consistory court of St George’s Church, so that the Lviv metropolitan curia became a stronghold of

Ukrainian nationalism. ,

Also as a result of the agreement with Badeni, the Ukrainian philologist Aleksander Barvinsky joined the regional board of education, which proceeded to 9 J. Zdrada, ‘Wybory sejmowe i parlamentarne, 1861-1889’, in Annual Report of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow, 1973 (Wroclaw, 1974), 78; Feldman, Stronnictwa polityczne, ii. 273.

10 Friedmann, Galizischen Juden, 210-11. |

g2 Jozef Buszko carry out a major language reform. Russian and Old Church Slavonic words were purged from Ukrainian, Ukrainian spelling broke from the Russian, and phonetic

spelling was introduced. The Shevchenko Cultural Society in Lviv became a centre for scholarly work on Ukrainian history and literature." Another important cultural moment for the Ukrainians was the appointment of the Ukrainian historian Mykhaylo Hrushevsky from Kiev to the university in Lviv, where in 1894 he began delivering lectures that were to become the focus for

the scholarly Ukrainian movement up to the beginning of the First World War. This scholarly movement succeeded in spreading the designation ‘Ukrainian’ to refer to that part of Galicia instead of the term ‘Rus’ki’ (Ruthenian), which was still in use at the beginning of the twentieth century. Despite strong protests by Polish nationalists and Russophiles, the new term gained currency. In the struggle for national consciousness, the word ‘Ukrainian’ played an important role, since ‘Rus’ki’ suggested ‘Russian’ (in Ukrainian as well as in Russian): the minute difference between ‘Rus’ki’ (Ruthenian) and ‘Russki’ (Russian) frequently led to identification of these Ukrainians with Russians.

The Ukrainian nationalists (also called National Democrats) represented mainly the well-to-do strata of peasants. Their views did not reflect the aspirations of poor villagers or of the Ukrainian proletariat, which was just developing. The spontaneous development of a peasant movement, together with the accep-

| tance of the educational activity of Ukrainian youth (influenced by radical and revolutionary currents), caused a social radicalization of political views among Galician Ukrainians. Leading this agitation were two writers and social activists, Ivan Franko and Michal Pawlik, who for a number of years publicized the common interests of the Polish and Ukrainian masses in their class struggle against the Polish conservatives and the nobility. In the 1890s Ukrainian nationalism entered a new phase with the foundation of the Ukrainian Social Radical Party and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party. The Radicals, who opposed ethnic hatred, formed active contacts with members of the Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (Polish Peasant Party) and proclaimed the

| need for Ukrainian and Polish peasants to collaborate in the struggle against the

great landowners and governments. | The two socialist-radical peasant parties distanced themselves from the antisemitism that populist Christian-socialist groups spread among the rural population. In 1898 the election campaign of the Christian populists, headed by the priest Stanislaw Stojalowski in the Nowy Sacz district, led to violence. Riots against the Jewish population broke out in many villages in the six Carpathian districts, and the governor had to declare a state of emergency.‘ Any discussion of turn-of-the-century ethnic relations in Galicia must also mention the position of the Galician Social Democrats. The Galician Social 11 Levytskyj, Istoria politycznoj dumku, i. 239-40. 12 Feldman, Stronnictwa polityczne, ii. 121, 247.

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy 93 Democratic Party, formed in 1890 as an offshoot of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, initially represented the proletariat of all three nationalities inhabiting Galicia: Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews. But heavy support from the majority of the Poles and some of the Polonized Jewish intelligentsia gradually induced the Galician Social Democratic party to become a ‘Polish’ party. In 1897 it changed its name to the Polish Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia (PPSD). At the same time (1897-9) the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party was established in Galicia while separatist tendencies also became apparent among its Jewish members. These tendencies gradually sharpened until they finally led to a Jewish Social Democratic Party splitting off from the PPSD at the beginning of the twentieth century. Ignacy Daszynski, a Pole who had become the most important leader of the Galician Social Democrats, strongly advocated the ‘Polish’ character of the PPSD. ‘From the decision of the Brussels Conference’, he argued, ‘one can see that socialism can certainly be established not only on the level of humanity, but also on that of an individual nation.’ He added, ‘We intend to struggle, as did the nobility in earlier times, in order to win the freedom of Poland, but on the basis of the guiding principle of socialism.’!° Posing the Polish question made it necessary to take a stand on the Ukrainian and Jewish questions. Daszynski maintained that the Ukrainian question was similar in nature to the Polish one, and civil equality could not completely solve it.

It had to be addressed from a broader perspective, through the liberation and unification of the fractured Polish nation within the framework of independent statehood. And, in Daszynski’s opinion, the call for absolute determination of the boundaries between Polish and Ukrainian lands would make it impossible to maintain a common Social Democratic Party organization. Daszynski treated the Jewish community as a separate nationality, much as contemporary socialist literature did. He did not, however, advocate forming a separate, nationally based socialist organization for the Jews, as he did for the Polish and Ukrainian workers’ movements. Instead, he strongly supported the formation of joint Polish—Jewish political, trade union, and even cultural organizations by the workers of both nations. He believed the Jewish question would be solved neither by complete assimilation nor by emigration but by raising the Jewish working masses out of their cultural and economic backwardness through the common struggle of Polish and Jewish socialists, united by their common organizations as well as by complete civil equality. Daszynski also opposed the founding of a separate Jewish organizational committee. It 1s noteworthy that this opinion (which he would later reverse) was shared by the overwhelming majority of the Jewish party activists, who were very much under the sway of Polish culture.!4 13 Naprzéd no. 2, 15 Oct. 1892. 14 J. Buszko, Ruch robotniczy w Zachodniej Galicji, 1848-1918 (Krakow, 1978), 228.

94 Jozef Buszko In the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, the national consciousness of broad masses of people living in Galicia continued to intensify. Among the Jews Zionism began to expand in the 1880s and 1890s as a current opposed to assimilation. It came to Galicia from Vienna, where the newspaper Selbstemanzipation and the Kadimah academic association had begun to popularize it. The society Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) was founded in Lviv in 1887. It united many Jewish students, who began to travel to provincial centres, organize lectures, and hold ceremonies in honour of the Maccabees and other historical Jewish figures. Publication of the newspaper Przysztosé began at the same time; it

advocated the struggle to expand and intensify Jewish consciousness and the future rebuilding of a Palestinian homeland for all Jews. To hasten the goal of a Jewish homeland, the Galician Zionists founded the group Ahavat Zion (Love of Zion), and in 1898 attorney Abraham Salz bought land in Palestine from philanthropist banker Baron Rothschild to begin a ‘Galician’ colony called Machnayim (Camp), headed by Bromberg, a Polish Jewish writer. The 1895 publication of Der Judenstaat, Theodor Herzl’s seminal book, gave new impetus to Zionism among Galician Jews. Herzl decided to break with partial colonization

(Machnayim was dissolved) and called for a larger-scale movement to create expanded, politically autonomous colonies. Although part of the Jewish population accepted his idea enthusiastically, among the hasidim, who believed in direct intervention by God, it met with disapproval.'° In fact, most Jews were not Zionists in this period. The Party of Independent

Jews founded by Adolf Gross in Krakow in 1900, for example, was based on neither Zionism nor assimilation but on radical principles of democracy. At the time of the election campaigns of 1go1 and 1902, in the name of true democracy,

this prominent speaker succeeded in winning over the Jewish masses to his candidacy (with support of the Jewish and Polish socialists), against the chairman of the kahal, who was linked with the Polish Conservative Party. The organization

of the Party of Independent Jews—independent of the ruling party but also of assimilation and Zionism—took shape from these election campaigns. Its programme demanded a radical democratization of the country as well as actual eman-

cipation and equality for Jews. Steeped in humanism, the programme opposed both the complete assimilation of the Jews and their medieval-style segregation in ghettos. The Folkists, a liberal Jewish nationalist group, also developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, but at that time it played a small role.

The Ukrainian national movement consolidated in the last years of the nineteenth century with the National Democratic Party at its head. The party brought together the majority of the intelligentsia, clergy, craftsmen, merchants,

and richer peasants. In its programme for the future it advocated uniting all Ukrainians of the entire Austro-Hungarian monarchy in a separate province with its own regional diet and administration. An inevitable consequence would be the 15 Feldman, Stronnictwa polityczne, ii. 268.

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy 95 division of Galicia into Ukrainian and Polish sections. This movement worked for the partition of all Galician regional administrative bodies along national lines, with separate seats in Lviv and Krakow, for the introduction of Ukrainian as an official language of internal administration, and for the democratization. of state

and regional institutions. Economically, the party promoted land purchase by peasants under conditions favourable to them. On issues of culture and education the National Democrats advocated the compulsory teaching of Ukrainian in all schools in ethnically Ukrainian areas (including the Polish and German schools) and the founding of a Ukrainian university in Lviv. They emphasized unity with

those Ukrainians under Russian rule and support for their aspirations to transform Russia into a constitutional federal state. In its propaganda activities the party used nationalist slogans and proclaimed the need to expel all Poles ‘beyond the San’. It also expressed antisemitic inclinations.

At the core of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (UPSD), on the other hand, was the left-wing group of the Radical Party (Roman Yaroshevich, Sem’on

Vityk, Ostap Terletsky). The activity of the UPSD broadened only in the first years of the twentieth century. This party, led by Mikolay Hankeivich, worked actively with Polish and Jewish socialists. It had greatest influence among agricul-

tural workers and organized major strikes in 1902 and 1903. In general, the increasingly prominent role of all Ukrainian separationist parties at the start of the

century led to the adoption of the slogan samoistiynyia Ukraina (independent Ukraine), supporting the creation of an independent Ukrainian state with eastern Galicia as its ‘Piedmont’.'®

The Russophiles continued to have a certain number of adherents, who were subsidized from within Russia. The Russko-Narodnaya Party, sharply distinguished from the other Ukrainian parties, challenged the idea of an independent Ukrainian nation. It did not recognize a distinct Ukrainian language and culture, and it also resisted radical movements in the villages. In its press and publications, published in what the authors intended to be Russian, it idealized the social and political order of tsarist Russia. The Russophiles promoted the creation of a special crown land from Galicia and Bukovina, beginning with the partition of Galicia into Polish and Ukrainian parts. They also sought tax reforms favouring the peasants. In their vision any future Galicia would be joined with Russia. Their opposition to

the nationalist Ukrainian movements and to the nationalist-inspired agricultural strikes appealed to the sympathies of both the Polish National Democrats and the Podolaks and naturally pitted them against the nationalist Ukrainians. The beginning of the twentieth century saw a further polarization among the three nations living in Galicia. Radical political parties arose whose social and national stances diverged drastically, further complicating ethnic relations. Also affecting events in Galicia were such factors as the increase in political activity (as in the struggle over parliamentary and regional-diet electoral reform), the 16 K. Levitskyj, Ukrainy polytyki (Lviv, 1936-7), and Istoria politychnoj dumku.

96 Jozef Buszko revolutionary events within Russia in 1905-7, and finally the international polarization heralded by the Bosnian crisis in 1908 with the subsequent Balkan wars and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The looming threat of armed conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia accelerated the crystallization of the Ukrainian groups’ positions and their political orientations towards one of the two states. It also affected the nationalist progress of Galicia’s Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians. During the imperial-diet debate on electoral reform in December 1905, the leader of the Ukrainian club proposed the formation of a separate Jewish electoral curia. The Zionists, the Folkists, and certain Jewish socialists campaigned to implement this proposal, while the Polish club, Polish Social Democratic Party (PPSD), Orthodox Jews, and representatives of Jewish communities strongly opposed it. The Zionists, above all, promoted the recognition of an independent Jewish nationality.!” After the imperial-diet elections of 1907 there were nine Jews in Parliament: three Zionists, three members of the Polish club, two of the PPSD, and one of the Independent Party. Three Zionist representatives from Galicia, together with the one elected in Bukovina, formed the first Jewish club in a European parliament. They consolidated the struggle for national rights and for the recognition of Yiddish as the Jewish national language. The next act in the struggle for Jewish national rights was played out in the new parliamentary elections in 1911. In an effort to win over Jewish conservatives and the Orthodox rabbis, the new governor, Michat Bobrzynsk1, abolished civil regulation of rabbinic certification (such as the required matriculation examination). He succeeded. The Zionists suffered defeat in 1911. Of the ten Jewish parliamentarians, six belonged to the Polish club, two to the PPSD, and one was an independent democrat. In part the result can be explained by the tragic events in the Drohobych election district, where a Zionist and an assimilationist, Nathan Loewenstein, contended for the same seat. Election abuses so irritated the Jewish voters that a large

group of them attacked and demolished Loewenstein’s campaign office, then moved on to the headquarters of the election commission. The police and their military support fired on the crowd; in addition to the many wounded in front of the election headquarters, twenty demonstrators were killed.!® 17 The non-recognition of the Yiddish language, together with the simultaneous predominance of Polish-language education (especially in secondary schools and universities), fundamentally changed the situation in Galicia in favour of Polish, as the following statistics show. In the year 1880, according to an official census in Galicia, by religion there were 2,689,004 Roman Catholics, 2,516,512 Greek Catholics, 685,942 Jews, and 36,077 Evangelicals. As the census shows, approximately half of Galician Jews gave German as their mother tongue. However, by 1910 808,000 Jews gave Polish as their mother tongue, only 26,000 gave German, and 22,000 Ukrainian. T. Pilat, Podreczntk statystykt Galicn (Lviv, 1911-13); Friedmann, Die galizischen Juden, 206-7. 18 F Friedmann, ‘Dzieje Zydow w Galicji, 1772-1914’, in Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej (Warsaw, 1932), 396-9.

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy 97 Simultaneously, Polish—Ukrainian relations started to deteriorate. The election reform enacted by the Vienna parliament in 1907, introducing universal, equal male suffrage, accelerated the process. ‘The number of Ukrainian represen- | tatives consequently increased, and of 106 Galician representatives, thirty-four were now Ukrainians. Although their representation was less than their actual fraction of the population, they still had enough votes to make their voice heard. The electoral process to the Galician regional diet had previously been very unjust to the Ukrainians. Activists of the Polish central election committee were cunning, powerful, and corrupt. Ballots were sold as a commodity and for a high price. The complex curial electoral system and the public ballot-casting facilitated electoral abuses; the autonomous agencies compounded the irregularities. The

protests of the Ukrainians were unsuccessful. In 1861 there were forty-nine Ukrainians in the regional diet, as compared to 101 Poles. Immediately after the Polish takeover the number of Ukrainian representatives sank to twelve; after the central government intervened, it rose to twenty-one. The regional-diet elections of 1895 seated only seventeen Ukrainians. During the imperial-diet elections of 1897 eight people were killed, twenty-three wounded, and over 800 arrested in the Ukrainian area of Galicia. Ignacy Daszynski held Count Badeni and the head of the electoral committee, Count Wojciech Dzieduszycki, responsible.'* Undoubtedly the parliamentary elections of 1907, followed by the regional-

diet elections at the beginning of 1908, fed the deterioration of inter-ethnic relations in eastern Galicia. To eliminate, or at least significantly weaken, the nationalist Ukrainian opposition, the ruling Polish circles tried another trick: at the urging of the current governor, Andrzej Potocki, the government bureaucracy in Galicia supported the Russophiles, who denied the existence of a distinct Ukrainian people. The Russophiles committed numerous electoral abuses and gained many seats in the regional diet—at the cost of nationalist Ukrainian rep-

resentation. The Ukrainians viewed this policy as a provocation; Miroslav Sichynsky, a Ukrainian student, shot and killed the governor, an incident that poisoned the political atmosphere for a long time. The aggravation of relations between Austria-Hungary and Russia moved the government in Vienna, and most Polish political parties in Galicia, to try harder to reach a Polish—Ukrainian understanding. The government believed that alleviating the national animosities in Galicia—on the part of not only the conservatives in Krakow (Stanczyks) but also a number of other Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian parties—would lay the ground for a unified pro-Polish, anti-Russian Ukraine. As a result of these considerations, the ruling circles decided to name as the new governor Michal Bobrzynski, a conservative of the ‘Krakow school’ who supported a settlement with the Ukrainians in accordance with the segment of the Austrian-

oriented ruling class that he represented. In Bobrzynski’s opinion, satisfying 19 T. Daszynski, Pamigtniki (Warsaw, 1958), ii. 246; J. Buszko, Die polnischen Sozialisten im Wiener Parlament (Vienna, 1987).

98 Jozef Buszko certain nationalist Ukrainian demands—creating a Ukrainian university, partially democratizing the process of election to the regional diet, and increasing the percentage of Ukrainians in the regional diet and regional committee—could hasten the settlement.2° These measures, which the governor undertook, changed the configuration of the Galician parties. Winning over the Jewish Orthodox to his side was one effect. More broadly, there arose the so-called ‘governor’s bloc’, which included the west Galician conservatives, the Liberals, and the members of the Peasant Party, with tacit support from the socialists and most Jewish groups. On the other side was the opposition ‘anti-bloc’, comprising the Polish National Democrats (Endeks) and Podolaks, supported by the Russophiles. These opposed the Ukrainian agreements and were antisemitic. The elections for the imperial diet in June 1911 brought a decisive victory for the ‘bloc’ parties, strengthening

the position of the governor in his dealings with the Ukrainian club (which included Ukrainian National Democrats, radicals, and those Russophiles who had gone over to the Ukrainian camp). The chief problem in Galician internal politics just before the outbreak of the

First World War was the issue of regional-diet reform, thought to be key to a Polish—Ukrainian understanding. After many different negotiations, in the spring of 1913 Bobrzynski finally succeeded in preparing a draft compromise that was acceptable to the majority of the Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian parties. It assured the Ukrainian population (43 per cent of the regional population) of 27 per cent of _ the total mandates while retaining the curial system. On 16 April, just as the draft was to come up for general discussion in the regional diet (where passage was expected), a pastoral letter from five Polish bishops appeared. This letter sharply condemned the reform as injurious to the Polish population and warned that its

passing would cause political radicalization to increase. In this way the ultraconservative political right destroyed Bobrzynski’s draft and forced him to retreat: as a conservative, he could not exercise the authority of his office against the will of the episcopate. Pressure from Vienna, however, finally forced the Endek—Podolak camp to compromise. The new governor, former finance minister Witold Korytowski, succeeded in passing a new draft of the election ordinance,

which differed only slightly from the previous draft. Electoral reform could not fundamentally alleviate the Polish—Ukrainian conflict, however: only partition of the country would make possible a complete solution to the Polish—Ukrainian conflict.?! The atmosphere of impending war forced Galicians to reflect on their positions about the major issues confronting the area. Among Galician politicians decidedly anti-Russian feelings prevailed. In the Polish and Ukrainian groups in Galicia, the orientation towards Russia was limited to supporters of the Galician Endeks close 20 Buszko, ‘Das tragische Ende des Grafen Andrzej Potocki als Statthalter Galiziens’, Osterreichische Osthefie, 10 (1968), 321-8; Sejmowa reforma wyborcza w Galicjt, 1g05—1914 (Warsaw, 1957). 21 Buszko, Sejmowa reforma wyborcza, 285.

The Consequences of Galician Autonomy 99 to Roman Dmowski, as well as some Russophiles. Most Poles and Ukrainians assumed the fate of their nation would rest on Austria-Hungary, which it was thus crucial to support. The Jews saw in the Danube monarchy a state that could help achieve Jewish cultural autonomy, and they feared their position would

| deteriorate significantly if Galicia became a Russian prize. The bulk of the Jews, as well as the parties and groups representing them, offered support to Austria in the coming war. This pro-Austrian position was also partly motivated by the antisemitic attitude of Russia’s ruling circle, which was known to have provoked anti-Jewish pogroms in a number of cities. Among Poles, the ideas of the Polish Liberal Democrats from the 1860s and 1870s revived: autonomous Galicia should be the ‘Polish Piedmont’, which would

be the centre for building a Polish state along the same lines as Hungary. Ukrainian nationalists were also attracted by the ‘Piedmont’ slogan but strove to create their state from the lands of eastern Galicia, Bukovina, and the Ukraine on

the Dniepr.

The question of national affiliation clearly emerged as a bone of contention in any future conflict between the Poles and the Ukrainians. Meanwhile, for both these nations, hope for independence was linked to an Austro-Hungarian victory over Russia. Thus, paramilitary organizations arose among both the Poles and the Ukrainians, and these groups were to play a role in the realization of national goals after the outbreak of the war. Translated from Polish by Jolanta Goldstein

Politics, Religion, and National Identity: The Galician Jewish Vote in the 1873 Parliamentary Elections RACHEL MANEKIN THE Galician Jewish publicist and writer Gershom Bader relates that when Galician Jewish immigrants to the United States at the end of the nineteenth century were queried by census officials as to their native language, they replied,

‘Austrian’. Bader saw in the immigrants’ response an attempt to conceal the ‘disgrace’ of their Galician origins, and to prefer instead what seemed to them ‘more respectable’ Austrian ones.! But the more one explores the dilemma of the national identity of Galician Jews in the second half of the nineteenth century, the more the immigrants’ response appears as an expression of genuine nationalist sentiment, rather than of shame or embarrassment. For the first hundred years after Galicia became part of the Austrian empire (1772), the Jews of Galicia considered themselves loyal subjects of the emperor. But when Polish nationalist aspirations began to be formally recognized in 1867, and with the subsequent Polonization of Galicia, the Jews had to decide whether to support a range of nationalist demands from the Polish leadership. Among the Poles were some who insisted on a federalist solution that would provide Galicia with maximum independence and others who were prepared to be satisfied with a more realistic solution that would ensure a degree of autonomy, especially in the

cultural and educational spheres. |

The 1867 Ausgleich (compromise) with Hungary constituted a model worthy of imitation for the Polish maximalists. By contrast, the Czech refusal to cooperate with the Austrian authorities, and their boycott of the parliament, gave the realists an example of an intractable ideology devoid of any results. Ultimately it was the faction supporting realpolitik that prevailed. The Poles participated in the Austrian I should like to thank the staff of the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv for their assistance and Mark Shraberman of Jerusalem for helping me with documents in Ukrainian. The research and writing of this chapter were made possible in part by a doctoral grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, which I gratefully acknowledge.

1 G. Bader, ‘Galitsyaner yidn in amerika’, in Tsvantsig Yor Farband, ed. T. H. Rubinstein (New York, 1926), 3-5.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity IOI parliament, and some of their national cultural demands were recognized: Polish became the official language of the bureaucracy, the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences was established in Krak6éw, and a Polish minister without portfolio was added to the Austrian government with jurisdiction over Galician affairs.” The Jews of Galicia could not remain indifferent to these developments. A change of great consequence for their lives, over which they had no control, was occurring right before their eyes. Now that the local municipalities oversaw the community councils,? Jews were required to conduct their written business in Polish, and Polish became the language of instruction for almost all the German schools, most of whose students were Jews. After a hundred years of German-

| ization, Galician Jewry faced a new reality for which it was not prepared. Would the Jews of Galicia become Polish? That was the question posed by the Viennese Jewish newspaper Die Neuzeit in a series of articles published in 1870.* In the very first article the paper declared.

“The Galician Jew neither thinks nor feels in Polish, and is, moreover, consistently opposed to all things Polish.’? Die Neuzeit pointed out that the nascent Polish literature, which waved the banner of nationalism, was virtually entirely Catholic and was saturated with religious images and motifs. Moreover, the

Jewish intelligentsia, mostly lawyers and physicians, had been educated in German, which would gradually disappear from daily life in Galicia to their professional detriment. The newspaper concluded by saying that the Jews of Galicia would become Polish patriots only when Galicia looked upon them as citizens with equal rights—a prospect that was not on the horizon. With apprehension the Jews followed the deliberations of the Sejm in 1868 over the formulation of a list of demands for greater Galician autonomy in civil and cultural matters. In September of that year the Sejm passed what was known simply as the Resolution, a decision that was intended to express dissatisfaction with the current situation.° The Resolution called for granting the Sejm control over the manner in which Galician representatives to the Reichsrat would be elected and for granting it broad legislative authority in civil, economic, cultural, 2 G. Kolmer, Parlament und Verfassung in Oesterreich (Vienna, 1903), ii. 162-3. ° In a directive issued by the Galician Statthalter (viceroy) on 8 Jan. 1872, the Jewish community of Lviv came under the authority of the city’s magistrate. Until then the community had been subject to the district administration, which was an Austrian government agency. The Jewish community council tried unsuccessfully to have this directive annulled. See the State Archive of Lviv Region

(Oblast), Lviv, 3-1-2746. The document is available on microfilm at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, HMz2/8286.7. Although this chapter refers to the city as Lviv, in the late 19th century it was better known by its Polish name of Lwow. * Die Neuzeit (1870), no. 44, 513-14; no. 46, 538-9; no. 47, 551-2; no. 48, 562-3; no. 49, 575-7; no. 50, 586-7. > Die Neuzeit (1870), no. 44, 513. ® Passing the Resolution was a moderate alternative to demanding a federalist solution and identifying with the all-or-nothing approach of the Czechs. See P. S. Wandycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918 (Seattle, 1984), 513.

102 Rachel Manekin and educational matters. It demanded the establishment of a supreme court, and limited Galician participation in the Reichsrat.’ The Sejm presented this resolu-

tion to the Austrian government with the demand that it be considered in the Reichsrat as a legislative proposal. The Austrians refused this demand, in part because they did not wish to provoke the Russians, who opposed the flourishing of Polish autonomy on their country’s borders.

When the Sejm presented the Resolution again in December 1871, the Reichsrat voted to set up a special parliamentary commission to review it, but the commission was also charged to consider the question of electoral reform. The Austrian government wished to change the electoral system for parliament from election by provincial diets to direct though still qualified male suffrage. They

hoped thereby to control nationalist aspirations in the various crown lands by playing off groups against each other. Each land would be responsible for dividing

up its own election districts, although the Austrians assumed that the number of the representatives from the cities and chambers of commerce would increase,

because the rise in income made more people eligible to vote.2 The new system would potentially grant greater parliamentary representation to ethnic minorities. The Poles opposed electoral reform because it would curtail the power of the Polish-dominated Sejm to appoint Galician representatives. They argued that the right of the diets to appoint representatives was already an established law, and, as a result, guaranteed by the constitution.? The Jews and Ruthenians?!° naturally supported electoral reform, but the latter insisted upon the creation of electoral districts based on nationality and demanded that Galicia be partitioned administratively into eastern and western regions; the vast majority of Ruthenians lived in

| eastern Galicia.'!

The parliamentary commission drafted its recommendations in June 1872. These included assenting to the provisions of the Resolution that called for the establishment of banks and chambers of commerce, and promising that Galicia would receive a yearly allocation from Austria for its educational system, which would be administered locally. ‘The commission insisted that the civil rights of all

citizens, as stipulated in the Austrian constitution, would not be adversely affected. To this end the commission also recommended that the German communities continue to benefit from the status of German as one of the country’s official languages (Polish had already become an official language in 1869), and that German would be the language of instruction in the gymnasiums in Lviv and in the Realgymnasium in Brody. At first the commission made the recommendations, which in other respects were favourable to the Poles, contingent upon the 7 §. Kieniewicz, Galicja w dobie autonomicznej, 1850-1914 (Wroclaw, 1952), 106-9.

8 Kolmer, Parlament und Verfassung, 246-7, 245. 9 Thid. 245. 10 ‘Ruthenians’ was the term used for the Ukrainians of Galicia in the roth century. 11 Tbid. 223-4.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 103 passage of the electoral reform bill proposed by the Austrian government, but later that contingency was dropped.’” Because the commission released its report just before the autumn parliamentary recess, there was not enough time for the legislature to act upon its recom-

mendations, and the issue was once again postponed. In the meantime the Austrians offered to provide financial guarantees for the expansion of the Galician railway system if the Poles dropped their active opposition to electoral reform. This may explain why, when the electoral reform bill finally came to a vote in the lower house of the Reichsrat, the Poles and the other federalists left the chamber

rather than abstain or vote against it. The bill passed with the necessary twothirds majority of the representatives present.!° The new law also increased the number of members of parliament from 203 to 351 (and later to 353) by increasing

the number of crown land representatives. The number of representatives from Galicia increased from thirty-eight to sixty-three. The law went into effect on 2 April 1873, with elections scheduled for the following autumn. Although census figures in Galicia from this period address language and religion rather than nationality, religious affiliation was an important demarcator of national identity, and hence it is possible to determine the sizes of the various populations. The Poles were in all cases Roman Catholic; those Ruthenians who had not assimilated into the Polish nation were Greek Catholics, the Germans were generally Protestants, and the Jews, of course, had their own religion.’ In 1870 there were 2,490,299 Roman Catholics (45.8 per cent), 2,311,909 Greek Catholics (42.7 per cent)), 37,125 Protestants (0.6 per cent), and 575,433 Jews (10.7 per cent). The picture is more complex if one takes into account the slightly

different breakdown in western and eastern Galicia. In western Galicia the Roman Catholics constituted 88 per cent, the Greek Catholics 4 per cent, and the Jews 7.5 per cent, whereas in eastern Galicia the Roman Catholics constituted only 20.7 per cent, the Greek Catholics 65.8 per cent, and the Jews 12.5 per cent.!° What posed the biggest threat to Polish hegemony after the electoral reform was the high percentage of Ruthenians in eastern Galicia and the large concentration of Jews in the cities. To overcome this threat the Poles redrew the lines of the electoral districts so as to ensure the greatest possible representation for the Polish

vote. The electoral districts were divided into four categories (curias): estates, cities, chambers of commerce, and rural districts. The local authorities in Galicia resolved that twenty representatives (previously thirteen) would be elected from the estates, thirteen (previously seven) from the cities, three from the chambers of

12 Tbid. 228-32. 13 Ibid. 246-7.

14 See J.-P. Himka, Galician Villagers and the Ukrainian National Movement in the Nineteenth Century (Edmonton, 1988), 124. The Ukrainians were sometimes called by the Poles ‘Swietojurcy’ after the Greek Catholic metropolitan cathedral of St George in Lviv, and the Jews, ‘starozakonny’ _

(‘the people of the Old Testament’). 15 W. Rapacki, Ludnosé Galicyi (Lviv, 1874), 49.

104 Rachel Manekin commerce (unchanged), and twenty-seven (previously eighteen) from the rural districts. 1°

Thus, although the Poles had begun their march towards full autonomy, by the early 1870s they saw only part of their national aspirations realized. In particular, the electoral reform law of 1873 stood in opposition to complete Polish domination of Galicia because it enabled free political expression to the other minorities of Galicia, and especially to the large Ruthenian minority. In the past the Polishdominated Sejm had done everything within its power to limit the representation of other minorities in the Galician delegation to the Austrian parliament, but now that power had been taken away and had been given to the electorate. Of course, the Poles still had sufficient power and resources to influence the results of the elections. Although direct suffrage had changed the rules of the game, the Ruthenian and Jewish minorities would have to create effective political organizations on the popular level in order to change its players.

JEWISH PREPARATIONS FOR THE 1873 ELECTIONS | The liberal Leipzig newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums wondered whether the years of living amid numerous political struggles would finally lead the Jewish population to raise its political consciousness. Would the Jews choose an independent political route? They had achieved equal rights with the help of the imperial constitution of December 1867. Independent federal status in Galicia seemed liable to turn back the clock, which is why the political outlook of the Jews

was generally liberal-centralist.'’ The new election law, said the paper, would now allow small national groups to become organized, in contrast to the broad national basis that had hitherto characterized the seventeen regional diets in the empire. The only problem would be if the new election districts combined the urban areas with the surrounding villages, for then Jewish representation would be drastically reduced. The paper went on to cite a news item from the liberal Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse stating that thirty Jewish communities in Galicia had demonstrated their support for the electoral reform law with the help 16 Der Israeht (Lviv) (1873), no. 5, 5. All subsequent references to newspapers are to the year 1873, unless otherwise stated. In the urban districts of western Galicia in 1870, 62 per cent of the population were Roman Catholics, 35 per cent Jews, and 1 per cent Protestants. In the urban districts

| of eastern Galicia 31 per cent were Roman Catholics, 22 per cent Greek Catholics, 45 per cent Jews, and 1 per cent Protestants. See Rapacki, Ludnos¢ Galicyi, 54. 17 Tn the eyes of the Jews liberal Vienna served as the guarantor of their rights. Still fresh in their

minds was the memory of the debates in the Sejm in 1868 over the ratification of the equal-rights clauses of the constitution. The conservatives expressed the opinion that the Jews should not be granted equal rights until they could prove that they had been Polonized. Only after the persuasive speeches of Franciszek Smolka and Eduard Gniewosz was the law annulling discrimination against the Jews passed. See A. Eisenbach, The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1780-1870 (Oxford,

IQQ1), 502-4. ,

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 105 of the Viennese Jewish representative in parliament, Ignaz Kuranda.'® The German Jewish newspaper reflected Jewish apprehension over Polish attempts to change the status of Galicia: even limited Galician autonomy was perceived as a threat to their civil status; the coming elections provided them for the first time with the opportunity to take action against this possibility. A little less than two months after the electoral reform bill was passed, on 28

May 1873, a central elections committee was formed in Lviv for the Jews of Galicia, called the Central-Wahlcomité der Juden in Galizien (CWJG). The committee was comprised of thirty members, most of whom belonged to the local

intelligentsia, but also including the preacher of the Temple, Bernhard Loewenstein, and the Orthodox rabbi Isaac Aaron Ettinger, who later became the rabbi of Lviv.!? The chairman of the committee was Dr Julius Kolischer, and the vice-chairmen, Moritz Lazarus and Dr Josef Kohn. Prior to that date there had not been any organized Jewish political activity in Galicia. Jews of public standing

would act on their own initiative in conjunction with the Poles, all the while attempting to receive assurances of some sort of Jewish representation. There were two general election committees: a large one for all of Galicia, with a Polish orientation, and a small one in eastern Galicia, with a liberal, German, centralist orientation. The latter committee lasted only a few months and ceased its operation on 8 June 1873, less than two weeks after the formation of the Jewish elections committee. The moving force behind the formation of the CWJG was the Schomer Israel society, which had been established in 1868 in Lviv for the express purpose of raising the consciousness of the Jewish public regarding its rights and obligations

according to the 1867 constitution. Schomer Israel also aspired to encourage Jewish public and political activity, and to spread the values of the Enlightenment. To this end it founded a German newspaper, Der Israelit, through which it hoped to educate the public in the spirit of political liberalism. Most of its members belonged to the urban intelligentsia: physicians, lawyers, pharmacists, and journalists. Like their counterparts in the surrounding bourgeois society, they

saw themselves as men with a social and political mission. Josef Kohn, who headed the Schomer Israel delegation to the emperor Franz Joseph, described the

| purpose of that mission on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the emperor’s reign in December 1873. When asked by the emperor about the identity of Schomer Israel, Kohn replied that in its first years the society occupied itself with mainly internal communal Jewish issues, but later it took upon itself political interests. ‘Those interests were not motivated by religious feelings but by 18 Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums (AZJ), no. 6, 89-90: “They [the Jews] received their civil rights through the December constitution of the Cisleithanian empire; the nullification of this will plunge them back into the old slavery, as the Poles in Galicia have indeed proved. Hence the establishment of a federal state, an independent Galicia, will bring the Jews back under the old yoke. Besides their natural propensity for liberal views, their own instinct for survival requires that they

link themselves with the Constitution Party.’ 19 Der Israelit, no. 13, 6.

106 Rachel Manekin the civil and patriotic sentiments of a group with a particular political orientation. Kohn also added that Schomer Israel was the only political organization that had been established by Galician Jews.”° The first official announcement to the Jewish voters of the formation of the CWJG was published on 4 July in Der Israelit, and was distributed in the form of posters to the public in German and in Polish. In the announcement the Jewish committee said that it wanted a strong, big, united, and free Austria, one that would enable all the crown lands and all their peoples to live in equality and tranquillity, in accordance with the constitution.2! The committee emphasized that it did not intend to dissociate itself from the inhabitants. On the contrary, it saw itself as representing the interests of the state and of the emperor in the spirit of

liberalism and progress. The committee demanded that each of its potential candidates pledge loyalty to the constitution and to the liberal cause, and likewise disavow any inclination towards federal reorganization.?? One of the first actions of the CWJG was to appeal to the Jewish communities in Galicia to join it, and to establish local branches. Lacking a political and organi-

zational infrastructure, the central elections committee sought to enlist the network of community councils as a substitute. The use of religious communities as bases for political activity was commonplace in Galicia: clergymen, some of whom were themselves candidates for political office, preached from their pulpits on the burning issues of the day; churches and synagogues often served as halls for election rallies.?° The Galician Jewish communities generally responded to the CWJG’s appeal with enthusiasm, but the decidedly negative response of the Jewish community in

Krak6éw received the greatest publicity; it was published in Der Jsraelt in German, with a Polish translation appearing in the Polish press of Lviv and Krakow. The community leaders in Krakow declared that the ruling Liberal Party was interested only in ‘moulding all the Austrian crown lands into a united whole’ by means of systematically concentrating all financial and political means _ in its hands. ‘In contrast with these tendencies’, they wrote, ‘we know only one holy interest, namely, the welfare of the [Galician] land on which we lovingly

depend, and the future of the [Polish] nation with which we are linked by a centuries-old tradition . .. In contrast to the efforts to consolidate the administra-

tive and political power in the hands of the central government we share a common interest with our Polish Christian fellow citizens.” The community 20 Der Israelit, no. 25, 1: ‘The association was established in 1868, and at present numbers 400 members. At its inception it concerned itself with internal matters of the Jewish community, but later it extended its activity to important issues such as the elections for the city council and the parliament, whereupon it declared itself a political association. In this role it took an active part in the last parliamentary elections, and it is to its credit that from Galicia a large number of representatives loyal

to the constitution were elected.’ 21 Tbid., no. 14, I. 22 Ibid., no. 15, 2. 23 On the role of the Greek Catholic priests, for example, in the political activity of the Ukrainian national movement, see Himka, Galician Villagers, 124-7.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 107 leaders in Krakow saw no reason to join a committee that called for a separate Jewish political position in the coming direct elections. ‘They were convinced that, by joining forces with the Polish Christians, they would achieve the same goals for which the CWJG strove, and hence they felt obliged to decline its invitation. The

Deiches.”4 |

letter was signed by Dr Szymon Samelson, the head of the community and a member of the first Sejm (1861-7), and by his Orthodox deputy, Salomon Allgemeine Zeitung suspected that the position of the Jewish community in Krakow stemmed from fear of anti-Jewish outbursts on the part of the Poles, or from personal motives, or both. The paper felt that this split, following immediately on the first political undertaking by the Jews of Galicia, would have dire repercussions, for ‘where forces are divided, power is lost’.2° But the leaders in Krakow reflected the political and cultural spirit of their city, which was conservative, clerical, and nationalistic.2° Regarding the Jewish political initiative, the Krakow conservative newspaper C'zas, which had wielded considerable influence from the moment of its inception in 1848, declared that making religious affiliation a prerequisite for candidacy was illegal. It claimed further that Schomer

Israel did not advocate Jewish interests but worked for Germanization and centralization, thus arousing anti-Jewish hatred; it used religion as a social and political battleground. Czas expressed the hope that the elections committee in | Krakow would not permit Schomer Israel to influence the Jewish voters of the town.?/ Parallel to the organizational efforts of the CW]JG, there were attempts to reach

some sort of compromise with the Poles. Neue Freie Presse reported meetings whose purpose was to unite the Jewish and the Polish elections committees. According to the paper, the Jews were prepared for a compromise that would be based on full acceptance of the principles of the constitution and on an explicit Polish promise not to put forward candidates who support federalism.”° To this Der Israelhit added that the Jews demanded that they be allowed to put forward six Jewish candidates of their own choosing in the urban electoral districts of eastern Galicia.”° The Polish press reacted quite negatively to Jewish political activity. The Neue Freie Presse noted this, adding that while the Jews themselves harboured resentment against the Poles, Polish animosity towards the Jews was still greater.2° The

most vitriolic attack against the CWJG appeared in the newspaper Gazeta Narodowa, one of the strongest advocates of Polish federalism. The newspaper was clearly upset by what it considered a betrayal of the Polish cause by the Jewish 24 Der Israelit, no. 16, 3; Gazeta Narodowa, no. 173, 1; Czas, no. 65, 20 July. 25 AZZ, no. 32, 519-20.

26 L. D. Orton, ‘The Formation of Modern Cracow, 1866-1914’, Austrian History Yearbook,

19-20 (1983-4), 105-17. 27 Czas, no. 127, 8 June. 28 Cited in AZ, no. 26, 424-5. The paper cast doubt on the Poles’ acceptance of these conditions.

23° Der Israelit, no. 17, 2. 30 Cited in AZZ, no. 26, 424.

108 Rachel Manekin liberals. Josef Kohn was accused of being unduly influenced by the Viennese centralists, and of attempting to put their ideology into practice in Galicia. The paper emphasized that Kohn’s father had not behaved in such a fashion.*! Even though he had not been a native of Galicia, he had understood that the Jews should identify with the Polish people, and he had belonged to the National Council. By contrast, Josef Kohn, who had been born on Galician soil, now

betrayed his father’s tradition by standing at the forefront of the Galician separatists. By allying himself with the Viennese centralists he had, in effect, identified the Jews with the German nation, and so removed them from the Polish nation. Even if the CWJG did not explicitly say so, its political activity bore an anti-nationalist and anti-Polish stamp. This was not a committee based on reli-

gion, but rather a committee serving German interests. The paper concluded significantly that all Poles, without political or religious exception, had formed a

solid bloc against the Germans—and whoever left that bloc in order to form another one was a traitor and no Pole.” In the same article the Gazeta Narodowa denounced the liberal Polish newspaper Dzienntk Polski for adopting a more moderate stance towards the CWJG. The Dzzennik argued that the attacks on the Jews in the Polish press were driving them into the rival camp. It did not accept the position that demanded nationalist solidarity in political matters. According to the Gazeta Narodowa, that position was the only legitimate one.**

The Gazeta Narodowa attacks were cited in the semi-official Vienna newspaper Die Presse, which prominently displayed intimations of possible bloodshed in the Polish villages as a reaction to the independent political direction of the Jews.°*4 Die Presse reported that, despite the threats, the elections committee continued its activity. This was a ‘committee of Jews’ rather than a ‘Jewish committee’, commented the paper, because it was willing to compromise on the basis of constitutional principles.*° The Gazeta Narodowa rejected this distinction entirely. It continued to claim

_ that the new arrangement served nationalist rather than political aims. The 31 Abraham Kohn had been the preacher of the Temple in Lviv until he was poisoned by

Orthodox Jewish extremists in 1848. 32 Gazeta Narodowa, no. 131, 2. 33 Tbid. The Gazeta also expressed the hope that the majority of the Jews (the ones who did not earn their livelihood through the stock exchange) would not follow the recommendations of the CWJG. 34 The Gazeta Narodowa, no. 131, 1, recounted a story in which the Jews of a certain town, who received the invitation of the CW]JG, sought the advice of their mayor. The mayor responded that he did not have sufficient police to protect each individual Jew from the anger of the villagers. In no. 132, 2, the newspaper tells of a farmer in a village saying to his friend, ‘It appears that the Jews are going against us. It is necessary to give them a “bath”, since they haven’t received one from us since the time of King Kazimierz. So let them start the conspiracy in the towns and villages, and then neither the police nor the army will be able to protect them’. Here we have a clear intimation of

pogroms.

35 The article in Die Presse of 1 June 1873 was cited in the Gazeta Narodowa, no. 135, 1.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 109 ‘Jewish angle’ was a ruse to bring Jews to the ballot boxes for an allegedly ‘Jewish’

goal. To prove its point, the paper investigated and found that, even before the formation of the elections committee, letters had been sent to the Jewish communities urging them to support centralist candidates in the elections—Jews or Ruthenians, but not Poles. The return address on the envelopes was that of the Schomer Israel society, the stamp of the society appeared on the envelope, and the letters were signed by Josef Kohn.*© The newspaper, sarcastically labelling the Jewish activists in Lviv “Teutono-Jews’, concluded by advising that the best way

to frighten the Jewish population was not through bloodshed but through economic sanctions, which would solve the problem, as such sanctions had in Bohemia and Moravia.?" Diatribes like these did not provoke the liberal Jewish activists nearly as much as the criticism from liberal Polish quarters. When the Dziennik Polski began to

wonder why it was necessary to organize along confessional lines in an age of emancipation and asked why there was no other Jewish political organization in the empire. Der Israelit responded that the Jews of Galicia did not represent a religion alone, but also a political stance. When they demanded Jewish candidates, they did so not in the name of religious conviction, but in the name of political conviction. With great pathos the newspaper wrote: “The nationality of the Jews is humanity in its entirety; its fatherland the globe, its religion the absence of a creed outside of the four walls of its synagogue, and possibly also outside its kitchen. This global

citizenship of the Jews does not affect its patriotism, however.’°® The political conviction in the name of which the Jews spoke was political liberalism.

According to Der Israelit, the fact that the Jews did not have any specific national affiliation did not make them any less patriotic. The Germanism with which they identified was liberalism, emancipation, and the principles of the Rechtsstaat, all of which are embodied in the Austrian constitution. They did not

have the slightest inclination to identify with the nationalist feelings of the German people, but rather with what was represented by the Austrian empire, of which Galicia was a part. Years later Jews who supported the politics of Jewish nationalism charged that

the Schomer Israel society was no more than a branch of the liberal Vienna Constitutional Party. They accused Schomer Israel of lacking any independent Jewish platform and of being concerned only with parliamentary seats.°*? But this accusation was unjust; the Jews in the various communities did organize as Jews and that alone gave the organization a distinctly nationalist flavour. Evidence for this claim can be adduced from the following sentence in a letter from the representative of the Rohatyn community to the central Jewish elections committee: “The aspirations of the Poles do not correspond with the national interests of the Jews in Galicia, and so the Jews must work for the election of candidates that can

36 Tbid., no. 141, 1. 37 Thid., no. 135, 1. 38 Der Israelit, no. 19, 2. 39 §.R. Landau, Der Polenklub und seine Hausjuden (Vienna, 1907), 5-7.

110 Rachel Manekin represent those interests.’*° These ‘national interests’ included civil equality and the right to conduct Jewish communal life undisturbed, within the framework of the Habsburg empire. Moreover, Jewish voters who supported the candidacy of other Jews were

motivated by Jewish pride and not merely by a desire to support the Constitutional Party. For example, in recommending the candidacy of a Viennese Jewish lawyer, Dr Joachim Landau, the Jews of Brody declared that he would fulfil his parliamentary functions with energy and vigour, ‘just as Eduard Lasker [a prominent member of the National Liberal Party and a Jew] does in the German parliament’. By virtue of his dynamic personality, they predicted, Landau would achieve the parliamentary stature of Lasker, and ‘will thus bring honour to the Jews of Galicia’.*! Although the bourgeois intelligentsia constituted the major social force behind the CWJG, it is noteworthy that some of the more traditional elements of Jewish society also lent their support. Shortly before the elections Der Israelit published

an appeal to the rabbis and community leaders by the rabbi of Lviv, Josef Saul Nathansohn. In the appeal, written in Hebrew with a German translation, R. Nathansohn called upon them to influence their communities to vote for the can-

didates proposed by the CWJG.*2 That one of the main candidates was R. Bernhard Loewenstein, the preacher of the Lviv Temple, and that the other candidates were not at all Orthodox did not prevent R. Nathansohn from making his recommendation. The paper also reported that the leaders of the Przemysl

community, headed by R. Isaac Judah Schmelkes, gave their blessing to R. Loewenstein, and promised him their support.*?

This display of communal unity was not well received by the Hungarian Orthodox Jewish organization Schomrei Hadas, which protested vociferously against the candidacy of R. Loewenstein and Schomer Israel. The Lviv correspondent of the Hungarian Orthodox newspaper Schemes Achim reported that the Orthodox Galician Jews would not support the candidates of Schomer Yisrael 4° Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine, Lviv, 701-2-809, Jewish Community Archives of Lviv (henceforth CWJG file), 39—40, letter dated 16 July. I found this exchange of letters in a file that

included correspondence of a communal charity fund and it is tempting to speculate that the letters were hidden there deliberately. The correspondence is available on microfilm at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, Inv/7598. (For a similar collection reportedly found in the archives of Maxymiljan Goldstein, see M. Goldstein, Kultura 1 Sziuka Ludu Zydowskiego (Lviv, 1935), 125.)

41 CWJG file, 16-17, letter dated 8 Aug.: ‘The Jewish deputy must in every respect be a worthy representative in the Reichsrat, and be able to act with the same force and energy that a Lasker is able

to do in the German parliament. Dr Landau, because of his independent position, his love of the truth, his sound and clear understanding, and eloquence will in time become a great parliamentary figure as Lasker is in Berlin and will bring honour to our Galician co-religionists.’ 42 Der Israelit, no. 21, 2. It appears that at least until 1879 there was no necessary connection between Orthodoxy and a predilection to vote for conservative candidates.

43 Tbid., no. 20, 3. |

Politics, Religion, and National Identity Ill because of their non-Orthodox orientation. To this Der Israelt replied that in Galicia, unlike in Hungary, there was separation between religion and politics, and they cited R. Nathansohn’s appeal as evidence.** :

THE JEWISH—RUTHENIAN ALLIANCE IN THE

1873 ELECTIONS The leaders of the CWJG realized that they had to find political partners if they were to succeed in the parliamentary elections. The most natural candidate was the Rada Ruska, the Ruthenian Council, which was founded in 1870 with the express aim of defending the rights of the Ruthenian people. The means for achieving this goal, as formulated in the charter, included political and social debates, petitions and appeals to the authorities, popular demonstrations, education for the masses, and intensive election campaigns.*? In the first years following its establishment the Ruthenian Council had already achieved some success in its

attempts to weaken Polish hegemony in Galicia. As part of the Polish effort to

have the Resolution passed, the council was promised financial support for the Ruthenian theatre, the establishment of a position for a Ruthenian scholar at the University of Lviv, new Ruthenian high schools in Przymysl and Lviv, greater employment opportunities for Ruthenian teachers and clerks, and the granting of official-language status to Ukrainian.*®

The Jews and the Ruthenians shared the desire to limit Polish domination of the cultural, legislative, and educational systems, and they were also intensely devoted to the principles of the constitution, which promised equal rights regardless of religion or nationality. It was only natural that they would arrive at some sort of political understanding.*’ A formal agreement between the Rada Ruska and Schomer Israel has not yet been discovered, but evidence for such an agreement is found in a ‘Dear-Sir’ letter, written in Ukrainian, that was sent to communities under the imprimatur of the Rada Ruska in Lviv. One of the two signatories to the letter was Teofil Pawlikow, one of the founders of the Rada Ruska and a central figure in Ruth-

enian dealings with the Jews. The signatories wrote that inasmuch as the Ruthenian candidates did not stand a chance of being elected in the urban districts

and there was a danger that candidates from ‘hostile parties’ would be elected “* Ibid., no. 23, 3. The Polish press also intimated that the CWJG was an invention of a small group of careerists, and it predicted that Orthodox Jews would prefer to support the Poles. Ibid., no. 8, 3.

45 The council by-laws were approved on 20 May 1870; see the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine, Lviv, Rada Ruska By-Laws, 28628. One can see a great resemblance between the aims

of the Rada Ruska and that of Schomer Israel. 46 Kolmer, Parlament und Verfassung, 163. 47 A literary treatment of the cooperation between Jews and Ukrainians, and, in general, of the 1873 elections, can be found in Karl Emil Franzos’s story ‘Jiidisches Polen’, in Aus Halb-Asien (Stuttgart, 1914), 168-82.

112 Rachel Manekin instead, the Ruthenian elections committee had decided ‘to support the candidacy

of ——’, with the name of the Jewish candidate filled in, according to the addressee’s district. The signatories vouched for the candidate’s liberal outlook and his support for Ruthenian demands. They also noted the candidate’s commitment to persuade his co-religionists living in the villages to support the Ruthenian candidates. They emphasized the need of the addressee to try to counteract the prejudices directed against the non-Christian populace in order to assure the aforementioned candidate’s victory.*®

Before these formal steps were taken by the Rada Ruska in Lviv, there were local attempts of the two parties to sound each other out. A Ruthenian activist from PrzemyS! described in a letter to the Ruthenian central elections committee how he was invited to the PrzemySsl synagogue by the local branch of Schomer

Israel, which offered to support the Ruthenian candidates in the villages in exchange for Ruthenian support of the Jewish candidate in Przemysl. The leader of Schomer Israel even proposed a meeting with their candidate (R. Loewenstein) at a hotel. The activist did not wish to decide such things on his own and so he passed the proposal along to the central committee.*® Several letters from the Jewish community councils of eastern Galicia to the CWJG show that the Jews had no difficulty endorsing Ruthenian candidates, even when the latter were priests. The chairman of the Ternopil’ chapter of the Jewish elections committee informed the CWJG of his meeting with Pawlikow; from the writer’s remarks, it appears that the Jewish—Ruthenian alliance was secret at this point.°° He relates that the rabbi of Ternopil’ (most probably Joseph Babad, wellknown author of the rabbinical commentary Minhat hinukh*) and its community chairman had already written to the Jews in the surrounding village communities of Zbarazh, Skalat, and Mikulyntse,®* requesting them to vote only for the candi48 The letter was written on 22 Sept. There are two examples of the letter in the collection, one endorsing Josef Kohn for the Ternopil’—Berezhany district, the other endorsing Heinrich Gottlieb for the Stanyslaviv-Tyshmenitsa district. CWJG file, 56. The original draft of this letter is found in the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine, Lviv, 196-1-45 (henceforth Rada Ruska file 1), 48a—b. The draft is signed by Pawlikow. The file is available on microfilm in the Central Archives for

the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, HM2/8300.17. The AZJ, no. 44, 722, informed its readers of the public appeal by the Rada Ruska to voters in the cities. 49 Rada Ruska file 1, 1-4, letter dated 18 Sept. Der Israelit, no. 20, 3-4, tells of an election rally in the Przemysl synagogue for the preacher of the Temple, R. Loewenstein, in which high-ranking members of the Greek-Catholic clergy were present. 5° CWJG file, 11-11b, letter from Ternopil’, 16 Oct. In June the CWJG still denied that it appealed for the election of Ruthenian candidates in districts where Jewish candidates stood no chance of being elected. The elections committee even published a denial in the Gazeta Narodowa. See Der Israelit, no. 13, 3. 51 _R. Joseph Babad’s name is not mentioned in the letter, but he was the rabbi of Ternopil’ that year.

°2 In Zbarazh Ruthenians constituted 61 per cent, Poles 29.5 per cent, and Jews g per cent of the population; in Skalat Ruthenians constituted 50 per cent, Poles 36 per cent, and Jews 13.3 per cent of the population. See Rapacki, Ludnos¢é Galicyi, 48. By running together, the Jews and the Ruthenians could ensure their victory over the Poles.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 113 dates of the Rada Ruska. Since a Jewish candidate had no chance of being elected from these districts, it was important to prevent the election of the Polish candi-

date and ensure the victory of the Ruthenians, for ‘we consider their cause to be our own’.”® In Kopychynce the candidate endorsed by the Jewish community was a Ruthenian priest, ‘because he is loyal to the constitution’.°* The Jews of Zhydachiv, in the rural district of Sambir—Stryi-Drohobych, also pledged their

support to the Ruthenians. Four of the town’s most respected Jewish citizens, among them Rabbi Elijah Eichenstein, instructed the people to vote for the town’s Greek Catholic priest.*° Ruthenian priests found it more difficult to endorse Jewish candidates, a fact

that appears in both Jewish and Ruthenian documents. The chairman of the Ternopil’ elections committee, in the letter to the CWJG mentioned earlier, goes

on to complain that the Ruthenians, who were supposed to stand staunchly behind the Jewish candidates, had not yet begun any political activity in the urban district of Ternopil’. “The Ruthenian priest sees how the Poles are inciting the Ruthenians against the Jews, and how the Ruthenians are selling themselves to the

Poles, and he does not react.’ He concludes the letter with a list of names and addresses of influential Ruthenians who, he says, will vote for the Jews when they receive an explicit communication from the Rada Ruska to do so. Often the direct intervention of the Rada Ruska was necessary to convince the priests to persuade their flock to vote for the Jews, and it appears that the Jews made their agreements

indirectly with the Rada Ruska rather than directly with the local priests. For example, the Jewish elections committee of Jarosltaw thanked the CWJG for

sending it a letter in Ukrainian for the local influential Ruthenians, but it requested an additional letter for the priests from the Rada Ruska.°® The Jews also had to contend with a very active Polish campaign to win over the Ruthenians. According to a report from Jewish activists, the foremen of the Zamoyski landowners in Syenava exerted pressure upon the Ruthenian farmers, or plied them with food and drink, to influence their vote. The Poles invited the farmers to two hotels, where they provided them with free refreshments, while nobles from the Badeni and Zamoyski families circulated among the farmers at

the election hall. The activists complained that it was impossible for them to ~ persuade the farmers to vote against their employers’ candidates, especially when the Ruthenian leaders did nothing. The failure of the Ruthenian clergy to show °3 CWJG file, 11—-11b, letter dated 16 Oct. 4 Tbid. 30a—30b, letter dated 15 Oct.

°° Rada Ruska file 1, 15: ‘In Zhydachiv they should associate themselves with the party of the Greek Catholic Priest.’ This communication is in the form of a note, which was apparently passed on to Rada Ruska as evidence of Jewish support of the Ruthenian clergy. R. Eichenstein was the nephew of R. Tsvi Hirsh of Zhydachiv, and was considered by many to be the rebbe of Zhydachiv. °° CWJG file, 1, letter dated 18 Oct., contains a list of influential priests, which the CWJG was supposed to transmit to the Rada Ruska so that it could target them. In another place they reported about Ukrainian priests who were leaning towards Poles: ibid., n.d., 13.

114 Rachel Manekin up where the elections were being held clinched the victory for the Poles. The only result of the elections, concluded the activists, was intense Polish hatred of the Jews.°’ In a series of telegrams to the Rada Ruska Jewish activists objected

| strenuously to the movement of Ruthenians towards the Poles as a result of Polish pressure. They requested the immediate intervention of the Rada Ruska, and especially the appearance of Ruthenian religious leaders on election day.*® In reaction to reports such as these from the field, the Rada Ruska redoubled its efforts to get the priests’ backing for Jewish candidates. Telegrams were sent in

increasing numbers as the elections approached. For example, a telegram to Jaroslaw and a few telegrams to Berezhany, signed by Pawlikow, urged lastminute action on behalf of Josef Kohn, who lacked Ruthenian popular support.*?

In some locales the Jewish—Ruthenian cooperation bore fruit. The Jewish community in Snyatyn sent a letter to the Rada Ruska thanking it for its support and anticipating future cooperation ‘in order to defeat the [Polish] opponent’. Jewish activists in Drohobych wired greetings following the victory of the Jewish

candidate there.*! |

Ruthenian activists themselves complained of the Polish tactics in the urban districts. An activist from Horodok® reported despairingly that their candidate stood no chance of winning: the Poles had enormous financial means at their disposal to spend even on vodka, and many Ruthenians were willing to go over to the rival side in exchange for money and vodka. The Poles used the police and publicly humiliated the priests, and the Ruthenians on their part did not react. The activist added that he was convinced that the religious leadership would go into hiding on election day, fleeing to the fields and forests rather than appearing in the town square. The Ruthenians’ only hope lay in the villages, for surely the villagers

would vote for their own priests.®° The strained relations and mistrust between Poles and Jews can be seen in letters from the Jewish communities to the CWJG. A correspondent from the 57 CWJG file, 22a—b, letter dated 19 Oct. °8 Rada Ruska file 1, 42, telegram from Kolomyia, 21 Oct.: ‘All the Ruthenian leaders won over by

the Poles with dishonest means. Danger great. Immediate strong letter by Rada Ruska to its local leaders.’ Ibid. 36, telegram from Jaroslaw, 21 Oct.: ‘Opponents use questionable methods. Their propaganda incredible. Priests powerless. Please send urgently energetic Rada Ruska delegates.” Ibid. 41b, telegram from Berezhany, 23 Oct.: ‘All the Jews are voting; the Ruthenians falter.’ Ibid. 416, telegram from Berezhany, 20 Oct.: ‘Very necessary for Rada Ruska to telegraph [the names of] six Ruthenian party leaders with appeal for cooperation.’

5° Ibid. 36, telegram dated g Sept. 60 Ibid. 32b—33, letter dated 26 Oct. 61 Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine, Lviv, 196-1-46 (henceforth Rada Ruska file 1!) available on microfilm in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, HM28300.18, 5, letter dated 17 Oct.: “Thanks to the harmonious cooperation between the Jews and the Ruthenians, the local Constitution Party celebrated its victory on the occasion of its dazzling election [results] of 203 to 39.’ 62 Poles constituted 38 per cent of the population in Horodok, Ukrainians 34 per cent, and Jews 27 per cent. See Rapacki, Ludnosé Galicyt, 54-5. 63 Rada Ruska file 1, g—10, letter dated 29 Sept.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 115 Jewish communal council of Golohory wrote that the Polish candidate was an ardent Polish nationalist and Jew-hater, despite his being a doctor of law. He viewed him as indicative of Polish attitudes towards the Jews, and pleaded emotionally in favour of waging a desperate battle against the Poles.® In a letter from Syenava the local Jewish elections committee reported that its members themselves travelled to Jarostaw and devoted all their efforts to combating the Poles; they noted that they were alone in the struggle, and received no help from the Ruthenians.® The Poles, by contrast, moved heaven and earth to reach every corner of the district and every eligible voter in order to get their candidate elected. More than that, the Polish secretary of the district went to the Jewish election activists and attempted to win them over to his side with promises and concessions. Not all Jews opposed the Poles. Letters from the chairman of the Polish elec-

tions committee in the rural district of Sambir—Stryi—Drohobych to a Jewish activist, Hersch Diamant, fell into the hands of the Ruthenians. In the first letter the committee requested that Diamant, whom it called ‘a loyal citizen’, furnish information about potential troublemakers and suggest people who would be good candidates. A month later it invited Diamant to become a member of the Polish committee. Still later it informed Diamant that the Polish candidate for the district would be a certain landowner, and asked him to work on the candidate’s behalf. The committee promised to reimburse him for all his expenses and urged him to spare no efforts to win each and every vote. Finally, he was asked to convince the voters who had made up their minds not to vote for Polish candidates to refrain from participating in the elections. From these letters it appears that Diamant had worked for the Poles in the past.®° Several Polish newspapers also reported prominently on a Jewish party headed by two Jews in Kolomyia whose aim was to persuade Jews to vote for Polish candidates. These same newspapers reacted negatively to the story that Galician rabbis pronounced bans against Jewish voters who would not vote for the candidates approved by the CWJG, a story later denied by the CWJG.°' The Viennese liberal press did not conceal its support for the Jews and the Ruthenians in Galicia. According to the Neue Freie Presse, Jewish communities that did not respond to the summons of the CWJG acted out of fear of violent Polish reprisals, such as breaking windows. The paper commented that the Poles sought recognition for their just claims, but the manner in which they related to the Jews and the Ruthenians weakened their position: the time had come for the Jews in Galicia to stand up for their own rights and interests. The newspaper also advised the Ruthenians to stand up for their rights by voting for a candidate loyal

64 CWJG file, 7b, letter dated 21 Aug. 65 Ibid. 22, letter dated 19 Oct. 6 Rada Ruska file 1, 13-16, letters dated 15 July, 28 Aug., 11 Sept. and 10 Oct. Diamant’s name is not mentioned in the letters, but is in the Rada Ruska note preceding the letters. 67 The story is cited in Der Israelit, no. 22, 2.

116 Rachel Manekin to the constitution. This was their opportunity to decide whether they wanted to go back and plough the land of the nobility or to take their fate into their own hands and acquire power and status of their own. Such an opportunity would not return again.°® The paper was well aware of the obstacles facing Jews and Ruthenians who attempted to organize politically. The enemy was not the Polish landlords or a rock-throwing mob, but the Polish officials of the Austrian government (e.g. Galician district commissioners), who determined taxes and allocations, prepared conscription lists, issued travel papers, and paid salaries. What would the head of the Jewish community do when the district commissioner indicated displeasure with the establishment of a separate elections committee? One who was mindful of the Galician reality could only admire those who, despite

everything, waved the flag of the Constitutional Party. The role of the liberal press should not only be to encourage the Jews and the Ruthenians but to put pressure on the government to fulfil its obligation and to demand that its officials not violate the law.® Some members of the liberal press were not satisfied to cheer on the liberals in Galicia from the sidelines, but sought to play a more active role. For example, the CWJG received a letter written on Neue Freie Presse stationery from a Dr Killian, who wished to recommend a Viennese lawyer, originally a Galician, as an additional candidate for the Jarostaw district.’° The editor of the Viennese newspaper Morgenpost, Hermann Mises, wrote to propose his own candidacy for the urban district of Sambir—Stryi—Drohobych. Mises presented himself as an adherent of the principles of liberalism and as loyal to the Constitutional Party. The recom-

mendation for his candidacy may have come from press circles in Vienna, for Mises wrote explicitly that his opinions were not known to the members of the elections committee through personal connections.’! One can speculate that these were not the only instances of direct and indirect participation in the Galician

elections by liberal Viennese journalists, who supported the Ruthenian and Jewish efforts to reduce Polish influence. The partisanship of the liberal Viennese press was so pronounced that the conservative Polish newspaper Czas accused it of conspiring against the Poles and their demands for autonomy in Galicia, as it accused Josef Kohn of flattering the centralist press in Vienna.” While the liberal Viennese press lauded the Jewish and Ruthenian fledgling

political organizations, predicting political gains for both sides, the German Jewish Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums took a slightly condescending tone:

| ‘Galicia offers us at present an interesting spectacle (schauspie/). For the first time, the numerous Jewish inhabitants are called to play a political role in the first direct

elections for the Reichsrat. And, indeed, it is no small testimony to the intelli68 AZF, no. 33, 536-7. The citation is from Neue Freie Presse, 1 Aug. 69 AZZ, no. 34, 555. The citation is from the Neue Freie Presse, n.d.

” CWJG file, 26, letter dated g Sept. 4 Tbid. 34-5, letter dated mid-Sept. 7 Czas, no. 127, 5 June, no. 137, 18 June.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 117 gence of the Jewish masses that they have recognized their political task and duty so quickly.” The newspaper viewed this political enterprise as a sort of maturing process for the Jews of eastern Europe.

THE ELECTION AND ITS AFTERMATH When the final votes of the Galician elections were tallied, the results were a mixed blessing for the Ruthenian—Jewish alliance. Of the twenty-seven seats apportioned to the rural districts, fifteen went to Ruthenian candidates, mostly priests, a sixteenth to a liberal Polish candidate, Eduard Gniewosz, and the remaining eleven to Polish candidates.’4 Schomer Israel attributed the decisive Ruthenian victory to the fact that Jews in rural areas gave their votes to the Ruthenians. In stark contrast, the Jewish candidates won only three of the thirteen urban seats, a meagre result considering that Jews constituted over 40 per cent of the population in the cities. Hermann Mises, the editor of the Morgenpost, was elected for the district of Sambir—Stryi—Drohobych, after the election of the Polish candidate was invalidated. Dr Joachim Landau was elected for ZolochivBrody and Dr Oswald Honigsmann for Kolomyia—Buchach—Snyatyn; both were

Viennese lawyers. Dr Bernhard Loewenstein, Dr Josef Kohn, Dr Maximilian Landesberger, and Dr Heinrich Gottlieb were not elected for their respective districts of Przemysl-Horodok, Ternopil’—Berezhany, Rzeszow—Jaroslaw, and Stanyslaviv-Tyshmenitsa. Two of the three seats apportioned to the district chambers of commerce were won by Jews: Nathan Kallir from Brody and Albert Mendelsburg from Krakow; the latter joined the Polish Party. Had the Jews run on a Polish ticket, they would have received four seats, or at least so they had been promised by the Poles.

Why did the Jewish candidates fare so poorly in the cities? Doubtless there were several reasons, but the Jews themselves singled out two: the failure of the Ruthenians, who constituted the deciding vote in urban districts, to vote en masse

| for Jewish candidates, and the questionable election practices of the Poles. ‘The head of the Stanyslaviv Jewish community sent the Rada Ruska a partisan account of Polish behaviour on election day in the district of Stanyslaviv—Tyshmenitsa. That community had thrown itself into the election campaign with great enthusiasm, writing to the CWJG that ‘now everyone knows that the Jews know not only

how to fight, but also how to win’.”” Now their leader charged that the Polish officials of the Austrian administration had violated every election law during the campaign. He was particularly upset that the struggle against the supporters of the constitution was waged by those who should have been most committed to it, ® AZZ, no. 39, 635. “4 The election results given here are based on Der Israelit, no. 22, 3 (with corrections in no. 23, 2). According to Himka, Galician Villagers, 69, the Ruthenians won sixteen seats. ® CWYJG file, 32a—b, letter dated 28 Aug.

118 Rachel Manekin by virtue of their official role. In that district the list of eligible voters who were loyal to the constitution was drastically reduced, as a result of which the Polish candidate won the parliamentary seat. The writer argued that the right to free elections must be preserved in order to prevent Galicia from being separated entirely from Austria. This could occur only through parliamentary intervention, for all the protests on the local level (through appeals to the governor and government offices) had met with no reaction. The writer requested the Ruthenians to join his protest against the election of the Polish candidate in order to invalidate it

and to hold new elections.” |

Despite these disappointments, the general mood was upbeat. Schomer Israel declared the first organized Jewish political undertaking in Galicia a success. The Jews had displayed solidarity and political maturity, and had managed to overcome their political passivity.”” The Neue Freie Presse was also full of praise for the Ruthenian—Jewish coalition, which had had to overcome strong religious differences, especially in the rural communities. No one would have believed that

such an alliance might even be possible until it actually happened, the paper | stated, and the results of the elections showed that political exigency was stronger than religious and social prejudice.’® In fact, the results of the elections showed the delicacy of the Jewish position in Galicia, for the Poles were quick to retaliate with severe economic sanctions against the Jews.”? It took time to restore Polish—Jewish relations to a tolerable balance, and the very next elections to the Austrian parliament in 1879 saw the emergence of a politicized and well-organized Orthodox Jewry that attempted to sever the link between Jews and liberals and managed to force a new political alliance with Polish conservatives.®° In that election Rabbi Szymon Sofer (Schreiber), the Orthodox

rabbi of Krakow and a son of the Orthodox Hungarian rabbi Moses Sofer (the

Hatam Sofer), was elected to parliament from the Kolomyia—Buchach— Snyatyn district and joined the Polish club. When interviewed by the editor of the Gazeta Narodowa about his political orientation, he answered: I have no choice but to join the Polish club. The Poles are religiously devout, and I have but one goal—to strengthen religion. ‘The Poles support the Crown, and that accords with our religion. Our religion, as taught to us by Jeremiah, tells us to seek the welfare of the 7 Rada Ruska file 1, 51~2, letter dated g Nov.

Der Israelit, no. 22, 1-2; no. 25, 2-3. 78 Cited in AZZ, no. 45, 739. F. Friedmann, Die galizischen Juden im Kampfe um ihre Gleichberechtigung, 1848-1868 (Frankfurt-on-Main, 1929), 204-5. According to Friedmann it was Jan Dobrzanski, the editor of Gazeta Narodowa, who advocated economic measures against the Jews as an answer to the centralist direction of their politics in 1873. 80 A group that advocated Polish patriotism called Dorsze Szulom (The Peace-Seekers, probably based on Jer. 2g: 7), was established in 1877, and even published a newspaper, Zgoda. But this was a

small group that ceased to be active after a short time. The Jews that supported Polish patriotism, like Dr Bernard Goldman and Dr Filip Zucker, were few in number. The Orthodox group Machsike Hadas declared its loyalty to the ‘people in whose midst it dwelled’. See its newspaper, Machsike Hadas (1880), no. 24,4.

Politics, Religion, and National Identity 119 people amongst whom we live. I will go together with the Poles to the parliament, and I will agree with what they consider to be good for the state and the monarchy.®**

Later in the interview Rabbi Sofer mentioned that he often emphasized to his people the similar fates of Jews and Poles, and that he called upon them to demonstrate their gratitude to the Polish people for providing a haven for the Jews.

Statements like these led the conservative newspaper Czas to distinguish between ‘Progressive Jews’, who were attracted to Viennese Germanism, and the ‘hasidim’, who were closer to the Poles. Not everyone accepted this distinction, or the idea implicit in it that the Orthodox were more Polish than the liberals. There were Jewish Polonists, such as Dr Jonatan Warschauer, who said that all Galician Jews, including the Orthodox, were attracted to Viennese Germanism. The proof was that Rabbi Sofer, symbol of the new alliance with the Poles, did not speak a word of Polish.®2

In conclusion, the question raised by Die Neuzezt in 1870 as to whether the Galician Jews would become Polish received only a partial answer by the end of the decade. The Galician Jewish support for the Liberal Constitutional Party in the early 1870s was replaced in the 1879 elections by wholesale support for the Polish Party, either because the Jews of Galicia identified with Polish aspirations, | or because they recognized the inevitability of Polish political power. The shortlived attempt at independent political organization in the 1873 elections, which possessed elements of ethnic politics, faltered before it developed into a fullfledged force. The great faith in Austrian liberalism proved disappointing, for the end of the decade brought the fall of liberalism. The Galician Jews gradually left the Germanist, centralist camp, but their conduct during the 1873 election campaign had left the Poles suspicious and themselves in search of a new national

identity.

81 Gazeta Narodowa, no. 163, 7 July 1879. Rabbi Sofer blamed the liberal Schomer Israel for provocations against the Poles that led to thousands of Jews losing their livelihood. See Machsike Hadas (1879), no. 5, 5. 82 Cited in T. Merunowicz, O metodzie i celach rozpraw nad kwestyq zydowskq (Lviv, 1879), 23.

Merunowicz, it should be noted, occupied himself greatly with the subject of the Jews. In a chapter entitled ‘Hasidim and German Jews’, Merunowicz tells of Rabbi Sofer’s good relations with the Poles: ‘Pan Schreiber is one of the most popular figures in the Polish club . . . and so, on the basis of the exchange of mutual compliments, dreams blossom in Vienna about an eternal covenant between Polonia and the hasidic Jews’. Ibid. 19. Warschauer, a Jewish physician from Krakow, was one of the first supporters of Polish patriotism, and he desired to debunk the image of patriotism that the Jewish

Orthodox, led by Sofer, had appropriated for themselves. See J. Warschauer, Agitacye Stowarzyszenia ‘Machsike Hadas’ (Krakéw, 1883).

From Austeria to the Manor: Jewish Landowners in Autonomous Galicia TOMASZ GASOWSKI

FROM AUSTERIA TO THE MANOR ‘AND thus Count Jampolski in his old age said goodbye to all luxury, whereas he, a

Jew, resided in a manor, surrounded by gold, silver, porcelain, butlers, and servants. He slept in a bed with a velvet canopy, on a mattress of horsehair.’ Thus reflected Kalman Jacobi, the Jewish grain merchant and innkeeper who came to own the estate of the Polish noble family the Jampolskis and settle at the manor with his new wife Klara, in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel The Manor.' The estate’s previous owner had been exiled to Siberia following the 1863 January uprising and his goods had been confiscated. Jacobi took over the estate from its new Russian

owner on a long lease. ,

For the historian, the story of Singer’s Jew illustrates a wider phenomenon: the purchase, by Jews living on Polish territories, of property formerly belonging to

the sz/lachta. This phenomenon was one of the symptoms of the deep social changes (the dissolution of old estates of feudal origin, followed by the forming of

modern social classes) that in this region accompanied the delayed growth of capitalism in the second half of the nineteenth century.” These changes took place not only among Christian Poles but also within Jewish society.? In the latter case, the modernization of the Jewish social structure led to the formation of a new Elite, the Jewish landowners.* The spread of Jewish landowning occurred not only in the Congress kingdom of Poland, where Singer’s novel is set, but on an even larger scale in autonomous Galicia. The granting of political rights here culminated with 1 1. B. Singer, The Manor (New York, 1967). 2 See W. Kula and J. Leskiewicz, Przemiany spoleczne w Krélestwie Polskim, 1815-1864 (Wroclaw,

1979), esp. introd. by W. Kula under the significant title ‘Rozw6j gospodarczy w warunkach rosnacego zacofania’ (‘Economic Development in Conditions of Growing Backwardness’), 11-24. 3 C. Goldscheider and A. Z. Zuckerman, The Transformations of the Jews (Chicago, 1984), 20, —~ITS.

In the very general, model-based approach of these authors, who concentrated mainly on west European Jewry, this group, specific to the small territory of Galicia and part of the Russian part of Poland, is not mentioned at all.

Jewish Landowners in Galicia | 121 the final emancipation of Jews in the whole Habsburg monarchy when it legalized Jewish landowning.° I would like to clarify a terminological issue at the outset. Two concepts with which I deal here are close, but not equivalent: mfasciciele ziemscy (landowners) and ziemianstwo (landed gentry). The difference between them was not always

noted in contemporary publications and is not always accepted in modern research. In my understanding, ‘landowners’ refer to a broader group, in which membership is usually determined solely by economic criteria, i.e. the ownership of a landed estate (of a minimum of about fifty hectares).° In the case of Galicia, there was an additional, legal criterion: the property had to be a part of the fo/wark (manor) of a former sz/achcic, entered into the so-called ‘country tabula’.’ The second, narrower notion, ‘landed nobility’, connotes the additional existence of historical, cultural, and family ties between the owners and their land. Thus, the landed nobility were a more prestigious subset of all landowners. In addition, as part of the social stratification of the time, contemporaries considered as part of the second group those Poles of noble lineage who no longer owned estates and were only tenants or even administrators of landed property, yet who through social or family ties were still connected with this class.2 This was a particularly Polish phenomenon, which resulted from the very slow pace of social change on the territory of the old Polish Commonwealth, although similar situations were not unknown in capitalist western Europe.®

To end these introductory comments, let me add that I class as Jewish landowners those Jews who owned one or several estates, sometimes spread throughout various parts of Galicia. For my purposes it does not matter whether these estates were the only means of income for their owners. (Such a distinction 1s hard to make even in the case of ethnically Polish owners. Some landowners had multiple sources of income, as in the example of Count Stanislaw Tarnowski, professor and rector of the Jagiellonian University and president of the Academy of Arts and

Sciences in Krakow, who at the same time was a leading representative of the Galician landed nobility.) Also, I restrict the inquiry to owners (rather than 5 W. Haiisler, ‘Das Osterreichische Judentum zwischen Beharrung und Forschritt’, in A. Wanduszka and P. Urbanitsch (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie, 1848-1918, 1v: Die Konfessionen (Vienna, 1985), 644-7. Artur Eisenbach devotes much attention to this problem in Emancypacja ZLydow na ztemiach Polskich 1785-1870 na tle europejskim (Warsaw, 1988), 366-73, 534-53. 6 J. Leskiewiczowa and I. Rychlikowa, ‘Ziemiaristwo’, in Przemiany spoleczne, 374.

7 T. Pilat, ‘Wlasnosé tabularna w Galicji?, Wiadomosci statystyczne o stosunkach Krajowych, 12 (1891), 12, no. 1, 6. 8 The first notion, which is close to Marxist interpretation, is presented in numerous publications by I. Rychlikowa, most fully in ‘Problemy pojeciowe i metodyczne w badaniach nad uwarstwieniem ziemianstwa kr6lestwa Polskiego w epoce przeksztalcania sie spoleczeristwa stanowego w klasowe’, in S. Kalabinski (ed.), Metody i wyntki: Z warsztatu historyka dziejow spotecenych (Warsaw, 1979).

° T do not mean to imply that the rural landowners’ way of life ceased to be attractive in western Europe, as the example of 1gth-century England illustrates. See M. Girouard, Life in the English Country House: A Soctal and Architectural History (New Haven, 1978).

122 Tomasz Gasowski lessees) because, although at the end of the nineteenth century Jews who leased landed property constituted a group of several hundred,’° legal details such as the periods and areas of lease and the methods of payment are unknown. Finally, it should be mentioned that the two categories ‘landowners’ and ‘tenants’ do not exhaust all Jewish connections with land in autonomous Galicia. A considerable amount of land seized from peasants to cover their debts also found its way into Jewish hands, but its size is impossible to determine."

THE BENEFIT OF EMANCIPATION Possessing land in the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the fundamental prerogatives reserved to the sz/achta estate. Thus Jews were not legally permitted to buy or lease landed property,” despite their long-standing ties with the feudal rural economy as factors, as dealers of agricultural products (including products from manors), and as arendars. These limitations remained in force after the partitions of Poland. In Galicia a governor’s circular of 20 March 1793 denied Jews the right to purchase landed property, known as real estate. However, land purchased earlier—during the transition period when the legal system for the new Austrian province had not yet been detailed—could be kept and even inherited.'° We can therefore assume that at the end of the eighteenth century the first Jewish landowners had already appeared in Galicia.!4 Further changes occurred during the 1848-9 period known as the Spring of Nations. The emperor’s patent of 4 March 1849 declared civil and political rights to be independent of religion. This effectively granted full citizens’ rights to Jews in the Habsburg monarchy. Some Jews at once made use of the situation to purchase landed property previously inaccessible to them.'° It was a moment of great importance, and with lasting effects. Not even the subsequent limitations on the rights of Jews detailed in the emperor’s order of 1853 could totally reverse the outcome of the two revolutionary years. A group of Jewish landowners can be traced to the mid-1850s, even though it was small, consisting of just nineteen people.'® 10 F. Morawski, ‘Dzierzawcy w obrebie wlasnosci tabularnej w Galicji’, Wiadomosci Statystycane o Stosunkach Krajowych, 15 (1895), no. 2, 17.

11 T. Zajaczkowski, ‘Licytacje sadowe posiadtosci wloscianskich i matomiejskich w Galicji’, Wiadomosci statystyczne o stosunkach Krajomych, 15 (1896), no. 3, table 9. 12 A, Eisenbach, Kwestia rémnouprawnienia Zydéw w krélestwie Polskim (Warsaw, 1972), 126. 13 Pilat, ‘Wilasnosé tabularna w Galicji’, 7.

14 Austrian army censuses of 1789 and 1809 name one Izaak Brunstein as the owner of the Uhrynkovce estate in the Chortkiv cyrkuf (district). K. Slusarek, Szlachta w Galicjt Wschodniej na przetomie XVII 1 X1X w.: Rozmieszczente t liczebnosé (Krakow, 1994), 236.

15 Pilat, ‘Wlasnos¢ tabularna w Galicji’, 7. 16 W. Kula, Skoromidz wszystkich miejscowoset potozonych w krolestmie Galicji 1 Lodomeru (Lviv,

1855), passim. At the same time there were twenty-three Jews in the Polish kingdom who owned landed property. A. Eisenbach, ‘Dobra ziemskie w posiadaniu Zydéw’, in Spoleczerstwo krolestwa

| Polskiego (Warsaw, 1968), 111. 245.

Jewish Landowners in Galicia 123 Several years later, on the initiative of the minister of the interior, Count Agenor Goluchowski, the emperor issued a decree which applied only to the Austrian part of Poland. According to this decree, Jews who had graduated from gymnasium or trade school or had reached the rank of officer (all considered marks of civilization) could freely purchase and inherit real estate.” This order defined a Jewish élite in Galicia, giving them an opportunity to gain equal rights with non-Jews on an individual basis.18 This small group became visible with the first election to the Sejm Krajowy in Lviv in 1861: thirty-eight Jews now numbered among those entitled to vote in the landowners’ curia.!* This points to another important aspect of Jewish landowning. The ownership of real estate in autonomous Galicia was not only an economic issue; it also had important political ramifications, as real estate granted its owner a privileged posi-

tion in the electoral system.*° This fact greatly influenced public opinion on whether or not to permit Jews to purchase unlimited land. Disputes broke out in _ parliament during the session of December 1865. The proposal of Agenor Gotuchowski, now governor of Galicia, for ‘full equality for Jews in so far as pur-

chase of landed property is concerned’ encountered the opposing proposal of another deputy, Father Guszakiewicz, to keep the existing limitations in force.”! In the end neither of these propositions were submitted to further debate, because the general political situation changed with the granting of the December constitution two years later, when all remaining legal limitations concerning Jews were swept away. In this way Galician Jewry finally received the right to the unlimited

purchase of landed property, together with all concomitant civil and political rights.??

STRUCTURE AND DISLOCATION The group of Jewish landowners, still not numerous at the turn of the decade, grew rapidly in the 1870s. The crash of the stock market in Vienna in 1873 hit many landowners in Galicia badly;7° the result was a favourable situation for 17 C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire, 1790-1918 (London, 1971), 502.

18 Similar action was taken by authorities in the Russian part of partitioned Poland. Eisenbach, Kwestia, 133. 19 W. Lewicki, Nasze czy obce Zywioly (Lviv, 1899), 7.

20 According to the law regulating elections to the Sejm Krajowy in Galicia from 1861, electors were divided into four electoral groups, or curiae, in a way that clearly favoured the landowners of the first curia. ‘Statut Krajowy krélestwa Galicji i Lodomerii z Wielkim Ksiestwem Krakowskim’, in M. Bobrzynski, W. L. Jaworski, and J. Milewski (eds.), Z dztejom odrodzenia politycznego w Galicyt, 1859-1873 (Warsaw, 1905). 1 W.. Koziebrodzki, Repertorium czynnosci galicyjskiego Sejmu Krajowego od 1861 po rok 1883 (Lviv, 1885), 25. #2 This problem was the subject of parliamentary debate also in autumn 1868. See Mowy posta Franciszka Smolki wygtoszone na posiedzentach galicyjskiego Sejmu dnia 30 X11 8 x 1868 r. w kwestit

Zydowskiej (Lviv, 1899), passim. . 23 Lewicki, Nasze czy obce, 8.

124 Tomasz Gasowski affluent Jews to purchase mortgaged property, either privately or at auction. By 1876 in all Galicia 289 landed estates were already in Jewish hands.”4

The lasting crisis of Galician agriculture steadily worsened the position of Polish landowners, especially the poorest ones.2° The constant breaking up of large old family estates changed the structure of landownership and promoted this process as well.2° New people, including some wealthy Jews, took the place of

former landowning families of noble lineage. In this situation, the number of Jewish landowners rose continuously, if unevenly (see Table 1). At the beginning of the twentieth century their number exceeded 500, and before the First World

War there were 561 Jewish landowners; Jews then constituted 22 per cent of landowners in Galicia.?”

The concentration of Jewish landowners varied from region to region. There were more in eastern Galicia, especially in Podolia and Pokucie, in the Ternopil’, Zolochiv, Stanistawow, and Berezhany districts.*° In western Galicia, a large concentration existed only in the Tarnow region, but this was the highest in all Galicia. Yet the constant growth of this group, in both absolute and relative terms, was not always accompanied by a parallel growth in the area of land owned by Jews. Especially in the last years of the nineteenth century the total Jewish-owned area diminished noticeably (see Table 2). This decrease resulted from the sale of

large complexes of land belonging to the Groed! and Zadik cooperatives and to | Moritz (Maurycy) Lazarus and Jonatan Laufer, who treated landed property only as speculative goods.”? But in the following years the total area of Jewish property rose again, in 1912 exceeding 342,000 hectares, or 16 per cent of the total area of privately owned landed estates in Galicia. On the eve of the First World War there was thus a notable difference between the proportion of Jews among all landowners (22 per cent) and the proportion of Jewish-owned land among all estates (16 per cent). Jewish estates were smaller _ than average for Galicia. The difference illustrates the place of the Jewish landowners in the general structure of landownership and reflects the small size of the Jewish population, an issue to which I shall return below. Let us also note the uneven territorial distribution of Jewish property, which

only partly fits the image painted above. It was the Stryj district, where Jews 24 This was not equal to the number of owners, since, as noted, some Jews owned several landed

estates at that time. 25 F. Bujak, Galicja (Lviv, 1908), i. 273.

, 26 A. Dambski, Obecny proces przemiany podzialu wlasnosci ziemskiej w Galicji (Krakéw, 1905), 13-14.

vn ‘Here we again omit Jewish tenants of estates, for reasons noted above. See Morawski, ‘Dzierzawcy’, passim. Nevertheless, it deserves mention that, according to my investigations, at the end of the rgth century 54 per cent of all leased property was leased by Jews. 28 This information concerns juridical regions (obmody sqdowe) that covered 3-8 powiats. Some of the statistical information is available only according to this administrative division.

29 K. Hempel, ‘Stosunki wiekszej wlasnosci ziemskiej w Galicji’, Wiadomosci Statystyczne o Stosunkach Krajowych, 7 (1881), no. 1, 109.

Jewish Landowners in Galicia 125 Table 1. Jewish and Total Landowners in Galicia, 1889-1912

Year Total Galician Jewish landowners

landowners* (No.) (No.) % a

1889 2,905 2,331 533 305 18.3 13.1 1902 1912 2,534 561 22.1 Note: I include individuals, not institutions. ‘Incl. all owners of landed estates.

Sources: W. Lewicki, Nasze czy obce zywioty (Lviv, 1889); S. Gruinski (ed.), Materiaty do kwestit zydowskiey w Galcpt (Lviv, 1910); and J. Rutkowski,

‘Wiasnosé tabularna w Galicji wg stanu z konca, 1912 r.’, Wiadomose statystyczne o stosunkach Krajowych, 25 (1918), no. 5.

Table 2. Area of Jewish-owned and total Galician landed estates, 1889-1912

estatesestates (ha.) a (ha.) %

Year Total landed Total Jewish-owned

1889 2,567,327 340,498 13.3 1902 2,385,511 301,619 12.6 1912 2,131,470 342,148 16.0 Notes: | include individuals only, not institutions.

Sources. Lewicki, Nasze czy obce zywioty; Gruinski, Materialy do kwestu Zydowskies, Rutkowski, ‘Wtasnos¢ tabularna’; and J. Buzek, ‘Wtasnosc¢ tabularna w Galicji wg stanu z konica, 1902 r.’, Wiadomosct statystyczne o stosunkach Krajowych, 20 (1905), no. 3.

owned 36 per cent of landed estates, that took first place for Jewish ownership, followed by the Sanok and Ternopil’ districts (see Table 3). If we examine Galicia according to its division into powzats (districts) (Map 1), the following areas of high Jewish ownership also stand out: Skole (76 per cent of landed estates), Lesko (34 per cent), Horodenka (26 per cent), and Dolina, Turka, Borshchiv, and Skalat (all

of them 24 per cent). The percentage of Jewish property in the west Galician powiats was minimal; in some it barely reached 1 per cent. This particular distribution of Jewish property was determined by several factors: first, the undiminish-

ing interest in woods and forests, found mainly in the eastern Carpathians; secondly, the general structure of property, as landed estates were initially larger in eastern Galicia; and thirdly, the distribution of Jews in Galicia, whose main

centres of concentration were in the eastern part.°° ,

30 In 1910 eastern Galicia was home to 75 per cent of Galician Jewry. T. Gasowski, ‘Jewish Communities in Autonomous Galicia: Their Size and Distribution’, The Jems in Poland, 1 (1992), 205-22.

126 Tomasz Gasowski Table 3. Jewish landowning in Galicia by juridical region, 1912

Juridical Total landed Jewish-owned estates

region (district) estates (ha.) —————_——_—_———

(ha.) (%)

Berezhany 144,733 19,907 13.7

Chortkiv 150,391 21,761 14.5

Jasto 50,200 3,081 6.1 Kolomyia — 64,741 11,140 17.2 Krakow 70,671 2,53910.2 3.6 Lviv 252,733 25,931 Nowy Sacz 55,994 4,549 8.1

Przemys! 152,455 8,494 5.6 Rzeszow 171,227 13,346 7.8 Sambir126,697 118,023 36,363 18,437 28.7 15.6 Sanok Stanyslaviv 146,747 21,896 14.9

Stryi 241,967 87,191 36.0

Tarnow 92,604 16,118 17.4 Ternopil’ 100,391 22,564 22.5 Wadowice 99,75427,636 1,19514.2 1.2 Zolochiv 194,313 | Note: | include individuals, not institutions. Source: Rutkowski, ‘Wtasnos¢ tabularna’. ,

Jewish landowners were a diverse group. For the sake of closer investigation I shall use one single, economically fundamental criterion: the size of the property owned. The structure of this group by property size is presented in Table 4. As the

data indicate, at the turn of the century it was the owners of small estates not

| exceeding 500 hectares who were most numerous. The percentage of Jewish landowners declined as estate size grew. (Nevertheless, Jews are present in all categories of proprietors, including the owners of great latifundia.) In the first years of the twentieth century this characteristic distribution of proportions grew even

sharper. Both supply and demand for small estates continued to grow.*! This created a mechanism that favoured the fast growth of Jewish landed property in

autonomous Galicia. ,

Let us now compare the differentiation of Jewish-owned property to the general structure of Galician estate-owning. Table 5 brings together relevant data from previous conclusions. Jews constituted the highest percentage among the smallest-scale estate-owners. In 1902 every fifth (and ten years later every fourth) landowner was a Jew. Among the medium-scale landowners, the percentage of Jewish landowners was also considerable, and higher than in the whole group, and

it grew over ten years, reaching almost 19 per cent. The table also shows that the percentage of Jews drops as we move towards larger-scale categories of

, ownership.

31 F, Bujak, O naprawie ustroju rolnego w Polsce (Krakéw, 1919), 73.

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230 Stephen D. Corrsin number of literates, there is no reason to question the accuracy for other major groups. Table 4 presents literacy percentages for all ages, on the one hand, and for those over 9 years old (plus those of unknown age), on the other, all analysed by native language. Table 5 presents literacy for all ages, by faith. (In the published census, the data on faith and literacy are not analysed by age.) As Table 4 shows, among Warsaw’s Polish-speakers (excluding small children)

three-quarters of the males and two-thirds of the females were able to read. Among Yiddish-speakers three-fifths of the males but less than two-fifths of the females were literate, according to these official data. Three-fifths of Catholics of all ages were literate, compared to two-fifths of all Jews, according to Table 5.

| German- and Russian-speakers and Protestants and Eastern Orthodox comprise the most literate groups presented in Tables 4 and 5. Protestantism, of course, generally emphasized the importance of literacy, and most German-speakers in Warsaw, as elsewhere in the Russian empire, were Protestant (chiefly Lutherans, in Poland). A sizeable share of the city’s Russians (and Eastern Orthodox) consisted of officials, army officers, and their families, a group that probably came close to universal adult literacy. Russian-speaking Jews made up about one-tenth of all those claiming Russian as a native language and they constituted a particularly literate group: according to the census, 79.9 per cent of all ages could read, Table 4. Warsaw literacy by native language, 1897: people over age nine (or of unknown age) and people of all ages (% literate)

Language _ People over age 9 or of People of all ages Native speakers

unknown age as % of population total Males Females Total Males Females Total

Polish 76.6 67.0 71.4 63.2 57.1 59.9 61.2 Yiddish 61.5 384 494 47.9 311 39.2 28.3 Russian 78.8 86.0 80.6 73.9 71.9 73.3 6.8 German 86.4 83.2 84.6 75.7 73.9 74.8 1.6 TOTAL 72.4 60.3 66.4 60.1 50.5 55.2

Source: Perepis’ 1897, table 15. | Table 5. Warsaw literacy by faith, 1897: percentage literate, all ages

, Faith Males Females Total % ofpopulation total

Jewish Catholic51.5 62.736.1 56.643.5 59.4 33.7 55.7 Eastern Orthodox 68.2 69.9 68.5 7.5

Lutheran and Reformed 78.3 75.7 77.0 2.9

TOTAL 60.1 50.5 55.2 Source: Perepis’ 1897, table 14.

Levels of Literacy in Warsaw 231 meaning almost all adults. They made up an appreciable share of the local Russian-speaking community. German-speaking Jews of all ages (who numbered fewer than 1,000) were also 79.9 per cent literate. Among Polish-speaking Jews, who constituted 13.7 per cent of Warsaw’s 210,526 Jews, only 63.1 per cent were literate. This rather modest share comes as a surprise, because this segment of Jewish Warsaw has always been presumed to have been fully assimilated to Polish culture and well educated in secular (Polish, Russian, or German) schools.!° The census counts only 39.1 per cent of Jews whose native language was Yiddish (83.7 per cent of the total Jewish population) as literate. This figure naturally would have been much higher if the census had counted all Yiddish- and Hebrew-only literates as literate. The relatively low share of Jewish literates may also result from the higher proportion of infants and small children among Jews than among other groups. In all, 25.9 per cent of the Jewish population was under Io years old, compared to only 20.3 per cent of the Catholic population and 21.3 per cent of the total. (Thus the age-related demographic flaw in Suligowski’s analysis concealed

an ethnic dimension as well.) Among Christian groups, 72.2 per cent of the Russian-speaking Eastern Orthodox were literate, and 59.2 per cent of the Polishspeaking Catholics, who made up the majority of the city’s population. The largest

Protestant group was the Lutherans; members of this church were evenly split between native speakers of Polish (77.8 per cent of whom were literate) and German (73.2 per cent literate). Since these percentages concern people of all ages, adult literacy for the Lutherans was probably actually significantly higher, indeed probably over go per cent.

It is clear that the literacy estimates for late nineteenth-century Warsaw improve considerably when we eliminate infants and small children from consideration. In Warsaw, these young groups waxed particularly large, more than one-fifth of the city total in both censuses (20.8 per cent in 1882 and 21.3 per cent fifteen years later). By taking that fraction into account, we can correct the demographic flaw in Suligowski’s results and develop a more complex, and less dismal, notion of levels of literacy in the city. The errors stemming from the ‘Jewish factor’, however, are much more difficult to correct. I will now attempt to clarify

some of the problems involved. PROBLEMS WITH QUANTITATIVE MEASURES OF JEWISH LITERACY, AND A PARTIAL REMEDY Reviewing the census data, and examining the context of Jewish education in eastern Europe, makes clear that the 1882 and 1897 censuses incorrectly counted 15 T discuss patterns of Jewish language use in Warsaw in S. D. Corrsin, ‘Language Use in Cultural and Political Change in Pre-1g14 Warsaw: Poles, Jews, and Russification’, Slavonic and East European Review, 68 (1990), 69-90. On Jewish assimilation in Congress Poland, see A. Cala, Asymilacja Zydéw w Krélestwie Polskim: Postawy, konflikty, stereotypy (Warsaw, 19809).

232 Stephen D. Corrsin many Jewish literates as illiterates. The evidence to support this is circumstantial but persuasive, and I turn now to two categories of additional data. First, contem-

| porary writers knew and wrote about the underestimation, as comments quoted above and below illustrate, and other Jewish writers also perpetrated the linguistic

, biases that had been partially responsible. Secondly, several non-governmental surveys that counted literacy in Hebrew and Yiddish showed much higher rates for Jews.

Students of Jewish history and society have long noted problems with the official data on Jewish literacy from Russia: chiefly, that the levels appear far too low. Several knowledgeable scholars commented on the issue immediately after the publication of the 1897 census results the following decade. No one has found any ‘smoking guns’, such as official instructions to census-takers to ignore Yiddish and Hebrew literacy. Several contemporary commentators, however, pointed out reasons why the ability to read ‘Jewish’ languages would not have been accepted as ‘real’ literacy. Both Jewish and governmental attitudes would have played a part. Boris Brutzkus wrote, in his study published shortly after the census results came out, that ‘non-Jewish census-takers were incapable of correctly registering the literacy of the population in the Yiddish language’ because ‘during questioning, it must be assumed, the Jewish population in the great bulk of cases considered its own Yiddish literacy to be too customary (obychnym), self-evidently not possibly of interest to the census-taker acting in the name of the government’.’® Arthur Ruppin, German Zionist and scholar, writing in 1906 about the 1897 census, also

suggested that the Jews themselves assumed their knowledge of Hebrew and Yiddish was not being considered, rather only Russian or other ‘European’ languages such as Polish or German.!” Suligowski noted something similar in his 16 OB. Brutzkus, Statistika evreiskago naselentia: Raspredielenie po territorii, demograficheskie i kulturnye priznaki evreiskago naseleniia po dannym perepist, 1897 g. (St Petersburg, 1909), 47-8. In the

cited statements by Brutzkus and Shabad, I have translated the ambiguous Russian term evreiski as ‘Yiddish’, or, in a couple of instances, ‘Jewish’. However, evreiskii could also mean ‘Hebrew’, depending on the context, and in fact is most accurately (if awkwardly) translated as ‘of or pertaining to the Jews’. In the sphere of literacy data, I would suggest that evreiskii be best thought of as indicating ‘literacy in the Hebrew script or some variant thereof’. Shaul Stampfer notes that studying literacy among eastern European Jews is especially difficult because of their complex linguistic situation: ‘Three categories of reading and writing must be taken into account: in the spoken language (Yiddish), the literary, national language (Hebrew), and the languages of the non-Jewish environment’ (‘Yedi’at kero ukhetov etsel yehudei mizrah eiropah batekufah hahadashah: Heksher, mekorot, vehashlahot’, in S. Armog (ed.), Transition and Change in Modern Jewish History: Essays Presented in Honor of Shmuel Ettinger (Jerusalem, 1987), 462; I thank Ida Luftig for translating this for me). It is

often stated that Jewish culture in modern Poland was trilingual; see C. Shmeruk, ‘Hebrew— Yiddish—Polish: A Trilingual Jewish Culture’, in Y. Gutman, E. Mendelsohn, J. Reinharz, and C. ~Shmeruk The Jems of Poland between Two World Wars (eds.), (Hanover, NH, 1989). But for the pre-1914 period in Warsaw specifically, Jewish patterns of language use were four- or even five| dimensional, involving Russian and German as well as the other three (see Corrsin, ‘Language Use’). 17 A. Ruppin, ‘Die russischen Juden nach der Volkszahlung von 1897’, Zeitschrift fur Demographie und Statistik der Juden, 2/1 (Jan. 1906), 5.

Levels of Literacy in Warsaw 233 discussion of the earlier, 1882 census: many Jews assumed the census question on educational attainment did not concern study in heders.'® In an article on Jewish literacy in the authoritative Russian-language Evreiskaia entstklopedua (‘Jewish Encyclopaedia’, 1906—13), Yakov Shabad also comments on the problem: In regard to the literacy of the Jews . . . first of all the absence of precise statistics on literacy in the Yiddish language should be noted: Yiddish literacy either was not counted at all as such [i.e. as literacy], or was registered incompletely. . . . The Jewish population itself in the great bulk of cases considered its own, Jewish literacy, religious in origin, as something customary ... and which there was no point in mentioning. In consequence of this, Jews literate only in Yiddish were often mistakenly registered by the census as illiterate—and as a result, according to the census data, the percentage of Jewish literacy is lower than the reality.1°

Thus Jewish scholars of the period expressed concern about this problem and saw how it might have happened.”° Examples of negative attitudes towards Yiddish come specifically from contem-

porary Warsaw Jewish writers. Antoni Lange, a Jewish advocate of assimilation to Polish culture and identity, denigrated Jewish languages in a pamphlet on literacy that he published in Polish in 1906: ‘As a result [of the Aeders|, among the Jews there are almost no illiterates. Despite this, as long as the Jews do not give up the jargon [ Yiddish], and move fundamentally to use of the language of the land (Gezyk krajowy) [i.e. Polish], we must count them as illiterate.” Even the Warsaw editor and future Zionist leader Nahum Sokolow, a far more significant Jewish writer, who became a nationalist rather than an assimilationist, wrote in 1890 that Yiddish 18 Suligowski, Miasto analfabetéw, 12. While discussing a study of literacy in Austrian-ruled Galicia, Roman Rybarski notes that the undercounting of Jewish literacy is a problem ‘so often forgotten’ (‘Rozbiory i sprawozdania’, Ekonomista, 11/3 (1911), 176). But clearly it was no secret. Modern Polish studies sometimes refer to this point, without treating it systematically or attempting to correct it. For example, Halina Kiepurska suggests that although ‘statisticians indicate’ that many Jews were incorrectly counted as illiterates, this inaccuracy does not change the overall picture much (‘Tajna oSwiata drugiej polowy XIX w.’, in J. Kazimierski (ed.), Szkolnictwo 1 oswiata w Warszawie (Warsaw, 1982), 114). But surely, for Warsaw and other places where Jews made up a third or more of

the population, this factor must indeed have seriously skewed the results for the whole community. 19 J. Shabad, ‘Gramotnost’ evreev v Rossii’, Evreiskaia entsiklopediia, vi (St Petersburg, 1908), col. 756.

20 More recently, Shaul Stampfer has addressed the same issue: “The questionnaire of the 1897 census did include a question on literacy in any language, which theoretically should have included Yiddish. However, apparently Yiddish was not given the status of a language and the census statistics

are clearly unreliable on this score. To learn about literacy in Yiddish we need to turn to other sources.” ‘Gender Differentiation and Education of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe’, Polin, vii (Oxford, 1992), 67. In another essay he adds: “The census of the czarist empire made in 1897 does not give reliable data on Hebrew literacy-—surely an understatement. ‘What Did “Knowing Hebrew” Mean in Eastern Europe?’, in Lewis Glinert (ed.), Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile (New York, 1993). 21 A. Lange, Analfabetyzm i walka z ciemnota w Krolestwie Polskim (Warsaw, 1906), 27. Lange,

from a local Jewish assimilationist family with strong Polish patriotic credentials, later converted to Catholicism.

234 Stephen D. Corrsin was an ‘evil’ and Yiddish publications had ‘reason to exist only as tools in the hands of the intelligentsia, for spreading light among the masses’.?? As these comments suggest, negative stances on languages existed within the

Jewish community itself and could have strongly affected the census results. Outside traditional circles, when Jews thought about Hebrew at all, they widely regarded it as an anachronism, a ‘non-modern’ language with no real place in the contemporary world. (Non-Jews in both Poland and Russia had almost no tradition of Hebrew scholarship.**) Moreover, much of the Jewish secular intelligentsia

shared with the government and Christian society a profound contempt for Yiddish as some sort of deformed German dialect rather than a ‘real’ language. Many Jews would therefore have sensed little point in noting the use of either Hebrew or Yiddish in a census, and indeed might have agitated against doing so. If we want to look for governmental attitudes that might have led local censustakers or officials to tell Jews that the censuses would not count literacy in Yiddish (and probably Hebrew), we will have little trouble in finding them. Negative attitudes towards Jews were endemic. One component was an extremely negative view of Jewish languages and culture. In the virulently antisemitic world of the Russian empire in the late nineteenth century this can be taken as a given. Brutzkus continues his thoughts with the comment that ‘probably the census-takers were also not much interested in Yiddish literacy’ .?4 ‘The census-takers . . . evidently almost completely ignored [Yiddish literacy], concurs Shabad in the Evreiskaia entsiklopedita.” Asa result of these sentiments on both the Jewish and the official sides, data on the Jews from the 1897 census showed very low levels of literacy. These results contradicted the common perception of widespread Jewish literacy and the text-

oriented nature of rabbinic Judaism. They also contradicted the fact that most Jewish boys attended heder for at least a couple of years—certainly long enough to gain a minimal reading facility in Yiddish, the first language to which most were exposed, as both a spoken and a written tongue. Because Yiddish uses a phonetic

version of the Hebrew alphabet, anyone who spoke Yiddish and read Hebrew could also read Yiddish at least a little.*°

While clearly fewer Jewish females were literate than males, and few were taught to read Hebrew religious texts, it was also the case that many adult Jewish 22 N. Sokolow, Zadania inteligencji zydowskiej: Szkic programu (Warsaw, 1890), 45~6. The extremely

negative attitudes that were common towards Yiddish are described by Emanuel S. Goldsmith — (Architects of Yiddishism at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: A Study in Jewish Cultural History

(Rutherford, NJ, 1976)). In The Esterke Story in Yiddish and Polish Literature (Jerusalem, 1985) Chone Shmeruk notes that, historically in Europe, Jews were averse to learning to read ‘Christian’ languages even when quite willing and able to speak them (p. 48). See also Stampfer, ‘Yedi’at kero

ukhetov’, 463.

23 See e.g. W. Tyloch, ‘Hebrew Studies in Poland through the Ages’, Paper read at the conference ‘Poles and Jews: Myth and Reality in the Historical Context’, Columbia University, New York, Mar. 1983.

"2 Brutzkus, Statistika evreiskago naselenita, 47-8.

25 Shabad, ‘Gramotnost’ evreev v Rossii’, col. 756. 26 Stampfer, ‘Yedi’at kero ukhetov’, 462.

Levels of Literacy in Warsaw 235 women could read Yiddish or one of the ‘non-Jewish’ languages. In a recent study Shaul Stampfer examines the images and reality of women’s education among east European Jews in the nineteenth century. Contrary to stereotypes that depicted Jewish women as poorly educated, he finds that in fact females frequently did find study opportunities, often in Yiddish and informally—trather than in the formal educational structures for males, whose schools (Aeders and others) focused on tra-

ditional Hebraic religious literature.?’ |

According to the 1897 census, in the Russian empire as a whole 49.4 per cent of all Jewish males and 28.9 per cent of females were literate (33.9 per cent com-_ bined); in Warsaw, according to the published statistics, these shares were only slightly higher, at 51.5 and 36.1 per cent (43.5 per cent combined).”° In the face of figures such as these, authors writing on Jewish literacy soon started questioning the 1897 census results. Among them were Brutzkus, Ruppin, and Shabad, quoted above. In Shabad’s estimation the figures for the entire empire should have been not less than 75-80 per cent for Jewish males and 50 per cent for Jewish females.”° A number of surveys from the period support the critics of the official data. These non-governmental surveys were generally carried out by Jewish researchers or agencies and were important, as Stampfer writes, ‘because the pollsters were Jewish and treated the ability to read Hebrew and Yiddish seriously, and were aware of the importance of knowing how to read in different languages’.°° Three such surveys concern Warsaw in the years 1911-16. It is unfortunate that no census is exactly contemporaneous with them, but none the less they tell a strikingly different story from the official counts. First, a 1912 survey of 3,500 adult workers (probably all or chiefly men), by the Towarzystwo Dostarczania Pracy Ubogim Zydom miasta Warszawy (Society to Find Work for Impoverished Jews of the City of Warsaw),*! found that 29.4 per cent read exclusively ‘in Yiddish’ (po zydomsku); 60.1 per cent knew Polish or Russian or both, in addition to Yiddish; 1 per cent did not read Yiddish but were literate in another language; and 9.4 per cent were completely illiterate. The minimum literacy criterion was the ability to read. Secondly, the city’s Jewish communal board (kehilah) surveyed 695 Jewish couples divorced in 1911-16 and found that 84.6 per cent of the men and 73.7 per cent of the women were literate (pzsmiennych, in its Polish-language report).°” Ages

are not given, but presumably those divorcing were adults. Since these data concern the registration of vital events, it is likely they reflect the ability to sign a document. The issue of particular languages does not come up; however, the kehilah \eadership strongly advocated Jews’ use of Polish, and it is probable the

27 See Stampfer, ‘Gender Differentiation’. 28 Ruppin, ‘Juden’, 2. 29 Shabad, ‘Gramotnost’ evreev v Rossii’, col. 756. 30 Stampfer, ‘Yedi’at kero ukhetov’, 469. 31 J. Marchlewski, Ludzie, czasy, idee (Warsaw, 1973), 412. The total number of subjects Marchlewski cites varies between 3,430 and 3,520; I have not found the original report. 32 Sprawozdanie Zarzqdu Warszawskiej Gminy starozakonnych za lata, 1912-1916 (Warsaw, 1989),

It.

236 Stephen D. Corrsin report would have pointed out how many signers could use Polish as opposed to Hebrew or Yiddish, had that information been available.*° Thirdly, a survey on Jewish tailors was published in German in 1913 that included information for 278 men, 46 women, and 16 boys and 6 girls from Warsaw (plus 1,112 Jews from other cities, chiefly men from Vilnius and Berdichev). What it showed was that a full 99.1 per cent of the Jewish men in Warsaw could read Yiddish (judisch) or Russian or both. Hardly any could read or write Polish. How many of the

_ Jewish women in Warsaw were illiterate is not stated, but from the text it appears that 74.5 per cent of them could write to some degree (so probably slightly more could read at least somewhat). It does state that 68 per cent of the women could read and write Yiddish—some knew Russian as well—and 6.5 per cent could read and write in Russian but not in Yiddish; it does not give the percentage of women in Warsaw who could only read (but not write) in any language. In the entire sample, 2.3 per cent of the women could read but not write in one of these languages.** Thus, for Warsaw Jews of 1911-16, three surveys indicate adult male literacy in the 85—99 per cent range, and two of these show 74—5 per cent literacy for women.

These proportions are a far cry indeed from the 43.5 per cent share the 1897 census found for all Warsaw Jews, which would translate to about 50—5 per cent for those over age g. They are also a far more reasonable set of results, considering what is known about Jewish literacy in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century eastern Europe. Educational opportunities for Jews in Warsaw certainly did not

improve enough between 1897 and 1911-16 to explain the difference. Schools remained inadequate in number and quality, even though after the 1905 revolution schools in Poland, as elsewhere in the empire, acquired significantly more freedom.*° Rather than improvements in education, the higher literacy results 33 In ‘Ludnoéé zydowska w polowie XIX w. w éwietle akt stanu cywilnego’ (Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 2/118 (1981), 41-2), Stefania Kowalska-Glikman presents data summarized from over 2,100 Jewish marriage registrations in Warsaw from 1845-6 and 1860. She finds that 69.3 per cent (1845-6) and 64.2 per cent (1860) of the women and 27.1 per cent and 23.2 per cent of the men did not—and presumably could not?—sign the forms. These represent surviving fragments of record sets that were incomplete to begin with, since many Jews avoided compliance with official registration requirements. As an additional caveat, she notes, signatures on marriage records are not an absolutely reliable indicator of literacy, or even of the ability to sign on other occasions.

_ 34S. Rabinowitsch-Margolin, ‘Zur Bildungsstatistik der jiidischen Arbeiter in Russland’, Zeitschrift fiir Demographie und Statistik der Juden, 9/11 (Nov. 1913), 153-61. Rabinowitsch-Margolin

presents aggregates for the whole survey (all locations together), which Stampfer, ‘Yedi’at kero ukhetov’, 471-2, presents in tabular form. Her calculations are not exact; for instance, men who could read and write both Russian and Yiddish seem to make up 37.9 per cent of the Warsaw sample on p. 156 but only 38.2 per cent on p. 159. 35 Szyja Bronsztejn, in Ludnosé zydowska w Polsce w okresie miedzywojennym: Studium statystyczne

(Wroclaw, 1963), cites the lack of progress in general education for Jews (pp. 183-6). Ochs describes the fitful official attempts to force heders to teach Russian in late empire Congress Poland, concluding that even in the last years before the First World War ‘virtually no progress had been made on this

front since the 1880s, and reckoning from the educational reforms instituted after the January Uprising, for nearly half a century’ (‘St Petersburg and the Jews’, 173).

Levels of Literacy in Warsaw 237 from 1911-16 represent different means of counting literacy than those of the censuses, in particular a greater willingness to accept the ability to read ‘Jewish’ languages as constituting literacy. | If we accept the 1911-16 data as more or less representative of 1897 as well, then we can estimate that between 80 and go per cent of Warsaw’s adult Jewish population—that is, excluding children up to 1o—was at least minimally literate. Therefore, after doing our best to correct for both the demographic flaw and the ‘Jewish factor’, we can place Warsaw’s total adult literate share in the 75—8 per cent range. This range is above those of St Petersburg (71.8 per cent) and Moscow (66.3 per cent), and only 5—8 per cent behind Riga, the most literate of the Russian empire’s great cities.°° Of course, this is a very tentative estimate; but it is none the

less far more realistic than the usual statement, following Suligowski, that Warsaw’s overall literacy level in this period was in the neighbourhood of 50—5 per cent.

| An important question, but one that cannot be answered from these data, is the quality of the literacy under discussion. The censuses and surveys asked only for very minimal skills. Many of Warsaw’s literates could, in all probability, barely write their names or puzzle out street or shop signs. ‘They would have been hardpressed to fill out official documents, write a letter, read one of the local newspapers (whether the Polish Kurier Warszawski, the Yiddish Haynt, the Hebrew Hatsefirah, or the Russian Varshavsku Dnevntk), or read political flyers, religious texts, or instructions for machinery. No comprehensive literacy data are available for Warsaw in the last seventeen years of Russian rule (1898-1915). But, thanks in part to Suligowski’s study, widespread illiteracy remained a topic of public concern in the final pre-war decade. In the wake of the 1905 revolution several Polish organizations aimed at improving the situation were founded. (Some aimed to encourage literacy in Polish among

Jews as well.) Demographer Egon Vielrose, using methods of retrospective analysis (working backwards by age cohorts from 1921 figures), has estimated that

by the eve of the First World War, about three-quarters of the population of Warsaw was literate, including 80 per cent of the males and 75 per cent of the females.*’ Vielrose’s estimate is quite close to the one produced in this chapter. 36 Performing the same corrections for the literacy data from the two Russian capitals, St Petersburg

and Moscow, would produce far smaller changes. Both cities had lower percentages of infants and small children (in 1897 only 13.9 per cent of St Petersburg’s and 12.4 per cent of Moscow’s population was under 10, compared to 21.3 per cent in Warsaw), of Jews (1.5 and 0.8 per cent, compared to 33.7), and, for that matter, of females (45.6 and 43.3 per cent female, compared to 50.7 per cent in Warsaw; and generally fewer females than males would have been literate). 37 Vielrose, ‘Szacunek analfabetyzmu’, 15. On Polish literacy campaigns, see J. Miaso, ‘Oswiata dorostych w Warszawie na przelomie XIX 1 XxX w.’, Warszawa XIX wieku, 2 (1971), 295-316. An obvious

comparison to Warsaw is the industrial city of L6dz, the ‘Polish Manchester’, which experienced enormous growth in this period, and where the educational system failed to keep up with the population

expansion. (The city was even more ethnically diverse than Warsaw: about 50 per cent Polish, 30 per cent Jewish, and 15 per cent German.) Julian K. Janczak (“Zmiany w poziomie wyksztalcenia

238 Stephen D. Corrsin After 1897 no census was taken in Warsaw until 1921, when the city was the capital of the second Polish republic. The literacy criterion this time was the ability to read. As Table 6 shows, this census recorded more than four-fifths of the total population over g as literate, with men as well as women showing high literacy levels. According to these data, over one-fifth of the Jews were illiterate, as against only one Catholic in eight. This relatively high figure for Jewish illiteracy could

lead one again to doubt that knowledge of Yiddish and Hebrew was fully counted.*® These inter-war data should not, however, be too casually compared with the pre-war information, either the 1897 imperial results or the 1882 local data. Warsaw’s population had experienced not only several decades of intense social and economic change, including mass immigration from smaller towns

and rural areas, but also the carnage of the First World War, several years of occupation by the Central Powers, and then the establishment of the Polish republic. Table 6. Percentage literate in Warsaw, 1921: people over age 9 or of unknown age

| Illiterate Literate —_ Literacy

unknown

All males 12.5 84.8 2.7 | All females 18.0 78.5 3.5 Total 15.6 81.3 3.1 Catholic males 9.7 — — Catholic females 14.8 —— —

Total Catholics 12.6 — ~~~

Jewish males 18.6 — —

Jewish females 25.4 -—- -——

TOTAL JEWS 22.3 — —

Source: Le Premier Recensement général de la république polonatse du 30 septembre 1921: Logements, populations, professtons. Ville de Varsovie,

Statystyka Polski, vol. 14 (Warsaw, 1926), table 6.

ludnosci Lodzi, 1846—1921’, Przesztosé Demograficzna Polski, 11 (1979), 95—105) states that literacy in

Lodz among adults rose from about 20 per cent in the mid-1gth century to 51 per cent in 1897 and 80 per cent by 1921; he notes Suligowski’s demographic flaw (p. 100) but not the problems related to

Jewish literacy measures.

88 Confirmation that census-takers did not accept knowledge of Yiddish and Hebrew appears in a report by Polish statistician Raymund Bulawski, ‘Projekt drugiego polskiego spisu powszechnego na tle doswiadczen spisu 1921 r. oraz praktyki zagranicznej’, Kwartalnik Statystyczny, 7 (1930), 68-9.

Additional comments on Jewish literacy in inter-war Poland are found in Bronsztejn, Ludnosé, 175-89; id., “The Jewish Population of Poland in 1931’, Journal of Jewish Sociology, 6 (1964), 15-19; and Stampfer, ‘Yedi’at kero ukhetov’, 473-4.

Levels of Literacy in Warsaw 239 CONCLUSIONS In recent years an enormous literature has appeared on the history of literacy (and illiteracy) in Europe and North America. Besides examining aggregate sources such as censuses, researchers have made extensive use of such materials as military, parish, and communal records. They have also debated the significance of literacy and education in the modern world. The standard assumption, which Suligowski shared, has been that increased levels of literacy and educational attainment are

central aspects of economic growth, social and cultural advance, and general modernization (however a given scholar chooses to define this unwieldy term). Some other historians, however, have gone far in debunking this ‘literacy myth’, disengaging literacy levels from questions of socio-economic, cultural, political, or indeed individual advancement. The history of literacy should be ‘uncoupled’ from the history of schooling, these writers state.*? In addition, it has been pointed

out that ‘traditional’ social elements have sometimes been more literate than ‘modern’ ones, for example in east European Jewish society.” Scholars of literacy generally have focused their attention on the United States, Canada, and western and northern Europe. These regions were far in advance of Poland, Russia, and most of eastern Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in terms of national wealth, economic development, urbanization, and

levels of literacy and education. Comparative examination of literacy in western : Europe and North America, on the one hand, with eastern Europe, on the other, would surely provide useful insight into how the ‘literacy myth’ did or did not apply to the entire European and Atlantic world. Further, since eastern Europe supplied a huge share of migrants to the New World, comparative studies might be important for understanding North American developments. A study could examine literacy rates of particular groups in their countries of origin and of destination: for example, Polish Jews in Poland and the United States. It has been noted that migrants sometimes appear to have higher literacy rates than people who have not migrated. Is this an accurate measure, or is it a result of, say, a greater willingness among officials in North America than in Europe to accept literacy in any language?*! This is a good example here precisely 39 A key ‘debunking’ study is H. J. Graff, The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the , Nineteenth Century City (New York, 1979). Recent literature is too vast to be cited comprehensively here, but H. Graff, Literacy in History: An Interdisciplinary Research Bibliography (New York, 1981) should be consulted. C. M. Cipolla, Literacy and Development in the West (Baltimore, 1969) is particularly interesting for comparisons and a comprehensive European approach. A recent review essay is C. F. Kaestle, “The History of Literacy and the History of Readers’, in E. R. Kintgen, B. M. Kroll and M. Rose (eds.), Perspectives on Literacy (Carbondale, Ill., 1989). 40 T thank Shaul Stampfer for pointing this out to me.

41 Barbara A. Anderson (Jnternal Migration during Modernization in Late Nineteenth-Century Russia (Princeton, 1980) ) associates literacy and migration levels within Russia (pp. 32—8, 88). More

generally on literacy and migration, see Graff, Literacy Myth, 66-9. Samuel Joseph provides some data showing relatively high literacy rates among Jewish immigrants to the United States around the

240 Stephen D. Corrsin because of the continuing uncertainty over Jewish literacy in the Russian empire.

The notion that literacy in Yiddish or Hebrew should not or need not be considered in official data makes no sense in retrospect, but it does say quite a bit about governmental and popular attitudes of the day.*? In using official data from eastern Europe, it is important to recall that we are dealing with occasional aggregates, rather than a range of sources with samples of individuals and extended, consistent time series, such as are often available for

North America or western and northern Europe. This irregularity of source material limits the depth of any literacy studies in eastern Europe or Russia; it becomes hard to move on to questions of the true significance of literacy among different groups when aggregate data remain on such a crude level. Even in the relatively well-documented case of western Europe, as Carl Kaestle writes, ‘the

exact trends ... are difficult to trace. The evidence is skimpy and its validity suspect. National averages mask variations, so the need for further studies is almost endless. Once the trends in crude literacy are estimated, it is hard to get beyond them to the quality and meaning of literacy’.*° All such difficulties are far greater in the study of Poland, Russia, and other east European regions. To sum up, the fact that serious problems exist in the analysis of aggregate official data on literacy in the Russian empire has generally been recognized. Sometimes these problems can be corrected simply through scrutinizing the actual published volumes and results. The demographic flaw in Suligowski’s work is a good example of this: to correct it, one only has to remove infants and small children from consideration. (It is hard to fault Suligowski very much for this error. His purpose, after all, was to arouse interest, or rather to stir up alarm, over the inadequate and often destructive educational polices of the Russian government in Congress Poland, and he succeeded in this. He was not attempting to produce a scholarly study on the topic. But it is unfortunate that later scholars have tended simply to accept his figures rather than checking them against the turn of the century: in 1899—1910 only 26 per cent of Jews 14 years of age and older were registered as

illiterate, compared to 35 per cent of Poles and 38 per cent of Russians (Jewish Immigrations to the United States from 1881 to rg1o (New York, 1914), 192—4). International comparisons, of course, are

tricky matters. That officials, census-takers, etc. can be selective about the languages accepted for literacy data has been widely acknowledged, but evidently not generally discussed in terms of its effect on quantitative literacy measures. Scholars of France have noted the existence of this problem: e.g. F. Furet and J. Ozouf, Lire et écrire: L’Alphabétisation des francais de Calvin a Jules Ferry (Paris, 1977), i324-48. Rolf Engelsing notes that many Polish miners and factory workers who settled in western

Germany never learned any German and thus ‘in an official sense were illiterates, regardless of whether they were [literate] in their mother tongue or not’ (Analphabetentum und Lekttre: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Lesens in Deutschland zwischen feudaler und industrieller Gesellschaft (Stuttgart, 1973)). 42 Tn this period both Yiddish and Hebrew were used increasingly, by Jews in Poland and elsewhere, for such ‘modern’ activities as mass politics, the high-circulation periodical press, and secular literature. See Corrsin, ‘Language Use’, and Shmeruk, ‘Hebrew—Yiddish—Polish’, 285—311. 43 Kaestle, ‘History of Literacy’, 103.

Levels of Literacy in Warsaw 241 original sources.) The problems that result from the ‘Jewish factor’ in official statistics pose much more difficulty and the issues surrounding them are far more complex. Scholars and writers seem generally to have known, or at least strongly suspected, that the nineteenth-century census data severely understated actual Jewish literacy. Literacy in Yiddish and Hebrew was not accepted by officials and

census-takers as ‘real’ literacy. Also, many Jews did not think the government interested in literacy in Yiddish, a language despised by non-Jewish society and by many secularly educated Jews, or in literacy in Hebrew, considered a purely religious language, sometimes even alleged to be dead. The 1882 census data that

purport to cover Hebrew present something of a puzzle. But the figures are so low, | and the circumstances surrounding the 1882 census so unlikely to have encouraged full compliance by the larger Jewish community, that these data must include only a portion of all Jews who were literate in Hebrew but no ‘European’ language.

Several surveys of Jews in Warsaw in 1911-16 indicate far higher literacy than | either the 1882 or 1897 census. It is particularly important that the agencies or people carrying out the surveys were Jewish and seem to have accepted ‘Jewish’ languages for their literacy results. The higher levels that appeared are due to this acceptance, rather than to any sudden improvements in education for Jews between 1897 and the First World War. The issues I have touched on in this chapter illustrate larger concerns over the reliability and usefulness of quantitative data on the Jews, not only in Congress Poland but in the larger Russian empire, and no doubt elsewhere as well. Officials, scholars, and social commentators (both Jews and non-Jews) of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often alluded to problems with census and other data on the Jews. Sometimes these resulted from Jews’ attempts to avoid special financial burdens placed on them, such as fees to stay in Polish cities or charges at the time of the registration of vital events. This was a notorious and intractable problem that Polish statisticians repeatedly discussed as late as the inter-war period, and to which historians often refer today.4* The quantitative side of the ‘Jewish question’

in Poland, Russia, and elsewhere, and particularly the critical analysis of such basic sources as censuses, deserves a great deal of attention. Difficulties assessing

| literacy data are but one part of a broader problem with the quantitative evidence available about east European Jews. 44 The difficulties with quantitative data on the Jews in Russia and Poland are very complex and often not sufficiently taken into consideration. Topics that these difficulties affect could be multiplied endlessly. Studies making more careful use of census data on nationality and language in the Polish lands include J. Lestschinsky, ‘Di statistik fun natsionalitetn in umophengikn poyln’, Yivo bleter, 23 (1944), 307-28; J. Tomaszewski, Rzeczpospolita wielu naroddw (Warsaw, 1985), 25-37; J. Marcus, Soctal and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939 (Berlin, 1983), 16-18; S. D. Corrsin, ‘Aspects of Population Change and of Acculturation in Jewish Warsaw at the end of the Nineteenth

Century: The Censuses of 1882 and 1897’, Polin, iti (Oxford, 1988), 122-41; and G. Bacon, ‘La Société juive dans le royaume de la Pologne du Congrés, 1860-1914’, La Société juive a travers Uhistotre, 1 (1992), 623-4, 765-72.

Poles, Jews, and Russians, 1863-1914: The Death of the Ideal of Assimilation in the Kingdom of Poland THEODORE R. WEEKS IN the kingdom of Poland between the last major Polish uprising and the outbreak of the First World War, a major shift took place in prevailing attitudes regarding

the desired form of relations between Poles and Jews. Specifically, the period witnessed a sharp rise of nationalist feelings among both Jews and Poles, the development of strong and widespread antisemitic feelings in nearly all segments of the Polish population, and, correspondingly, growing disillusionment with the previously accepted liberal ideal of assimilation as the answer to the ‘Jewish question’. Already in the aftermath of the Warsaw pogrom of 1881 certain voices had questioned this ‘solution’, and after the suppression of the revolution of 1905 the general consensus grew clear: the majority of both Jews and Poles ceased to regard Jewish assimilation as a viable possibility.!

What had happened to change attitudes so starkly in the course of this halfcentury? This chapter attempts to suggest some explanations. Obviously there is no definitive answer to the underlying question of where Polish—Jewish relations

"went wrong’ between the ‘idyllic’ days of the early 1860s and the harsh antisemitic boycott campaign after 1905. It is, however, worth examining this period with subsequent developments in mind and considering whether an exacerbation of problems between Poles and Jews was inevitable, given the historical circumstances in which these two groups found themselves at the end of the nineteenth century. In this sense, this chapter may contribute to the understanding of the

roots of modern Polish antisemitism. |

It is a historiographical commonplace that Polish—Jewish brotherhood reached

an apex during the early years of the 1860s. The joint demonstrations of Jews Support for the research and writing of this chapter was provided by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Golda Meir Fund; the American Council of Learned Societies; and the Fulbright-Hays DDRA programme. ! To be sure, this is putting the matter baldly, and some have argued that assimilation remained viable even through the 1930s. See e.g. J. Lichten, ‘Notes on the Assimilation and Acculturation of Jews in Poland, 1863-1914’, in C. Abramsky, M. Jacimezyk, and A. Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Poland (Oxford, 1986).

The Death of Assimilation in Poland 243 | and Poles against the Russian authorities; the figure of Warsaw chief rabbi Dov Ber Meisels; the famous proclamation of 22 June 1862, ‘Do Braci-Polakow Mojzeszowego Zakonw’ (“To our Polish Brothers of the Mosaic Faith’), issued in both Hebrew and Polish—all of these come to mind in connection with Polish— Jewish relations in the early 1860s. There can be no doubt that during those few years Poles and Jews joined together in demanding political reforms from the Russian government in a manner previously unheard of in the region. And this vision of Jews and Poles shoulder to shoulder defending their shared homeland against the Russian invader was etched as a lasting memory in Polish historical consciousness (and in that of certain Jewish circles).? One may speak of a ‘myth of 1863’ (really 1861-3) that prevailed in political discourse in Russian Poland up to the outbreak of the First World War. How justified is this image of fraternal cooperation, of the shared consciousness and interests of the Polish and Jewish residents of Congress Poland? Not entirely. The myth ignores several important aspects of Polish—Jewish

relations in the mid-nineteenth century. To begin with, it concentrates on the narrow social groups, both Jewish and Polish, that participated in the demonstrations of 1861-2 and the 1863 rebellion itself. In fact, the popular masses were hardly touched by these events and, in general, did not view them positively. Neither the Polish peasantry nor the Jewish masses played a significant part in the uprising or the events leading up to it.* Polish—Jewish ‘brotherhood’ in the early 1860s concerned only the relatively educated, ‘enlightened’ strata of the Jewish and Polish populations; and to a great extent this ‘brotherhood’—and the myth it generated—appears to have been limited to Warsaw.° 2 The literature on Poles and Jews during the 1861-3 period is enormous. See e.g. I. Shchatskin, ‘K istorii uchastiia evreev v pol’skom vozstanii 1863 g.’, Evreiskaia starina, 1 (1915), 29-37; M. Balaban, ‘Zydzi w powstaniu 1863 r. (Proba bibliografii rozumowanej)’, Przeglad historyczny, 34 (1937), 564-99; J. Szacki, ‘Yidn in dem poylishn oyfshtand fun 1863’, Y/VO luistorishn shriftn, 1 (1929), 423-68; id., Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, 1i (New York, 1948), 209-57; and N. M. Gelber, Die Juden und der polnische Aufstand 1863 (Vienna, 1923).

3 A recent study of this theme in Polish and Jewish literature of the late 19th century is M. Opalski and I. Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood (Hanover, NH, 1992).

* A certain number of Jews, and not just of the educated classes, did assist the Polish rebels, but their numbers were not overwhelming, and their motives were unclear: did they truly prefer the Poles to the Russians or were they simply caught in circumstances that made non-compliance dangerous? The question cannot be answered easily and deserves more study. Ignacy Shiper mentions the names of several Jews who participated in the insurrection and emphasizes that 200 were either killed in battle or subsequently exiled. But he does not address the issue of how much general support the uprising enjoyed among the Jewish masses. I. Schiper, A. Haffta, and A. Tartakower (eds.), Zydzi mw Polsce Odrodzonej (Warsaw, n.d. [1932?]), 466-71. See also S. Hirszhorn, Historia Zydow w Polsce od Seymu czteroletnego do wojny europesskie], 1755-1914 (Warsaw, 1921), 172-93.

> There is some evidence that Jews and Poles worked together in Lublin in 1861—2, but even here it appears that only a very few, mostly rather assimilated, Jews actually participated in the events leading to 1863. See R. Bender, ‘Jews in the Lublin Region prior to the January Uprising, 1861-1862’, in Abramsky et a/. (eds.), Jems in Poland.

244 Theodore R. Weeks Even wealthy and educated Poles, moreover, felt misgivings about simply ending the multifarious restrictions to which Jews in the Polish kingdom were subject, let alone allying with them in opposition to the Russians. The best-known example of such a reluctant stance was that of ‘Pan Andrzej’ Zamoyski and the Towarzystwo Rolnicze (Agricultural Society), which opposed both equal rights and assimilation, though all the while admitting the economic usefulness of Jews for Poland.® It may be assumed that many of Pan Andrzej’s fellow landowners

shared his unease with the concept of Jews and Poles as equal and amicable citizens of a free Poland. After all, these conservative elements found it difficult to

admit Polish peasants as ‘citizens’, much less as their equals. The very idea of Jews—their former stewards and servants—being admitted to the Polish political nation must have shocked and outraged them. Marquis Aleksander Wielopolski did not, of course, belong to this group. We do well to keep in mind that in many respects Wielopolski opposed trends current

among the Polish upper class (1.e. landowning nobility) and he may hardly be considered ‘typical’ of this group.’ As is well known, Wielopolski favoured equal rights for the Jews with an eye towards developing the Polish economy. He saw in the Jews a crucial element for the development of Poland: they were to fill the role of the ‘missing Third Estate’ in the Polish economy.® (Ironically, such ‘usurpation of the Polish merchant class’ became precisely the charge levelled against Jews by

Polish nationalists such as Roman Dmowski and Zygmunt Balicki some four decades later.)® Yet Wielopolski, too, had his blind spots regarding the Jews. He seemed to regard them as a passive mass that could be kneaded into any form desired, all for the good of Poland. His actual knowledge of the realities of Jewish

life, economy, and culture approached nil. To quote Nathan Gelber, ‘For Wielopolski, the Jews were merely a mass who, once they had been granted legal equality, could be totally transformed. He did not know the Jewish people at all and was not aware of the obstacles in the way of their assimilation.’!°

Wielopolski was far from alone in his failure to appreciate the difficulties involved in ‘assimilation’. Rather, this view of Jews as a passive mass to be transformed into good Poles formed an integral part of the ideal of assimilation that

prevailed among Polish liberals throughout the nineteenth century. The very meaning of ‘assimilation’ as understood by Jews and Poles in the 1860s remains

unclear. Only in recent years have scholars begun to examine seriously the varied and conflicting ideas and experiences that have been subsumed under the 6 A. Eisenbach, Kwestia réwnouprawnienia Zydéw w Krélestwie Polskim (Warsaw, 1972), 346-7, Oo-I.

ue On this important figure, see H. Lisicki, Aleksander Wielopolski, 1803-1877 (Krakow, 1878-9); and Z. Stankiewicz, Dzieje wielkosc1 i upadku Aleksandra Wielopolskiego (Wroclaw, 1967). 8 Gelber, Juden und der polnische Aufstand, ch. 6.

question. 10 Tbid. gq—100. ° To what extent this accusation could be justified by the early 2oth century is, of course, another

The Death of Assimilation in Poland 245 term.'' Many liberal Poles in 1863 no doubt would have supported, either consciously or subconsciously, Prince Adam Czartoryski’s remarks to Tsar Alexander lin a letter of July 1817: “They [the Jews] must first be made Christian culturally. One could not busy oneself enough nor too soon with this, whether itis considered _ as a matter of humanity or of politics or of religion.’!” The inherent superiority of Polish culture and Catholicism to ‘backward’, ‘medieval’ Jewish religious practices seemed obvious to the vast majority of Poles at the time. As we shall see, the view of assimilation as the ‘civilizing’ of Jews still remained pervasive many years later. It would be wrong to argue that the Poles were interested only in converting the Jews; the issue was far more complex.?° Still, given the enormous influence of the

Catholic Church in Polish culture, it is perhaps logical to assume that, in their vision, Jewish assimilation into this culture would ultimately bring with it a religious rapprochement. In any case, most liberal Poles clearly regarded the ‘granting’ of Polish culture to the Jews as a benevolent and generous act. This attitude may in part explain the dismay and anger expressed by Poles in the early twentieth century when Jews began to reject Polish culture in favour of their own languages and national pride.‘4 Thus the blossoming of Polish—Jewish ‘brotherhood’ in the early 1860s was limited in social scope and based on the assumed superiority of Polish culture. One

must add to this the specific character of these years: this was a time of struggle for reform, when Poles and Jews could feel a bond in their joint opposition to the Russian authorities occupying their land. Nor can one deny an element of political calculation on the part of the Poles: the Jews served as an important ally against the Russians.’ For all that, the mutual trust and solidarity between Jews 11 For the concept of assimilation in the general European case, see the many works of Jacob Katz, incl. Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Fewish Emancipation, 1770-1870 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973). For the Polish case, several important works have appeared in recent years, e.g. A. Cala, ‘The Question of Assimilation of Jews in the Polish Kingdom, 1864-1897: An Interpretive Essay’, Polin, i

(Oxford, 1986); id., Asimilacja Zydéw w Krolestwie Polskim, 1864-1897 (Warsaw, 1989); E. Mendelsohn, ‘Jewish Assimilation in Lvov: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman’, Slavic Review, 28/4 (Dec. 1969), 577-90; id., ‘A Note on Jewish Assimilation in the Polish Lands’, in B. Vago (ed.), Jewish Assimilation in Modern Times (Boulder, Colo., 1981).

12 Quoted in D. Beauvois, ‘Polish—Jewish Relations in the Territories Annexed by the Russian Empire in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’, in Abramsky et a/. (eds.), Jews in Poland, 82. 13 In any case, the position of the convert in Polish society was hardly an easy one. ‘A convert was living proof of the triumph of the Catholic faith and was thus deserving of special benevolence. Nevertheless, the convert, like all those recently ennobled, was a parvenu, a homo novus, who could

, not be entirely accepted by noble society at once.” A. Hertz, The Jews in Polish Culture, trans. R. Lourie (Evanston, Ill., 1988), 87-8. On Jewish converts in Polish society generally, see ibid. 87-111. 4 Of course, many Jews—and not only assimilators—spoke critically of Jewish culture as manifested in the heder, the hasidic ‘court’, and other ‘unenlightened’ elements of Jewish culture. But even radical maskilim seldom regarded such Catholic dogmas as the virgin birth and the divine presence in the host as

in any way less ‘medieval’ or absurd than keeping kosher or behaving boisterously in the synagogue. 19 Gelber (Juden und der polnische Aufstand, 27), in speaking of the demonstrations of mutual solidarity between Jews and Poles in Warsaw, writes: ‘It should in no way be forgotten that in all these events the dominant impulse was a political utilitarianism.’

246 Theodore R. Weeks and Poles manifest in these years, especially in Warsaw, cannot be denied. The honeymoon of Polish—Jewish relations in the early 1860s, though perhaps hollow and based on a certain amount of mutual misunderstanding, none the less compares favourably to any other period in the region’s history. In the next several decades, however, a multiplicity of factors—political, socio-economic, and intellectual—acted to preclude the extension of those halcyon days. The failure of the 1863 uprising brought in its wake severe retribution from the Russian government. Participants in the uprising were hanged or exiled, their property confiscated; Poles lost the right to purchase land in the nine western provinces (left-bank Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania); Polish educational institutions, including the Szkola Glowna in Warsaw, were shut down or Russified; civil servants of Polish nationality were dismissed; and the territory of the kingdom of Poland was reorganized and officially renamed Privislinski Krai (the ‘Vistula country’). The Russian government spared no effort to root out symbols of a separate Polish cultural and political entity.!° The Jews of the Polish kingdom also suffered after 1863,'" but, despite various attempts to repeal the rights given them by the law of 24 May 1862, for one reason or another their legal status remained intact.!° Compared to their Polish neighbours, then, Jews fared rather better (from a legal point of view) in the aftermath of 1863. This is hardly surprising: the tsarist government was certainly not greatly worried about Jewish ‘separatism’ threatening the integrity of the Russian empire, while it viewed Polish irredentism with alarm throughout the period. One historian states of Russia in a 1986 study

that ‘in the short term ... there did not exist a direct and uniform correlation between newly minted Russification and growing attitudes of Judeophobia in Russian society’.!? This statement may be accepted for Russian society; but in the Polish case I do not think increased antisemitism can be separated from the fact that Jews enjoyed much greater rights after 1862, at a time when the Poles found

their own legal situation more restricted than ever. To be sure, there is little evidence that Poles wanted to reintroduce restrictions on Jews after 1863, but a feeling of resentment towards Jews for ‘profiting’ from Polish misfortunes cannot be discounted. It is no accident that one of the most common criticisms levelled at the Jews after 1905 was their ‘lack of gratitude’ towards the Poles.”° 16 Space here does not allow a discussion of the sometimes contradictory policies followed by the Russian government in the years 1863-1905. On this, see e.g. S. J. Zyzniewski, ‘Russian Policy in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, 1863-1881’, Harvard University Ph.D. thesis, 1956. 17 Despite the official ‘elimination’ of the title Tsarstvo Pol’skoe (Polish kingdom) in 1874, the name lived on, even in official documents, all the way until 1914. 18 M. J. Ochs, ‘St Petersburg and the Jews of Russian Poland, 1862-1905’, Harvard University

Ph.D. thesis, 1986. For a general historical account of the legal status of the Jews in Poland, see J. Kirszrot, Prawa Zydéw w Krolestwie Polskim: Zarys historyczny (Warsaw, 1917). 19 J. Klier, ‘The Polish Revolt of 1863 and the Birth of Russification: Bad for the Jews?’, in Polin, i (Oxford, 1986), 108.

20 For one example, see I. Grabowski, Niewdzieczni gosci: W sprawie zydowskiej (Warsaw, IQI2).

The Death of Assimilation in Poland 247 Economic and social changes reflected the political upheavals in the kingdom of Poland. Here Jews played an important and highly visible role. With the lifting of customs barriers between Russian Poland and the rest of the Russian empire in 1851, a huge market for Polish goods opened in Russia, Siberia, and the Far East. The year 1862 saw the completion of the St Petersburg—Warsaw railway (a fact not unimportant for the Russian success in crushing the revolt of the following year), and railway construction in the Polish kingdom continued at a rapid pace in subsequent years, especially from around 1870. Russian Poland took full advantage of its geographical location between the German and Russian empires, and in the decades after 1870 industry, particularly textiles, boomed. The Polish kingdom’s increasing degree of integration into the Russian market was to play a large role in

Polish nationalist propaganda after the turn of the century, particularly since many of the middlemen between Russia and Poland were Jews.*! The city of Lodz, a mere village in mid-century, grew by 1905 to be the kingdom’s second city and the primary centre of the textile industry. Foreign capital financed much

of this industrial development, together with native capitalists, among them such Jews as Jan Bloch, Henryk Natanson, Leopold Kronenberg, and Hipolit Wawelberg, to name only a few of the best known.”” But it would be wrong to view the decades after 1863 as a period of increasing

prosperity for most residents of the Polish kingdom. On the contrary, this was a time of great social and economic disruption. The terms of the abolition of compulsory labour dues in 1864 granted quite generous allotments to the peasants, a

deliberate attempt to ruin the middle and petty sz/achta element, which the Russian government regarded as its most embittered foe.?? But Polish peasants did not benefit for long from this act of administrative generosity owing to population pressures and the low level of agricultural technology. Already by 1891 the number of landless peasants was estimated at nearly half a million, and many others barely eked out a miserable existence on minuscule parcels of land.*4 The condition of workers in industrial centres such as Warsaw and 41.6dz was hardly more enviable, as is well documented both in the periodical press of the day and in novels such as Wladyslaw Reymont’s The Promised Land (1899). The economic position of Poland’s Jewish community, and especially its poorer segments, also did not improve noticeably in the years after 1863. With the building of the railways many small villages found themselves no longer on trade routes, 21 On the economic development of Congress Poland during these years, see S. Koszutski, Rozwdj ekonomiczny Krélestwa Polskiego ostatniem trzydziestoleciu, 1870-1g00 r. (Warsaw, 1905), and of : course Rosa Luxemburg’s classic dissertation Die industrielle Entwicklung Polens (Leipzig, 1898). 22 On these ‘Jewish magnates’, see Szacki, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, iii (New York, 1953), 73-91; and J. Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919—1939 (Berlin, 1983), ch. 6.

23 Qn the peasant reform in the kingdom of Poland, see K. Groniowski, Umtaszczente chtopéw w Polsce (Warsaw, 1976), esp. 116-52. 24 Of course, many thousands of Polish peasants emigrated in these years. Koszutski, Rozmdj ekonomiczny, 198-208.

— 248 Theodore R. Weeks , thereby depriving local Jews of income from jarmarki (fairs) and commerce. Jewish artisans found themselves squeezed out of business by large-scale industrial enterprises, and factories (even those owned by Jews) tended to avoid, if possible, hiring Jews as workers. Jewish merchants were faced with increasing competition from Christian rivals, both Polish and German.”° Population growth also exacerbated economic conditions; the Jewish birth rate exceeded even the Polish.”° As in any era of rapid economic change, great fortunes were to be made by the bold and adventurous. Aware of this, many village Jews flocked to the ‘big city’— especially Warsaw—in search of their fortune.”’ At the same time, as antisemitic

pressures and legal restrictions increased within the Pale of Settlement, particularly after the pogroms of spring 1881, many Jews left their homes in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine and made their way to the relatively free and prosperous ‘Vistula country’, and particularly to Warsaw. Nor did the Warsaw pogrom of

y, p y pog

December 1881 significantly slow this influx of ‘Litvaks’.2® The Jewish population

of Warsaw increased rapidly after 1862, from some 40,000 in 1863 to nearly a quarter of a million at the turn of the century.” Although the non-Jewish population of Warsaw also increased significantly during this period, one should not underestimate the psychological effect of the influx of the Jewish newcomers | on local Poles. Besides being the political and administrative centre of Russian Poland, Warsaw was Poland’s cultural, industrial, and financial centre, and the largest Polish city in any of the three partitions. The large and increasing presence of Jews, speaking Yiddish and—Aorribile dictu—even Russian, in this unofficial

‘capital of Poland’ could hardly go unnoticed by Polish patriots in a period of increasing national chauvinism. To sum up, the decades between 1863 and 1905 saw great economic and social change in Congress Poland. Middle and lower sz/achta found their economic posi*° In Warsaw between 1862 and 1897 the fraction of non-Jews in trade increased from 27.9 to 37.9 per cent. J. Szacki, ‘Rola Zydow w zyciu ekonomicznym Warszawy w latach, 1863-18096’, Biuletyn

zydowskiego instytutu historycznego, 30 (Apr.—July 1959), 39. . 26 On the condition of Jews in Polish villages, see K. Junosza-Szaniawski, Nasi Zydki w miasteczkach 1 na wsiach (Warsaw, 1889), an account not particularly friendly to the Jews but making some valid points. Jan Jelenski, (Zydzi na msi (Warsaw, 1881)) accuses Jews of demoralizing peasants

by means of vodka and usury. For more objective accounts, see Szacki, ‘Rola Zydéw’, and B. Wasiutynski, ‘Rola ekonomiczna Zydow w Krolestwie Polskim’, Przeglad Narodowy, 4/10 (Oct. 1911), 383-414. For population figures, see S. D. Corrsin, ‘Political and Social Change in Warsaw from the January 1863 Insurrection to the First World War: Polish Politics and the Jewish Question’, University of Michigan PhD. thesis, 1981, 52-106; and S. Bronsztejn, Ludnos¢ zydowska w Polsce w okreste miedzywojennym: Studium statystyczne (Wroclaw, 1963), 47-67.

27 ‘The history of Jews in Warsaw is quite well known. See e.g. W. Bartoszewski and A. Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Warsaw (Oxford, 1991). On Lodz, see Y. Herts, Di geshikhte fun bund in lodz (New York, 1958); and W. Pus, ‘Jews in Lodz, 1820-1939’, Polin, vi (Oxford, 1991). 28 On the 1881 pogrom, see Szacki, Geshikhte fun yidn in Varshe, iii. g5—109; and F. Golczewski, Polnische-Fudische Beziehungen, 1881-1922. Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Antisemitismus in Osteuropa, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des 6stlichen Europa, t4 (Wiesbaden, 1981).

29 Szacki, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, iii. 53-4.

The Death of Assimilation in Poland 249 tion deteriorating after the peasant reform of 1864, and even magnates felt new economic pressures. A high birth rate and poor agricultural efficiency rapidly — turned around the momentary gains achieved by Polish peasants after the 1864 reform. Jews, too, suffered economic dislocation as advances in industrial production and in means of transportation made many of their previous sources of livelihood superfluous.*° Because of these economic changes, many Poles and Jews flooded to L6dz, Warsaw, and other cities. At the same time, though, a new class of industrial and finance ‘magnates’ was developing, and these ‘new men’ included many of Jewish origin. As old social and economic structures collapsed and new ones arose painfully to take their place, it was only natural that new strains should appear within society. One of these strains was modern Polish antisemitism. It would be wrong, however, to speak only of antisemitism in this context. In

fact, positivism, a philosophy explicitly opposed to antisemitism, as indeed to national chauvinism of any kind, influenced and largely dominated the first intellectual generation in Poland after 1863. To simplify somewhat, positivism in Poland renounced the ‘Romantic’ political goals of previous generations (e.g. independence) and turned instead to ‘organic work’: that is, the economic and cultural development of the Polish nation in each of the three partitions. In Russian Poland such figures as Aleksander Swietochowski, Bolestaw Prus, and, to a lesser extent,

Eliza Orzeszkowa dominated the movement.*! The positivist position on the ‘Jewish question’ was quite clear: they denied the existence of such a ‘question’ per se.

Rather, they saw the Jews in Poland losing their distinctive identity (to what extent remains another issue) and assimilating into the Polish nation. As a democratic and anticlerical movement, positivism probably underestimated the strength of religion in Polish and Jewish national life. A rather patronizing view of the ‘ignorance’ and ‘superstition’ of traditional Jewish religion and custom, and of the supposed need to reform Judaism in order to conform to the modern ‘enlightened’ (Christian) standard, also marred the positivist ideal of assimilation. To quote one scholar: The positivists envisioned the Jew as a modern, secu/ar Pole engaged in organic work on

behalf of the entire nation. Following the path of a handful of earlier reformers, the positivists expanded the concept of nation to include the Jews. . . . Assimilation, however, was to be implemented by Jews abandoning their cultural differences, and, as it were, assimilating ‘upwards’ to the Polish, Christian nation.*

Once again we see assimilation as a ‘civilizing mission’ carried out by Poles on the benighted Jews in their midst. 7° One must also recall the economic dislocation caused for Russian Jews by the introduction in 1894 of a state liquor monopoly. #1 These three figures were particularly important in formulating a ‘positivist position’, as it were, on the ‘Jewish question’. On the movement in general, see S. Blejwas, Realism in Polish Politics (New Haven, 1984); and A. Jaszczuk, Spér pozytywistéw z konserwatystami o przysztosé Polski, 1870-1903 (Warsaw, 1986). *2 S. Blejwas, ‘Polish Positivism and the Jews’, Jemish Social Studies, 46/1 (Winter 1984), 32.

250 Theodore R. Weeks Perhaps the most famous expression of the positivist response to the Jewish question is found in Eliza Orzeszkowa’s short work on the Jews, written as a reaction to the Warsaw pogrom of late December 1881.°° In her pamphlet O —- gydach 1 kwesti zydowskiey (‘On the Jews and the Jewish Question’) Orzeszkowa expressed her ‘outrage, pity, and grief’ over the recent events in Warsaw and called on her fellow Poles to re-examine their one-sided attitudes about the Jews in Poland. Jews were not free of failings and vices, she admitted, but these defects had to be attributed to historical tradition and Jewish social standing, and they had in any case been far exaggerated by observers lacking perspective. True, ‘in the majority of cases’ Jews were dishonest in business; but so were the English. True, many successful Jews were arrogant; but this was not a specifically Jewish trait, rather ‘the arrogance of the parvenw’ (aregancya parwenyusowska). True, Jews held themselves apart from Poles and displayed religious fanaticism; but this could only be remedied by patient educational work. Besides, Jews exhibited many positive characteristics as well: ‘industry, an enterprising spirit, thrift, great capabilities for financial calculations and transactions’.°4

Orzeszkowa also defended Judaism against those who called its practices immoral, an obvious reference to the traditionally negative Polish view of the Talmud. For many indigent Jews, she pointed out sympathetically, religion was _ the only beautiful aspect of their lives. Still, it was necessary to reform Jewish

forth: |

customs, to take education out of the hands of the Aeder and Talmud Torah, and for this purpose to call together a new Sanhedrin. Not Christians but the enlightened Jewish intelligentsia would play the primary role in effecting these reforms. Addressing herself to this class, Orzeszkowa called on them in exalted terms to rid Judaism of materialistic superstitions and let the pure essence of the faith shine

Let the dark and impoverished artisan, day labourer, and huckster find out from you about what is after all the essential truth: that their religion is a noble faith in one God and the comforting faith in the immortality of the human soul, and it thus assumes a far too lofty position in the hierarchy of human beliefs to include crude superstition [such as] belief in kabbalistic nonsense or a crude materialism finding expression in mundane restrictions of life’s corporeal needs such as clothing and nourishment.”

Well-meaning and liberal in her intentions, Orzeszkowa’s lack of knowledge and understanding of Jewish religion and traditions caused her to postulate reforms that none but the most ‘enlightened’ of Polish Jews could have accepted. Her failure in this respect must be seen as emblematic of the limitations of the positivist— liberal ‘solution’ to the Jewish question.

Contemporary to Orzeszkowa’s pamphlet one observes the appearance in 33 E. Orzeszkowa, O zydach i kwestii Zydowskiej (Vilnius, 1882).

34 Ibid. 10-11, 26, 27-8, 33-4. 35 Tbid. 51-2; quotation from pp. 58-9.

The Death of Assimilation in Poland 251 Poland of the first harbingers of a new kind of antisemitism, based less on religious than on national and economic arguments. The main figure in this new movement

was the publicist Jan Jelenski, editor (from 1883) of the antisemitic newspaper Rola (‘The Soil’).°® Jeleriski preached an anti-German, anti-Jewish populism, for the ‘simple Polish peasant’ against capitalists and ‘Jewish exploiters’.®” It is interesting to note that Jelenski, at least in his early works, did not specifically rule out

the possibility of assimilation, and viewed the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia with a certain amount of sympathy. Apparently the predominance of the ideal of assimilation in the early 1880s was too strong for even Jelenski to resist. Soon, however, Jelenski’s ‘spiritual heirs’, such as Konstanty Wzdulski and Teodor Jeske-Choinski, explicitly rejected this possibility.°8 At first the response to this new brand of antisemitism was largely negative: the liberal influence of positivism remained too strong, and Polish conservatives found Jelenski’s crude peasant populism distinctly unpalatable. But by the turn of the century, as the younger generation searched for more activist and nationalist alternatives to the gradualist, largely apolitical positivists,*° a climate more favourable to Jelenski’s message was created. The two ‘bibles’ of the new militant Polish nationalism, later to coalesce into the National Democratic (ND, or Endek) Party, reflected those longings. The first of these works, Zygmunt Balicki’s Egoizm narodowy wobec etyki (“National Egoism in the Face of Ethics’, 1902), postulated that ‘national egoism’ was a value that surpassed and invalidated any other ethical precepts. Any deeds that furthered the cause of Polish nationalism could be justified; in fact, such deeds offered examples of the highest morality. The second book, Roman Dmowski’s Mysh nowoczesnego Polaka (“The Thoughts of a Modern Pole’), published the following year, contained a sociological portrait of the Polish nation which bewailed the lack of a Polish middle class and pointed to the Jews, who, in league with the sz/achta, had usurped the rightful place of Polish burghers. Dmowski considered the formation of a Polish middle class a vital step towards the

national ‘healing’ of the Poles. While not completely rejecting the possibility of 36 On Jeleriski, see F. Golczewski, ‘Anti-Semitic Literature in Poland before the First World War’, Polin, iv (Oxford, 1989), 89-91. A contemporary (and laudatory) appraisal of Jeleriski’s ideas is

A. Werytus, Jan Jelenski i jego hasta ku odrodzeniu narodu (Warsaw, 1910). . 37 Nearly the whole of Jeletiski’s political philosophy, such as it was, is contained in his Zydzi, memcy 1 my (Warsaw, 1876). This book was reprinted many times over the next few decades. On Jelenski within the political context of his time, see Jaszczuk, Spér pozytywistow, 202-21. 35 Tn his pamphlet Zydzi polscy w Swietle prawdy: Studium spoleczne (Warsaw, 1887), another classic of modern Polish antisemitism, Wzdulski states: ‘Facts, unfortunate facts, convince us that the assimilation (uspotecznienie, lit. ‘socialization’) has turned out to be a fatal dream’ (p. 34). Jeske-Choinski went even further and saw in ‘enlightened’ Jews a direct threat to Poland and Europe. Poznaj Zyda!, 2nd edn. (Warsaw, 1912), and esp. Zydzi oSwieceni (Warsaw, 1910).

39 The positivists were apolitical, that is, in the sense that they renounced pretensions to an independent Polish state, for the moment at least, and cooperated with the partitioning powers in order to develop the Polish economy and hence raise the level of Polish culture.

252 Theodore R. Weeks assimilation in individual cases, he made it clear that in practice the vast majority of Polish Jews could not be assimilated.*°

Thus by the early years of the twentieth century the ideological basis for modern Polish antisemitism had been established. The liberal but naive positivist ideal of painless assimilation seemed increasingly irrelevant in the face of rising Polish and Jewish national movements. At the same time Nicholas II dashed the hopes raised by the ascension of a new monarch in 1894 when he revealed himself

to be no less anti-Polish than his Polonophobe father.*t The large influx of ‘Russian’ Jews (‘Litvaks’) to Warsaw also strained Polish—Jewish relations. Such was the situation in the kingdom of Poland when the Japanese army attacked Port Arthur in early 1904, setting off the chain of events leading to the revolution of 1905.

The revolution of 1905 must be seen as a major watershed in Polish—Jewish relations.*? Before 1905 few Poles explicitly denied the possibility of assimilation as a solution to the Jewish question in Poland. After 1905, the option of assimilation rapidly lost favour in the eyes of the Polish public, and by 1912 only the socialists and conservative ‘realists’ continued to espouse that ideal. Jews were accused of being ‘ungrateful guests’ who repaid Polish hospitality with exploitation and betrayal. Most damning of all, Poles began to see in Jews the sly ally of the

hated Muscovite. This portrayal of Jews as agents of Russification was to have most unfortunate consequences for relations between Poles and Jews. The figure around whom these accusations crystallized was the Litvak. In its most narrow meaning, this word referred to Jews from Lithuania (Litva), but in general Polish (and Yiddish) usage it came to mean any Jewish newcomer from the

Russian interior. Large numbers of ‘Russian’ Jews did make their way to the Polish kingdom, especially from the 18gos, in response to increasing legal and eco-

nomic misery in the Pale. The expulsion of thousands of Jews from Moscow in 1891 has also often been cited as a factor in this migration.*® By the turn of the century even official Russian sources warned of the increased antagonism 1n Lodz and

Warsaw caused by this influx of Russian Jews.** After the crushing of the 1905 40 See esp. R. Dmowski, Separatyzm Zydéw i jego Zrédla (Warsaw, 1909). In the pre-war period the Endeks tended to remain vague about their solution to the ‘Jewish problem’, but in the inter-war years

they specifically called for mass emigration. , 41 Of course, Nicholas II was no less antisemitic than Polonophobic. 42 The history of the 1905 revolution in the Polish kingdom is described in R. Blobaum, Remoluca (1994). See also S. Kalabinski and F. Tych, Czwarte powstanie czy pierwsza rewolucja: Lata 1905-7 na ziemach polskich (Warsaw, 1969).

43 Schiper, Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej, i. 474; I. Kleinman, ‘Evolutsiia pol’sko-evreiskikh otnoshenii (1850 e gg.—1906 g.)’, Golos minushvogo, 3 (1915), 110.

44 See e.g. the comment by one I. Kirilov, a tsarist official in the kingdom of Poland since the 1870s, that the ‘enormous rise’ in numbers of Jews from the Russian interior, coupled with Jewish control of nearly all trade in the kingdom, ‘threatens to cause, and in the near future, serious economic complications’. File on ‘Local Languages and Other Political Questions in the Kingdom of Poland’, Russian State Historical Archives, St Petersburg, fond 1284, op. 190, 1901, d. goA, lines 74—5.

The Death of Assimilation in Poland 253 revolution the Litvak became an almost diabolical figure for many Polish publicists. The Litvak was said to have brought along the new philosophies of Jewish nationalism (both Bundist and Zionist) from the Pale. Even more seriously, he was accused of functioning, consciously or otherwise, as an instrument of Russifi-

e 45 * » ° »

cation.*® Outraged Polish patriots claimed that these newcomers in Warsaw, when

spoken to in Polish, answered arrogantly, in Jewish-accented Russian, ‘Shto? Zdyes’ jeshcho nie gavahyat po huski?’ (‘What? You still don’t speak Russian?’).*° Ata time when Polish national pride was suffering blow after blow—the crushing of hopes for autonomy, closing of the Polish educational society Macierz Polska by

government order, restriction of Polish representation in the Duma, anti-Polish curiae in proposed zemstvos (bodies of limited rural self-government) in the western provinces, the government project to detach the so-called Kholm province from the Polish kingdom*’—the Litvak provided a convenient focal point for the outpouring of Polish national frustrations. That the Russian government, the real enemy of Polish national aspirations, could hardly be attacked openly made attacks on the ‘Russian agent’, the Litvak, all the more attractive. In the political climate of post-1905 Russian Poland, the ‘Litvak question’ went hand in hand with another new phenomenon of these years: the emergence of ‘progressive antisemitism’.*® As we have seen, up to 1905 Polish liberalism cherished a belief in education and assimilation as the answer to the ‘Jewish problem’. After 1905, and especially in the aftermath of the first Duma elections, where

Polish Progressives were denounced as a ‘Jewish party’ by the Endeks, the tide began to turn against the Jews, even among Polish liberals.4? Even freethinkers and progressives began to lose faith in the possibility of a united front of Poles and _ ® Perhaps the most rabid hatred of the Litvaks is found in the works of Julian Unszlicht (pseud. W. Sedecki), who claimed that the Litvaks, and Jews in general, had betrayed Poland in 1905 and saw the SDKPiL (Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania) as the avant-garde of the Litvak movement. See e.g. his Socjal-litwactwo w Polsce (W teorji i praktyki ‘Socijaldemokracji Krolestwa Polskiego 1 Litwy’) (Krakow, 1911), and O pogromy ludu polskiego (Rola socjal-litwactwa w niedawne] rewolucji (Krakow, 1912). Unszlicht did not deny his own Jewish origins and even dedicated the latter work to ‘those Poles of Jewish origin who at the time of the radical break between Polishdom (polskos¢) and Jewry (zydowstwo) did not hesitate to place themselves on the side of the Polish cause’.

46 The quotation is from an article by Andrzej Niemojewski, erstwhile progressive and editor of the weekly Mys! Niepodlegla, as quoted in ‘W sprawie tak zwanych litwakow’, Przeglad Narodowy, 2/11 (Nov. 1909), 631. 47 On these issues and Russian policy towards the Poles in general after 1905, see T. Weeks, ‘The

National World of Imperial Russia: Policy in the Kingdom of Poland and Western Provinces, 1894-1914’, University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. thesis, 1992, esp. chs. 4-6; and P. P. Wieczorkiewicz, ‘Polityka rosyjska wobec Kroélestwa Polskiego w latach, 1909-1914’, University of Warsaw Ph.D. thesis, 1976. 48 Perhaps the most perspicacious contemporary comment on this movement was written by the

anti-nationalist linguist and scholar Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, W sprawie ‘antisemitizmu poslepowego’ (Krakow, 1911).

* A good account of the evolution of liberal views on the ‘Jewish question’ from the positivists to the antisemitic reaction after 1907 is T. Stegner, Liberalomie Krolestwa Polskiego (Gdansk, 1990), 113-30.

254 Theodore R. Weeks Jews against the Russians. They increasingly viewed the Jews not as allies but as interlopers and, in the case of the Litvaks, as a Russian fifth column in the heart of Poland. Two figures will suffice as examples of the ‘progressive antisemites’. More than any other individual, Andrzej Niemojewski, the anticlerical publicist and editor

of Mys! Niepodlegla (from 1905), established the discourse of ‘progressive antisemitism’ and became its most zealous, not to say rabid, spokesman.” Yet up to Ig05 it would have been impossible to foresee the later antisemite in Niemojewski’s work, which heaped scorn on the nationalist aspirations of the Endeks and the obscurantism of the Catholic Church.*! A similar development | may be seen in Iza Moszczenska, a progressive and a specialist in educational questions.” In 1906 Moszczenska published a series of articles in [zraelita, the organ of the Jewish assimilationists in Warsaw. In these articles she emphasized the significant class differences among Jews in Poland, described the Bund in Poland as a natural phenomenon, and called for ‘tolerance, equal rights, justice, and impartiality’ in Polish—Jewish relations. Considering subsequent events, perhaps the final article in the series proved the most significant of all. Here Moszczenska stated,

‘Sooner or later there must form within today’s empire a union of all foreign nations against the Great Russian majority.’ Jews, she insisted, must abandon their ‘centralist ideal’ in the Russian empire or risk becoming ‘themselves the smiths of their own misfortune (sami kowalami smego nieszczecia) .? Apparently the Jews of Poland did not heed Moszczehska’s advice, for barely four years later she favoured the restriction of Jews in future organs of city government and called for a ‘liberation of all strata of the Polish people from economic slavery and economic invasion (najazd)’—a clear reference to the economic boycott of the Jews that was gathering

momentum at the time.” | :

| ‘Progressive antisemites’ such as Niemojewski and Moszczenska were hardly isolated figures. It would be more correct to view them as illustrating the general mood. As we have seen, the Endeks, with Roman Dmowski at their head, were °° See Niemojewski’s many articles in Mys/ Niepodlegla on the ‘Jewish question’ from 1908 and increasing in ferocity after 1g10, e.g. ‘Kwestia zydowska’, no. 61 (May 1908); ‘Krytyka asymilacji’, no. 149 (Oct. 1910); ‘Antisemityzm jako walka o lukturze’, no. 150 (Oct. 1910); ‘Antysemityzm czy walka z najazdem’, no. 193 (Jan. 1912). See also Dusza zydowska w zmierciadle talmudu (Warsaw, 1914), which expounds on the immoral and ‘anti-goyish’ nature of the Talmud and by extension of the Jews in general. 5! See e.g. A. Niemojewski, Doha obecna w Krélestwie Polskim (Krakéw, 1905). It must be stressed,

however, that even in his antisemitic phase Niemojewski did not become friendly to the Catholic Church in Poland. 52 IT. Moszczenska, Nasza szkola w Krélestwie Polskim (Lviv, 1905); id. (pseud. H. Bell), Sprawa szkolna w Krélestwie Polskim, rgos—1gro (Lviv, 1911).

°3 The articles, under the general title ‘K westja zydowska w Krolestwie Polskim’, are in [zraelita,

41/1-8 (5 Jan.—23 Feb. 1g06); quotations are from no. 8, 89. , 54 T. Moszczeriska, ‘Samorzad i kwestia zydowska’, Mys/ Niepodlegla, 153 (Nov. 1910), 1600-5; id., Postep na rozdrozu (Warsaw, 1911), passim (quotation from 100).

The Death of Assimilation in Poland 255 programmatically antisemitic. The rightist ‘realists’ and left-wing socialists opposed the new antisemitic tendencies in principle, but they preferred to stress other issues and in any case played a minor role in contemporary Polish political discourse.°° By 1910 a Jewish witness could write that at the present time ‘practically all social forces (obshchestvennye sily) have united against the Jewish population in Poland’.°® A year later another observer commented that all Poles, from progressives to reactionaries, were attacking all Jews in Poland, from Zionists to assimilated ‘Poles of the Mosaic faith’; and those Poles who did not join the attack remained silent.°’ Practically the entire political spectrum rejected emphatically the possibility of a fusion of Jewish and Polish cultures. ‘To quote a contemporary, ‘First of all we must smash the concept Jew-Pole (Zyd-Polak), which has become a dangerous absurdity in the present day. Either Jew, or Pole.”®® Among the immediate causes for this rapid deterioration in relations after 1905 the government project to introduce elected city governments must take a primary place. It was this project, which explicitly set up national curiae (Russian, Jewish, and ‘other’) for the elections of city councils in the Polish kingdom, that forced the

Polish representatives in the Duma (dominated by the Endeks) to assume an overtly anti-Jewish stance.°” Because of the support of the Polish Kolo (Polish parliamentary club in the Russian Duma) for restrictions on Jews, the Poles found themselves completely isolated in the Duma, attacked from the left (by Kadets and socialists) as chauvinists, and by rightists and nationalists as hypocrites who demanded equal rights for Poles alone.© The feeling of complete isolation caused by this episode, and especially the break with the Kadets, must have contributed greatly to the strident tone that characterized Polish—Jewish relations in these years.

And worse lay ahead. The culmination of anti-Jewish feelings in pre-war Poland came in late 1912, when Warsaw Jews found themselves in possession of enough votes to control the election of the Warsaw representative to the fourth Duma.°®! After the Polish candidate, Jan Kucharzewski, failed to convince the Jewish electors of his support for Jewish rights (including in future city govern°° Hirszhorn states that socialist defence of the Jews ‘had no effect on public opinion’ in the Polish kingdom. Historia Zydow w Polsce, 301. , 56 J. Kleinman, Mezhdu molotom i nakoval ‘nei (pol’sko-evreisku Ronflikt) (St Petersburg, 1910), 7.

Kleinman later qualifies this exclamation somewhat by stating: ‘Jews had and have many Polish , defenders, but Jewry as a nation, the Jewish national movement, nobody, not one’ (p. 49). See also his articles throughout the period in Novy? Voskhod. 57 G,. Landau, Pol’sko-evereiskie otnosheniia (Petrograd, 1915), 12-13; first pub. in Evreiskti mir, 1

(1911). °8 Unszlicht, O pogromy ludu polskiego, 7.

: °° ‘That is to say, the Poles supported restrictions on the numbers of Jews in any given city council. In towns where Jews made up a majority of the population, they were to be allowed to comprise 20 per cent of the council; otherwise, to per cent. It was a rare town in Poland where Jews did not comprise over 10 per cent of the inhabitants. 6° On this entire unedifying episode, see Weeks, ‘National World’, ch. 5. 61 That is, they found themselves able to control the election of the ‘non-Russian’ representative.

Warsaw had two representatives in the Duma, the other being selected from among the Russian residents of the Polish capital.

256 Theodore R. Weeks _ ments), the moderate Jewish electors, fearing reprisals if a Jew were elected, opted _ for a compromise and cast their votes for the Polish socialist candidate, Jagiello.© The Polish response was to call for a total boycott of Jews in Poland. ‘Jewish— Polish relations are entering a new phase,’ a prescient contemporary wrote.®? The crisis in relations between Jews and Poles was to continue until the outbreak of the First World War and, in a sense, for much longer yet. In reviewing the various stages through which Polish—Jewish relations passed between the 1860s and 1914, we can reach certain tentative conclusions. First of all, when comparing the halcyon days of 1863 and the post-1905 ‘crisis’, we should be careful not to romanticize the former, nor to exaggerate the latter. The Polish— Jewish ‘brotherhood’ of the early 1860s was the product of a specific historical situation and did not run deep, either within society as a whole (Polish or Jewish) or within individuals. During the post-1905 crisis, on the other hand, we must take into account the feelings of defeat, vulnerability, and political isolation that obsessed the Poles in those days. Also, we must remember that Polish national identity came under broad attack by the Russian authorities throughout this period, and at the same time the Poles witnessed a flourishing of Jewish culture in both Yiddish and Hebrew and the birth and rapid growth of Zionist and other autonomous Jewish national movements. This does not, of course, justify the increase in Polish antisemitism on the eve of the First World War, but it may help to explain it. The period between 1860 and 1905 witnessed a slow but steady shift away from the ideal of assimilation expressed so poignantly in the revolutionary years 1861-3. Economic changes during these years increased tensions between Jews and Poles, while new political credos, from Jan Jelenski’s to Roman Dmowski’s, provided intellectual support for an integral Polish nationalism that refused to consider any role for the Jews of Poland within the Polish nation. The new Jewish national self-consciousness, expressed in groupings from the Bund to the Folkists to the various Zionists, further irritated Polish sensibilities. All the while, the many laws placing restrictions on both Poles and Jews within the Russian empire aggravated

| tensions. The abortive revolution of 1905, which promised so much and gave so little, solidified and exacerbated Polish feelings of national defencelessness. These feelings poured forth in the years after 1907, finding their target in the ‘Russian agent’, the Litvak, and by extension in Polish Jewry as a whole. Observing the seemingly relentless increase in national antagonisms in the kingdom of Poland between 1863 and 1914, one sadly wonders whether it could not have been otherwise. But just as the owl of Minerva flies only at dusk, so does Clio fail us when historians attempt to describe what might have been, rather than what was. 62 On the election, see L. Belmont and J. Huzarski, Zwyciestwo Romana Dmowskiego (Warsaw, n.d. [c.1912]); and S. D. Corrsin, Warsaw before the First World War: Poles and Jews in the Third City of the Russian Empire, 1880—191 4 (Boulder, Colo., 1989), 89-103.

63 ‘Posle vyborov. Pis’ma iz Varshavy i Lodzi’, Novyi Voskhod, 45 (8 Nov. 1912), 7. See also ‘Pis’mo iz Varshavy: Boikot’, Novy: Voskhod, 46 (15 Nov. 1912), 6-9.

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, 1872-1905: A Polish Socialist for Jewish Nationality TIMOTHY SNYDER WHERE there are nation-states, the natural reach of political parties is easily defined. But where the nation-state 1s absent, political parties find themselves confronted with issues of national identity, which can easily turn them against each other and distract them from their avowed goals. This is even the case among parties that have similar programmes and confront a common oppressor. In the western reaches of tsarist Russia at the turn of the century, for example, Polish and Jewish socialists missed many opportunities for fruitful cooperation. Most Polish socialists (united after 1892 as the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, or PPS) identified themselves with a past in which Poles ruled other nationalities, whereas Jewish

socialists (united from 1897 in the Bund) had no territorial identity and only an extremely distant tradition of statehood. Each party saw the other’s programme as misguided and potentially counter-productive, as supporting rather than challenging tsarist rule. These deep differences between Jewish and Polish socialists in tsarist Russia demanded creative and courageous solutions, which were usually

lacking. The single exception on the Polish side was Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1872-1905), a pioneering sociologist and the major theorist of the PPS.' His unusually sympathetic appreciation of the predicaments of Jewry in central and eastern Europe allowed him to see points of common history and common interest My thanks to Professor Chimen Abramsky, Timothy Garton Ash, Professor Jerzy Jedlicki, Dr John Klier, Dr Harry Shukman, and an anonymous reviewer for useful discussions and comments. The research was funded by a British Marshall Scholarship and an American Council of Learned

| Societies dissertation fellowship, and the chapter was written during my tenure as a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University. ' Kelles-Krauz was not of Jewish descent. His first known ancestor was one Baron von Krause of Bavaria, a Knight of the Sword who took part in the conquest of Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia) in the early part of the 13th century. This Baron von Krause settled near Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia), and built a castle on lands known as Kelles: his descendants were known by this second surname. The family migrated south to what is now Lithuania in the 17th or 18th century. Michal von Kelles-Krauz lost his Lithuanian estates for taking part in the uprising of 1863, and his son Kazimierz was born in Szczebrzeszyn..

258 Timothy Snyder between Jews and Poles, and led him to a pioneering explanation of the rise of modern nationalism in general.

POLISH AND JEWISH SOCIALISM, 1893—I9O1I Before examining Kelles-Krauz’s views, however, it is necessary to step back and describe the relations between Jewish and Polish socialists. ‘The Pale of Settlement included the territories of the Polish—Lithuanian commonwealth just before the partitions (as well as lands known as New Russia). Jozef Pilsudski and the PPS leadership at the end of the nineteenth century believed that Jews as well as Poles had an interest in severing these lands from Russia.” Pilsudski hoped that Russian oppression would turn Jewish workers in Vilnius towards Poland and the PPS,?

but the emerging Jewish socialist intelligentsia responded to his agitation with hostility.4 Although in Vilnius in the 1890s Poles (about 35 per cent of the city’s population) outnumbered Russians (about 15 per cent) the city’s Jews (about 40 per cent) had already made the turn towards Russian culture.° Since the closing of the Polish university and schools in Vilnius in 1832, Russian language and culture had crowded out Polish among the Jewish intelligentsia.© The young intellectuals who were to lead Jewish socialism in Vilnius regarded their education in Russian as a window onto a wider world, while to their Polish counterparts Russian culture seemed inferior and their education in Russian the worst experience of their lives. ’

The early PPS was more understanding of Jewish concerns than were socialist parties in western Europe, but the experience of Jews as Russifiers was embittering.® In the first issue of the illegal PPS organ Robotnik (April 1893) Pitsudski demanded that Jewish socialists agitate in Yiddish rather than Russian. This they soon began to do.?

Jews also made up nearly two-fifths of the urban population in the former Congress kingdom of Poland at this time, and Warsaw had become the largest

(Cambridge, 1981), 198-9. .

2 J. Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 3M. Sliwa, ‘Kwestia zydowska w polskiej mySli socjalistycznej’, in Feliks Kiryk (ed.), Zydzi w

Matopolsce (PrzemySl, 1991), 276.

4 R. Blobaum, Feliks Dzierzyriski and the SDKPiL: A Study of the Origins of Polish Communism (Boulder, Colo., 1984), 34.

> These proportions are according to the 1897 census. The city had 140,200 residents in 1897. © D. Beauvois, ‘Polish—Jewish Relations in the Territories Annexed by Russia in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’, in C. Abramsky, M. Jachimczyk, and A. Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Poland (Oxford, 1988). " H.J. Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia (Stanford, Calif., 1972), pp. xv, 12-13, 53. On Pitsudski,

see A. Garlicki, Jozef Pitsudski, 1867—1935 (Warsaw, 1988), 9; and W. Suleja, Polska Partia Socialistyczna (Warsaw, 1988), 41. 8 M. Mishkinsky, ‘Polish Socialism and the Jewish Question’, in Polin, v (Oxford, 1990). ® Pitsudski helped Jewish socialists find the means to publish in Yiddish. Tobias, Jemish Bund in Russia, 46, 52-3.

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz 259 Jewish city in the world.'‘° The Warsaw Jewish intelligentsia was polonophone, but the Jewish masses spoke Yiddish.'t The PPS (like Rosa Luxemburg’s Social Democrats, and Jewish and Polish progressive intellectuals generally) saw Jewish culture as backward and reactionary, believed Jewish workers would soon assimilate, and hesitated to agitate in Yiddish for fear of slowing the process.!* Although Polish socialists preferred that Jews beyond ethnographic Poland identify as Jews rather than as Russians, they were unwilling to accept the idea of Jewish nationality on Polish lands. Where the alternative for Jews was Russian language and culture, as in Vilnius, the PPS had to accept Jewish identity. But where the alternative was still Polish language and culture, as in Warsaw, the PPS preferred to work in Polish only. Ata more practical level, of the many assimilated Jews in the party leadership, very few could write in Yiddish.1* Hence, when in 1895 John Mill arrived from Vilnius with Yiddish materials, he was able to split the PPS’s Jewish organization and start his own.'4 The true challenge to the PPS’s hold on its Jewish membership arrived in 1897

with the foundation of the Bund. Mill’s Warsaw group joined the new party, which soon became active in Bialystok and Hrodna as well.!° Functioning in Yiddish, claiming as its geographic scope the whole Russian empire, and advocating a pure internationalism, the Bund quickly became the patriotic PPS’s béte

noire. The PPS condemned the Bund for dividing Jews from the Polish and Lithuanian nations and for its willingness to deal with the existing Russian state, and countered by trying to publish its own Yiddish journal.!© Max Horwitz (the 0-H. Wereszycki, Historia polityczna Polski, 1864-1918 (Wroclaw, 1990), 87; Blobaum, Dazierzynski, 11; S. D. Corrsin, ‘Language Use in Cultural and Political Change in Pre-1914 Warsaw’, Slavic and East European Review, 68/1 (1990), 69; S. Kieniewicz, Historia polski, 1795-1918 (Warsaw,

1975); 351. |

1 Corrsin, ‘Language Use’, 85; H. Piasecki, Zydomska Organizacja PPS, 1893-1907 (Wroclaw,

1978), 14.

‘2 See J. Holzer, ‘Relations between Polish and Jewish Left Wing Groups in Interwar Poland’, in

Abramsky ef al. (eds.), Jems in Poland, 140-1; J. Lichten, ‘Notes on the Assimilation and | Acculturation of Jews in Poland, 1863-1943’, ibid. 108; and S. Kieniewicz, ‘Polish Society and the Jewish Problem in the Nineteenth Century’, ibid. 74—5.

‘8 The PPS was not exceptional in this respect. Of the leaders of Jewish descent of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP), only Feliks Dzierzyriski could read Yiddish. Most early leaders of the Bund itself could not have written an article in Yiddish, for that matter. Tobias, Jewish Bund in Russia, 11.

4 For this story, see S. Wojciechowski, Moje wspomnienie (Lwéw, 1938), i. 112-13; Materiaty do historyt PPS i ruchu rewolucyjnego w zaborze rosyjskim od r. 1893-1904 (Warsaw, 1907), i. 219-21; J.

Kancewicz, Polska Partia Socialistyczna, 1892-1896 (Warsaw, 1984), 204; Piasecki, Zydowska Organizacja PPS, 23-33. For Mills’s recollections, see Pionern un boyer (New York, 1946-9).

Piasecki, Zydowska Organizacja PPS, 34; J. Tomicki, Polska Partia Soctalistyczna, 1892-1948

(Warsaw, 1983), 34. . 6 Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 220; Piasecki, Zydowska Organizacja PPS, 34, 69; W. Feldman, Dzieje polskiey mysh polityczne; w okresie porozbiorowym (Warsaw, 1920), iti. go S. Wojciechowski,

Polska Partia Soctalistyczna w ostatnich pieciu latach (London, 1900), 31-2; Wojciechowski, Moje wspomnienta, 113; Holzer, ‘Relations between Polish and Jewish Left Wing Groups’, 141; Tobias, Jewish Bund in Russia, 72, 103.

260 Timothy Snyder only PPS intellectual able to write, if weakly, in Yiddish) edited two numbers of Der arbeyter in 1898 and 1899 before being arrested. Leon Wasilewski taught himself Yiddish in order to continue the journal.?”

The question of Polish independence divided the PPS and the Bund most clearly. ‘The PPS advocated Polish independence as a ‘minimum programme’ to be achieved before the arrival of socialism. The Bund, for its part, opposed Polish independence on the grounds that the new political boundaries would divide the largest Jewish community in the world.’® Mill argued that Jews would be wasting their effort in working towards an independent Poland for they would have to begin socialist agitation all over again in the new Polish state.'? In addition, Bund members pointed out, under democratic conditions Poles might well vote to deny _ rights to the Jewish minority.”° At the Bund’s founding congress in 1897 a resolution was passed favouring contacts with Russian socialists, but no mention was made of the PPS.*! Several

members of the Bund took part in the first congress of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party (RSDRP) in Minsk in 1898, to which, despite its | ‘Russia-wide’ character, the PPS was not invited. In the years 1898-1900 the Bund maintained very good terms with the anti-patriotic Polish socialist Rosa Luxemburg, and reprinted her articles in its organ Der yidishe arbeyter.*” The distance between the Bund and the PPS thus appeared insurmountable.

FROM PARIS TO VIENNA (IQOT) At the time of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz’s move from Paris to Vienna in April 1901 the Bund and the PPS had very poor relations and little contact, and the PPS was struggling desperately not to lose its Jewish members. Since 1892 Kelles-Krauz had lived in emigration in Paris, where he had become the leading theorist of the

PPS. Although his Marxism placed him in the party’s left wing, his consistent advocacy of independence won him the trust of party leaders such as Pitsudski and of émigrés such as Bolestaw Antoni Jedrzejowski. Kelles-Krauz had followed the struggle between Mill and the PPS for Warsaw’s Jewish proletariat, and had advocated publishing agitation material in Yiddish. Upon meeting Jews from Warsaw, he tried to learn something of their attitudes about their own national status.”° In a 17 Piasecki, Zydowska Organizacja PPS, 45; Holzer, ‘Relations between Polish and Jewish Left Wing Groups’, 140; Sliwa, ‘K westia zydowska’, 276. 18 FF rankel, Prophecy and Politics, 142.

19 Ibid. 218. 20 Sliwa, ‘Kwestia zydowska’, 277. 21 Tobias, Jewish Bund in Russia, 67. 22 P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (London, 1966), i. 254.

23 Kelles-Krauz in Paris to Centralizacja Zwiazku Zagranicznego Socjalistow Polskich (CZZSP— Central Body of the Foreign Union of Polish Socialists) in London, 6 Sept. 1899, in K. Kelles-Krauz, Listy (‘Letters’), ed. F. Tych et al. (Warsaw, 1982), ii. 270; 14 Sept. 1899, ibid. ti. 278; 26 Feb. 1g00,

, ibid. ii. 328—g; 27 Feb. 1900, ibid. ti. 334; Kelles-Krauz in Paris to the Komitet Zagraniczny Polskie} Partii Socjalistycznej (KZPPS; Foreign Committee of the Polish Socialist Party) in London, 3 Jan. 1901, ibid. 11. 426.

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz 261 long letter written in 1899, he provided his wife, Maria, with arguments to use against an acquaintance who termed Jews natural usurers. No trait inheres in any nation, Kelles-Krauz explained; throughout history typical Jewish vocations have varied enormously.** Yet despite his interest in the Jewish question, he had little reason to take up the issue in any comprehensive manner from Paris. In Vienna the Jewish question was unavoidable. The city was enjoying one of European history’s most magnificent flowerings of science and culture, with people of Jewish descent at the forefront. The absolute majority of Viennese doctors and

lawyers were of Jewish origin, and the same was probably true of journalists.?° Jews played a prominent role in industry, and the empire relied upon Jewish financiers. At the same time, about a third of the Jewish population of Vienna was working class, and extremely poor Jews poured into the capital each year from Galicia. Nevertheless, the stereotype of Jew as capitalist ruled the age, and the age was one in which capitalism was very unpopular.

The Jews lacked the traditional prestige of old landholders, and almost every major political force in Austria, save the liberals and socialists, consciously encouraged the popular association of Jews with the calamitous instability of early capi-

talism.2° Karl Lueger, leader of the Christian Socials and a political calculator

(rather than an antisemite by conviction), understood that antisemitism had become the lowest common denominator of Viennese politics, and tailored his electoral message around the theme that the common people’s problems resulted from Jewish capital.?’ Lueger was elected mayor in 1895; the emperor, however, refused to sanction his election. Freud smoked a cigar to celebrate Franz Joseph’s decision. But the continuing rise of the Christian Socials forced the emperor’s hand in 1897, and Lueger governed Vienna during the entirety of Kelles-Krauz’s stay there. (He would still be in office when Adolf Hitler arrived in 1910.) His Christian Socials grew to become the dominant political force at the national level as well, sending the largest number of deputies to the parliament in the elections of 1902.

Austro-German socialists were ill equipped to meet the challenge of an antisemitic rival on the left.22 Competing with the Christian Socials for the Catholic "4 Kelles-Krauz in Paris to Maria Kelles-Krauzowa in Radom, 29 July 1899, ibid. ii. 229-30. 25 S. Beller, ‘Class, Culture, and the Jews of Vienna, 1900’, in Ivar Oxaal, Michael Pollak, and

| Gerhard Botz (eds.) Jews, Antisemitism, and Culture in Vienna, (London, 1987), 43, 46, 57-8. 26 R. S. Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews: The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary (London, 1982), 180-4. 27 On Lueger’s rise, see P. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (New York, 1964), 166—9, 199; Beller, ‘Class, Culture, and the Jews of Vienna’, 44.

28 T use the term ‘Austro-German’ advisedly. Ignacy Daszyriski, leader of Polish socialism in the Austrian partition, is exempt from the generalizations in these paragraphs of the chapter. From as early as 1891 Daszynski considered the Jews a nationality deserving of appropriate rights and protections. On his unusual stand, see W. Najdus, [gnacy Daszytiski, 1866-1936 (Warsaw, 1988), 83, 153; and Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 177. As early as 1881 a programme of Galician socialists mentioned the Jews as a nationality. R. Wapinski, Polska i mate ojezyzny polakéw (Wroclaw, 1994), 182.

262 Timothy Snyder German working class, the socialists did little to undermine the popular association of Jewish wickedness with the crises of capitalism. In the prevailing political

climate, the debate between the socialists and the Christian Socials often | amounted to each party accusing the other of being the real tool of Jewish capital. Because almost the entire leadership of Austrian social democracy was of Jewish descent, the socialist side began the contest at a disadvantage. Moreover, Austro-German socialists assumed the Jewish problem would eventually solve itself. In an argument that harmonized with the life-path of Marx and numerous socialist leaders to follow, Hegel had proclaimed the Jews an ahistorical relic. For Marxists of the Second International, Jews were a caste, a religion, a

medieval curiosity, but certainly not a nationality. Assimilation appeared as inevitable as it was desirable. While pogroms were regrettable, the only progressive response to them was to encourage assimilation, for the organization of Jews

as a group could only prolong the death throes.”? Following this reasoning, Austrian socialists actually welcomed the success of the Christian Socials, in a peculiar Hegelian fashion. Since the Christian Socials had buried the Liberals in 1900, the socialists had now become the leading force of the opposition. Since socialists saw antisemitism as an intermediary step towards opposition to capitalism as such, and believed that history would soon resolve the Jewish question, they took their defeat at the hands of an antisemitic party as a signal of their own eventual victory. Antisemitism was the socialism of the dolt, opined Otto Bauer; to Victor Adler’s mind, the Christian Socials were doing the socialists’ work.°° Although far from the worst culprits, socialists contributed to a political atmosphere ever more suffocating to Austria’s Jews. The political options available to Jews narrowed dramatically. Assimilation had traditionally meant acceptance of German culture; now as German culture itself became ever more associated with antisemitism, this option lost much of its appeal.*! Liberalism, the political direction that corresponded to assimilation, was in sharp decline.*? Official opposition blocked the opposite path, assertion of a Jewish nationality. Demands for separate Jewish curia in paliamentary elections and for Jewish cultural autonomy went unheeded. In this environment of political encirclement and frustration, the least expected and most controversial option of all took shape: Zionism. Until Theodor Herzl’s death in 1904 Vienna remained the international centre of the Zionist movement, and Zionism prompted Kelles-Krauz’s first published reflections on the Jewish question, in April 1902. 29 On Kautsky, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), and on Orthodoxy, see Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews, 16-18, 138-0, 143-4, 146, 153; and M. Waldenberg, W2zlot 1 upadek Karola

Kautsky'ego (Krakow, 1972), 1. 581. On the Austro-Germans, see Pulzer, Rise of Political AntiSemitism, 267; Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews, 251, 306-7; and R. Wistrich, ‘Social Democracy, Antisemitism, and the Jews of Vienna,’ in Oxaal et a/., (eds.), Jems, Antisemitism, and Culture in Vienna, 117. 30 Pulzer, Rise of Political Anti-Semitism, 168; Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews, 168-9, 248-9, 269. 31 Pollak, Cu/tural Innovation and Social Identity in fin-de-siécle Vienna (London, 1987), 66-7. 32 Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews, 208-9.

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz 263 KELLES-KRAUZ ON ZIONISM, I902 Kelles-Krauz was impressed not only by Zionism’s attainments but by its resemblance to other national movements. A speech of Martin Buber’s reminded him, in content and especially in tone, of Polish patriotism. This parallel may have been a key to Kelles-Krauz’s intuition that Zionism signified a qualitative change in the character of Jewish identity towards that of a modern nation. So I ask, what is this common goal, uniting artist and economist? Why do people of such different political convictions in other spheres feel that they have something essential in common? Nationality. [t suffices to look at the Zionist movement without prejudice to see that from Jews scattered about the globe, speaking different languages, from populations that for ages have had nothing in common except religion and tradition, is being formed a modern nationality.

At this point Kelles-Krauz hints at a general analysis of the causes of modern national identity: I call the Jews a modern nationality because the Jewish nationality is being formed under

the influence of those same factors that have strengthened or revived nationalities— French, German, Italian, Slovene, up to and including the Lusatian Serb revival—and at least under the influence of the most important of these influences, that great historical current whose point of departure is the French Revolution: the democratization of culture, the accessibility of cultural goods to the people, allowing the masses to master and further develop culture.*®

Although Zionism’s goals are unachievable, he believes, its existence as a movement signals the arrival of a Jewish nationality, deserving of the ‘universal, and for us the most profitable, principles of tolerance, respect, and equal rights’.**

KELLES-KRAUZ, MAX ZETTERBAUM, AND THE BUND,

1902-1903 Yet, if for the general Polish public Zionism addressed the Jewish question in the

most startling fashion, for the PPS it was the Bund’s approach that startled. Kelles-Krauz’s insight that Jews had become a modern nationality informed his own attitude towards the Bund and distinguished him from his peers. Though he agreed with other PPS leaders that the programme of the Bund was misguided, he was unusual in his willingness to try to understand the Bund’s point of view, and he never underestimated the Jewish party. He began to teach himself Yiddish, 33 K. Krauz, ‘Z powodu kongresu syonist6éw’, Pramda, 22/14 (1902), 162. 34 Tbid. 175. 3° Kelles-Krauz in Vienna to Komitet Zagraniczny Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej in London, 11 June 1902, in Listy, 11. 617; Kelles-Krauz in Plankau to Bolestaw Antoni Jedrzejowski in London, 13

Sept. 1903, ibid. ii. 699. A sign of his interest in mutual Polish—Jewish portrayal is K. Kelles-Krauz (pseud. K. Radostawski), ‘Judyta i Rachela’, Pramda, 22/4 (1902), 44-5.

264 Timothy Snyder and through the good offices of his friend Max Zetterbaum attempted to resolve

the dispute between the two parties. Zetterbaum was a natural link between Polish and Jewish socialism. A Galician

Jew raised in poverty, he studied law at the University of Lviv, then returned home to Kolomyia and agitated among local Jews. He organized a strike of talitweavers 1n which hasidim took to the barricades and rabbis urged the strikers

to persevere.°® In 1892 Zetterbaum helped found Daszynski’s Polish Social Democratic Party (PPSD— either the Polish branch of Austrian social democracy or the Austrian branch of Polish socialism, depending on one’s point of view), and

, he consistently supported the goal of an independent Poland. He directed much of his effort towards preventing Jewish separatism within the PPSD.*”’ He also addressed various questions of socialist theory in the pages of Przedswit, ArbeiterZeitung, and Neue Zeit, where he discussed his friend Kelles-Krauz’s conception of Marxism as sociology.*® Zetterbaum wrote a good deal about the Jewish question, from a position quite different from Kelles-Krauz’s. Kelles-Krauz met Zetterbaum shortly after his arrival in Vienna and kept him company during his recovery from the amputation of a leg.*? At the end of 1901 Zetterbaum revealed to Kelles-Krauz his dream of convincing the Bund to accept the PPS programme.” In response to a query from Kelles-Krauz, Bolestaw Antoni Jedrzejowski indicated that the London émigré leadership of the PPS was willing to let Zetterbaum try, though they were convinced that the Bund’s activities were on balance harmful, and fairly sure it would reject any overture from the PPS side.

Jedrzejowski characterized the mood of PPS leaders as Judenmiude, weary of Jews.*!

| In February 1902 Zetterbaum reported back to Kelles-Krauz that the Bund was preoccupied with the organizational form a merger might take. Kelles-Krauz replied that the PPS’s sene gua non was that the Bund agree to propagate Polish independence on Polish lands. If the Bund would consent to that, as well as to cooperating with Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian rather than Russian socialists, the PPS would grant the Bund complete autonomy on Jewish matters on Polish lands.*? Pilsudski was of the same mind, writing to Kelles-Krauz, ‘You responded so beautifully to Zetterbaum that I want to hug you,’ and adding: 36 H. Piasecki, Sekcja Zydowska PPSD i 2ydowska partia socialno-demokratyczna (Wroclaw, 1982),

ae A. Pacholczytowa, ‘Cederbaum (wezeSniej Zetterbaum) Maksymilian’, in Feliks Tych e¢ al. (eds.), Sfownik biograficzny dziataczy polskiego ruchu robotniczego (Warsaw, 1978), 11. 291.

38 M. Zetterbaum, ‘Zur materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung’, Die Neue Zeit, 21 (1902-3), 399-407, 498-506, 524-31. 39 Kelles-Krauz in Vienna to Kelles-Krauzowa in Radom, 25 May 1901, in Listy, ii. 494. 40 Kelles-Krauz in Vienna to KZPPS in London, 6 Dec. 1901, ibid. ii. 591.

41 Bolestaw Antoni Jedrzejowski in London to Kelles-Krauz in Vienna, Archiwum Lewicy, Warsaw, 305/II/25, bk. xtx, 633—4. 42 Kelles-Krauz in Vienna to KZPPS in London, 12 Feb. 1902, in Listy, ii. 601-2.

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz 265 In time we will have to put something in the programme guaranteeing certain rights of Jews in the Polish paradise to come. . . . Apropos ‘certain rights’, don’t think that I’m trying to oppress them; I mean that in a section of the party programme we could specifically indicate that Jews in a future Poland will have the right to remain Jews if they wish, and that we will defend their rights as a nationality. But that’s the future.*?

Pilsudski’s proposal spoke to an important change in the Bund programme, approved at its fourth congress in Bialystok in April 1901. Ending its previous indifference to national questions, the Bund now declared that it supported the transformation of Russia into a federation of nations, with cultural autonomy guaranteed to all nationalities—including the Jews.*4 The Bund’s leaders, however, all agreed that socialists could not support territorial resolutions (such as Polish independence) to national problems.*° At the next PPS congress, in June 1902 in Lublin, condemnation of the Bund continued, but the party offered the following concession on the question of Jewish rights: ‘A [Polish] republic would ensure the Jews complete equal rights as citizens, would give Jews the possibility of free development and sufficient influence on public affairs . . . in our country, which is at the same time their country.’4° Although relations between the Bund and the PPS remained very tenuous,

. Kelles-Krauz saw this as a ray of hope. From 1go1 the Bund’s close ties with the Russian socialists and Rosa Luxemburg’s Polish but anti-patriotic Social Democratic Party (SDKPiL) began to unravel. As the Bund adopted national goals, and as its use of Yiddish material | stirred national feeling among Jewish workers, the SDKPiL questioned its socialist internationalism.*’ Lenin’s /skra attacked the Bund for its independence on programmatic issues, and Plekhanov also voiced hostility. In the months preceding the second congress of the RSDRP of July 1903, Lenin used Rosa Luxemburg’s

SDKPiL as an instrument to attack the Bund’s right to autonomy within the Russian party.*® That 1903 congress, best known for the Bolshevik—Menshevik split, also witnessed the withdrawal of the Bund from the RSDRP.*° As the PPS and Bund programmes converged, and the Bund’s relations with the PPS’s rivals worsened, Kelles-Krauz perceived an opportunity for a PPS rapprochement with the Bund in 1903. He kept up contacts with Bundists through 43 J. Pitsudski to Kelles-Krauz in Vienna, 17 Feb. 1902, Niepodleglos¢, 13 (1980), 8—10. 44 Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 164, 171; E. Mendelsohn, Class Struggle in the Pale (Cambridge, 1970), 136; Tobias, Jewish Bund in Russia, 163—4. John Mill, influenced by his experiences in Warsaw, and convinced that the PPS was not entirely wrong to consider the national question part of the social-

ist agenda, had been pressing for some such change. See ibid. 107. 4 Tbid. 161. 4© Cited after Sliwa, ‘Kwestia zydowska’, 277. On the Bund’s reaction, see Tobias, Jewish Bund in Russia, 286-7. On PPS—Bund relations in 1903, see Piasecki, Zydowska Organizacja PPS, 72, 76-8, 85, go.

en Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 200. 48 Luxemburg’s position was odd, as she did demand autonomy for her own organization. 49 Tbid. 175, 227-8; Tobias, Zewish Bund in Russia, 77-205.

266 Timothy Snyder Zetterbaum, but with little result.°° As Zetterbaum pointed out, no Bundist could understand the advantages that Polish independence might have for Jews.°! In the conclusion of his critique of the Austrian socialists’ programme in July 1903, Kelles-Krauz tries to advance a more attractive deal. There he argues that, unlike Russian comrades, the Polish socialists understand and accept the Bund’s goal of national autonomy.*” In any case, he continues, the Bund will never manage to win national rights for the Jews in any multinational state ruled from Moscow. The PPS, on the other hand, promises full autonomy within a future Polish republic. _ The Bund should therefore realize that its proper partner is the PPS, and accept

the PPS programme.*?

In the same spirit, hoping to find the formula that might break the ice between the Bund and the PPS, Kelles-Krauz decided in late 1903 to give voice to his personal views on the Jewish question.**

‘ON THE QUESTION OF JEWISH NATIONALITY’, I go4 Kelles-Krauz published his most significant article on the Jewish question, ‘W kwestii narodowosci zydowskiej’ (‘On the Question of Jewish Nationality’), in the January and February 1904 issues of Wilhelm Feldman’s influential Krakow monthly Krytyka.°° It does not explain the PPS position on the Jewish question to the general Polish public, but rather calls on both the party and the progressive public to take a fresh look at the issue.°° Believing large-scale emigration of Jews

| from Poland unlikely, Kelles-Krauz grants that the typical Polish objection that __ Zionism’s goals are utopian, but argues that the Zionist programme does not exhaust the ‘historical content’ of Zionism. Its significance must be sought in the

| factor that has made such a seemingly unlikely organization successful and that stands beyond all plans and personalities: the idea of Jewish nationality.°’ °° Kelles-Krauz in Vienna to Boleslaw Antoni Jedrzejowski in London, 4 May 1903, in Listy, ii. 682. °1 Kelles-Krauz in Vienna to Leon Wasilewski in London, 15 Mar. 1902, in Listy, ii. 611. 52 Kelles-Krauz insisted on preserving this conclusion, despite opposition from London. KellesKrauz in Plankau to Leon Wasilewski in Krakow, 12 July 1903, ibid. ii. 687.

53 K. Kelles-Krauz (pseud. M. Lusnia), ‘Programme narodowosciowy Socjalnej Demokracji Austriackiej a programme PPS’, Przedswit, 7-8 (1903), 276-83, 333-41. 4 At about the same time Jézef Pilsudski urged the PPS to fight antisemitism. Tobias, Jewish Bund in Russia, 288.

°° K. Kelles-Krauz (pseud. M. Lusnia), ‘W kwestit narodowosci zydowskiej’, Krytyka, 61—2 (1904), 318-41, cited after K. Kelles-Krauz, Pisma wybrane, ii (Warsaw, 1962). Feldman offered to

publish the article as a pamphlet, but Kelles-Krauz replied that its ‘heretical content’ would prevent . the PPS from distributing it in Russian Poland.

56 Kelles-Krauz, ‘W kwestii narodowosci zydowskiej’, 337. 57 Ibid. 323-4. Stanislaw Barariski had argued in 1889 that nationality is a question of conscious-

ness, and that the Jews should be considered a nationality on the basis of this criterion. M. Mishkinsky, ‘A Turning Point in the History of Polish Socialism and its Attitude toward the Jewish Question’, Polin, i (Oxford, 1986), 120-1. Kelles-Krauz did not know Barariski, but in Paris he did

live in a house filled with Barariski’s followers. ,

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz | 267 At this point, Kelles-Krauz stops to define terms. Nationality 1s a new and modern social category, he writes, qualitatively different from religious or state affiliations inherited from feudalism. The nineteenth century has proven the forge of nations, in that groups of people speaking a similar language and sharing something like a common history have concluded that they constitute a distinct body. Each nation believes itself equal to all others, and insists that it alone must decide

| all questions of its own fate. Kelles-Krauz stresses that this transformation characterizes not only nations that have achieved unified statehood in the nineteenth century (Germany and Italy) and ones with proud state traditions (Hungary and Poland) but also ‘nationalities that, one might say, no one expected’: Czechs, Ukrainians, Croatio-Slovenes, Lusatian Sorbs, and Lithuanians.°® Whence this new form of consciousness? Kelles-Krauz answers unequivocally: ‘Modern capitalism directly forms nationalities.’ Capitalism transforms a static feudal economic order into numerous mobile and overlapping classes. In the new capitalist economy individuals uprooted from their traditional economic and social positions find a single constant in their native language. At the same time the complex relationships created by capitalism demand an effective form of communication. Producers and consumers speaking the same language are more likely to trade than those who do not, and entrepreneurs are likely to cooperate with others sharing their tongue against the foreigner. Mass culture hastens the consolidation of this national identification. Capitalism demands an educated population, and thus ‘in the very interest of capitalism’ traditional national myths must reach the nation as a whole, rather than its élites only. Here intellectuals catalyse a process that Kelles-Krauz terms retrospection. Although modern nationalism constitutes a genuinely new form of social consciousness, its advocates traditionally present their beliefs and goals as the revival of an eternal tradition. The formation of modern nationalities always takes on the ‘external form’ of a ‘renaissance’. Mass culture also allows for the transmission of the liberating ideas of ‘equality and democracy’ to the oppressed. Because the French Revolution began the process of spreading these ideas throughout Europe, they need not be formulated anew by each awakening nation.°? In setting forth a general descriptive model of the rise of the modern nation, Kelles-Krauz formulates criteria by which recent Jewish history might be judged. Given the power of traditional stereotypes, this in itself is no small accomplishment. He finds that Jews manifest the same signs of nation formation as other

European peoples. The idea of equality serves an important function: Jews observe the arrival of modern nationalism around them and apply the same ideas to themselves. The very fact that Jewish political formations such as the Bund now demand that Jews be treated as a nationality is of key importance. The idea must

also be found in larger masses, however, and a mass culture demands a mass language. The distribution of Yiddish socialist materials by the Bund and the PPS °8 Kelles-Krauz, ‘W kwestii narodowosci zydowskiej’, 324, 326. 9 Ibid. 324-7.

268 Timothy Snyder has allowed workers a sense of their own worth as part of a larger community.

Despite the intentions of both parties, this self-identification has taken on a national form. Kelles-Krauz calls the Zionist programme (with its revival of Hebrew and return to Zion) a characteristic example of retrospection.© Kelles-Krauz then draws the political conclusions. He distinguishes between the Zionist programme and the idea of Jewish nationality, noting that arguments against the feasibility of the first rarely speak to the reality of the second. He takes careful aim at the popular argument of the Polish left that if Jews organize rather than assimilate, they should not be surprised if antisemitism increases. Such an argument can come across only as a threat, further increasing the tension between

Poles and Jews. Against the claim that Jewish organizations will tend to be reactionary, he cites the example of the Bund.®! And while Poles have the right to criticize Jewish backwardness, their first responsibility is to cure antisemitism, the backwardness in their own national culture. Kelles-Krauz contends that, because every nation considers itself to be an end in itself, Poles and Jews will find common ground only if progressive Poles can come

up with arguments that speak to the interests of Jews. Jews cannot achieve the natural goal of other rising national movements, the nation-state, because they do not inhabit a defined territory. A future Polish republic must therefore do whatever possible to compensate for this aching loss. Given that Jews will not leave Poland en masse for Palestine, and that large-scale assimilation has become highly improbable, a future Polish republic should recognize the national rights and autonomy of

its Jewish population. In Kelles-Krauz’s opinion, the interests of both nations would be best served in a Polish republic that offers extensive national rights and cultural autonomy to its Jewish citizens. (Here he once again invokes the Bund to argue that its programme of cultural autonomy will be much more feasible if it

turns its attention from a future constitutional Russia to a future independent Poland.) Kelles-Krauz imagines a Poland in which Polish and Jewish cultures freely intermingle, and in which Polish citizens considering themselves to be of both Polish and Jewish nationality provide links between the two. In such a republic all individuals would have the right to choose their own national identity.

MOTIVES Kelles-Krauz hoped for cooperation between the PPS and the Bund. He knew that the Bundists could see little advantage in a Polish republic, and so he advanced the 60 Kelles-Krauz, ‘W kwestii narodowosci zydowskiej’, 326-7.

6! Tbid. 330-5. Kelles-Krauz in Vienna to Feldman in Krakow, 13 Jan. 1904, in Listy, ii. 710. On 3 Feldman, see Dabrowski, ‘Feldman’, and E. Mendelsohn, ‘Jewish Assimilation in Lvov: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman’, Slavic Review, 28/4 (1969), 577-06. 62 Kelles-Krauz, ‘W kwestii narodowosci zydowskiej’, 338—40. He did not spell out just what measures such cultural autonomy would consist of, aside from the use of the local language in schools, courts, and administration.

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz 269 idea of a Polish state that would more than meet the demands of the Bund’s programme. Unlike the majority of PPS leaders, Kelles-Krauz did not think the Bund would splinter and weaken of its own accord, and he intended his argument that the Jews constituted a nationality to provoke thought in that quarter as well. Most PPS leaders stood by their belief in the inevitability of assimilation®*—even aS antisemitism increased, the small Polish Jewish assimilationist movement dissolved,®* Zionism made inroads into the Russian empire, and around 1904 the Bund overtook the PPS among Warsaw’s Jews.®° Pilsudski was willing to entertain the idea that Jews constituted a nationality if 1t would serve a political purpose; Kelles-Krauz became convinced that they genuinely did. Central European Marxists were usually even less flexible than the PPS on the Jewish question. Kelles-Krauz’s position, although based on what he understood to be Marxist premisses, could scarcely have differed more from the consensus among his Marxist comrades.®° Rather than thinking capitalism would necessitate

a general assimilation that would obviate the Jewish question, Kelles-Krauz believed it had transformed Jewry into a modern nation, and that socialists needed a new and creative political response.

| He may also have been motivated by a broader concern. In Vienna he had to confront the reality of a popularly elected left-of-centre, antisemitic mayor. Leftist

antisemitism, critical of capitalism and armed with a scapegoat ideology, had succeeded in attracting the working class.°’ In Poland, Dmowski’s National Democrats, then embracing an ever more exclusionary and biological view of nationality,°* offered a similar message to Poles. Because Kelles-Krauz, unlike his central European comrades, believed neither that assimilation was inevitable nor that antisemitism would naturally lead to simple anti-capitalism, he searched for some means to safeguard a future Polish republic from Dmowski. Kelles-Krauz did temporarily convert Wilhelm Feldman of Krytyka from ardent assimilationism to his own position, and apparently exerted some influence over Aleksander Swietochowski, the influential editor of the Warsaw journal Pramda, as well.

THE CONSEQUENCES, FROM 1905 As Kelles-Krauz penned his articles on Zionism and on Jewish nationality, he was

already infected with tuberculosis. His death in July 1905 deprived the Polish political scene of its only major non-Jewish advocate of Jewish nationality. The PPS, which Kelles-Krauz had held together during the last months of his life, split

68 Piasecki, Zydowska Organizacja PPS, 101-4. 64 Wapinski, Polska i mate ojczyzny polakéw, 173-4. 6 Sliwa, ‘Kwestia zydowska’, 274. 66 M. Sobelman, Polish Socialism and Jewish Nationality’, Soviet Jewish Affairs, 20/1 (1990),

48, 54. 67 [K. Kelles-Krauz], ‘List z Wiednia’, Pramda, 24/45 (1904), 530-1. 68 Roman Dmowski’s Mysli nowoczesnego Polaka was published in 1903, Zygmunt Balicki’s Egoizm narodowy wobec etyki in 1got.

270 Timothy Snyder into Pilsudski’s revolutionary fraction and the PPS ‘Lewica’. Neither of these parties had a thinker of Kelles-Krauz’s stature, capable of exploiting his intellectual achievement to seek reconciliation between Jewish and Polish socialists. In Jerzy Holzer’s words, Polish socialists ‘were unable to propose anything concrete for the future of the Jewish national existence’.©’ After 1918 independent Poland would pursue policies towards the Jews that were precisely the opposite of what Kelles-Krauz had advocated. Even in conditions of freedom and independence the PPS and the Bund rarely managed to cooperate until their hands were forced by the rising antisemitism of the late 1930s. Kelles-Krauz’s arguments on behalf of Jewish nationality were published in Polish, and they had no discernible effect on the stereotypes held by the European Left outside Poland. As a socialist and as a Pole, Kelles-Krauz was so exceptional

in his views that it would be incorrect to speak of him as part of a tradition. At most, he was an honourable example of tolerance whose political remedies still merit attention. His scholarly achievements, inspired by his consideration of the Jewish question, remain impressive. His explanation of the rise of modern nationalism, sketched largely on the basis of the Jewish example, anticipated the major currents of our contemporary debate.” 69 J. Holzer, ‘Polish Political Parties and Antisemitism’, Po/in, viii (Oxford, 1994), 146.

7 A. Bromberg, ‘The Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in the 1930s’, in Y. Gutman, E. Mendelsohn, J. Reinharz, and C. Shmeruk (eds.), The Jews of Poland between Two World Wars

(Hanover, NH, 1989), 76.

4 On this point and on Kelles-Krauz’s life and works generally, see T. Snyder, Nationalism,

Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, 1872-1905 (Cambridge, Mass., 1997).

The Endecja and the Jewish Question ROMAN WAPINSKI SCHOLARS approach the Jewish question in Poland, and Polish political attitudes on the subject, with a mixture of interest and emotion. This is particularly apparent in analysis of the events immediately preceding the Second World War. Feelings ran high at that time, and the tragedy of the Jewish people during the war heightened these feelings and made them an integral part of their memory of the period. Whenever historians deal with strong emotions that colour understanding of the past, their task becomes more difficult. As Gilles Auquetil reminds us, “Che true historian must expose the past, not as we see it with today’s eyes, but the way those for whom it was the present saw it. One should attain “ecstasy”, in the etymological sense of that word [standing outside oneself], in order to enter into that world’.! Historians almost universally regard the Endecja (Partia Narodowa-Democracyja,

or National Democratic Party) as the main Polish political group that fought against real and imagined Jewish influence in all spheres of social life in Poland.” This fight became apparent in the five years preceding the outbreak of the First World War: from 1909 the party became the primary motor of aggressive anti-

semitism. Yet, it is still not possible to determine to what extent the Endecja created an atmosphere in which Jews were regarded as ‘foreign’, how far it controlled the mobilization of the boycott on Jewish trade, or even the degree to which its slogans calling for the limiting of Jewish economic influence coincided with the aspirations of other Polish social groups. For the most part, there emerge from the historical literature two basic views, one seeing manifestations of antisemitism as resulting from actions of the Endecja and related political groupings and the other arguing that Polish society is particularly susceptible to antisemitism. Neither of these views rises above stereotypes generated by past and current relationships

between Poles and Jews and from the limited nature of our knowledge of the history of these relations. It is true that in the last few years there has been increased academic interest in Polish Jewish history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,°® but the level of our understanding remains somewhat unsophisticated. 1 Cited in Forum, 9 July 1989.

2 A fuller description of the Endecja has been included in my work Narodowa Demokracja, 1893-1939: Ze studiow nad dziejami mysh nacjonalistyczne (Wroclaw, 1980). ° Apart from monographs such as A. Eisenbach, Emancypacja Zydéw na ziemiach polskich, 1785— 1870 (Warsaw, 1988), and A. Cala, Asymilacja Zydéw w Krolestmie Polskim, 1864-1597 (Warsaw, 198g), particular attention should be given to Polin.

272 Roman Wapinski Just noting some of the deficiencies will serve to highlight the difficulties for research.

One of the most glaring problems in the existing body of research on the relationship between Poles and Jews in more recent times is its failure to investigate the influence of pre-existing attitudes and legal provisions. Rather than seeking a justification for antisemitism, scholarship should strive to discover the causes of its persistence and the specific features of the attitudes that developed towards the ‘Jewish problem’ in the lands encompassed by Polish national aspirations* (which became the Polish state after 1918). Attitudes towards the Jews developed in a very different way in western and eastern Europe during the ‘long nineteenth century’, when the continent was entering the modern age. In Poland the weakness of the cities and the small number of town-dwellers gave a unique character to this process. On the whole, except for the towns in the kingdom of Prussia, the Jewish population filled most urban functions in the pre-partition republic. The

Jewish community was larger than its counterparts in western Europe, and it constituted a kind of separate estate, isolated (and isolating itself) in its laws and customs from other social groups in the republic.

At a time when, under the influence of the Enlightenment and nineteenthcentury liberalism, Jews in western Europe linked their aspirations and customs to _ those of the societies in which they found themselves and became co-citizens of

common homelands, the Jews in Poland related to Poles much as they had in pre-modern times. Because of the comparatively slow economic and social devel-

opment, this situation persisted over a significant part of the Polish lands, especially in the Russian partition, until the last decades of the nineteenth century. In contrast, the experiences of the Jewish population in the Prussian partition were not dissimilar to those of western Europe. The ‘Jewish problem’ in Poland thus retained its traditional dimension across most of the lands of the pre-partition republic, and perhaps even intensified with the rise of modern Polish political life.? Traditional distances between Jews and Poles, determined primarily by the cultural and religious difference of the Jews from those around them, interwove themselves with the new distances underlying the divergent national aspirations of Polish and Jewish societies. Additionally, for the urban middle classes (especially the merchants and artisans) inevitable competition over the workplace and clients increased these distances. Without adopting a rigid determinism about the emergence of the Endecja’s extreme antisemitism (especially in the 1930s), I view the great attention Polish society devoted to the Jewish question, as well as its hostility towards Jews, as 4 This term describes precisely the range of lands encompassed by Polish interests; it is far from definitive which lands were in fact ethnically Polish and which were not. See R. Wapinski, ‘W kregu wyobrazeni o polskim terytorium narodowym w koricu XIX i w pierwszych dziesi¢cioleciach XX wieku’, Przeglad Zachodnt, 5-6 (1986), 305-23. 5 Also perhaps deciding the development of the modern Jewish national movement.

The Endeqja and the Jewish Question 273 making the stance which the Endecja adopted to some degree inevitable. Virtually from its beginnings the antisemitic camp, inaugurated with the creation in 1893 of

the Liga Narodowa (National League), urged the strengthening of the Polish national element in all spheres of social life. Its primary founder, Roman Dmowski, stressed in his 1893 book Nasz patriotyzm (‘Our Patriotism’) the need to increase nationalist sentiment daily, in contrast to the majority of Polish leaders, who made

preparations for a likely future uprising the priority. This nationalist approach also wanted to strengthen the Polish middle classes in the cities and towns, and correspondingly limit the Jewish hold on this sector, at least in the territories of the Russian and Austrian partitions. Despite the fact that when the Endecyja called for a boycott on Jewish trade and artisanry they did not likewise call for greater

support for Polish trade and crafts, their programme for the nationalization of economic life increased the gulf between Poles and Jews and added a new context to the traditional distances. In addition, within many urban centres in Russian and Austrian Poland fierce economic competition between the established and newly emerging merchant classes accompanied the mutual cultural isolation.

Traditional rather than new barriers probably played the main role in determining the Endecja’s position on the Jewish question at least until 1908 or 1909 (although a full awareness of opposed national interests already exacerbated tradi-

tional barriers). To a certain degree, their stance resembled the views of the reformer Stanislaw Staszic in his book Przestrzogi dla Polski (‘Warnings for Poland’) published in 1790. Yet, even between 1893 and 1904, during the early development of the Endecja, the basis for later developments began to emerge from the party’s emphasis on the primacy of national interests, which led it to become an exponent of the principles of integral nationalism. Certainly, the uncompromising emphasis on national interests by Endecja ideologists intensified the belief that the Jews did not belong. The regional origins of the Endeks also

influenced the party’s position on the Jewish question, particularly with regard to the national assimilation programme advocated by a significant portion of Polish ideologues. Centred in and concentrating on the kingdom of Poland, the party felt particularly sensitive to the influx of Litvaks Jews from the western provinces of the Russian empire) into their lands.© Many Poles regarded these Jews, who had

been subject to long-standing Russian cultural influences, as an alien element abetting the Russification of the kingdom. If this was how circles that were not antisemitic interpreted their presence, one can imagine the reaction of those who did not believe in the success or desirability of universal assimilation. It was no coincidence that Endecja ideologues were among the first to proclaim the impossibility of large-scale assimilation on the Polish lands. “The bankruptcy of assimilation’, wrote Jan Ludwik Poplawski in his 1902 article ‘Pochodzenie 1 istota syjonizmw’ (“The Origin and Essence of Zionism’), was bound to become ® This was above all the consequence of the worsening position of Jews in these areas.

274 Roman Wapinski evident the moment it started to become more widespread, when ‘Jewish youth, avid for education’ became a major element in the public schools.’ Poptawski later discerned a parallel influence on that ‘bankruptcy’ in the fact that representatives of ever broader and lower, or, one should say, ever deeper and purer, classes of the population are, step by step, beginning to take a more significant part in national, social, economic, and even intellectual life. In these classes, which have been very poorly affected by civilization, the nature of which is cosmopolitan, a separate, lively, and sharply

marked individuality is manifesting itself; in other words, what is almost synonymous [with national individuality], a national exclusivity, [is arising] with all of its qualities, naturally and traditionally stabilized .®

In crediting the emergence of mass nationalistic politics with creating new barriers to assimilation, Poptawski was not completely consistent since, in spite of his interest in Zionism, he perceived these manifestations of a healthy ‘national instinct’ solely within Polish society. In his words, ‘the Jewish community is not today and, in truth, never was a national organism’.’ He was, as a consequence, largely blind to the rise of a Jewish national consciousness. This inconsistency,

derived in significant measure from the widespread conviction that the Jewish community differed only in religion and morals, became more evident in the Program Stronnictwa Demokratyczno-Narodowego w zaborze rosyjskim (‘Programme

of the National Democratic Party in the Russian Partition’) of 1903: The Jewish element, not having a separate territory, but to a lesser or greater degree living side by side with the Polish [element] across the whole country, is not recognized by the National Democratic Party as a political nation. The party opposes any Jewish attempts to organize politically, and, regardless of Jewish willingness to surrender to cultural assimila-

tion, demands unconditional subordination to Polish national interests.'° Moreover, the programme also stipulated that, because it stood ‘completely for Poles’, it recognized only those ‘individuals among the Jews, who, converting to Polish culture without reservation, are united with our society in its national goals, sharing in those aims even when it means limiting the social role of the Jewish element’.!! This is an exceptional exclusionism, failing to mention Poles of German, Lithuanian, or other descent, and apparently assuming their fuller national assimilation from the start. At the same time, the party declared unconditional war only against that part of the Jewish community that stood ‘on the side of the regime, affiliating itself with a foreign government, accepting its language and culture, or

completely uniting with agents hostile to Poland’.!* Against the remaining segment of the Jewish community, which behaves ‘neutrally with regard to our national battle’, the party ‘limits itself? to: 7 J. L. Poptawski, Pisma polityczne, i, (Krakow, 1910), 248. 8 Ibid. 250-1. 9 Ibid. 252. '0 Narodowa Demokracja, Antologia mysh polityceney ‘Przegladu. Wszechpolskiego’, ed. B.

Torunczyk (London, 1983), 121. 1) Tbid. 121-2. 2 Tbid. 121.

The Endega and the Fewish Question 275 I. supporting socio-economic actions which have as their aim the elimination of an anomaly harmful to our social development and centring on the domination of whole segments of economic life in our country by Jews;

2. eliminating the harmful influence of Jews in those spheres of social life in which Jews have overly expanded.!®

Interpreting these indicators, which document the character of the antisemitism that had become a part of the party’s programme, one can conclude that traditional feelings of religious and cultural estrangement, as well as competition in trade, predominate. The adoption of the ideology of integral nationalism certainly strengthened that estrangement, as did traditional Christian anti-Judaism, but was not of primary importance. At any rate, doubts about the cohesiveness of the Polish nationality motivated the new distance between Poles and Jews more than distrust of separate Jewish national interests. If these interests were noticed at all, they were linked to the Zionist movement, which aimed to rebuild a Jewish nation. No conflict was perceived between Jewish and Polish national interests until the First World War and the Paris peace conference, where the efforts to guarantee Jews in Poland full cultural and educational autonomy were interpreted as a threat to Polish nationalism. In the pre-war period, however, at the roots of this new distance that limited assimilation to individual cases lay the traditional feeling of the Jews being foreign, a feeling strengthened by the belief that the Polish nation lacked sufficient cohesion and strength. “There, where we can multiply our strength and our development as a civilization by absorbing other elements’, wrote Dmowski in Myst nowoczesnego Polaka (‘Thoughts of a Modern Pole’), no law forbids us that, and we even have an obligation to do so. . .. This does not mean that we should willingly absorb any elements we find along the road. The national organism should aim to absorb only that which it may tame and convert into an expansion bringing growth and strength to the whole group. The Jews are not such an element. They have an individuality too distinct, too crystallized by tens of centuries of life as a civilization, to allow themselves to be tamed in greater numbers by one as young as ours, only now form-

ing its national character; rather they would be capable of assimilating our majority [to themselves] spiritually, and, in part physically.'*

In a lecture he gave a few years later, Dmowski expanded on this idea of the superficiality of assimilation as a mass phenomenon. After asserting that in the kingdom of Poland, even after the January uprising, Polish intellectual life still held attractions for Jewish youth, he continued: Nevertheless, to the extent that the Jewish intelligentsia grew in size—and it grew with unbelievable speed—assimilation, while gaining in extent, lost in intensity. The enormous production of assimilated Jews began to be distinguished by that which often denotes mass production, namely, a degree of superficiality. The ranks of Poles of Jewish descent 13 Tbid. 14 R. Dmowski, Mysh nowoczesnego Polaka (Lviv, 1904), 214-15.

276 Roman Wapinski increased enormously, but these were Poles who were ever more superficial. Because of its numbers, it was simply not possible for this new Polish Jewish intelligentsia to enter into

, the Polish sphere as deeply as had the few people assimilated earlier. It created its own Jewish sphere with a separate spirit, a separate attitude towards life and its mysteries. Besides that, it felt increasingly strong, and in the natural course of things, consciously or unconsciously, aimed to impose its ideas and aspirations upon Polish society.*°

At the same time, at Dmowski’s initiative, the Endecja inaugurated a large-scale anti-Jewish propaganda campaign in the Russian partition. Indeed, its slogan was to ‘turn to one’s own for what belonged to one (sj do swego po swoje)’—a clear call

to boycott the Jews economically. Gazeta Poranna 2 Grosze, the popular Warsaw daily founded in 1912, publicized this campaign. The Gazeta hoped this slogan would increase its influence among the Polish lower-middle class; but this constituted only one of the objectives of the campaign. Certainly the Endecja sought to incorporate and, more importantly, to strengthen the Polish middle classes,'® but this was not the only reason for going into battle against ‘Jewish influences’. Circumstances and political considerations, above all the events of the 1905 revolution and the significant participation of Jews in the social-democratic movement, played a very important role. The relative strength of the Jewish community apparent in the years 1910—12 proved likewise significant.

In rg1o the issue of what role the Jewish community would play in the town councils of the kingdom became important in connection with a discussion about self-government. Jews won the majority of delegates in the 1912 primary elections to the fourth Duma in Warsaw (the same election in which Dmowskti’s candidacy was defeated). These circumstances favoured the intensification of a fortress mentality among a considerable segment of the politically active Polish groups in the kingdom of Poland. The feeling was further intensified by the separation of the Chelm region from the kingdom. This defensive mood grew especially evident in the groups that extolled a nationalist ideology. Jews numbered among the constituency and even among the members of the Endecja!’ in the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the First World War only in Galicia, which enjoyed national autonomy. Within the circles of Endecya leaders, the viewpoint expressed by Dmowski became dominant: Poles, ceasing to be political rulers of their land, are losing by degrees the role of exclusive lords in their economic life, while on top of this, with the aid of state schools and governments, foreign cultural influences and foreign languages gain an ever greater influence over 15 R. Dmowski, Separatyzm zydéw i jego zrodla (Warsaw, 1909), 12. 16 In his article ‘Wewnetrzna polityka narodowa’, written in 1913, Dmowski concluded that ‘A lack of national organization of capital is perhaps the most central source of the political weakness of Poles in the current day and one of the primary sources of Polish political illogicality.” R. Dmowski, Pisma, ix (Czestochowa, 1939), 64. 17 This includes those who remained faithful to Judaism as well as those who were Jewish only by

tradition and culture.

The Endecja and the Jewish Question 277 Polish lands. Hence, Jews are emancipating themselves from their dependence upon Polish society. They assimilate their culture and alien ambitions. In the Poznan region and even in

Galicia they befriend the Germans, in Lithuania the Russians; after the crushing of Polishness in 1863, they immediately embraced Russian culture. !®

Nationalist political circles just after the outbreak of the First World War moved further from the traditional modus vivendi with regard to the Jewish question, and among Jews the feeling of not belonging in Polish society increased.'® This shift seems to have been primarily the result of a conviction that the Jewish

population was not interested in the developing Polish aspirations for national , independence. However, as there is a lack of research analysing social behaviour during the First World War and the Polish border wars (1918-21), with special

attention to transformations in the consciousness of the dominant population groups, Polish as well as Jewish, this conclusion can only be tentative. Most likely

the Zionist dream had not yet won over the majority of the Jewish population, which remained enclosed in a religious and cultural ghetto and influenced by a centuries-old tradition of remaining on the sidelines of all questions political. Moreover, the natural instinct to protect one’s interests and not shareacommon cause with the Poles contributed to a distancing of Jews from the Polish aims at independence, particularly during the border wars. Such distancing may not have been consciously based on the dangers of increased nationalization of economic life in independent Poland, despite the role of economics in Polish nationalist thinking. Of course, most Poles also did not spontaneously participate in the armed battles in defence of Poland’s national borders. But, apart from sporadic incidents, Poles felt less neutral towards such incidents than Jews. Furthermore, Polish non-involvement did not attract such notice, because it did not reinforce a perception of ‘otherness’ among the dominant majority. Finally, the relatively large participation of Jews in pro-Soviet revolutionary actions fuelled the growth of stereotypes during the border wars. Because Poles tended to identify Jews with pro-Russianism, Russification, and Bolshevism, the three forces threatening

the existence of an independent Poland in the summer of 1920, individual instances of Jewish participation could only contribute to the genesis of a stereotype proclaiming a particular susceptibility of Jews to the destructive influences of communism. In the post-war period claims of the high participation of Jews in the communist movement further strengthened this stereotype. Usually expressed in the phrase Zydokomuna (Jewish communism), it gained its greatest credence among the younger generation of Poles, who had been the most numerous participants in the Polish wars. A conspicuous number of the new members of the Endecja leadership cadres came from these younger veterans, whom the party recruited quite *® Dmowski, Separatyzm zydéw t jego Zrédla, 11.

19 This did not exclude a certain feeling of individuality. Jews inhabiting a common local homeland for tens (if not hundreds) of years alongside Poles were strangers, but familiar strangers.

278 Roman Wapinski actively after 1920. Moreover the young,”° growing up during wartime, were more susceptible to unequivocal black-and-white opinions and solutions. The youthful leaders of the Endek student union, Mlodziez Wszechpolska (Pan-Polish Youth) proposed in 1922 to limit the number of Jewish university students to 13 per cent of

the total. Three years later, in 1925, a broader, more extreme demand supplemented the proposal for a numerus clausus in universities: ‘a guiding principle of Polish politics with regard to Jews should be political, cultural, and economic isolation, as well as a more far-reaching reduction of their numbers in the country’.”? The young Endeks inclined more to unconditional acceptance of Dmowsk1’s new, almost obsessive, views on the role of the Jews. Their radicalization can be

tied to difficulties in the realization of Polish political aims, especially those concerning territorial issues, in the final phase of the First World War and during the Paris peace conference. Dmowski, in particular, encountered these difficulties when, from March 1917, he served as the spokesman for Polish national interests in the West. Although he had held strong anti-Jewish prejudices before, as presi-

dent of the Polish National Committee, and subsequently as an official Polish delegate to the Paris peace conference, he now supplemented his old objections to the Jews with new ones. His existing prejudices enabled him to associate at least some of the failures that he encountered as a representative of Polish interests with the influence of ‘international Jewry’ and the participation of people of Jewish

descent in the decisive political circles of the Allies. The increase in his antisemitism, however, seems to have stemmed primarily from the clash between the national aims of Jewish groups, who sought cultural and educational autonomy and even full national autonomy for Jews in Poland, and his own aspirations for the resurrected Polish nation. The combination of these experiences and his dissatisfaction with the Versailles decisions on Poland’s western borders predisposed Dmowski to embrace the opinion that Polish and Jewish interests opposed each other totally. During the Paris peace conference he developed a theory of the dominant role of Jews in interna-

tional politics, which he set out in his memoir Polityka polska 1 odbudowanie panstwa (‘Polish Politics and Rebuilding the State’, 1925). A few years later, Dmowski escalated his theoretical construct,?? sketching an image of Jewish 20 Within the framework of Endecja, from the end of the 1920s, the younger generation was even called ‘the young’. Although the origins of the phrase ‘the young’ can be connected with the founding in 1927 of the Ruch Mlodych Obozu Wielkiey Polski (Greater Polish Camp Youth Movement) as a

separate organizational structure, the distinction of ‘the young’ as a separate category accurately

, mirrored the character of contemporary generational changes in general. See R. Wapinski, “The Generations of the Second Polish Republic’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 53 (1986), 145-81; R. Wapinski, La Crise du x1xiéme stécle dans la conscience des milieux dirigeants et créateurs d’opinion polonats, 1918-1939, 60 (1989), 219-45.

21 Programme declaration of Mlodziez Wszechpolska, Akademik, 10 May 1926. 22 ‘This is evident in Dmowski’s articles from the beginning of the 1930s, published later in Swat powojenny 1 Polska, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1931) and in Przewrot, (Warsaw, 1934), as well as the novel

entitled Dztedzictwo (1931). ,

The Endecja and the Jewish Question 279 omnipotence at the cost of the Polish nation. He was not alone in these views, although the dominant group of Endecja leaders did not share them fully at that time. People who had been raised in the pre-1914 era, which was characterized by a commitment to the rights of the individual and a belief in progress, had trouble accepting his extreme, almost obsessive views on the role of Jews in the economic and political development of Europe. Nevertheless, many in the older leadership, among them one of Dmowski’s closest colleagues, Stanistaw Kozicki, accepted his view that Jewish interests had prevented Polish national aspirations from being fully realized. In his account of the Paris peace conference, Kozicki stated that: As the Polish question was, apart from the Palestinian, the most important issue at the conference in the eyes of the Jews, can one be surprised that they made their greatest effort

in this matter? Can one therefore be surprised that, faced with unequal power, our programme—of a Poland vast and strong—could not be fully realized??°

In comparison with the period just before the First World War, the distinction

between Jews and Poles was also stressed more emphatically. Indeed, many Poles no longer recognized the Jews as Europeans. According to Zygmunt Wasilewski: These types (typy) have been shaped historically in a completely different fashion from [the way | we [have been shaped]. The Semitic spirit, formed by a long-lasting civilization travelling in a different direction from our own, has by now solidified to such a degree that it is difficult for it to make concessions to us, unless in very exceptional circumstances. In the

context of assimilation, then, it is rather our younger and more flexible type of culture which will find itself making accommodations to theirs.”4

Roman Rybarski gave a different explanation for why the Jews were unassimilable: And so Jews differ from other nations in that they have a particular ease in external assimilation, so that they take on the traits of the environment in which they live quicker than other nations. None the less, Jewish assimilation differs from other assimilation in that, as a matter of principle, the Jew becoming a Pole, Frenchman, or Englishman does not cease being a Jew. ... A former German who became a Pole is permanently anti-German. But a former Semite, who considers himself a Pole, is very rarely an antisemite.”°

Acceptance of these views, which stressed the immutability of ethnic barriers and the alien character of the Jews, predisposed Endecja leaders to propose mass emigration as a means of resolving the Jewish problem in Poland. At the same time, however, it is difficult to detect any specific, organized programme advocating such emigration. In fact, until the beginning of the 1930s such efforts did not exceed vague proposals and wishful thinking, for example, the hope that the opening of borders with Soviet Russia and the founding of a Jewish state in Palestine 23S. Kozicki, Sprawa granic Polski na konferencji pokojowe; w Paryzu (Warsaw, 1921), 60. 24 Z. Wasilewski, O zyciu i katastrofach cywilizacjt narodowe] (Warsaw, 1921), 10. 25 R. Rybarski, Naréd, jednostka i klasa (Warsaw, 1926), 223.

280 Roman Wapinski would make it possible for ‘Jews to finally depart en masse from Polish lands’.”© Later there remained only the hope that Palestine would become the destination of

mass emigration, leading to sympathy for ‘an honest Zionism, aiming to truly rebuild the Jewish state in Palestine’.2” According to Tadeusz Gtuzinski, ‘in our own interests we wish for the success of those efforts that have as their goal the transformation of the Jews into a settled nation like other nations’. In the period preceding Jézef Pilsudski’s coup d’état of May 1926, various coalition governments in which the Endecja participated made sporadic efforts to find a modus vivendi with the Jewish community, while at the same time antisemitic propaganda calling for the nationalization of trade and crafts and a limitation on the number of Jews at universities proceeded apace. The failure of these attempts at

compromise and accommodation certainly resulted from the Endecja’s lack of readiness to abandon efforts to limit the participation of Jews in the economy and in the professions such as medicine and law. Responsibility, however, also lies on the Jewish side, which was inclined to treat many governmental actions, such as taxation proposals applicable to all of Polish society, as manifestations of an antiJewish animus. While not denying the negative influence of the Endecja on Polish—Jewish relations, especially on the increasingly anti-Jewish climate, one should not forget that until the beginning of the 1930s the Endecja’s actions did not usually extend

beyond sloganeering and agitation. The Endecja was, moreover, not alone in creating a political climate ripe for chauvinist agitation and sporadic anti-Jewish violence and pogroms, especially during the years of border fighting. The primary cause of such behaviour must be seen in poverty, traditional prejudices, a decay in civilized standards, economic recession, and, during the final years of the First

World War and the border wars, a moral barbarism brought on by war. The Endecja was not the only organization whose words and actions isolated the Jews

socially and politically in those years. | From the beginning of the 1930s, however, the Endecyja’s participation in | this process expanded greatly. Although even now it was not responsible for all manifestations of antisemitism, it undoubtedly played a significant role in isolating

the Jews and increasing anti-Jewish activities, with its youth and especially student groups taking the leading role. The views of Jan Mosdorf, expressed in

a paper presented at the convention of the Rada Naczelnej Mlodziezy Wszechpolskiej (General Council of Pan-Polish Youth) held on 15-17 May 1932, are typical: The population possessing Polish nationality should be divided into citizens and those not possessing political rights. Jews should be included in the latter grouping, whether they are of the Jewish faith or not. In the political arena, Jews may not hold any voting rights, [and] 26 Stronnictwo Demokratyczno Narodowe, Czem byto, czem jest, czem bedzie (Warsaw, 1918), 30. 27 'T. Gluzinski, ‘Wobec wydarzen w Palestynie’, Mys/ Narodowa, 39, 8 Sept. 1929, 145. 28 Ibid. 146.

The Endegqa and the Jewish Question 281 may not be clerks, professors, teachers, notaries, or stockbrokers. They should be exempt from army service in exchange for the payment of a special tax.?°

Rejecting ‘anthropological’ racism, the Endecja called for ‘spiritual’ racism. As Jedrzej Giertych wrote, ‘We fight Jews because of their spiritual traits’,°° which, in his opinion, led to a rebellious soul or spirit, to a hostile attitude towards order,

tradition, and established moral concepts, and to cosmopolitanism, materialism, | cynicism, and vindictiveness.?!

The Endecja youth groups, regardless of whether they remained faithful to their mother camp*? or joined with one of the factions of the Ob6z NarodowoRadykalny (Radical Nationalist Camp), initiated anti-Jewish violence at universities, campaigns to picket Jewish shops, and a whole range of other turbulent demonstrations whose fundamental aim was to force Jews (or those defined as Jews) to leave Poland. Older Endecja activists acquiesced in such behaviour. Their conduct was, however, dictated more by a fear of losing influence among the younger generation and by the need to drum up popular support than by conviction. Ludwik Krzywicki, in his description of the antisemitic incidents at universities during the 1935-6 academic year, observed: ‘It was clear. The National Democratic Party wanted to take advantage of the death of the Marshal [ Jozef Pilsudski] and the unpopularity of the Colonels. Hence it mustered all of its forces to battle with the existing government. In order to gain something against the Sanacja regime [of Pilsudski’s followers, ] they had to attract crowds’.®® Krzywicki, a contemporary sociologist interested in the state of social conscious-

ness, felt that the Endecja was taking advantage of the rebellious mood enhanced by the increased poverty resulting from the Great Depression of 1929-35. In the face of the heavy involvement of Jews in trade, activists and politicians could easily

give this mood an anti-Jewish character by spreading slogans about a battle for shops and stalls. Ksawery Pruszynski was clearly right when he wrote on the antiJewish riot in Przytyk in April 1936: The fight over a market stall begins not because rural unemployment could be accommodated at the stalls. It begins because, until there is another place to go, the roads are closed; there is a lack of land, and, even if one had the land, establishing a new farm would cost too much. The stall is closest, most accessible, and yields the quickest profit. That stall will not really help: it will not absorb the [entire] unemployed population. It will constitute relief, but not complete relief. But the trader in today’s village is a rich man who has in his possession a treasure of sugar, kerosene, matches, iron. It is only for those of us who look down 29 Biblioteka Jagiellofiska, Act 4/66, Zwiazek Narodowy Polskiej Milodziezy Akademickiej, Lwowski Komitet Academicki, Bulletin 15, 23 May 1932, 7. 30 J. Giertych, ‘Rasizm ograniczony’, Gazeta Warszamska, 377, 16 Dec. 1934. 31 J. Giertych, Tragizm losow Polski (Pelplin, 1936), 73.

32 Several youth groups entered into the formation of the Sklad Stronnictwa Narodowego (National Party Configuration) after 1934. 33 L.. Krzywicki, Wspomnienia, iii (Warsaw, 1959), 291-2.

282 Roman Wapinski from above that the handles [trader] is, in essence, a pauper. For the peasant he is a person whom we hear lamenting in court that he earns only a few dozen zlotys daily. The peasant would be happy to make even a dozen. That man in the yarmulke lives on herring and potatoes, but the man in the sheepskin coat lives only on potatoes. Simply put, the peasant’s standard of living is even lower than that of the Jew.*4

The underlying cause of this envy was poverty and the lack of any escape. This

was evident no matter what the Endecja did; moreover, it extended beyond relations between the consumer and the Jewish merchant. The envy and resentment appeared almost universally: they could be found among the impoverished as well as among those better off. Probably the only difference was that distances of religion or custom among certain groups did not ‘enrich’ this envy. The actions of the Endeks made those distances seem greater, and in some circles it turned them into chasms almost impossible to cross. Research has not yet yielded a precise assessment of the effects of their actions, so one may only speculate on their consequences. The effect of Endecja propaganda on the whole of society can sometimes be exaggerated. Yet it did clearly have an extensive, permanent influence on the lower-middle-class groups in daily competition with Jewish groups. Even there, however, it was the traditional estrangement or distance between the groups that played a more fundamental role. The propaganda had its most significant impact on those social groups most responsive to nationalist ideological influences, such as university students or lawyers, among whom the principles of integral nationalism and ‘spiritual racism’ became increasingly dominant. Many in the legal profession had already succumbed during their studies to the recruiting efforts of nationalistic organizations, and, having embarked on a legal career in the midst of economically hard times and accordingly experienced serious difficulties, they became prone to associate their professional difficulties with the relatively high number of Jews in the legal profession. Thus, professional competition against

| Jews enhanced ideological antisemitism, and the combination led to extremist positions such as those expressed in the 27 March 1936 resolution of the General

| Assembly of the National Lawyers Association, which called for ‘all Polish attorneys not to maintain social relationships with those Polish attorneys who, by accepting Jewish articled clerks, foster the increasing Jewishness of the legal field in Poland’.*°

Certainly not all Endeks, even those in leading circles, accepted ‘spiritual | racism’ or sought models in the internal politics of the Third Reich, but this does not change the fact that this party played a decisive role in increasing the separa: tion and feeling of exclusion among Jews. Since the party concentrated above all on the alleged evil caused by the existence of Jews in Poland and the need for them to leave the country ‘at an accelerated pace’, it must be doubted whether its call to 34 K. Pruszynski, Podréz po Polsce (Warsaw, 1937), 75. 35 Biblioteka Narodowa, Act 5979.

The Endega and the Jewish Question 283 respect Christian principles can be taken seriously. This is the more so in that many of the advocates of Christian principles were not free of the influences of integral nationalism. According to Father Jozef Pradzynski, ‘One must exercise a

certain amount of care: in our actions aimed at expelling the foreign incursion, | nothing should be done from hatred but only from a deep love of one’s own nation’.*©

Only future research can clarify the full implications of the Endecja’s stance on

the Jewish issue, especially during the 1930s. To what extent did its position, together with the positions of several other Polish social groups, help determine events during the Second World War? Here it is worth making two observations. First, the long-standing coexistence of the two communities mitigated the rise in the feeling of separateness to a certain extent. Like the noble in earlier times, very often the same fire-breathing antisemitic Endek had his ‘own’ Jew who was useful and tolerated. Secondly, the Nazi extermination policies during the Second World War caused the situation of the Jews to undergo such vast changes as were bound to have an influence on individual behaviour. Even if convinced that Jews were foreign elements in Polish society and that Jewish and Polish aims and interests opposed each other, one might still find a clear contradiction between supporting

humanity. | the Nazi ‘final solution of the Jewish problem’ and retaining one’s essential

Translated from Polish by Annamaria Orla-Bukowska

36 J. Pradzynski, ‘Wysiedlenie Zydow twarda koniecznoscia’, Wielka Polska, 42, 20 Oct. 1935.

o> , , ‘

The Return of the Troublesome Bird: Jerzy Kosinski and Polish—Jewish Relations MONIKA ADAMCZYK-GARBOWSKA WHEN I first heard that Joanna Siedlecka was writing a book about Jerzy Kosinski,

author of the novel The Painted Bird (Malowany ptak), | expected something interesting, perhaps unique, on the writer whose work has elicited such fierce attacks and such fulsome praise in both Poland and the United States. Siedlecka’s title, Czarny ptasior,' translates roughly and inadequately as ‘a huge black bird’,

but the augmentative form of the noun has rather unpleasant connotations. Nevertheless, her earlier books, Jasniepanicz (‘His Lordship’), about the avantgarde writer and aristocrat Witold Gombrowicz, and Mahatma Witkac, about the charismatic playwright and artist Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, who used the pen-name Witkacy, had led me to presume that she simply had a penchant for evocative and provocative titles.

| The publisher recommends Siedlecka’s work as ‘illuminating’ and a key to the ‘murky perspective of Kosinski’s fiction’, and the book’s opening sentences tend

to confirm this: ‘I haven’t been to America. I didn’t want to write about the undoubtedly impressive career of Jerzy Kosinski nor about the scandals, successes, and honours that were his lot’ (p. 9). We learn that Siedlecka’s interest is in the writer’s childhood, focusing on ‘a journey to the places where as a little

| Jewish boy [he] survived the Nazi occupation’. This journey will supposedly reveal the essence of Kosinski’s writing and solve the puzzle of his life and suicide. Siedlecka stresses that she intends not to ‘denounce’ him but ‘to find out what had marked him for his whole life. And, first of all, to get to know the true version of his -war experiences’ (p. 11). The italicized ‘true’ aroused my suspicions. What does she mean by ‘the true version’? The Painted Bird is not meant to be a documentary account of Kosinsk1’s

childhood: it is not one of the numerous diaries written by Holocaust survivors, but a fictionalized account of the nightmares of a suffering child—although there is evidence that some critics, including Elie Wiesel, have read it as autobiographical. 1 J. Siedlecka, Czarny ptasior (Gdansk: Marabut, 1994).

Jerzy Kosinskt 285 | In spite of Siedlecka’s claimed intention not to denounce Kosinski, she does so throughout the book. It is revealed that unlike the protagonist of his novel, Kosinski did not wander alone in the eastern territories of Poland, but survived the war under the protection of an industrious father who looked Aryan and a mother whose appearance fitted the stereotype of ‘Jewish looks’ but who carried herself like a grand lady none the less. We learn that during the war his parents changed their last name from Lewinkopf to Kosinski, and likewise changed their - son’s name from Josek to Jerzy. Kosinski’s father, Mieczystaw vel Mojzesz, who figures more in the book than does Jerzy himself, apparently made deals with the Nazis and later with the Soviets; otherwise he would not have survived so easily. After the war, instead of showing gratitude to the villagers who kept his secret during the war, Kosinski slandered them in a book published in America and translated into several languages. (Siedlecka repeats this theme a number of times.) Moreover, when Kosinski finally went to Poland in 1989 to sign copies of the Polish edition of The Painted Bird, he avoided all contact with the children of those to whom he owed most. Most of the people whom Siedlecka interviewed for the book were very young

during the war or knew the story of the Kosinski family only at second hand. According to them, nothing would have happened to little Jurek even if the family had been less careful: ‘He would have understood that they were not monsters, and they would have realized that he was a boy like any other. Maybe they would have seen this “bird” of his and it would have put an end to any mystery, and to all that fighting and brawling’ (p. 147). In Polish ‘bird’ is a euphemism for ‘penis’,

and the village youngsters had indeed wished to find out whether the boy was circumcized. Although they did not succeed in checking this, they recalled moments when they had almost accomplished their aim while chasing him on a frozen pond or preparing a trap for him when he was in an outhouse. _ It is conceivable for Polish villagers not to have understood the seriousness of

a Jewish boy’s escape from toughs trying to pull down his pants, but one must register surprise that Siedlecka, a Warsaw journalist, did not recognize that such experiences, taking place during the war years, could have had an enormous impact on the boy’s psyche and might have influenced the fiction he would write as an adult. Paradoxically, the villagers remember another Jew with greater empathy. Karol

Liebeskind, like Kosinski, hid in that area during the war, but, unlike Kosinski, did not survive. His family was poorer and less industrious than Jerzy’s, and the villagers, who cherish his memory, describe him as ‘subtle’ and ‘delicate’. He lies buried in a local cemetery. and this somehow ennobles him, as if the cemetery were his rightful place: the survival of a Jew in hiding during the war arouses suspicion.

Siedlecka never distances herself from her interviewees, never mentions that theirs is only part of the story, in many ways no truer than that of the boy from The

286 Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska Painted Bird. She does not give a voice to the other side, nor does she confront the gossip and accusations with the ‘truth’. Instead we find her identifying completely with the apparently simple and innocent folk who recite the rosary for the ‘penitent soul’ of the Kosinski boy (pp. 154-5). A personal opinion about Jerzy Kosinski as a man and an artist is of little impor-

| tance here. No doubt his character showed great complexity. He pursued his career by various means, not always equally honest, and when interviewed he tended to contradict himself. Moreover, one may question his significance as a

in this book. | | writer. None of this, however, justifies the libel perpetrated on him and his parents

In fact, Siedlecka’s book says little about Kosinski, and much more about herself and the villagers. To understand something of what had ‘marked’ Kosinski, one would do better to read Henryk Grynberg’s Dztedzictwo (‘The Heritage’). Although devoid of the nightmarish descriptions of The Painted Bird, it shocks the reader more. Written almost fifty years after the event, The Heritage is a purely documentary narrative describing the inhabitants of the villages where Grynberg’s | father lived in hiding and was ultimately killed. It shows quite clearly what many a

| Jew had to go through while trying to survive in the Polish countryside and the reception that awaited such a survivor who returned after all that time. ‘I felt a cold shudder as I stood face to face with evil’, writes Grynberg at the end of his book, ‘but I also found in some eyes and in some words the warmth that allows me to live on’.” Siedlecka’s book does not offer Jerzy Kosinski a single warm word.

In the final part of her book Siedlecka presents a peculiar analysis based on a comparison of facts and names that appeared in Kosinski’s The Painted Bird with the ‘true’ ones in order to show that the village presented in the novel was not a

| ‘mythical country’, as the writer sometimes claimed, but ‘the village of Dabrowa, | except, of course, for the sadism, perversions and cruelty’ (p. 144). This approach, : which results from mistaking fiction for documentary, recalls Kosinski’s earlier reception by Polish critics.* Siedlecka’s reading in 1994 also bears a striking resemblance to various responses in 1966, when almost overnight Kosinski became known as a writer. Examining a writer’s reception generally proves tricky, especially if one aims to

cover more than just a selection of astonishing and brilliant, or perhaps banal or . amusing comments. Although we are intrigued to learn what different critics have written about a controversial writer, it may not prove easy to distinguish the important voices from insignificant ones. Further, if we have only a few scattered comments at our disposal, we may decide that too little has been said, although in some cases the absence of comment reveals as much as an abundance of reviews. In 2 H. Grynberg, Dziedzictwo (Krakéw, 1994). 3 The rest of this chapter is based on a paper presented at a conference devoted to Jerzy Kosiriski’s life and work that took place in Lodz in May 1995.

Jerzy Kosinski 287 the case of Kosinski’s work, there is just enough response to allow the curious reader to draw some conclusions.* Polish interest in Kosinski’s works has come in waves, with three peaks so far:

in 1966, soon after the publication of The Painted Bird in the United States, Britain, Germany, and France; in 1988-90, when the Polish translation of Kosinski’s first novel finally appeared in Poland; and in 1994, when Siedlecka’s Czarny ptastor was published. In addition, interest rose in 1982 in response to an article in the Village Voice and again in 1991 after the writer’s death. This pattern shows that most Polish critics familiar with Kosinski’s fiction associate his name with The Painted Bird more than with his other books. In fact, approximately 90 per cent of the Polish-language articles and reviews about Kosinski refer to this novel, whether directly or indirectly. This may seem justified, because The Painted Bird was his first and arguably his best book, but, when we look at the articles more closely, 1t becomes clear that they focus on it for ideological rather than literary reasons. Two key concepts recur in the Polish reception of The Painted Bird—conspiracy and ingratitude. We have already seen the accusation of ingratitude in Siedlecka’s book. While some authors leave it to their readers to decide what sort of conspiracy

and ingratitude are involved, others define their terms further, most often using the adjective ‘Jewish’. When referring to conspiracy, these journalists often list Jews together with Germans and Americans, avoiding the appearance of antisemitism by inveighing against the three groups presented by communist propa-

ganda as ‘imperialist forces’ seeking to ruin Poland’s image in the world. Frequently, the critics employ euphemisms for the words ‘Jewish’ and ‘Jew’. Thus, for example, we learn that Kosinski’s book met with praise from ‘fellow travellers’, in ‘certain circles’, and by ‘certain critics’.

As Joseph Lichten mentions in his article about Polish—Jewish relations in America, Poles tend to believe that they did a lot to help rescue Jews, and that the Jews have remained ungrateful for this: ‘If there is one feeling which is likely to create a total agreement between a Polish American and a Polish Pole—whether he is a Communist, or non-Communist, government official or man in the street— it is indignation at this “ingratitude” of the Jew’.° This illustrates the reaction to The Painted Bird both in Poland and in exile, and demonstrates a bond between otherwise antagonistic groups.

Nothing exposes the political atmosphere in Poland in the late 1960s better * Altogether I collected about 200 reviews, articles, and interviews, as well as letters to the editors. My research focused primarily on the items listed in the Polska bibliografia literacka and Bibliografia zawartosci czasopism. After I had prepared this article for Polin, James Park Sloan published a biography of Kosinski that was later published in Poland. In a discussion of Kosiriski’s Polish period

Sloan confirms most of the facts presented by Siedlecka but uses them to illuminate the author’s complex and troubled personality rather than to discredit him.

> J. L. Lichten, ‘Polish Americans and American Jews: Some Issues which Unite and Divide’, Polish Review, 4 (1973), 60.

a 288 Montka Adamczyk-Garbowska than an open letter to Kosinski from Jarostaw Iwaszkiewicz, a distinguished writer

and president of the Writers’ Union, and a controversial figure perceived as a talented artist and servant of the regime. His letter responds to one from Kosinski asking why the literary monthly 7worczos¢, of which Iwaszkiewicz was editor-inchief at that time, published first a very favourable review of The Painted Bird and

| then a couple of months later a highly negative one. Kosinski believed that Iwaszkiewicz had written both reviews; in fact, both were by Jerzy Lisowski,

| editor-in-chief from 1980. In the first review Lisowski compared the novel to Giinter Grass’s fiction and praised Kosinski as ‘every inch a writer’,® while in the second he revised his opinion and concluded that he had been wrong; in fact, the novel amounted to ‘commercial shit’ and could be discussed only in ‘excremental terms’.’ Iwaszkiewicz explains that following the initial review he had spoken to

| his colleague, and after reading the whole book Lisowski had changed his mind. It is possible that Lisowski had written the initial review without having read the entire book; as a translator of French literature, he may well have based his judgement on French reviews. However, Iwaszkiewicz fails to mention one detail we

may find more relevant: in the interim the Communist Party hard-line weekly Stolica had run an article entitled ‘Antypolonica’ labelling Kosinski a ‘renegade’ and ‘turncoat’ in statements supported by excerpts from various Polish newspapers. The piece expressed astonishment that ‘this anti-Polish and filthy book’ had been favourably reviewed by 7weérczos¢, and stated that ‘astonishment was not the only feeling that accompanied reading this “review” ’.2 Anyone familiar with

the mechanics of a totalitarian country may easily imagine the awkwardness of | the position in which the Stolica article placed both Lisowski and Iwaszkiewicz,

| who may well have been upbraided by Communist Party officials. At any rate, Iwaszkiewicz’s second article refers to Kosinski in a tone both patronizing and | arrogant and closes with a warning that seems uncanny in view of Kosinski’s later | suicide: Iwaszkiewicz notes that some artists who, like Kosinski, become famous : practically overnight end tragically, such as Panait Istrati, who cut his throat in a

| seedy hotel on the Riviera.’ | Most of the reactions in Poland toed the ideological line. Critics saw Kosinsk1’s

: novel as one step in a campaign against Poland instigated by Germany and supported by the United States and Israel. Journalists who had no connection with

: literature wrote most of these articles, and they bore little resemblance to literary reviews. Dozens of local papers reprinted the articles that appeared in such influential papers as Trybuna Ludu, Polityka, and Prawo 1 Zycie. Journalists presented the book to Polish readers in the context of the West’s alleged anti| Polish campaign, infamous Polish jokes, and books by Leon Uris,'®° and typically

& Twérczose, 5 (1966), 153. ” See ibid. and 7 (1966), 139. 8 ‘Antypolonica’, Stolica, 27 (1966), 11. 9 See J. Iwaszkiewicz, ‘List do Jerzego Kosiniskiego’, Tidrcezosé, 10 (1969), 163-4. 10 See e.g. W. Gornicki, ‘Laur malowany’, Polityka, 12 (1966), 8.

Jerzy Kosinskt 289 used military phrases such as ‘we face a new offensive of perfidious propaganda’ or ‘the time of the attack was well prepared. It coincides with the problems experienced by NATO and with West German attempts to gain nuclear weapons’.!! One

article deserving particular mention appeared in the Kielce Communist Party organ Sfowo Ludu and presented the first idealized image of Polish peasants mis-

treated by Kosinski.'” The author concluded that the book revealed its connections with West German politics and exposed the real political intentions of Israel, and that Kosinski, who had been rescued by Polish generosity, debased himself by cooperating with such ‘circles’.!?> Meanwhile, the Polish reading public had no chance to form their own impressions of the book. As one might expect from Joseph Lichten’s remark, quoted earlier, the émigré press offered similar reactions, particularly in Britain, Canada, and France. The

prestigious and influential Kultura, published in Paris, criticized the book as pornographic, pathological, and a conscious or unconscious lie since it aspired to _ documentary accuracy while containing vicious accusations against Poland and

Poles.‘* The London-based Kronika perceived the novel as the product of a German—American conspiracy and emphasized the positive light in which the book presented Nazis while treating Poles as subhuman. The article particularly stressed Kosinski’s ingratitude.!° Another émigré critic in London noted that the book had immediately been translated into German and maintained that Kosinski hated Poles and praised the Soviets ecstatically. He concluded ironically that the novel might make one believe that ‘the Red Army brought Poland culture, justice, and kind-heartedness’. He described the book as ‘repulsive, abominable, repellent

[and] stinking’, and claimed that such a comment was an understatement.!® Another émigré reviewer quoted someone else’s opinion that Kosinski ‘is not the only one [read: Jew.].. . who ate Polish bread and took advantage of Polish kindness and then spat at, defamed, and mocked this kindheartedness’.1” A number of critics suspected Kosinski of seeking revenge or suggested that he needed psychiatric help; most of his opponents charged him with doing it all for money and claimed that he had written the novel ambiguously so as to excuse his work to Polish readers as fiction while creating the impression of authenticity for foreign readers. Some suggested that he should be sued and claimed that even Germans found his approach to the Second World War appalling.

There were also a few more balanced and objective opinions. Michal Chmielowiec aptly summed up the affair by saying that ‘all this genuine or disingenuous concern about what foreigners will think of us is for any real Polish 11 See Komentator (pen-name for Jan Gerhard), ‘Malowany ptak’, Forum, 24 (1966), 23. 12 This motif recurred in the late 1980s and reached its zenith in Siedlecka’s book. 13 'T. Wiatek, ‘Sladami plugawej ksiazki’, Sfowo Ludu, 161 (1968), 3. 14M. Czajkowska, ‘Pornografia a humanizm’, Kultura, 7-8 (1966), 216—20. 15 A. Spandowski, ‘Malowany ptak’, Kronika, 32—3 (1966), 4. 16 K. Zbyszewski, ‘Parada sadyzmu’, Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Zotnierza, 160 (1966), 2. 17 L,. Mitkiewicz, ‘Polskie recenzje o Malowanym ptakw, Horyzonty, 129 (1967), 74.

290 Montka Adamczyk-Garbowska patriot a pitiful proof of our inferiority complex’ and that both the communist and the émigré press displayed ‘patriotic oversensitivity’.'® Wit Tarnawski, a respected

émigré critic, had little enthusiasm for the violence and what he perceived as perversities in the book, but nevertheless considered Kosinski a talented writer

| and concluded that if anyone were to take offence it would be the Zwiazek Poleszukéw (Association of the Polesie Countrymen) (many Polish critics identified the unnamed eastern territories presented in the novel as Polesie, a backward area formerly in Poland and now part of Belarus), but in fact it made little sense to

connect this surrealist, Boschian fantasy with reality.!° Enthusiastic reviews appeared sporadically. The London monthly Kontynenty

: printed the most favourable, an unsigned article entitled ‘The Kosinski Case’, : which deplored the unfair treatment with which both the émigré and the communist press had greeted the book.”° Earlier, Zbigniew Grabowski, Kontynenty’s

: editor-in-chief, had praised the book very highly in his review ‘A Talented Writer : is Born’, and compared Kosinski to three other excellent writers.”!

| Those who praised The Painted Bird took a psychoanalytical approach. One émigré critic termed the book an ‘indictment against humanity’ and argued that the writer had to ‘get his experiences off his mind’.2* On a somewhat different tack,

: another illustrated her review with poetry by Tadeusz R6zewicz and discussed the novel from the point of view of her own childhood experiences.?°

| Some émigré writers who regarded the book relatively favourably commented that the attitude of the peasants which it depicts resulted from centuries of terrible — conditions that reinforced prejudice and ignorance.”4 Most of these critics stressed that the action of the novel occurred on the Polish—Belarusian—Lithuanian frontier

and noted the plausibility of the cruelties described. Thus, one reviewer wrote,

| ‘Between ourselves, the peasants of Polesie and Belarus were not particularly

! enlightened’.?°

Censorship on Kosinski’s works in the People’s Republic of Poland began to be lifted in 1987 with the growing interest in Jewish topics. As late as 1986, however,

2 Jerzy Robert Nowak wrote of the Hungarian writer Gyorgy Spiro’s controversial book Az [kszek (“The X Society’) that it should not be translated into Polish since Poland had no tradition of translating mendacious and slanderous books like The Patnted Bird. Nowak argued that such books were a waste of paper and publishers

: should put out worthier books instead. This pseudo-pragmatism or naive reading . also appeared in a review of The Painted Bird printed in the communist Zycie i 7 18 M. Chmielowiec, ‘Zly to ptak??, Wiadomosci, 41 (1966), 1. : 19 W. Tarnawski, ‘Piak odmieniec Jerzego Kositiskiego’, Przemiany, 2 (1968), 216-17. 20 ‘Sprawa Kosiriskiego’, Kontynenty, g1—2 (1966), 1-6.

, 21 Z. Grabowski, ‘Narodziny talentu’, Kontynenty, 85-6 (1966), 14—16.

: 72 Z. Nagorski, ‘Pomalowany ptak’, Na Antenie, 34 (1966), 7. 23 J. Maurer, ‘Chcialbym byé szczurem’, Wiadomos ci, 45 (1966), 1. ,

| 24 e.g. Nagorski, ‘Pomalowany ptak’. 29 J. Jurkszus-Tomaszewska, ‘Na szczeScie nie best-seller’, Oficyna poetéw, 2 (1968), 46.

Jerzy Kosinski 291 Mysl, in 1990, after the book had finally been published in Poland.”° Its author concluded that at a time when so many interesting and less stressful books were coming out in Poland, one ought not to disturb one’s sleep by reading Kosinsk1. The reviewer regretted that the publisher had signed a contract with the author to translate all his works.2”

Generally, however, attitudes changed greatly in the late 1980s. More favourable and neutral opinions appeared, and open attacks decreased. Whereas earlier critics had used Kosinski’s Jewishness as an added drawback, critics now regarded it rather as a justification. One felt that as a Jew Kosinski has the right to describe his phobias and weaknesses and to make controversial judgements,”° while another claimed that the very fact that Kosinski’s book was published in

Poland and received both favourable and unfavourable reviews proved that Polish—Jewish relations were becoming more normal.?°

Nevertheless, even critics approaching The Painted Bird from a non-ideological : point of view stressed that most Polish readers would, consciously or unconsciously, compare it with their own experience and wonder about the justification

for placing the events of the Second World War in a seemingly ahistorical context.°° Several pointed to the ‘Notes’ section of the book as indicating a weakness; an artistic work should require no additional commentary. Some reviewers discussed this in the context of artistic integrity, while others claimed that with the ‘Notes’ the novel became a ‘parable of human fate, and without them, unfortunately, an abominable lampoon’.*! Some patterns from the 1960s recurred in a polemic printed in Lad Polityka, and Zycie Literackie. The polemic began with an article by a professor of agrarian law, Marian Blazejczyk, in which he objected to the anti-Polish aspect of the novel and accused Kosinski of ingratitude. Blazejczyk said that Kosinski should examine

his conscience and, in an image reminiscent of the article from Stfowo Ludu, con- | jured up a picture of the writer travelling to Poland on a plane with kind-hearted

Polish peasants, noticing their obvious decency, and growing ashamed of his unjust portrayal.?* One of Blazejczyk’s adversaries, Kazimierz Kozniewski, replied that he did not like the book but felt a responsibility to defend Kosinski *° See B. Goralczyk, ‘Prasa 0 polemice ze Spiro’, Zdanie, 10 (1986), 54-5. 27 M. Plewa-Dziurdzia, Zycie i Mys1, 3-4 (1990), 77. 28K. Derdowski, ‘Najczystsze zlo’, Metafora, 1-2 (1989-90), 246. 29 A. Krzeminski, ‘Wzajemna terapia’, Polityka, 22 (1989), 9. 3° e.g. J. Jarniewicz, ‘Zniewolenie historia’, Odra, 2 (1990), 99. 31 T. Sobeczko, ‘Groteskowe ptaszysko’, Wiez, 11-12 (1989), 183.

32M. Blazejczyk, ‘Pstry ptak’, Lad, 17 (1988), 12-13, and likewise Blazejczyk’s letter in Lad, 26 (1988), 11. Also on Blazejczyk’s side in the polemic were T. Galis, ‘Gwiazda z Ameryki’, Lgd, 27

(1988), 7, and K. Kleiber, Zgd, 34 (1988), 13, while his opponents included R. M. Groriski, “Taksowkarz i professor’, Polityka, 20 (1988), 16, and K. Kozniewski, ‘Ptak pomalowany falszywie’, Zycie Literackte, 30 (1988), 16. Blazejczyk responded in ‘Przemalowywanie malowanego ptaka’, Zycie Literackte, 44 (1988), 11. Zycte Literackie printed Kozniewski’s answer to Blazejczyk’s response on the same page.

292 Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska : against false accusations. Kozniewski maintained that Blazejcezyk had attacked Kosinski primarily on the basis of a false premiss: the identification of Polishness : with Catholicism. Kozniewski’s argument assumed that a Pole could adhere to any

religion, including Judaism, and implied that Blazejczyk did not admit this | because of his extreme nationalism and perhaps because of antisemitism as well. The polemic involved seven participants, most of whom either idealized Kosinski

) and/or claimed that he had intended his book purely as fiction, not as a documen-

, tary record of historical events, or else decried the book as anti-Polish and a

: lampoon on Poland. | Siedlecka’s book, however, evoked the greatest controversy over Kosinski’s work yet, replete with political rhetoric and mutual accusations. One writer defended Siedlecka by describing the critical reviews in Polityka and Gazeta | Wyborcza as written in a ‘March-like style coming from people harmed in 1968’ | (the antisemitic campaign in communist Poland reached its peak in March 1968). | This writer went on to brand Siedlecka’s critics as ‘people from the cultural circle that considers it proper to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the [1944] Warsaw uprising by counting the Jews murdered by the [Polish] insurgents’.** Another

: critic concluded an article on Kosinski’s supposed ingratitude by praising Siedlecka for revealing that ‘the little martyr from The Painted Bird... turned out

, to be a literary charlatan who knew how to sell products particularly welcome in | leftist America: sexual deviation, Polonophobia (polakozerstwo), and love for | Soviet communism’.*4 One could easily imagine similar rhetoric from the commu: nist and émigré press more than twenty years ago. ‘Leftist?’ America would be replaced with ‘rightist’ or ‘imperialist? America and ‘love for Soviet communism’

| with ‘love for West German revisionism’. When we compare some review titles from the three different periods of dis| cussion of Kosinski’s work, we see striking similarities. They tend to use strong,

: emotive words, often laced with irony and suspicion. Interestingly, some of the expressions used earlier to discredit Kosinski resurface in 1994 to express dis| approval of Siedlecka. Examples include:

| 1966: ‘Of a Certain Pseudo-Bestseller (O pemnym pseudo-bestsellerze), ‘Sick : Imagination (Chora mwyobraznia)’, ‘My Hands Still Stink (Rece mi dotad | cuchna)’, ‘Following the Filthy Book (Sladami plugamej ksiazki)’, ‘Muddy Wave , (Metna fala) , ‘Psychology of Hatred (Psychologia nienawisct)’; 1988: ‘A Star from America (Gwiazda z Ameryki), ‘A Grotesque Appalling Bird

| (Groteskowe ptaszysko)’, ‘A Trashy Portrayal of a Village (Kiczomaty obraz wioskt)’; : 33 T. Bochwic, ‘Czarny ptasior’, Tygodnik Solidarnos¢i, 19 (1994), 22. The second quotation is an : allusion to Michal Cichy’s article in Gazeta o ksiqgzkach (a monthly supplement to Gazeta Wyborcza),

: which started a stormy discussion about antisemitism within the Home Army during the Warsaw

: uprising of 1944. | 34 E. Morawiec, ‘O sprawiedliwej nienawisci i malowanych ptakach’, Arka, 50 (1994), 180.

Jerzy Kosinskt 293 1994: ‘Poison (Trucizna)’, ‘Poisonous Nonsense (Trucizna glupstw)’, ‘A Swamp (Bagno)’, ‘Deceitful Truth (Pokretna pramda’).°°

The stormy debate over Siedlecka’s book, like the earlier reactions to The Painted Bird, constitutes an ideological conflict; it remains difficult for Polish critics to perceive Kosinski’s writing primarily as literature or art. Although Siedlecka’s book has elicited more negative than favourable opinions, one might suspect that some critics have chosen not to reveal their true reactions so as to avoid classification in a particular group. In Anna Bojarska’s review of Being There,

for example, she states that, while she would like to say what she thinks of Kosinski’s books, she will refrain in deference to friends who have said that it is not advisable to speak unfavourably about Kosinski in post-communist Poland unless one wishes to be classified as a former communist.*©

This ideological bias surfaces in the reception not just of Kosinski but also of William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, of much of Isaac Bashevis Singer, particularly The Slave, and of Gyorgy Spiro’s Az Ikszek. The Jewish backgrounds of these books, whether arising out of their content or their authors, clearly influence reactions. Polish reviewers have emphasized that Styron’s wife was Jewish, for

| example, and one critic, Jan Dobraczynski, even presented him as a ‘Judaized’ American hired by Jews to defame Poles.?’ However, in none of these cases has ideology played so strong a role as in the response to Kosinski’s fiction. Many critics, both Polish and otherwise, have stressed the influence on his fiction of Kosinski’s background as a sociologist. Those who like his work have said that being a sociologist gave him some insights; his detractors have claimed either that his books read more like academic studies than fiction, or else that he used his sociological expertise to determine what would interest readers and critics at that particular time. Paradoxically, Kosinski himself became something of a sociological phenomenon, primarily but not exclusively because of The Painted 3° This last title comes from my own review, written in a highly emotional manner soon after Siedlecka’s book came out. Only later, while reading various texts about Kosinski, did I realize that my title could as easily have headed one of the slanderous attacks on Kosinski himself from the Polish or émigré press of the late 1960s.

3° A. Bojarska, ‘Dyzma w ogrodzie’, Nowe Ksiazki, 5 (1991), 30-1. Bojarska does, however, indicate disapproval of Kosinski’s work both by implying that to speak her mind would lead her to be classified as a former communist and by the review title, which suggests that Kosinski’s Being There is

an imitation of Kariera Nikodema Dyzmy, a well-known satirical novel by Tadeusz DolegaMostowicz first published in 1932 and describing the career of a simple man who almost becomes the prime minister of Poland through a series of unexpected events and the support of the élite. The plot is indeed similar to that of Kosiriski’s Being There, and a number of critics have accused Kositiski of plagiarism on this basis. At present, however, those who criticize Kosiriski and defend Siedlecka risk being perceived not as communists but as ‘rightists’ or ‘nationalists’. 37 For a detailed discussion of the Polish reception of Singer and Styron, see the last chapter of my book Polska Isaaca Bashevisa Singera: Rozstanie t powrot (Lublin, 1994) or my article “The Reception of I. B. Singer’s Fiction in Poland’ in Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, C. WW:

“Hebrew and Jewish Literature’ (Jerusalem, 1994).

| 204 Montka Adamczyk-Garbowska Bird, and he occasioned debate that offered excellent material for sociological | study of particular strains in Polish thought, Polish—Jewish relations, anti- and philosemitism, political divisions in Polish society, and the complex and ambiva: lent Polish use of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’. I would even venture to say that read: ing about the various approaches to Kosinski may prove more interesting than reading Kosinski himself and could provide the basis for a study that went beyond

| the confines of this chapter. |

! Translated by Gwido Zlatkes

PART III

Reviews

~ BLANK PAGE

REVIEW ESSAYS

The Historical Besht: Reconstruction or Deconstruction? IMMANUEL ETKES

MosHE ROSMAN’S book Founder of Hasidism: A Quest for the Historical Ba’al Shem Tov’ is a historical reassessment of the life and work of the Ba’al Shem Tov (known as the Besht). This re-evaluation stems from a comprehensive, systematic study, which focuses critically on both the findings of previous research and the methodological premisses on which that research relied. Unlike scholars whose attention to the beginnings of hasidism arose out of a general interest in Jewish mysticism, Rosman came to the subject from the social and economic history of

Polish Jewry. It is perhaps symbolic that his first contact with the study of hasidism resulted from a surprising and intriguing discovery that he made in a Polish archive. The standpoint of the social historian, however, is only one of two factors informing the structure and content of this book. The second is Rosman’s tendency to examine his sources with a severely critical eye, a position he tells us that he reached under the influence of post-modern criticism (p. 3 n. 5). The combination of these two factors dictates the structure of Rosman’s book. Part I, entitled ‘Context’, explores various aspects of the historical circumstances in which the Besht lived and acted. Here Rosman gives considerable prominence to his own research findings. In part 1, “Texts’, he proposes a meticulously systematic and critical examination of the sources for the Besht’s life, which leads him to rather pessimistic conclusions. Part Ill, ‘Images’, offers a new evaluation of the ‘historical Besht’, and also of his image as it developed among Habad hasidim. The

relative brevity of part II, which comprises about a quarter of the book, and in particular the treatment of the ‘historical Besht’, to which the author devotes only

one of the two chapters in this section, reflects Rosman’s pessimism about the possibility of a comprehensive historical reconstruction of the Besht. I shall begin with a survey of part I, which explores the context in which the Besht lived and acted. Chapter 1 discusses the phenomenon of ba’alez shem in Ashkenazi Jewish society and seeks to place the magical dimension of the Besht into a broader context. Rosman rejects the notion that ba’ale: shem had a low status in Jewish 1 (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996).

| 298 | Immanuel Etkes : society. Drawing on contemporary sources, he proves that not only were they not : regarded as inferior, but they actually enjoyed considerable prestige. To explain this high status and the increase in their number at the end of the seventeenth and

| kabbalah at the time.

beginning of the eighteenth centuries, Rosman points to the increased influence of

| Chapter 2 explores the phenomenon of hasidim that preceded the movement : associated with the Besht. The seventeenth century saw a revival of the religious ideals of Hasidei Ashkenaz, writes Rosman, and this spiritual revival, coupled with

! the increasing influence of kabbalah, shaped the image of the ‘hasid’ in the seven: teenth and eighteenth centuries. A preoccupation with asceticism characterized

: hasidim of this type, who kept aloof from the community at large by holding | separate prayer services and adopting more stringent standards of ritual slaughter. | Rosman suggests that Beshtian hasidism should be seen as the development of this

existing religious trend and not as a radical innovation.

| Chapter 3 reviews the political situation in eighteenth-century Poland, begin: ning with the processes that brought about the disintegration of the Polish king| dom and moving on to those aspects of Polish politics that directly affected Jewish ! life, among them the Haydamak uprisings and the blood libels. His clarification of ! these events has great importance for an understanding of the ways in which the | Besht tried to cope with them. This chapter also explores the affinity between the : popular religion of Ukrainian peasants and the magical practices of the Jews in : Ukraine. Rosman closes the chapter by taking issue with Dubnow’s portrayal of Polish Jewry in the eighteenth century as living under the constant threat of

instability, a view based on the assumption that the grave effects of the : Khmelnytsky persecutions were still being felt a hundred years later, in the | Besht’s lifetime. Rosman cites studies by Mordecai Nadav and Gershon Hundert, : which show that the Jewish communities rehabilitated themselves within one or : two generations. In addition, he points out that the Polish magnates provided their ! subjects with a reasonably secure environment by the standards of the time.

| Of particular interest is Chapter 4, where Rosman presents his research on | Medzhybizh, the Besht’s home town for the last twenty years of his life (1740-60). | Relying on the archives of the family of magnates who owned it Rosman creates a rich and interesting picture, showing the town to be one of the most important in > Ukraine, experiencing, as it was, an economic boom because of its commercial | contacts with German cities in the west and with Kiev in the east. Rosman goes on | to discuss Jewish communal organization in Medzhybizh, describing the division | of political power among several families, which contrasted with the situation in | other communities, where a single family often held all the positions of leadership. : Alongside the elected leadership, there was a special body known as the pospélstwo with the power to supervise the activities of the kahal.

Chapter 5 discusses the implications of these findings for the beginnings of hasidism. Rosman rejects Ben-Zion Dinur’s view of hasidism as an expression of

The Historical Besht 299 social protest against the oppressive and exploitative rule of the kahal. In countering the perception of hasidism as bearing a social message, Rosman is following in the footsteps of such scholars as Israel Heilpern, Chone Shmeruk, and Yeshayahu Shachar. His own particular contribution is in his use of Polish archival sources to shed light on Medzhybizh and the organization of its Jewish community. These chapters on the Besht’s circumstances possess merit on several counts.

Rosman makes extensive and fruitful use of both Polish and Jewish historiography, and his own archival research enables him to present the first rich, authoritative picture of the immediate environment of the Besht’s life and activities. Also

laudable is his frequent appeal to primary sources in illustrating his general descriptions. The five chapters of Part I thus combine to create a unique historical account, invaluable to anyone interested in the Besht’s biography. They constitute an invaluable contribution to the social and cultural history of Polish Jewry in the eighteenth century.

Part II presents a critical evaluation of the sources for the Besht’s life. Rosman argues that scholars have relied heavily on Shivhei habesht, a book that is highly problematic as a historical source, and have drawn only incidentally on more reliable sources. He proposes to grade the sources according to their reliability and begins by examining the more dependable ones, those written by the Besht himself | and by his contemporaries, before considering those that are more dubious. Rosman approaches all the various sources with extreme scepticism, and reaches rather extreme conclusions. Of the two existing manuscript versions of the Besht’s ‘Holy Epistle’, he believes one to be unreliable. He likewise deems unreliable the many Besht traditions passed on in the books of R. Jacob Joseph of Polonne, although scholars have generally regarded these traditions as the most important source for the Besht’s spiritual world. Rosman holds the collection of stories known as Shivhet habesht to be similarly dubious. Lack of space means I cannot deal with all the arguments that led him to these conclusions, and I therefore limit myself to the question of the reliability of Shivhei habesht as a historical source (pp. 143-58). Rosman rightly describes Shivhe: habesht as ‘the most fecund, interesting,

intriguing, problematic’ source for the Besht’s life. To illustrate, he presents a | highly varied and interesting survey of how different historians have exploited this book. Faithful to his principles, however, he chooses to emphasize the weak points in the various scholarly solutions. In fact, he argues that it is almost impossible to treat Shivhei habesht as a reliable historical source, first of all because the printed

edition is not based on an autograph manuscript. The publisher added material not included in the original manuscript and rearranged the stories. The stories themselves include many folk-tale motifs, and some appear in several versions, while others resemble tales about R. Isaac Luria (known as the Ari). Even if they have some historical core, in their present state the stories constitute an anthology

: 300 Immanuel Etkes | of anecdotes, presented in no methodical order; the events described have no dates : and almost no reference to their environment. Hence, argues Rosman, a scholar | seeking the ‘historical kernel’ might be left ‘close to despair’. Furthermore, although Rosman admits that external sources have verified | details referred to in some stories, even an apparently logical story may turn out to distort reality quite tendentiously. After all, Shivhe: habesht 1s basically a hagio-

: graphic work, intended to impart certain ideas to the reader and to shape the : reader’s lifestyle. One must take the intentions of the compiler and the publisher into consideration, and they did not conceal their purposes. The compiler wrote that he wished to describe the Besht’s miracles in order to reinforce religious faith,

| while the publisher wished to describe the Besht as the archetype of a hasidic | leader, like the rebbes active at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In short, | according to Rosman, the stories in Shivhet habesht represent the ideological inter-

| ests of the compiler and publisher. | Rosman’s minimization of Shivhet habesht as a historical source does not conform with the general tendency of recent scholarly literature, to which he himself

| contributes. I shall try to point out a few considerations that may tip the balance | towards a somewhat more favourable view of the historical reliability of the work. 1. Recent studies of the structure and redaction of Shivhet habesht offer convincing answers to the question of the publisher’s role in and influence on the

: printed version of the book. They suggest that it is fairly easy to distinguish the material that comes from the autograph manuscript from the changes intro-

: duced by the publisher. -

: 2. Negative attitudes to magical phenomena have influenced scholarly reserva-

: tions and suspicion about the book. New studies illuminating the important position of magic in various European societies, and in Ashkenazi Jewish soci-

: ety in particular, offer a more positive and balanced perception of such magic as

| Shivhet habesht presents. : 3. Rosman points out that such scholars as Israel Bartal and Jacob Barnai have | verified some of the facts in certain stories by reference to external sources. Ina | recent study Adam Teller has used archival material to confirm the details of the story about two arendars of Slutsk. Further, Rosman himself has confirmed

| the truths of Shivhet habesht with his own archival materials (p. 162). : Admittedly, the truth of the matrix of a story does not guarantee the truth of : the story itself. Nevertheless, the fact that the story builds on historical facts increases its reliability.

| There are several other arguments to the same effect. We term the literary units : comprising Shivhei habesht ‘stories’ because of their oral transmission and their | frequent use of narrative features. From the historian’s viewpoint, however, many of them should be treated as traditions or even eyewitness testimony. Not only do

The Historical Besht | 301 most of the stories mention the name of the person from whom the compiler heard them, but in many cases the source was actually involved in the events related or

heard of them from someone who was. The compiler heard many stories from members of the Besht’s immediate circle, including R. Alexander Shohet, who served as the Besht’s scribe for many years, R. Jacob Joseph of Polonne, R. David Purkes, and R. Judah Leib, the magid (preacher) of Polonne. Rosman’s discussion of the compiler and publisher’s motives has already been mentioned, the former seeking to strengthen people’s faith, the latter to portray the Besht as the archetype of an early nineteenth-century rebbe. I do not argue with

Rosman’s verdict about these declared motives, but an examination of the text itself shows that most of the stories cannot be squared with these goals. A good many of them do not even mention miracles, despite the compiler’s declaration; for example, they often relate to the Besht’s personality as a mystic and his role as the leader of a circle of hasidim. Many stories indeed reflect the Besht’s activity as a ba’al shem, and thus conflict

with the ideological goal of the publisher, a follower of R. Shneur Zalman of Liady, who did not believe a hasidic leader should tend to the earthly misfortunes of his followers by performing miracles, and who therefore sought to stress the mystical element in the Besht at the expense of his magical talents. The stories of the Besht’s revelation, which the publisher interpolates at the beginning of the

anthology in R. Shneur Zalman’s name, clearly reflect this motive in their portrayal of the Besht as a kabbalist and mystic, but not a ba’al shem. At the same time, the publisher did not discard the revelation stories as written down by the compiler, which show the Besht as a ba’al shem. Moreover, if the publisher’s ideological interests proved as decisive in his shaping of the book as Rosman suggests, one would have expected it to contain stories describing the Besht as a tsadik. In fact such an anachronistic picture, although present in the publisher’s insertion at

the beginning of the book, does not characterize the book as a whole. On the contrary, many of the stories indeed describe the Besht as an itinerant ba’al shem and not as a fsadik, whose home serves as the focus of pilgrimage.

Clearly, then, the choice of stories in Shivhet habesht reflects a narrative tradition at odds with the alleged motives of the compiler and publisher. It seems quite likely that the perception of the Besht among his followers shaped this tradi-

tion. Rosman warns us again and again that the stories tell us more about the people who heard and told them than they do about their subject. Yet surely it is no accident that certain stories were told and preserved. True, one may reasonably assume that the stories underwent various changes as they passed from person to person, but it seems clear to me that the original storyteller’s first-hand knowledge of the Besht and deep impressions of his personality crucially formed the basis for

both the initial formulation of the story and its subsequent preservation. The people who told the stories did not create them ex nihilo; the Besht’s powerful personality led them to tell these stories. Moreover, in some cases the Besht him-

302 Immanuel Etkes : self provided the source for the story. His own self-image, then, underlay the i myth surrounding him, and it is this image that he radiated to those around him

| and through them to future generations. , : Obviously, one cannot base a detailed, accurate reconstruction of the Besht’s | biography on Shivher habesht. I believe, however, that one may derive from the | book valuable information about his personality as seen by his associates, about his

| behaviour patterns, and about his modes of contact with his environment. Of : course, such an endeavour requires a careful examination of each story. It is not

ee my task here to discuss the criteria for such an examination, but I believe the : repetition of certain personality traits and behaviour patterns in different stories | | told by different narrators would prove highly significant for any such study. Be | that as it may, Rosman’s position on Shivhei habesht seems to me overly critical.

| In Chapter 10 (pp. 159-70) Rosman presents his major archival discoveries, | which derive from the archives of the Czartoryski family, whose latifundium : included Medzhybizh. We learn that the kaha/ supported the Besht and put a | house that it owned at his disposal for the many years when he lived in the town. In | fact, the archival materials reveal that not only the Jews of the town, but also the | local Christians and the Polish authorities, recognized the Besht’s status as a ba’al : shem. In addition, the kaha/ provided a regular allowance for those designated as | ‘poor’, including two of the Besht’s associates. Rosman suggests that they were not : actually impoverished in the usual sense, but rather hasidim of the old type who were active in the local bezt midrash. In light of these findings, Rosman describes

, the Besht as a local ba’al shem, heading a local group of hasidim. Thus, his position : and activities in Medzhybizh formed an integral part of the community’s institu-

| tional structure.

: Chapter 11 (pp. 173-86) relates the bulk of Rosman’s findings about the ‘historical | Besht’. The title, ‘A Person of his Time’, indicates its main thrust: far from being

| an innovator, the Besht was a typical representative of the social and cultural : reality of his time. He did not rebel against the religious or social establishment,

, but formed an integral part of the communal institutions, and his behaviour : conformed to the patterns expected of a ba’al shem (p. 174). His position in : Medzhybizh, according to Rosman, was more or less institutionalized as what | Rosman calls a ‘resident kabbalist’, and as such the Besht served as a healer and the : leader of a group of old-style hasidim who gathered in the bezt midrash. The figure of the Besht, then, including its most characteristic spiritual aspects, seems to fit in

: well with the context of Polish Jewry in the eighteenth century. 3 What set the Besht apart from other ba ‘ale: shem? Or, in Rosman’s words, ‘what | was it that made him the Ba’al Shem Tov and not just another ba’al shem tov?’ ! Rosman answers that the Besht not only offered solace and remedies to individu: als, but also took on collective troubles. For example, he tackled such calamities as the Haydamak attacks, blood libels, and plagues. This explains why his own contemporaries saw him as the primary ba’al shem (p. 181).

The Historical Besht 303 As to the Besht’s supposed role in founding hasidism as a movement, Rosman

believes it to be marginal. The Besht did not rebel against the establishment, create new institutions, or found a new religious or social movement. His only innovations were a few changes that he introduced into old-style hasidism. ‘These changes did indeed have implications for the emergence of hasidism as a popular movement, but the Besht himself was not aware of their implications and certainly had no such intentions (pp. 183—4). Such figures as Jacob Joseph of Polonne, Dov Ber, the magid of Mezhirech, and Ephraim of Sudylkov founded hasidism as a movement only after the Besht’s death. Seeing themselves as his successors, these men ascribed their own teachings to him and cited him as their authority. “Their

success’, concludes Rosman, ‘transformed the [Besht] from a person who was important in his time and place to a figure of surpassing historical significance’ (pp. 184-5). While it is perfectly legitimate to describe the Besht’s life in relation to the political, social, and cultural context of his times, I am afraid that in his eagerness to show him in this context Rosman disparaged some of the features in the Besht’s personality and life that made him such an inspiring figure for both his contemporaries and future generations. Above all, I find it hard to agree with his arguments that downgrade the Besht’s role as the founder of hasidism.

: Rosman repeatedly states that the Besht did not oppose the communal establishment, create new institutions, or contend with rabbis. A reader unfamiliar with the scholarly literature might think these statements new and significant for the question of the Besht’s relationship to hasidism. Scholars concerned with hasidism, however, realized several decades ago that it was not a movement with a social message and did not aim to undermine the communal establishment. Since it is generally agreed that hasidism professed spiritual rather than social goals, the

fact that the Besht did not rebel against the community institutions tells us nothing of his relationship to the emergence of hasidism as a movement.

Rosman argues, moreover, that the Besht neither founded a movement nor established a hasidic court. In this respect, too, he states the obvious. Scholars have agreed for some time now that there was no hasidic movement to speak of during the Besht’s lifetime, and that hasidism as a movement began with his disciples, who were active in the 1760s and 1770s. Clearly, then, scholars who define the Besht as the ‘founder of hasidism’ are not saying that he actually founded or even intended to found the movement. They mean that his personality, way of worshipping God, ideas, and actions made a crucial contribution to the emergence of hasidism as a movement. At issue is the question of how to evaluate the Besht’s influence on subsequent generations. Of course, one may formulate such an evaluation only a posteriori. Hence Rosman’s claim that the Besht became a personality of historical significance only after his death, in the wake of the success of his disciples, in no way implies that he cannot be considered the founder of hasidism.

| 304 Immanuel Etkes In order to evaluate the Besht’s role vis-a-vis the emergence of hasidism, we

| must consider two questions. First, were there aspects of his personality, his approach to worship, his ideas, and his relationships with those around him that | : might have influenced the formation of hasidism as a movement? Secondly, did he | indeed influence the actual founders of the movement? Rosman fails to provide

: satisfactory answers to these questions. | Let us begin with the second question. Rosman argues, as we have seen, that

| the founders of hasidism ascribed their teachings to the Besht and cited his | authority for them. This formulation hints at manipulation. Why make such an | implication rather than simply say that the Besht had a profound impact on his : disciples, as indeed many teachers have done in the history of religion? Why deny | the possibility that a personality of extraordinary spiritual vigour could bring about a revolution in the minds of associates, restructure their values, and inspire | them to action? It is this that the founders of hasidism claimed for the Besht. They | repeatedly presented themselves as his disciples, cited him in their teachings, and | maintained that they were developing ideas and practising modes of worship they

| had learned from him. They regarded him as a model to emulate, a source of | inspiration, and an authority. Does not this insistence of theirs imply a direct link | between the Besht and the emergence of hasidism? Regarding the first question, whether aspects of the Besht’s personality,

: manner of worship, ideas, and interpersonal relationships might explain his a influence on the emergence of hasidism, Rosman rightly points out that the Besht tackled dangers threatening the whole community as well as those concerning only : individuals. At the same time, however, he makes this activity subordinate to those

| the Besht undertook as a ba’al shem. He seems to be saying that one who aids | individuals is an ordinary ba’al shem, while one who cares for the whole ‘Con| gregation of Israel’ is a ba’al shem par excellence (Rosman’s phrase). Is that really ! true? Did other ba’ale: shem address communal problems by ‘ascents of the soul’,

| as did the Besht? Did other ba’ale: shem rectify the souls of the dead, convey | prayers to their destinations, lead sinners to repent, and intervene in the appoint- , : ment of ritual slaughterers? Surely one must conclude that the sum of these and similar acts defines the Besht as a public leader of a new stamp, whose authority

| rests primarily on charisma and who exercises that authority through the use of | mystical powers and magical talents. The Besht’s own self-image, and the image | his associates had of him, leave no room to doubt that his actions as a public leader : went far beyond those typical for ba’alei shem. 3 These powers point to another aspect of the Besht’s personality that Rosman

| almost entirely ignores, namely his mysticism. Rosman cites only two of the Besht’s religious innovations: his anti-asceticism and his technique of communi-

| cating with God through the letters of the Torah and the prayer service. Even : these innovations Rosman holds to be no radical departure, but mere adjustments

: to old-style hasidism. Asceticism, however, had for many generations been

The Historical Besht 305 considered the supreme method for combating the powers of evil; could its renunciation be a minor matter? Surely one may regard that as a spiritual revolution. And what of the other mystical manifestations in the Besht’s life? How can one disregard the central position of mystical experience in the life of a person who

considered the joy of devekut, communion with God, the major element of worship? What of such techniques as the elevation of ‘wayward thoughts’ and ‘worship through corporeality’? How can we ignore the Besht’s radical understanding of divine immanence? No reader of the various sources reflecting the Besht’s spiritual life can doubt the power of his mystical experience, the special features of that experience, and its significance in the spiritual inheritance that he bequeathed to his associates and disciples. Rosman’s book makes almost no mention of these issues. Neither can I agree with Rosman’s account of the Besht’s influence on his contemporaries. At various points he states that the Besht’s function as a leader was confined to a small group of mystical ascetics living in Medhzybizh and supported by the kaha/. For some reason, he disregards the majority of the Besht’s associates and disciples who did not live in Medzhybizh and would play a decisive role in the spread of hasidism. The ties of such people as Jacob Joseph of Polonne, Dov Ber, the magid of Mezhirech, Menahem Mendel of Peremyshliany, Nahman of Horodenka, Yehiel Mickal of Zolochiv, and others with the Besht and his religious practices indicate that the Besht’s influence as a mystic and a religious leader extended beyond his home town. The Besht’s influence on his contemporaries, and through some of them on later generations, resulted from the peculiar fusion of qualities in his personality and fields of action: a ba’al shem of great repute, a public leader of a new kind, and

an innovative mystic who inspired his associates and disciples with his unique approach to religion. Of these three aspects of the Besht’s personality, Rosman places great emphasis on the first, minimizes the second, and almost completely ignores the third. There is, of course, a close connection between Rosman’s rigorous approach to the sources and the portrait he draws of the Besht. His rejection of the traditions ascribed by Jacob Joseph of Polonne to the Besht and his exception to the use of Shivhe: habesht as a historical source cause him to dwarf the figure of the Besht. Rosman’s book is a major landmark and a significant achievement in its historiog-

raphy of the Besht and early hasidism. The first part of the book contributes , greatly to our understanding of the context in which the Besht lived and acted. Rosman’s findings in Polish archives have particular importance. His description of Medzhybizh as a flourishing town, his reconstruction of the social structure of its Jewish community, and his discovery that the kahal actually supported the Besht and his circle materially may be considered the final nail in the coffin of the perception of hasidism as a movement bearing radical social messages. The second

306 Immanuel Etkes | part of the book, the critique of the sources, offers substantial analyses, some of : which are also convincing and help to create a balanced reconstruction of the Besht’s life. Those analyses leading to conclusions that I regard as overly negative

: have significance as well, as they expose the problematic nature of the Besht | sources and so present a challenge to any scholar working with them. The histori: cal construction of the Besht offered in part Il strikes me as convincing only in

| part, largely because Rosman fails to answer the most crucial question: why : have the leaders of hasidism since the 1760s and 1770s considered themselves | the disciples and followers of the Besht? Clearly, this question, and the larger | question of the historical figure of the Besht, invite further scholarly work, and | Rosman’s historiography and source critique should prove invaluable to anyone

| undertaking it.

, ‘ oe

Four Days in Atlantis: Jozef Lewandowski’s Complex Vision of the Polish Jewish Past JANUSZ KOREK J6zEF LEWANDOWSKI wrote Cztery dni w Atlantydzie (‘Four Days in Atlantis’)’ from several perspectives, blending the skills of a historian, a keen observer of his own changing surroundings, and a memoirist. He is also a utopian who wanted at

all costs to achieve his vision of reconciliation among nations. All this makes it | impossible to categorize his book: is it an allegory, a memoir, a didactic piece, an attempt at literary synthesis, or a historical essay? In a letter to Lewandowski Czestaw Mitosz stated simply: ‘This book moved me tremendously and I regard it as a wise and necessary one.’ In reviewing this intensely personal work, I reflected on my own relationship with Lewandowski, and how that relationship caused me to re-evaluate my view of the Poland where I grew up. I met Lewandowski for the first time in 1984, when I was a new political immigrant in Sweden from the Polish People’s Republic. He remains a puzzle to me to this day. During our first meetings I listened to his views with suspicion. Judging from his conversation, I took him to be well acquainted with leading figures in Warsaw government circles, whereas I knew them only as the official and despised marionettes of the despised regime. I concluded that his experiences were worlds apart from mine. As I began to read Lewandowski’s historical and sociological writings more critically, I realized that I was mistaken. It was difficult to consider the author of Rozwazania metafizyczne (‘Metaphysical Reflections’) to be a devoted supporter of the system which I was aiming to abolish. But this mistake was the easiest one to correct. It was more difficult to reconstruct from his sometimes quite long digressions on Polish history the real topographic map of his world. I still perceived this territory—carved out before the war, burned by the war, and deformed by his post-war experiences as a Polish Jew—as far from my own world, which was. formed during Gierek’s time. As far as I knew, when I met Lewandowski, there were no Jews in my world. Neither were there other national minorities. Even the problem of antisemitism 1 Jozef Lewandowski, Cztery dni w Atlantydzie (Uppsala: Ex Libris, 1991).

, 308 Janusz Korek . did not exist; I remember no incidences of antisemitism from my childhood. Though I recall that we did try to give one of our schoolmates the nickname Kacap

| (a pejorative word for Russian) when we learned the Russian name of his birth| place. None of my friends, except perhaps that boy himself, saw this short-lived

| prejudice. |

nickname in national terms. Today I would blame this incident on our age, with its

| tendency to make up nicknames, rather than xenophobia or even anti-Soviet

| I do not know whether this ‘ethnic indifference’ of my generation, or at least of myself and my friends, resulted from our education, the traditions surrounding | us, or perhaps the lack of such traditions. I know, however, that neutrality towards ethnic and racial issues came about at least in part because these issues did not

: appear in public and also, in the case of attitudes towards Jews, because Jews | themselves were absent from our social life. Again, my memory brings back a . seemingly insignificant incident. One day someone asked a friend of mine in the presence of a large circle of people whether he was Jewish. Since the question came from a young philosemite, I felt that his intentions were completely innocent. Nevertheless, most of the people present fell silent and turned their eyes on

: the questioner as if he had been very rude. : Adult taboos pervaded so strongly that people feared even to mention antisemitism. Paradoxically, under these conditions xenophobia had a fair chance of

| disappearing altogether or, in the worst case, of being pushed into the subcon| scious. At the same time its object would disappear as well. In the case of Jews this : meant that the physical Holocaust was followed by a terrible eradication of mem| ory. This eradication proved easier to accomplish since in the 1970s hardly any : Jews remained in Poland. What little had survived of the community also van| ished, either as a result of neglect, as in the case of Jewish cemeteries, or through

: deliberate destruction.

In my case, and in the case of those like me, the simultaneous disappearance of

| both prejudice and of those against whom it was directed had one benefit. Taking | into consideration my lack of awareness at that time, I still feel that growing up in these conditions meant that my peers and I avoided acquiring national resentments, racial grudges, and chauvinism. In this way, and at the expense of the : memory of the Jews and knowledge about the other minorities who used to live in Poland, we managed to avoid being poisoned with xenophobia. I realize, of course,

: that there 1s nothing here to boast about. I am just trying to establish facts. This is | also why I believe I was able to follow Lewandowski’s writings without much bias and sometimes perhaps even rather coldly.

| In order to understand anything of Lewandowski’s undertaking it is necessary : to summarize the narrative. There are three phases of the action in Lewandowski’s book. The first is the narrator-protagonist’s visit to his home town. He had left the

| town at the end of 1939 and came back eight years later, not only to find out what survived of the place but also to search for his own identity. The latter motive,

Four Days in Atlantis 309 which at the time of the visit he does not clearly recognize, opens the second part of the narrative, in which he recounts the events of his childhood before the war, as well as the events of the war. As an officer of the Polish People’s Army, he now wanders through the streets of this provincial town, where elements of pre-war life

coexist with the consequences of the wartime German occupation and the new

post-war reality. It is significant that Lewandowski wrote this account some forty years after the visit took place, and the third and most substantial section of the book is set at the end of the 1980s, when the narrator speaks to the reader about the experience of the past forty years. Pre-war provincial life constitutes the central point around which Lewandowski organizes all other themes of the book. Social disparities and differences in thinking accompany multinationalism and the tensions it entails. The approaching catastrophe, however, still remains invisible from the perspective of a small town, and does not yet overshadow everyday life. In creating this work of memory, the author drew on many sources, which he acknowledges. He supplements his own experience of 1947 and his memories of childhood with the testimony of acquaintances about events from the period of the occupation and, because of the distance in time and the personal tone of the

narrative, all this fuses into one harmonious entity. This cohesive system of interpretation enables him to present sociological hypotheses and _ historical explanations within the narrative. The moral denouements become almost a natural outcome of the manner in which the author sets forth the events. His comments appear not as an intrusion but rather as an element both aesthetically and intellectually indispensable. All the events—whether personally experienced, heard about, or presumed—gain the same status and become proverbial. The author’s generalizations as well as his sociological and historical commentaries assume the role of a fixed position in this multi-genre panorama of mortals and nations, and all of these elements come together to form a rich mosaic saturated with facts. It is difficult to summarize all the themes of Lewandowski’s book and to present its main message at the same time. Out of context Dancygier’s life, Father Kabat’s

attitudes, Serafinski’s behaviour, Podhorecki’s denunciations, and Hampel’s tragedy would turn into a mere collection of intriguing, stimulating, disturbing, and shocking stories. Why is this not the case? Let me ask this question differently: What did the author intend? I see no simple answer to this question, but he does seem to have a few distinct goals. One is to add colour to the black-and-white pictures of the period, to re-evaluate all sorts of stereotypes, and to corporealize large abstract numbers, all of which were born in the course of an emotionally loaded and highly ideological struggle of myths. Most of all, however, the author concerns himself with re-evaluating images of Poles during the German occupation, national stereotypes, and the concept of collective responsibility. To take the first—re-evaluation of the image of Poles—as an example, accord-

310 Janusz Korek ing to the author there are two such images which contradict each other. A picture

: of the heroic insurrectionist soldier coexists with a portrait of the collaborator | working for the occupiers, denouncing other Poles, and betraying Jews: | Two pictures that logically contradict each other. Which one is true and which one is a lie?

| Both are true as representations of fragments, but both are false as depictions of the | entirety. Different people existed. ... The greatness of some people was contingent on the | smallness of others. Science and literature must depict the world the way it was. This is not | easy. Those who write have difficulty dealing with large dimensions. It is easier to describe a reality that is already reduced to a diagram and tidied up. This is why the images of the

, occupation are simplified and diametrically opposed. ,

: The author tries to challenge both images at once. He diagnoses the situation logi-

: cally enough: ‘Different people existed.’ I would like to make a more general : observation. When the narrator of Four Days in Atlantis abandons reality, his | down-to-earth position begins to wander towards a doubtful thesis. In the case | of the two images of Poles during the occupation, however, this creates a good starting-point for disqualifying the mutual incompatibility of the two images, for imbuing them with complexity and thereby bringing them closer to reality. The | book reaches into the grey sphere of everyday life and shows that the reality of the

| occupation evoked not only extreme attitudes, but also thousands of others, | mostly more mundane. Moreover, those actions that were neither heroic nor | despicable determined the general climate of the period. The individuality of motivation is another theme of the book. The ever: changing attitudes of everyday life, adaptable to and driven by various motives and emotions, did not reflect ethnic divisions. Lewandowski attempts to undermine stereotypical images of both Poles and Jews, but his task is more difficult in the : Jewish case. He writes: ‘Before my eyes Jews turned into something as remote and improbable as the Jadzwingowie {a Prussian tribe] who were exterminated ages ago.’ Thus, in the contemporary Polish consciousness Jewish history became a

: blank page or even worse: in place of knowledge about Jewish society comes ‘a sizeable synthetic Jew, a sort of a dark figure that some find terrifying, others find fascinating, and all find horribly tragic’. Lewandowski attempts to remedy this assessment of Jews in Polish popular

| awareness. The main part of the book consists of a detailed description of pre-war | life in a small town where Jews and members of other minority nationalities made

up a high proportion of the total population. A description of Jewish society with all its differences ranging from Bundism to hasidism and from Zionism to : complete Polonization accompanies the depiction of relationships among people of various ethnicities. When social differences, as well as individual characteristics

| and modes of behaviour not reflected in statistics are added to this, we end up with a rather complicated and not at all unambiguous picture of Jewish life. In his desire

: to fight ignorance, Lewandowski fills his book with numerous concrete instances.

Four Days in Atlantis 311 He gives his characters names as well as faces, and has them strolling through the streets of Konin, the town he describes. He replaces the ‘sizeable synthetic Jew’ with the feelings and motivations of individuals, their private choices of faith, their political convictions, their handicaps, and their talents. In addition, Four Days in Atlantis embarks upon a reassessment of the image of

Germans in post-war Polish films and propaganda. Once again Lewandowski contrasts the collective with cases of those individual Germans (not so few, but not so many either) who did not participate in the fascist hysteria. Without teeth and claws, without swastikas hanging above their heads, they do not balance the crimes

committed by their fellow Germans, but they place a big question mark by the Polish stereotype of aggressive and expansionist Germans, which was current in the 1970s, but had largely disappeared by the mid-198o0s.

Lewandowski represents the enormous number of both Polish and Jewish victims of the German occupation with concrete stories of the unscrupulous restaurant-owner Slodki, of the foolish Natek Nomburg, and of Father Kabat, | who retains his decency even in extreme situations. The narrator describes individual episodes and actions that undermine the ethnic stereotypes he is trying to oppose. His is not an easy task, especially if one does not wish to fall into the trap of presenting an equal number of counter-examples and thus creating new stereo-

types. Lewandowski manages to avoid this mechanistic approach by offering examples without giving any commentary, as he does in the case of the Endek Serafinski’s friendship with the Lipszyc family.

One may regard the novel’s persistent demythologizing as the product of a historian’s perspective, a vision of events in a larger context that includes many aspects and contingencies. Objectivity requires taking into consideration all the ethically neutral actions of everyday life as well as evident crimes and indisputably

respectable moral behaviour. As a consequence readers must re-evaluate their opinions of those actions. Four Days in Atlantis not only explores everyday life but also makes it an observation-point from which the narrator watches other events

and where the goals of the objective historian meet those of the subjective memoirist who sees events through the lens of his own daily experiences. These ideas influence Lewandowski’s concept of the non-heroic protagonist whose revealed ordinariness and limitations, or even mistakes, give him credibility. His narrator-protagonist speaks on his own behalf. He has no ambition to

redeem the world. He makes subjective judgements motivated purely by his

personal point of view and often jumps to conclusions. All of these elements | contribute to a psychologically rich and convincing picture. The narrator begins with his own mistakes and transgressions. Can we accuse him of inconsistency? Can we accuse him of not stating clearly his motives for retaining his uniform as an officer of the Akademia Polityczna (Political Academy) until 1964? His own observations from 1947 onward testify to the pettiness of the political system and thereby raise this last question.

| 312 Janusz Korek | After squaring with himself he moves on to his relatives. He talks about , elementary human emotions: friendship, resentment, love. He talks about his oo neighbours and their neighbours, and about decency, envy, and tolerance. He | talks about the local administration and the provincial institutions, including the | schools and libraries, and about everyday life, which is so often forgotten by great : ideologies and disregarded in ethnic stereotypes. These discussions engage poetics | of a small calibre, the poetics of provincial commonality intertwined with timeless echoes of biblical style and biblical allegories. Thus we can find information about different types of clothing, about the prices of produce and services, mixed in with

descriptions of universal human emotions. Re-creating this everyday life and | using it as a prism for looking at clichés not only allows Lewandowski to exploit 2 the falseness of the latter but also to present more general historical, sociological, | and even philosophical re-evaluations. As a digression, it is interesting to note the hypothesis of commonality and the | role of the phenomena of careerism and adaptability, which in the post-war period | greatly influenced people of the same social class. Moreover, in the absence of | a more direct explanation of the protagonist’s reasons for remaining a political officer, this hypothesis provides some kind of indirect understanding of his motivations. The lack of consistency, therefore, is not disturbing, but gives the protagonist credibility. He is neither a Jew nor a Pole. He neither fully identifies | with nor rejects either of the cultures in which he lives. He cannot reject those values in each of them which he regards as precious. Hence, Lewandowski describes the immense and complicated personal tragedy of the protagonist, who | is looking for his own identity and who at the end chooses to remain who he was | before embarking upon his journey: a wanderer among cultures, societies, hierar: chies, ideologies, and myths. He writes: ‘I understood that I am destined to remain : an outsider: a Jew for Poles, a Pole for Jews or at best a suspect Pole among Poles : and a suspect Jew among Jews.’

, Four Days in Atlantis sounds one unexpected tragic note where it seemingly | should not belong. In spite of the narrator’s opening pronouncements about the benefits of ‘multiculturalism’, a longing for the lost home of childhood (‘a pillar of the world’) saturates the book, as do sorrow and the narrator’s particular sadness

| about his own fate. His confusion and struggle of many years as he searches for a definite answer to the question of his identity cannot help but startle the reader. | Lewandowski seems to suggest that one’s very humanity demands such confusion and struggle. The protagonist resembles the characters from the writings of Stefan Zeromski, whom the author often mentions. He could be a cousin of Zeromski’s

| character, Judym, who consciously refuses to ask easy questions about his own

| national identity. | In describing the events of the war, the narrator tries to find meaning in what | happened. Should all the struggles and retreats, private failures and successes, moments of love and hatred, individual and collective tragedies, hopes that were

Four Days tn Atlantis 313 born and those that died, moments of happiness and despair, testimonies to greatness and meanness, should all of them be forgotten? Does what constituted the sense of human life deserve more than the ‘deaf, contemptuous laughter of generations’? The narrator of Four Days in Atlantis does not ask these questions directly, but one can find answers in places that the narrative brings to life, places that disappear in the eschatological scheme of the book. Atlantis itself offers a starting-point for idealized, albeit not ideal, relations among members of different ethnic groups. This starting-point is the pre-war town of Konin, which, as the narrator notes, ‘turned out to be better than average or even much better’. The narrator can still explain in the categories of common sense so important to him the (surely very disturbing) ethnic antagonisms that exist in Konin. As in any other eschatology, the establishment of an Eden is followed by a fall from grace. In this case the fall was the Second World War, fascism, the German occupation of Poland, and, to a lesser degree, communism. Lewandowski seems to be saying that everyone experienced this fall in one way or another, regardless of social status, sex, nationality, or aspirations. The story of the professional dancing-partner in

the novel is a symbol; as the author states, ‘all of us were dancing under the Germans’. The author completes his eschatological picture by offering hope for human

regeneration and sketching a delicate vision of an ideal state. But this is not a _ return to Eden or the situation before the war. In the secularized world of Four Days in Atlantis history succumbs to the idea of progress rather than God’s will. Moreover, the pre-war period cannot serve as a model because ethnic relations were far from ideal. Finally, neither the degraded classless society nor the mythical national body can serve as a desired vision. In spite of the narrator’s ambitions and temperament the only desirable solution seems to lie in realizing one’s private, noble but ordinary, everyday life and keeping it free from persecution, poverty, and fear of ethnic conflicts. The book focuses not on the problem of redemption and reconciliation among ethnic groups (at least not exclusively) but on the problem of normal human coexistence regardless of social status or ethnic identification.

Lewandowski’s allegory not only recalls an eschatological pattern but also modifies it. We witness in Four Days in Atlantis the fall of humanity, but also the fall of people defined in categories of ethnic or class collectivity, as some kind of nationalistic Mr Hyde or proletarian Golem. The book also differs from classical

eschatology because events are seen here from a ‘post-fall’ perspective and imposed by an individual whose ‘common sense’-—in Milosz’s words—‘always lost as if to confirm that it is only good for an individual but does not apply to the collective. It lost, however, only in the short run and it turned out here that in fact only an individual is real and not any mass movements in which one willingly indulges in an attempt to run away from oneself.’

The most important perspective from which the author observes history is

314 Janusz Korek | the perspective of a social utopia embracing all cases presented in the book and bringing it closer to allegory than fiction. The Atlantis of the title is a halfgeographic, half-mythical island drowned in the past. It is a partly Polish and partly Jewish place peppered with other ethnic groups. It is a land lost in time amid the smashed spires of burghers’ houses, with motionless logs of wood in the

- neighbourhoods of the poor and half-buried urns filled with powdered human blood and ashes. It is also pre-war, wartime, and post-war Konin with its centrally located, gigantic pot for soap production, preserved from the war and now serving

| as a warning and a monument to horror. The town resurrected by Lewandowski lives its mundane, intense and short, beautiful and crooked, wealthy and hungry life. Before disappearing again it looks into the future, where a multicultural island

: of Utopia floats, swathed in literary mists and the author’s hopes.

: The choice to concentrate on a specific individual (the narrator) and his common-sense convictions rather than an ideological hybrid leads directly to the

concept of individual responsibility. This concept is not only typical for the protagonist but influences Atlantis as a whole. Acceptance of this concept allows the protagonist, for example, to assist a Pole whose father he suspects of murdering his friend. (In Ezekiel’s phrase, ‘the son cannot have his teeth set on edge because of the sour grapes eaten by his father’.) The unequivocality of fault and

| responsibility dictates that only those people can be blamed for crimes who committed them, who can be pointed at, of whom it can be proven that they shot

people, or pushed them into wagons and gassed them; only those who can or cannot be forgiven for what they did. (Forgiveness, of course, introduces a com-

| pletely different set of questions.) Because of this unequivocality the narrator of Four Days in Atlantis has to face yet another problem: the responsibility of the

. German nation for Hitler’s crimes. | |

I am afraid . . . that those who talk about responsibility are not guilty of anything. I am afraid that those who are guilty find these apologetics convenient. If it is the entire nation that is guilty, if there is only a shred of a murderer in everyone, then the actual murderer is responsible only for this shred of a crime. As a result the crime loses its actuality and becomes a metaphysical or an existential one instead a real one.

At this point one has to disagree. The crime neither ‘loses its actuality’ nor does it become ‘a metaphysical or an existential one’. (Most of the descriptive parts of the

: book deny such a conclusion as well.) The crime remains most concrete, however difficult it may be to measure what percentage of guilt goes to those of Hitler’s agents who planned the destruction and issued the orders from behind their desks and what percentage goes to those who followed those orders and committed mass murder with their own hands. The fact that the Holocaust took place fifty years ago does not decrease its reality. At the same time the crime is also an existential one and as such should be analysed in a different context. The direct, mutual link between responsibility and guilt leads the narrator to forget about another kind of

Four Days in Atlantis 315 responsibility, namely responsibility understood as a moral obligation. In his efforts to oppose those systems of the twentieth century that emancipated evil from private responsibility and separated guilt from individual moral obligation, the author approaches another extreme. He forgets the kind of moral obligation that does not follow from questions about legal consequences or from basic decency but originates with questions about one’s own identity. The memory of a particular crime such as a horrible mass murder helps not in finding those who are directly guilty of it but in shaping a European or more specifically German postwar identity. In an analogous way—keeping in mind all the differences and maintaining a sense of proportion—one can talk about Polish antisemitism and our obligation as Poles to make sure that we and others remember the events of the Holocaust, even if we did not participate in them. Another paradoxical feature of the book is the fact that, thematically and artistically, it demands this remembrance, although the narrator does not comment on or address this explicitly. One can then look at Four Days in Atlantis as an allegory of the past that has not wanted to move on and that has hung over us like the smoke of the crematorium chimneys and stayed there in spite of the fact that—or perhaps because—people have not wanted to notice it. Not only does this book call for a balanced picture of the German occupation and a de-demonized picture of the post-war period, it also seeks to find a place for the complicated fate of Polish Jewry within the borders of Polish consciousness. It seeks this not only by the very fact of touching upon the problem and challenging the stereotypes accumulated throughout the years, but also by refusing to erect a wall of collective guilt before the contemporary Polish reader. For my generation, which grew up after the occupation and after Stalinism and which never knew Polish Jewry, Jewish culture remains an unopened book.

For us Four Days in Atlantis can become an introduction to the subject, which until recently was taboo. _ The moral message of the book can perhaps seem too simple, too easily freeing contemporary people from the darkness of the past. But it liberates us only from national anathema and from an abstract collective guilt; it does not relieve us of responsibility. Both individually and collectively we are responsible for expanding our knowledge about the history of a group that lived amongst us for centuries. Weare responsible for taking an interest in Jewish culture and for getting to know a tradition that never really entered the boundaries of Polish culture. Finally, Four Days in Atlantis does not relieve us of the need to remember the murdered people, regardless of whether they were noble when they were alive.

| Translated from Polish by Jolanta Goldstein

~ Qn the Bowdlerization of a Holocaust Testimony: The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodnik

| DAVID ENGEL , bowdlerize v.t. [After Thomas Bomdler, who published an_ expurgated Shakespeare in 1818.] To expurgate, as a book, by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate.

| ON 3 December 1993, 1n a Times Literary Supplement symposium on books that had made the greatest impression during the previous year, Leszek Kolakowski | called attention to the wartime journal of Calek Perechodnik, recently published in Poland under the aegis of the Jewish Historical Institute in the Polish capital. Perechodnik, a Jewish engineer from Otwock, near Warsaw, offered especially striking testimony, Kolakowski observed, ‘in that it was written by a member of a

| particularly despicable class of people: a Jewish policeman in the ghetto’, who, having ‘joined the police . . . to avoid death and to feed his family’, had none the | less been forced in the end to look on helplessly as his wife and 2-year-old daugh-

, ter were marched to the train that would carry them to oblivion. In consequence, he noted, Perechodnik ‘hates everybody: Germans, Poles, Jews and himself’—so

| much so that another commentator expressed astonishment that the journal had | | been published at all, ‘for neither the Poles nor the Jews would dare give voice to memoirs so thoroughly imbued with hatred towards their respective peoples’.? * Calel Perechodnik, Czy ja jestem mordercq?, ed. with notes and afterword by Pawel Szapiro, 1st edn. (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Karta, 1993). The volume appeared as part of a series entitled “Zydzi Polscy: Z Archiwum Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego w Polsce’. Although in this edition the first name of the author was given as ‘Calel’ the rendering ‘Calek’, which the author himself employed in the journal’s first sentence and throughout, will be used here. His true given name was Hebrew— Bezalel (Betsal’el), of which Calek was a Polish diminutive and Calel a corruption. According to his

cousin Nahum Zolotow of Jerusalem, he was generally called Calek. Perechodnik’s work will be termed here a ‘journal’ rather than a diary. Although written during the war, it generally did not record events as they happened (except towards the end) but rather reflected upon them after the fact.

! 2 J. Sariusz-Skapska, in Znak, quoted on the jacket of the journal’s second edition: Calel , Perechodnik, Czy ja jestem mordercg? 2nd edn., corrected and expanded, ed. with notes and afterword by Pawel Szapiro (Warsaw: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, Instytut Naukowo-Badawczy, and Wydawnictwo Karta, 1995).

The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodnik 317 The publication of the volume thus appears to have represented for Kotakowski an act of courage, a blow struck on behalf of memory against those who, in Pierre Vidal-Naquet’s phrase, would see it ‘assassinated’.* Indeed, he wrote, ‘attempts to obliterate historical memory is [szc] the surest way to destroy our civilization’. Kotakowski could not have known at the time, however, that the edition of the

book that had so impressed him had itself taken considerable liberties with its author’s own memory, both through the outright expurgation of fairly extensive passages and the careful doctoring of others, to the point where the published Polish version cannot be taken as an accurate, or even altogether truthful, reflection of Calek Perechodnik’s own thoughts. This bowdlerized version, recently reprinted in a ‘corrected and expanded’ edition in which the most serious textual

| defects of the first edition have for the most part remained without remedy,‘ has already served as the foundation for published translations into French, Italian, and English. Hence it seems essential to record the textual history of Perechodnik’s journal, so that the bit of historical memory that it transmits may not be obliterated by those ostensibly working to preserve it. Perechodnik wrote his manuscript in three quadrille-ruled, bound composition books between 7 May and 19 August 1943. During that time he was living in hiding in a one-room store on Panska Street in Warsaw, together with his mother and two other Jews. On 19 October 1943, sensing, evidently, his own vulnerability in a way he never had before,° he added an epilogue; shortly thereafter he deposited the handwritten volumes with a Polish solicitor from Otwock named Wladyslaw Blazewski, who had assisted him without compensation since the beginning of the German occupation.® His sense of his own imminent demise must have receded at 3 P. Vidal-Naquet, Les Assassins de la mémoire: Un Eichmann de papier et autres essais sur le révisionnisme (Paris, 1987).

* See above, n. 2. The corrections seem to have been made mainly in the accompanying explanatory apparatus, not in the text itself (although a few previously omitted passages have been restored).

> At the beginning of the epilogue (dated 19 Oct., not 9 Oct. as in the two Polish editions) Perechodnik noted that he had ceased writing the previous August because it seemed to him ‘that nothing interesting will happen any more in our lives and that I shall have nothing more to write about’—this, because ‘if we are to believe the voc populo [sic] the war is about to end’, and his situation in hiding seemed secure. In September, however, his father, who, living openly under a false identity on the Aryan side, had supplied his family in hiding with the means of subsistence, had been betrayed, captured, and executed. As a result of this tragic occurrence, he wrote, ‘we have been left with 1,000 zl., with possessions in the custody of [a friend], so that we can’t eat away at them, and with the forecast of [former Polish commander-in-chief] Gen. [Kazimierz] Sosnowski, according to which the war will not end for another year. What a fine outlook, what good prospects we have to remain alive!’ None

of the passages quoted above are to be found in either of the Polish editions, and hence not in the French, Italian, and English editions based upon them. The phrase about the ‘voci populo’ appears to have been distilled into ‘everyone says the war is about to end’; cf. rst edn., p. 211, 2nd edn., p. 256. The other passages have been omitted entirely, with no indication of an ellipsis in either edition. ® In a passage absent from both Polish editions Perechodnik described Blazewski (referred to throughout the journal as Magister) as one who ‘belongs to the type for whom no effort to save friends

is too great .. . , [and] they do not wish even to be suspected of acting out of selfish motives or for material gain’.

318 David Engel | least temporarily, however, for he actually survived until October 1944, when he succumbed to typhus. Shortly before his death he composed a last will and testa-

| ment, which he deposited with a young Polish woman who had formerly been . employed as a servant in his family home. Among other things the will requested | that Blazewski arrange for the publication of the memoirs. Through a series of fortuitous meetings during the latter half of 1946, first the

will and then the three volumes of the journal itself fell into the hands of Perechodnik’s brother Pesach, who had survived the war in the Soviet Union.’ Pesach Perechodnik transcribed the manuscript on a typewriter lacking Polish diacritical signs. He made at least two copies of the transcription, retaining one for

himself and placing a second in the care of the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland (the forerunner of the present Jewish Historical Institute). : This second copy remains on deposit in the Jewish Historical Institute archives to

this day; it has been assigned serial number 55 in the documentary division labelled ‘Pamietniki’? (memoirs). On 29 November 1946 the director and the general secretary of the Historical Commission, Nachman Blumenthal and Jozef Kermisz, acknowledged that Pesach Perechodnik had ‘placed the memoirs of his late brother Calel Perechodnik at the disposal of the Central Jewish Historical Commission with the right to publish them in the Polish language in an edition of 5,000 copies, following the necessary corrections by the editorial board’.? Shortly

: thereafter Pesach Perechodnik departed for Palestine, taking the three manuscript notebooks and a copy of his transcription with him. In 1983 the original notebooks were presented to the archive of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, though it appears that

| earlier a copy of at least some parts of the transcription had been deposited at the Moreshet Archive at kibbutz Givat Havivah, an Israeli Holocaust research and documentation institute affiliated with the Kibbutz Artzi (Hashomer Hatsa’ir)

, movement.!°

Curiously, however, the archive had already received what it evidently believed to be a transcription of Perechodnik’s journal from two other sources. A typescript of the entire work, made on a typewriter mith Polish diacritical marks and bearing 7 The details are described in a statement by Pesach Perechodnik, quoted in the introduction to the Hebrew edition of the journal (on which see below). Pesach Perechodnik also reported learning from the woman to whom his brother had entrusted his will that his brother had kept a second diary throughout the final year of his life and had buried it in the basement of his hiding-place. This second diary was never found.

, 8 For a description of the holding at the Jewish Historical Institute, see Michal Grynberg (ed.), Pamietniki z getta warszawskiego: Fragmenty 1 regesty, 2nd edn., corrected and expanded (Warsaw, 1993), 353-5. It is stated there that ‘information is lacking as to who gave the typescript to the Jewish Historical Institute after the war’. 9 ‘Opmakh tzvishn Pesach Perechodnik mit di ekzekutiv mitglider fun der CZKH N. Blumenthal

fun] J. Kermisz . . . ’ (29 Nov. 1946). Copy in the author’s possession, through the generosity of Nachum Zolotow.

10 Esther Aranne, Yad Vashem archives, to Pesach Perechodnik, 24 Nov. 1983. Copy in the author’s possession, through the generosity of Nachum Zolotow.

The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodntk 319 the stamp of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw had previously been processed, as collection O16/P55, and the archive had likewise placed a photosta-

tic copy of the first part of this typescript, bearing the stamp of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris, in a file numbered 033/426. The archivists at Yad Vashem simply added the manuscript notebooks, together with parts of the transcription received subsequently from the Moreshet Archive, to this latter file.11 There are, in other words, at least three texts of the Perechodnik journal: Calek Perechodnik’s own handwritten original; Pesach Perechodnik’s transcription of the manuscript, made in 1946 on a non-Polish typewriter (copies of which are located at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, at Yad Vashem, and with Pesach Perechodnik’s heirs); and a second transcription of unknown ori-

gin, made on a Polish typewriter and bearing some connection to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, with copies at Yad Vashem.

A comparison of the three texts shows that Pesach Perechodnik’s own transcription (made on the non-Polish typewriter) is for the most part a full and accurate rendering of the original manuscript./* The transcriber even took pains at the outset to underscore the same words and phrases that the author had emphasized in red pencil, although he discontinued this practice after a few pages. The only significant feature of the manuscript missing from this transcription appears to be a floor plan of the room on Panska Street in which Calek Perechodnik went into hiding on 6 December 1942. The second transcription too (made on the Polish typewriter) 1s generally accurate, although some words and phrases appear to have been carelessly omitted. If this text, as might be surmised, represents the version that the Central Jewish Historical Commission planned to publish following ‘the necessary corrections by the editorial board’, then it appears that editorial intervention at that point was minimal. It appears unlikely, however, that the same can be said of the work of the editor of the two published Polish versions, Pawel Szapiro. To be sure, in the afterword to both editions Szapiro acknowledged that he made some adjustments to the text, but he insisted that they were minimal and did nothing to change the author’s meaning. ‘Editorial interference in the original text as written’, he claimed, ‘lay in making insignificant abridgements, eliminating repetitions, and correcting spelling so as to accord with contemporary usage.’ He further maintained that 1! See above, n. g. The file also contains two typewritten carbon copies of the material contained in

the Centre de Documentation photostat; these copies bear the typewritten heading ‘Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine’ and the typewritten signature CCV-10. ‘2 Here and there a few words appear to have been carelessly omitted, but the omissions do not seem significant. For example, referring to the atmosphere at the University of Toulouse, where he studied during the mid-1930s, Perechodnik wrote: [“The freedom, the respect for the other person,

the freedom to express one’s convictions—this could probably not have been found to the same degree in any other country’ (“Tej wolnosci, tego poszanowania drugiego czlowieka, tej swobody wyrazania swoich przekonan chyba w zadnym kraju tego w rownym stopniu nie mozna bylo znalez¢c’).

In the transcription the words ‘tego w rownym stopniu’ (‘to the same degree’) are missing. Cf. 1st edn., p. 7; 2nd edn., p. 14. There are also some inaccurate renderings of proper names.

320 David Engel ) ‘fragments in which a conscious intent of artistic expression was obvious have | been treated with the greatest solicitude possible and with the greatest scrupulousness in those parts that can help to interpret the author’s world-view’. He also avowed having altered the internal division of the text and having invented the title ‘Czy ja jestem morderca’? (“Am I a Murderer?’), (although he stipulated that ‘in a certain sense, as a citation from Perechodnik’s text, it has an authentic character’.)'? In the event, though Szapiro’s intervention appears significantly greater than he has suggested, and it has resulted in certain substantial alterations to the author’s clear intent.

, First, a substantial portion of the original text has been omitted altogether. The first twenty-seven pages of Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript alone contain 158 lines (almost 20 per cent of the total) that were not included in Szapiro’s first edition (to the middle of page 18). Only twenty-nine of these lines have been reinstated in the second ‘corrected and expanded’ edition. The remainder of the text has a somewhat

smaller but still substantial percentage of excisions. In neither of the published Polish editions are any of these omissions marked with dots indicating an ellipsis.

| Moreover, most of these omissions hardly qualify as ‘insignificant abridge| ments’ made in order to ‘eliminate repetitions’. Many are anecdotes and observations that serve to offset the generalizations and stereotypes that were common currency during the years the diarist described. Consider, for example, this passage, which ought to have been presented on page to of the first edition (following note 14) and on page 18 of the second edition (following note 21): I remember that we thought that England ought to declare war upon Russia as well [as upon Germany], because she was the guarantor of the inviolability of Poland’s borders. When this did not happen, people came to the conclusion that the Bolsheviks would be staying here for ever. My aunt spoke to me as follows: ‘How fortunate you are’ (by ‘you’ she meant the Jews living under German occupation). “The Germans will leave, and you will have Poland once again, while we shall have to remain under Bolshevik rule all our lives.’ I should point out that my aunt did quite well under the Bolsheviks, but still I heard the same opinion from most of the Jews there. The best proof of this is the number of Jews who did not wish to accept Russian citizenship, who registered for return to the General government and were exiled to Arkhangelsk as a result. How many Jews ran away from the Bolsheviks to Vilna? And, on the other hand, how many Jews left their homes to the ravages of fate and ran away to the Bolsheviks? One thing I know, it is absolute nonsense to claim that all Jews declared themselves in favour of communism. A large number sought to go back to the former Poland; they pre-

ferred to spend a certain amount of time in anguish under the Germans, awaiting the return of former times, rather than to remain in Russia for ever.'4 13 Ist edn., p. 247; 2nd edn., p. 294. The first edition contains an additional sentence that does not appear in the second: ‘We raise the question in the title consciously: had Perechodnik not done so himself, he most likely would not have taken pen in hand.’ 14 The passage is found on pages 10-11 of Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript.

The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodnik 321 These paragraphs comprise the major part (twenty-four out of forty-three lines in Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript) of Calek Perechodnik’s answer to his own question ‘What were the feelings of the Jews at the moment of the Bolshevik incursion onto Polish territory?’ Compare it with the fragment of Perechodnik’s answer that Szapiro published: This is a very ticklish question, but I shall try to be completely straightforward and objective, writing the truth and the truth alone. The initial feeling was immeasurable joy, although one should not be surprised at this. On one side Germany was invading, proclaiming slogans of merciless annihilation and murder of all Jews. On the other side the Bolshevik was invading,’ with the slogan that for him all people were equal before the law. There was nothing to compare here. The Jews were happy, and I among them. Even though throughout my entire life I have been an opponent of the communists, I prayed to God that the Bolsheviks would occupy the area up to the Vistula. I was ready to lose the cinema,!® my stake in the business, my father’s villa, if only I could live as a free man, without racial restrictions. But still I did not jump for joy at the sight of the Soviet tanks. I shall not deny that there were Jews—long-standing communists—who disarmed Polish units, but can one blame all Jews for this? I believe that the number of Jews who died defending Poland with arms in their hands was greater than the number of Jews disarming Polish units.

Surely the eliminated passage does not represent a ‘repetition’, and its elimination

constitutes far more than an ‘insignificant abridgement’. The passage actually serves to reverse the impression created by the incorporated paragraphs that preceded them: instead of concluding, as a reader of the published version must, that Perechodnik regarded most Jews as supportive, albeit only passively and reluctantly, of the Bolshevik invasion, a reader of the complete text acquires the sense that, to Perechodnik’s mind, the initial sense of relief that the Bolsheviks had prevented the Germans from spreading their racial regime over the whole of Polish territory gave way to strong anti-Bolshevik sentiments once Jews understood that the Bolshevik regime, unlike the German, was liable to be permanent. In other words, according to Perechodnik, given a choice between a temporary German

occupation and a temporary Bolshevik occupation, both to be followed by a restoration of Polish independence, most Jews preferred the latter; but given a choice between a temporary German occupation to be followed by a restoration of

Polish independence, on the one hand, and permanent Bolshevik rule on the other, most Jews preferred the former. Perechodnik clearly saw the two parts of 15 The original text reads: ‘Z drugiej za$ strony wkraczat Bolszewik . . .’ (‘On the other side the Bolshevik was invading’). This construction parallels the earlier phrase, ‘Z jednej strony wkraczal Niemiec’ (‘on one side the German was invading’) and places the author’s attitude towards both sides on an equal footing. Szapiro’s rendition, on the other hand, eliminates the verb mkraczaf (‘was invad-

ing’) with regard to the Bolsheviks; it represents Perechodnik as writing ‘z drugiej zas strony bolszewik. ..’. This subtle change suggests (falsely) that Perechodnik regarded only the Germans, not

the Bolsheviks, as invaders. |

*® Perechodnik’s wife and siblings owned a local cinema in Otwock.

322 David Engel his discussion as offsetting one another: he even introduced the second (excised) part with the phrase ‘But what was the position of the [Jews as a] whole?’ (‘Jakie za§ bylo stanowisko ogotur’), specifically employing the conjunction zas (‘on

the other hand’) to indicate contrast. Szapiro’s edition, however, withheld Perechodnik’s full impression from the reader, leaving him with only that part of the author’s remarks that confirm not only what was the conventional wisdom at that time but what has largely remained so even today. Whether Perechodnik’s full impression accurately reflects the situation as it actually was is another question altogether, upon which Szapiro might have commented in an annotation;!" but to censor it—which is, in the final analysis, what the Polish edition has done—is to falsify the diarist’s own historical memory. The above is not the only expurgated passage in which Perechodnik challenged conventional wisdom about Jewish attitudes towards Poland. Here is another, omitted from page 14 1n the first edition and from page 25 in the second edition: The attitudes of Jews and Poles to the German occupation differed in characteristic fashion. I can say without hesitation that 60 per cent of the Jews hid Polish 500-zl. banknotes, firmly believing that they would yet be restored to their full value. On the other hand, I don’t know, but I doubt that even 10 per cent of the Poles did so. The irony of fate! The Jews had more faith in Poland, in Sikorski,!® than did the indigenous Poles (od rodowitych Polakéw).” 17 Tn his first edition (p. 249) Szapiro offered the following annotation to the incorporated passage:

‘Information about the behaviour of the Jewish population in the areas of Soviet occupation was known to the Polish community thanks to the underground press, among others. A version of these events—with which Perechodnik most clearly takes issue at this point—became one of the cardinal elements of antisemitic propaganda. One can surmise that it exerted a certain influence upon the character of the reciprocal relations [between Poles and Jews] during the war.’ In his second edition (p. 297) he prefaced this comment with the following: ‘In actual fact the attitudes of the Polish and Jewish

populations to the fact of the Red Army’s invasions of the eastern territories of the Polish Republic were diametrically opposed. For the Poles a tragedy had occurred. At first the Jews saw things differently. To be sure, they could not anticipate the Holocaust, but knowledge of the anti-Jewish policy of

the Third Reich caused the majority of the Jews to greet with gladness the prospect of avoiding German occupation. Not insignificant in this regard were the anti-Polish attitudes aroused by the unfriendly policy of the Polish state towards the Jews, the antisemitic elements in the programmes of many [Polish] political parties, and the excesses of bands of nationalistic toughs. On the other hand the Soviet system, with its declarations of equality and free access to schools, even to the highest ranks of the state administration, was appealing. Ideological motives also exerted a certain influence on the attitude of Jewish communists, the communist-inclined youth, and even left-wing Zionists. Not all Jews, however, passed over the fall of Poland in silence. In its propaganda the Bund emphasized that Poland remained the fatherland of the Polish Jews. Religious circles, who constituted the majority, feared [the Soviet regime’s] official atheism; the bourgeoisie feared its economic policy. These fears would soon be realized, as Poles and Jews both fell victim equally to persecution. This brought about an evolution in the attitudes of the latter. Consequently, it took time for the Jews to understand that everyone had ceased to be a citizen altogether, that in the eyes of the Soviet regime no one had any rights at all.” Readers may determine for themselves whether this annotation compensates fairly or properly for the expurgation of Perechodnik’s own appraisal of the situation. 18 General Wladyslaw Sikorski, prime minister in the Polish government-in-exile. 19 Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript, p. 19.

The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodnik 323 Or consider the following, omitted from page 17 in the first edition and from page 28 in the second edition: I don’t know what sort of atrocities the Russians perpetrated against the Poles as they were withdrawing from the occupied territories. | don’t know if the NK VD carried them out

under the direction of Jews, as reported in Nowy Kurier Warszawski.2° One thing I do know, however: this happened in wartime, when everything around was burning and

peoples.?!

people were too hot in the head to think. Besides, what could a communist of Jewish origin, educated under the Soviet regime, have in common with us Jews who were citizens of the Polish state? Probably nothing at all. He hates the Jewish bourgeoisie just as much as he hates the bourgeoisie of all other

Such passages can be considered ‘repetitious’ only in so far as they repeatedly confirm Perechodnik’s sense that the majority of Polish Jews regarded themselves as loyal Polish citizens and longed for the restoration of Polish sovereignty over al/

occupied Polish territories, whether German- or Soviet-controlled. The regular excision of such passages in the Polish editions suggests that for some reason they make the editor uncomfortable. Perhaps Shapiro regards Perechodnik’s sense as mistaken. In this, to be sure, he may in publishing a work in the name of Calek

Perechodnik be correct. Nevertheless the first task of an editor is to present Perechodnik’s views on his subject in the fullest and clearest fashion possible. Evidently, though, in preparing the current Polish editions, some parts of the diary have been found so distasteful as to cause this fundamental obligation to be disregarded. The matter of Jewish attitudes towards Polish independence is not the only theme on which Perechodnik has been routinely censored. Others involve the -diarist’s assessment of moral responsibility for the horrors that befell him, his family, and even his country. A large measure of that responsibility he assigned to certain segments of Polish society—not to Polish society as a whole, but to specific individuals and groups that engaged in actions detailed in the diary.?* To be sure, the bulk of Perechodnik’s negative evaluation of the behaviour of these segments in the face of the Nazi murder campaign has been presented—albeit with more 20 The principal Nazi-sponsored Polish-language publication in German-occupied Poland. 21 Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript, pp. 24-5.

2 Indeed, in an excised passage (ibid., p. 74; cf. rst edn., p. 110, 2nd edn., p. 154, following the first sentence of the final paragraph), he stated explicitly: ‘I do not wish to appear ungrateful towards [the Poles who helped me and my family and thousands of other Jews who remain alive]. For this reason I am changing my position: no more shall I speak about the Poles and their attitude towards the Jews; rather I shall write about Mr X, Mr Y, Mr Z, etc. To every good act I shall add the name of the person [who performed it] and when telling about each act of baseness I shall likewise mention the name.’ The sentence following this passage has been altered in both printed Polish editions. Whereas Perechodnik wrote, ‘Should we draw a general conclusion from this?’ (‘Czy nalezy stad wyciagna¢ wniosek co do ogolu?’), the published editions have rendered this sentence as ‘One should not, when

considering the base ones, draw conclusions about the whole’ (‘Mystac o podlych, nie nalezy wyciagnac wnioskow dotyczacych ogolu’). The significance of the change need not be belaboured.

324 David Engel than a bit of editorial licence. But certain telling passages that expand the scope of Perechodnik’s indictment have been suppressed none the less. For example, in describing the Aktion in Otwock of 19 August 1942, in which his wife and daughter were deported to Treblinka while he, a ghetto policeman, stood helplessly by, Perechodnik wrote of Poles ‘riding the crowded trams, gazing upon the Jews of Otwock for the last time’. Some, he noted, were undoubtedly pleased with what they saw; others, in contrast, ‘bow their heads silently or make the sign of the holy cross, whispering requiescant in pace’. Then, turning in his imagination to his wife as she waited to be loaded onto the train to the death camp, he wondered, ‘Perhaps you are asking yourself who lost Poland, independent Poland—you or they?’ This | final comment does not appear in either published Polish edition.”* Szapiro apparently judged Perechodnik’s association, to borrow a phrase from another context, of the poor Christians who looked at the ghetto with the loss of Polish independence, and his suggestion, however oblique, that the same mentality that inspired the former might have contributed materially to the latter were apparently judged too indelicate to be placed before a contemporary Polish audience. Similarly, in his summary of Polish attitudes towards the deportation of Jews Perechodnik noted that ‘the Jews perished first of all because they did not apprehend how far German

cruelty and vandalism could go, but also, and to the same extent, because they were aware quite clearly of the vileness of some of the Poles, which resulted in the

| closing of the gates of the Polish neighbourhood and forced them to wait in the | ghetto for the forthcoming unavoidable sentence of death’. He then added, in a sentence expurgated from both Polish editions, “The responsibility for the death of the Jews falls in equal measure upon both.””4 23 The excised passage is in Pesach Perechodnik’s transcription, p. 68. Cf. 1st edn., p. 49, 2nd edn., p. 84.

, 24 Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript, p. 73. Cf. rst edn., p. 110, 2nd edn., p. 153. The theme of Polish co-responsibility for the Holocaust because of the actions of some Poles is sounded consistently

over the length of the journal. The title-page of the manuscript (not reproduced in either Polish edi-

tion) carries the inscription ‘To S.N., P.P., T.Z., I dedicate my memoirs’ (‘S.N., P.P., T.Z., Pamietniki me po$ wiecam’). Pesach Perechodnik provided a gloss to the initials, interpreting them as , standing for ‘German sadism’ (‘sadyzmowi niemieckiemw’), ‘Polish vileness’ (‘podlosci polskiej’), and ‘the Jewish tragedy’ (‘tragedii zydowskiej’). The first two readings are undoubtedly correct: through-

, out the diary sadyzm is the attribute most frequently assigned to Germans and podlosé¢ to Poles. The

final set of intials should, however, undoubtedly be read ‘Jewish cowardice’ (‘tchérzostwu zydowskiemu’) rather than ‘the Jewish tragedy’. This reading is made clear in the journal’s final paragraph, where the author wrote, ‘. . . I ask only one thing: people, carry out my testament of revenge and remember, even if only from time to time, the splendid figure of my wife, Anka, and the angelic countenance of my little daughter, Athalie. What sin did they commit that they should have fallen victim to German sadism, what sin did they commit that they should have fallen victim to Polish vileness, what sin did they commit that they should have fallen victim to Jewish cowardice? (‘céz one zawinily, ze padly, ofiara sadyzmu niemieckiego, c6z one zawinily, ze padly ofiara p[olskiego] plodlosci], coz one zawinily, ze padly ofiara tchorzostwa [sic] zydowskiego?’) Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript, pp. 119-20. The reference to Polish vileness has been omitted in both published editions (cf. 1st edn., p. 219, 2nd edn., p. 264). To be sure, the reference to Polish vileness appeared only in abbreviated form (P.P.), but even if the editor did not understand it, he was obligated to print it as

The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodnik 325 Actually, in the passage just quoted editorial intervention consisted not only in _ excising the final sentence but in altering the wording of the text that came just before it. The published editions have rendered the text as follows: “The Jews perished first of all because they did not realize in time how far German cruelty and vandalism could go. Nevertheless, they were quite clearly aware of the vileness of some of the Poles; they knew what it was that closed the gates of the Polish neighbourhood before them, forcing them to wait in the ghetto for the forth- coming unavoidable death.’ The change is subtle, but its result is fundamentally to transform the described relation between German and Polish behaviour from a parallel one to one of contrast. Perechodnik’s text emphasized the joint and equal responsibility of German and Polish behaviour for the Jewish fate, whereas the published editions have transferred its focus to the Jews’ differing awareness of German and Polish actions. This effect has been accomplished not only by eliminating Perechodnik’s final sentence, in which he made his point explicit, but by substituting the conjunction jednak (‘nevertheless’) for Perechodnik’s original ale z w rowne mierze (‘but also, and to the same extent’). These changes far exceed the ‘correction of spelling so as to accord with contemporary Polish usage’ to which Szapiro claimed to have limited himself in altering the text.

In fact, such slight but none the less meaningful textual alterations pervade both Polish editions, most of them with the effect of softening the negative valence of Perechodnik’s statements about Poles. A mild example occurs on page 13 of the

first edition and page 24 of the second edition. Speaking about the relations written, or at least to indicate in a footnote that the text contained an additional statement that could not be deciphered. One might suspect, however, that the reference was understood by the editor, because he excised other passages mentioning the characteristic of ‘vileness’ as it manifested itself in the behaviour of part of the Polish population. Notice, for example, the surgery performed on page 109 of Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript (the square-bracketed words and phrases have been eliminated from Szapiro’s text; 1st edn., p. 215, 2nd edn., p. 260): ‘Was my father really responsible for his own death? [I have the impression that it was not his fault. Until now we believed that the most ideal situation for a Jew was to possess a proper Aryan appearance, legal Polish papers, and to live openly, in possession even of food ration cards. Yet another illusion that has fallen by the wayside.] There is no salvation for even a single Jew, for we are surrounded by [unknown] enemies, each of whom is lying in wait, [each of whom has designs] upon our life. [It is worthless that a Jew can fool a gendarme with his appearance and papers, when in spite of this] he cannot be on guard in the face of [the million eyes of

his fellow citizens, the majority of whom are waiting for him in order to turn him over to German hands. The Germans are right not to seal off houses in order to eradicate the remaining Jews.] Human vileness [and time] are their best allies in the struggle with the Jews; without the slightest effort [on their part] the Jews fall into their hands. To some this happens [directly] as a result of denunciation, to others [indirectly], as a result of robbery or being followed or even by action of their own friends, [who

jumped at the temptation of the Jewish property that had been entrusted to their honour and rectitude.]’ An extended passage follows in the typescript discussing the question of the moral responsibility of Poles who refused to provide money, shelter, or other assistance to Jews in hiding. Perechodnik expressed the belief that, had certain specific people who were approached for help done what was asked of them, his father would have remained alive. ‘But’, he wrote, ‘we had not counted on human vileness.’ Clearly the vileness to which he was referring was the behaviour of certain Poles. The entire passage, extending over several pages, has been expurgated from the two published Polish versions.

326 David Engel between Poles and Jews at the beginning of 1940, Perechodnik observed that ‘the period of brotherhood of the [immediate] pre-war days and the beginning of the war vanished altogether’ ‘okres braterstwa przedwojennego i poczatku wojny zginat zupelnie’. ‘Still,’ he added ‘I cannot say that [the Polish attitude towards the Jews] became hostile.’”° In the two published editions, however, the words

‘vanished altogether’ have been changed to the much blander verb ‘passed’ (przeminela).2° A few pages later (page 18 in the first edition, page so in the second) we find Perechodnik’s response to the question ‘What was the attitude of the Poles towards the Jews in 1941? (‘Jaki by! stosunek Polakow do Zydow w roku 1941[?]’), altered in similar subtle fashion. Where Perechodnik wrote, ‘In general those attitudes became much worse (Stosunki te naogo6! bardzo sie pogorszyly)’,?"

The published editions have prefaced the response with the word mzajemne (‘mutual’), thereby forcing the sentence to read, ‘In general mutual relations became much worse.’ As Perechodnik’s subsequent examples of this worsening make clear, however, his intention was not to talk about the reciprocal behaviour of Poles and Jews towards one another but about what Poles thought about Jews and their situation. To be sure, the Polish word stosunki, when used in the plural, usually does convey the sense of ‘relations’, but it is not at all clear that it does so in the case at hand or that those relations cannot be one-sided. Adding the word wzajemne thus represents an interpretation, not merely an insignificant linguistic

correction. , |

These two cases may perhaps leave room to argue that the changes represent mere editorial attempts to clean up a linguistically unpolished text (although this practice, which extends well beyond correction of spelling, ought to have been noted). In other instances, however, there is undoubtedly an intention to alter the text’s meaning. Perhaps most serious is the example found but a few lines after the emendation of the word stosunkz. Still discussing Polish attitudes towards Jews in 1941, Perechodnik wrote, ‘One thing is certain: the Germans had an excellent sense that the Poles were not opposed to the extirpation of the Jews; quite the contrary, they would even help them for the price of inheriting what remained of Jewish possessions’ (‘Jedno jest pewne, ze Niemcy doskonale wyczuli, ze Polacy nie sa przeciwni wytepieniu Zydow, wprost przeciwnie jeszcze im dopomoga za cene odziedziczenia pozostalosci mienia zydowskiego’).22 Such harsh words were evidently deemed too much for a Polish audience, even though they characterize German perceptions of Polish attitudes and not necessarily the author’s own. Both published editions render the passage thus: ‘One thing is certain: the Germans had an excellent sense that among the Poles not all were opposed to the extirpation of the Jews, and even more, that among them there were even those who would help

them in this for the price of inheriting what remained of Jewish possessions’ 25 Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript, p. 17. 26 The verb is in the feminine declension because the masculine subject ofres (‘period’) has also

been changed to the feminine word faza (‘phase’). 27 Tbid., p. 27. 28 Ibid., p. 28.

The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodntk 327 (‘Jedno jest pewne, Niemcy doskonale wyczuli, ze wsrod Polakow nie wszyscy sa przeciwni wytepieniu Zydow, a wiecej nawet, ze sa wsréd nich i tacy, ktorzy w tym

dopomoga za cene odziedziczenia pozostalosci mienia zydowskiego’).2? The

difference between the two versions 1s patent. ,

So, too, is the reason for such interventions. What Perechodnik had to say about wartime Polish—Jewish relations clearly troubled Szapiro; in his afterword

Szapiro even took Perechodnik to task for presenting an overdrawn portrait of Polish hostility towards Jews and presented several selections from the Polish underground press to balance the moral ledger, as it were.2°? He claimed that Perechodnik could not have known ‘the complete, complicated, multidimensional truth’, that he allowed personal ‘feelings of having been wronged to distort his view’, that he ‘built a picture of the whole only from those isolated incidents that were known and of interest to [him]. Although it may be said, he acknowledged,

that ‘when history put them to a satanic test, the Poles of that time did not necessarily emerge with clean hands’, the Polish community and underground authorities were unable, ‘although they tried’, to shield the Jews ‘against those citizens who acted together with the German executioners’. Ironically, though, many of the original passages that might have served to produce the more nuanced view whose lack he then decried (including the one in which Perechodnik stated explicitly that he intended to write only about individual acts by individual Poles rather than about Poles in general) were expurgated from the published editions,

leaving only the more global statements that could be most easily discredited. Ironically, too, Perechodnik’s appendix to his diary, in which he quoted the text of

an article published on 16 September 1943 in the principal publication of the underground Polish Home Army, Biuletyn Informacyjny, announcing the execution three weeks earlier of one Bogustaw Jan Pilnik for blackmailing Jews and handing them over to the German authorities, was also excised. Perechodnik commented on this article that, because Pilnik’s crimes must have been committed

before the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto the previous spring, ‘the special tribunal did not make haste to deliver its sentence, and though the fact that it was published only on 16 September 1943 may serve in the future to rehabilitate the attitude of the Polish Armed Forces in the eyes of the fighting democracies, it did no good for the Jews as a whole’.*! One can only wonder what Perechodnik might

have had to say about the selections from the underground press with which Szapiro attempted to offset his view of the situation. Perechodnik can no longer add to the ongoing discussion of Polish—Jewish relations during the Second World War. But precisely because he cannot respond to those who find fault with his portrayal today, he is entitled to have his one and only entry in the discussion heard in its entirety, exactly as he wrote it, without even the most minor alterations, let alone the highly obtrusive ones forced on his journal in 29 rst edn., p. 19, 2nd edn., p. 50. 30 ist. edn., pp. 245—7, 2nd edn., pp. 291-4 31 Pesach Perechodnik’s typescript, pp. 120-1.

328 David Engel the published Polish editions. This must be so even if in the end it can be shown beyond the slightest doubt that his portrait was overdrawn, unfair, or even downright malicious. To do otherwise—to concoct the bowdlerized version that the published Polish editions put forth—1is to perpetrate a travesty upon memory and | to vitiate whatever value the testimony of Holocaust diarists and memoirists may have for understanding this most painful, soul-wrenching, and divisive period of | the recent past. It is to say that our perception of the past need not be constrained by the tangible residues of past thoughts, feelings, or actions, and to claim instead that ultimately one may make of the past whatever one wishes, in accordance with present sensitivities, preyudices, and psychological demands.

Fortunately, Perechodnik’s memory has not been vandalized everywhere. Although Szapiro and his publishers apparently did not know it, a Hebrew translation of Perechodnik’s journal was published in Israel shortly before the appearance of the first Polish editions.?? Pesach Perechodnik initiated the project, and the translators worked from the original typescript that he had retained for himself

| in 1946.°° Although careful scrutiny reveals a number of errors, this translation represents Calek Perechodnik’s full, unexpurgated text. Because it is the only translation to date not to depend upon the published Polish editions,** it is the only reliable published version of the journal and the only one that scholars and researchers can use with any reasonable degree of confidence. And it will probably remain so until authoritative editions—first in Polish, then in other languages— are prepared from the original manuscript in the archives of Yad Vashem.*° 32 Calek Perechodnik, Hatafkid he’atsuv shel hatiyud: Yoman mahbo (‘The Sad Task of Documentation: A Diary in Hiding’), trans. U. Orlev and T. Schieber-Profesorski (Tel Aviv, 1993). 33 Information obtained from Nahum Zolotov and Tsofiya Schieber-Profesorski. 34 A recent German translation (Calel Perechodnik, Bin ich ein Mérder? Das Testament eines juidischen Ghetto-Polizisten (Liineberg, 1997) ) has restored most (but not all) of the existing passages, but it retains the alterations to the text made in the published Polish editions. The translator has claimed that her edition is based upon copies of the original manuscript and typescript (p. 313). However, the failure to correct the alterations in the published Polish editions suggests that those editions played some role in the preparation of the German version. 8° Szapiro not only did not consult the manuscript—he was not certain of its location. See 1st edn., p. 234, 2nd edn., p. 274. For this reason it is possible that his edition was based upon a transcription that had already been corrupted and that does not correspond to the typescript on deposit today at the Jewish Historical Institute. Perhaps the Jewish Historical Commission prepared an altered typescript

incorporating ‘the necessary editorial changes’ shortly after receiving the journal from Pesach Perechodnik, and it was this typescript that served as the basis for Szapiro’s edition. In order to clarify this matter, I asked Szapiro in August 1995 to provide me with the text from which he worked. In a letter dated 6 October 1995 Szapiro replied: ‘The version published in Poland was made on the basis of the typescript transmitted to the archive of the Jewish Historical Institute by the author’s brother Pesach Perechodnik. My intervention in the text consisted of introducing the new title, introducing a new division of chapters, and eliminating repetitions. Unfortunately, because I did not look over the proofs, the places from which text has been eliminated were not indicated in square brackets, as 1s commonly done. . . . An analysis of the contents of Perechodnik’s memoirs indicates unambiguously that the author himself made a number of corrections to the original text (he changed the order of the

The Wartime Journal of Calek Perechodntk 329 pages, added entire fragments, etc.). It may be—although this is merely my assumption—(that] certain parts of the text may have had two versions.’ The possibility raised by Szapiro of the existence of two versions could be evaluated definitively if he would produce the text from which he worked as

requested; thus far, however, he has not done so. Moreover, there is no evidence in the Pesach Perechodnik typescript that the order of pages was changed or fragments added. Indeed, it would have been impossible for Calek Perechodnik to have done this in the original manuscript, because the manuscript was set down in bound volumes, not on loose pages; and the Pesach Perechodnik type-

script follows the original manuscript seriatim. ,

Judaica in Slovakia ADAM BARTOSZ IN Czechoslovakia the awakening of interest in Jewish subjects began almost a decade later than in Poland. Whereas in Poland from the beginning of 1980s more

and more Jewish-related books and exhibitions and events appeared, in Czechoslovakia the first books on Jewish matters emerged only at the end of the 1980s. In 1991 a valuable book appeared in Slovak bookstores: Zidovské ndbozenské

obce na Slovensku (‘A Guide to Jewish Monuments in Slovakia’).! As the title implies, it was intended to list all the Jewish communities that had existed in Slovak lands, with a brief account of their history and a description of the monuments that survived the Holocaust. Eugen Barkany, an architect born in 1885 in Presov, collected the material presented in the guide. Barkany frequently travelled through Slovakia, gathering all kinds of Jewish artefacts, and also documentation of existing monuments, especially synagogues. In 1928 he established a Jewish museum in PreSov, in the synagogue building that still stands today as a warehouse for the Presov ethnographic museum. After the signing of the Munich agreement the Barkany collection moved to Prague, where it survived the war. Meanwhile, Barkany and his wife lived through the Holocaust in hiding in Budapest, and after the war he continued to pursue his historical passion. In retirement he continued to work at the Slovak Academy on the Judaica collection and the history of Jewish communities. He died in 1967. The guide presents a substantial range of his collection. From the twelfth century until the end of the First World War the territory of today’s Slovakia was a Hungarian province and the history of the Jews in the Hungarian state resembled that of Jews in neighbouring lands until shortly before the battle of Mohacs in 1526. After that, relentless persecution of the Jews began. In 1521 Mary, daughter of Philip I of Spain, took the throne of Hungary as Louis II’s wife and brought with her antisemitism and the methods of the Inquisition in dealing with people of different faiths. She launched a campaign against the Jews, her task growing easier when Hungary and Bohemia fell into the hands of the

: Habsburgs at the battle of Mohacs after the death of Louis II. The Habsburgs showed a general aversion to the Jews and complied with the Inquisition. Only at the end of the eighteenth century did conditions become more bearable for Jews, 1 Eugen Barkany and Lidovit Dojc, Zidovské naboxenské obce na Slovensku (Bratislava: Ed. Vesna, 1991).

Judaica in Slovakia 331 although under old laws, until the second half of the nineteenth century they were

still forbidden to live within a seven-mile radius of such former royal mining towns as Banska Bystrica and Banska Stiavnica. The year 1868 was one of turmoil for Hungarian Jewry: a year after the emperor Franz Joseph had granted Hungary autonomy, a congress of Jews from all over the country convened in Budapest with the goal of bringing order to educational and

religious matters and to the structure of congregations. Currents of Enlightenment emanating from Jewish circles in Germany guided the organizers of the congress, and reformers among the Hungarian delegates proposed incorporating the local rabbinic seminaries into the same structure as the state universities; their

graduates, with doctorates in theology, would become rabbis of congregations organized along modern lines. But a proportion of the Orthodox present were against this proposal and maintained that the traditional yeshiva should remain the only form of rabbinic training. As a result of the confrontation, Hungarian Jewry split into two separate religious strands, which were legally recognized in 1872. The newer strand, called Reform, or Neolog, grew strong principally in Budapest and other large urban centres. Most of eastern Slovakia, transcarpathian Ruthenia, and ‘Transylvania remained Orthodox. The two trends coexisted in bigger towns, with separate synagogues and cemeteries. After the First World War Slovakia became a part of the new Czechoslovak state. The first Nazi persecutions befell Slovak Jews in 1938, when as a result of the Munich agreement Hungary captured the southern part of Slovakia. The Jews there at once became subject to persecution. In March 1939 a nominally independent Slovak state dependent on Germany was established. In March 1942 the Slovak government, following German orders and with President Tito’s consent, launched the systematic deportation of Jews to the extermination camps, primarily to Auschwitz. Out of 138,000 Jews living in Slovakia in 1930, some 108,000 were murdered during the war, 40,000 of them being sent to their deaths because they lived in the area that had been taken over by Hungary. Before the war, Jews lived in 2,262 out of the 3,589 localities within the borders of Slovakia. Almost 200 localities had separate Jewish communities—as can be inferred from Barkany’s

guide.

In 1993 I travelled through Slovakia with Barkany’s guide in hand, visiting more than thirty of the places it lists. These thirty represent about one-sixth of the 182 towns and villages whose monuments the guide describes. On the basis of that modest sample, which I take to be representative, I will attempt here to characterize the Jewish monuments of Slovakia and the state of their preservation, as well as the usefulness and quality of the guide itself. Let me turn now to some general observations about Slovakia’s Jewish cemeteries. The closer to the Hungarian border, the better preserved they are. Those near the border appear almost or completely intact. People have clearly taken care

of them, and in some of these cemeteries (as in Nitra, Levice, Luéenec, and

332 | Adam Bartosz Rimavska Sobota) new graves testify to the existence of local Jewish communities.

: Granite pyramidal tombstones predominate, some graves boasting large monuments of black granite with brass lettering. These stones seem to indicate a degree of material wealth belonging to those buried there. Except for their inscriptions, they do not differ from the tombstones in the nearby Calvinist graveyards. The great majority of the tombstones provide a Hungarian translation of the Hebrew inscription. German inscriptions appear far less commonly (Orava offers a notable

exception). Most tombstones bear no symbols, but occasionally as on the Protestant ones, the motif of a weeping willow appears.

It is noteworthy that Jewish cemeteries in the southern part of Slovakia are often located in the immediate vicinity of Christian ones, separated by only a fence or a wall. This practice probably reflected the Hungarian Protestant population’s tolerance towards the Jews, as well as local administrative decisions. In the south I

noticed such proximity in Tekovské Luzany, Lucenec, Rimavska Sobota, and Safarikovo; towards the north I found it in Presov, Sabinov, and Brezno on the Hron. In Rimavska Sobota one reaches the Jewish cemetery through the gate to the caretaker’s house; another gate cuts through the wall dividing the Jewish and Christian cemeteries. In the small town of Safarikovo, because of the expansion of the Christian cemetery, the only path to the Jewish cemetery (which is still in use) leads through the gate of the Christian one and past the Christian funeral chapel.

In Brezno one wall surrounds three cemeteries, each with its own gate: at the bottom of a steep hillside one comes first upon the evangelical cemetery, then the Catholic one, and finally at the top the Jewish one, separated from the Catholic only by the edge of a landscaped terrace. In eastern Slovakia, in the village of VeSkovce (near Velké KapuSany), no currently discernible border distinguishes the Jewish and Calvinist cemeteries, both of which are in serious need of repairs. In general, however, Jewish cemeteries in Slovakia lie far from settlements. In Catholic areas this is standard. It is so in Orava, Saris, Zemplin, and other regions. In Orava, for example, two cemeteries lie divided by a deep ravine, whose brook

forms the border, far away from their nearest towns of TvrdoSin and Trstena. I should mention that, when the Jewish cemetery in Roznava was done away

with several years ago, three tombstones were transferred to the Christian cemetery. It is unclear today whether they were the only tombstones still in existence in the Jewish cemetery, or only the prettiest or best preserved. They now

lie in the old part of the Christian cemetery, at the far end, differing from the surrounding Hungarian Protestant tombstones only in their inscriptions. The cemeteries located in the northern and eastern parts of Slovakia reveal

substantial similarities with Polish ones. The tombstones are rectangular and surmounted by an elaborately carved semicircle or triangle. Remnants of paintwork are often discernible in the crevices of the lettering. Ornaments familiar from Jewish cemeteries in Poland also adorn the stones in Slovakia. Most stones were hewn from limestone, which explains their poor state of preservation.

Judaica in Slovakia 333 Paradoxically, the inscriptions have survived noticeably better on those tombstones that are tilting or that have been laid face down. Cemeteries were often established on hillsides, facing south or east, and the tombstones located so that the inscriptions faced downhill. Over time, the soil pressing down from above has tilted some of them forwards; human hands did the rest. This placement protected

the inscriptions from rain, and on some of these stones one can discern all the original colours of blue, orange, and red.

In the south, alongside Hebrew inscriptions, one finds Hungarian and, less often, German. In Orava the tombstones have exclusively German inscriptions on the back, translating the main Hebrew text. Cemeteries in northern and eastern areas of Slovakia, as in Poland, are in bad condition. Larger towns generally did a better job of preserving them. Presov, Bardejov, Sabinov, Kralovsky Chlmec, and Velkée KapuSany all have well-maintained cemeteries in the centre of town, but in

smaller towns and villages Jewish cemeteries lie in lamentable condition. In Tekovské Luzany, in the south, the local authority has turned the Jewish cemetery into a rubbish dump, which extends to the Calvinist cemetery, separated from its Jewish counterpart by only a ditch. In the area of Saris, cemeteries in even worse condition serve as dumps; I encountered this in Zborov and Petovska Nova Ves.” In Orava the adjoining cemeteries in Tvrdosin and Trstena show signs of severe vandalism, including disinterment. A powerful image of destruction also greets the eye 1n the large town of Zvolen, and in the east in Pavlovce on the Uh.

While visiting these Slovak cemeteries I paid special attention to military graves. | found a group of several dozen belonging to Jewish soldiers from the First World War marked with identical gravestones with enamelled plaques at the rich, well-preserved cemetery in Luéenec.* Barkany clearly put tremendous effort into identifying the items of Jewish culture he discusses in his guide-book. His brief notes provide much essential infor-

mation, such as the dates of construction of the cemeteries and the names of important people buried there. He also includes histories of religious associations,

names of rabbis, and the dates, styles, and scale ground plans of synagogues, together with the names of their architects. Those interested in consulting the Guide to Jewish Monuments in Slovakia should, however, be aware that it is now considerably out of date. It does not indicate to what period the register pertains but some of the information (for example, regarding Bratislava) appears to date roughly from the end of the 1960s. Considering that thirty years have passed since then—during which time development has greatly progressed in Slovakia, with

streets changed and whole new quarters built—we cannot expect to find today all the monuments it describes. In some cases more recent data are available, for example about Liptovsky Mikulas from 1980. On my route I was unable to locate the cemeteries in Roznhava and PleSivec that Barkany mentions (the latter In 1997, I noticed that the cemetery in Zborov had been fenced and cleaned up. ° My article on Jewish military cemeteries in Galicia is due to appear in a future volume of Polin.

334 Adam Bartosz belonging to a sanatorium). The size of the burial ground in Stropkov has been significantly reduced. It is a similar story for synagogues. I did not find the listed synagogues in Rimavska Sobota (1868), Safarikovo (neo-Gothic), or Roznava (Moorish); they were destroyed many years ago. Neither synagogue in Stropkov exists any more. The devastation of the synagogues in Bardejov, Levice, Krupina, and Lucéenec exceeded the description in the guide.* (I should also note, however, that one synagogue, that of ‘Trstena, was in better condition than the guide indicated. At present the building houses a non-Jewish cultural centre.) The guide also occasionally omits significant details. For example, although it mentions the ‘great’ synagogue of Bardejov (one of three)—a massive building from 1930, with its central bimah, interior paintings, alms box, and other details exquisitely preserved, although services are no longer held there—the guide fails to note that it was part of a large prayer house-kehi/lah complex, which is also preserved in fair condition. (The second building has a mikveh, whose ritual-bath basins still exist; a third building probably housed the rabbinate and a school. The mikveh is ruined and no longer in use, and the other buildings now serve as ware-

| houses.)

Two more minor oddities of the guide should be mentioned. First, the thirteen areas into which its map divides Slovakia bear no relation to any administrative or historical division of the territory; secondly, the localities it describes seem to be ordered haphazardly, although those located near one another are listed more or less in sequence. These idiosyncrasies make the book harder to use. A more serious flaw, and one that undermines the guide’s purported comprehensiveness, 1s that, contrary to the title’s claim to list all former Jewish commu-

nities in Slovakia, there are at least four Jewish cemeteries it fails to mention: I | came across these purely by chance during a few day-long car trips. Two of these I found in the area of Saris with the help of a gypsy guide.° The first stands before the village of Lutina on the River Lucinka, a tributary of the

Torysa, off the PreSov-Stara Lubovna road. It is on a steep slope near some 4 The Luéenec synagogue still looks impressive, but architectural details have been torn off, doors and windows are all missing, the balconies are broken, and the roof leaks. This massive building, built

in 1925, is one of the largest synagogues in Slovakia; Barkany’s guide likens it to Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. Perhaps only the synagogue in Tren¢cin (built in 1913) is larger. Architect Leopold Baumhorn designed the Lucenec synagogue; he also designed twenty-two in Hungary (in Szeged, among others). Among the synagogues I visited, those in Nitra (1905) and Liptovsky Mikulas (1906) were also of his design. > An interesting detail about the Ladomirova cemetery: in it I found three laid~-down tombstones

from the inter-war period that, according to the German inscriptions, were made in the well-known workshop of Alter Horner, on Miodowa Street in Krakow (‘A. Horner Krakau’). That prolific mason

made, among others, twenty of the extant tombstones at the cemetery in Bochnia. Signatures of masons occur frequently, of course, on newer tombstones. For example, at cemeteries in Orava we

find names such as: J. Griinapfel Ruzomberok (the name of the town is given elsewhere as L. Rosenberg—Liptovsky Rosenberg), Heda D[olny] Kubim, Charasz Trencin, H. Edelstein of Miskolc, Handel Budapest, Arnold Kohn of Budapest, Becke M. Ostrava. Even in small cemeteries can be found tombstones made in distant workshops.

Judaica in Slovakia 335 woods. The existing tombstones lean downhill or lie on the ground; twenty are visible, and thick grass and eroded soil may hide more. One cannot determine the borders of the cemetery; soon it might be difficult to find even a trace of it. The

second one lies at the top of a wooded hill called Kitafia, past the village of Ladomirova in the direction of Dukla. The cemetery is reached by way of a steep,

barely visible path in the woods after about twenty minutes’ brisk walking; a cemetery so far from the village might easily have escaped Barkany’s attention.® The cemetery in the woods has about 200 tombstones, tilted towards the east and

quite spread out. They are richly adorned, and scattered among the limestone majority are some of marble and black granite. Its inaccessibility has protected the cemetery from the destruction of its fellows. I stumbled across the other unlisted cemeteries in eastern Slovakia. A large one serving the community of Medzilaborce is located far outside town, in the village of Vydra, in thick woods. Trimmed trees and bushes indicate that there has been some attempt at upkeep; the cemetery is relatively well preserved, and its tombstones display rich and diverse ornaments. Finally, there are remnants of a Jewish cemetery in Velké Nemeckeé, near the Ukrainian border, where several tombstones lie in an orchard attached to a farmhouse. A road or other construction has proba-

| bly buried the cemetery itself. Despite its relatively minor flaws, however, Barkany’s guide deserves high praise as the first broad attempt to present a survey of Slovakia’s existing Judaica. One hopes that someone will undertake to verify its content and publish a more up-to-date version. But even its outdatedness has a positive value in the photographs and drawings it contains of objects that no longer exist. The book provides English, German, and Hungarian summaries, a dictionary of Hebrew terms, and, especially important, a list of localities in three versions (Slovak—Hungarian—German, Hungarian—Slovak, and German—Slovak)—an extremely valuable thing in a land where the Slovaks, Hungarians, and Germans, as well as Jews, lived for centuries and left their mark in the names they gave to the towns and villages where they lived. Translated from Polish by Gwido Zlatkes ® Although in Poland, too, cemeteries are located far from villages, I know of only one similar case

there: the cemetery of Jodtowa, in the southern part of the Tarnow district, on the hill of Wisowa.

BLANK PAGE

BOOK REVIEWS

LARRY WOLFF | Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization in the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994)

| pp. xiv + 420. ISBN 0-8047-2314-1 It is appropriate to note that Inventing Eastern Europe contains nothing about Jews in Poland except for citing some well-known travellers’ accounts about poor Jews, dressed in ill-defined ‘eastern’ costumes, who swarm the streets of Polish cities

looking for business. The book aims to deconstruct the term ‘eastern Europe’, arguing that the modern view of this region as exotic and backward took form in the eighteenth century—a point that provides much food for thought. ‘Today’s popular image of eastern Europe derives from fiction such as Agatha Christie’s | Murder on the Orient Express, W. C. Fields’s Ruritania, and my own favourite, Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Thirty-Nine Steps, all of which derive from earlier stereotypes. Eastern Europe in both the communist and post-communist eras (especially in the former Soviet Union) has been tarred with the brush of exotic backwardness, and this stereotype has affected Western policy towards countries in the region in so far as inexperienced politicians, desk-bound sovietologists, and other current-affairs specialists determine that policy.

The east European region generally corresponds to the ex-Soviet bloc, although the exact frontiers of eastern Europe are not as important to Wolff's analysis as the mental construct. Wolff relates numerous Western travellers’ tales of abandoning the familiar and entering into an exotic world when they left Germany for Poland, Austria for Hungary, or Italy for Dalmatia; a few travellers, however, experienced this shock only when they entered Russia. In the alien world

beyond the frontier travellers witnessed slavery and corporal punishment, and encountered unusual sexual temptations. Some (notably Casanova in Russia) abandoned restraint, allowing themselves greater licence than in the conventional world of western Europe. Wolff finds these impressions in the historical writings of Voltaire, in the fiction of Lessing, Voltaire, and Marat, in the fantasy of Raspe’s Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and even in Mozart. Western military engineers made impressive progress mapping eastern Europe, but some of their technical decisions were very subjective.

338 Book Reviews Wolff observes that philosophers in western Europe liked to give advice to the

east Europeans, and often that advice revealed more about the giver than the recipient. Russia provided Voltaire with a blank slate for sketching his fantasies of enlightened absolutism. Similarly, Rousseau found Poland a convenient vehicle for presenting his arguments on republican virtue. Wolff points out amusing par~ allels between the illusions of eighteenth-century French physiocrats and contem-

porary Harvard economists. Some eighteenth-century authors, he notes, perceived similarities between picturesque ‘barbarians’ of ancient times (such as the Scythians and modern east Europeans), and some believed they had discerned

distinctive folk traits and physical characteristics that differentiated east Europeans from those in the west.

Wolff argues his central point, that west Europeans had an exotic image of eastern Europe in the eighteenth century, convincingly, although his evidence suggests that the image took only preliminary form then. He observes in passing, however, that this image only became a full-blown ‘phantasmagoria’ in the nineteenth century. Despite the truly impressive amount of western European , literature that Wolff has uncovered to support his thesis, some of his points seem forced. For example, the important folkloric motif is found only in Herder, and the sexual one primarily in Casanova. He over-interprets some points, as when he ascribes to indifference Edmund Burke’s famous comment that England could not help Poland avoid the second partition, despite the fact that it was a real-

istic acknowledgement of British military limitations (p. 320), and when he _ imputes stereotyped thinking to the Italian traveller Alberto Fortis, who pointed out similarities between ‘Morlacchi’ (the style of hair worn by the Italianized Slav inhabitants of Dalmatia) and Polish scalplocks, an observation that in fact showed Fortis’s erudition (p. 323). Other conclusions seem exaggerated: Wolff's perception of the exotic image of eastern Europe as malevolent, his blaming this impression for attitudes of condescension at the Paris Peace conference and during the post-Cold War period as well as for the viciousness of Nazi attitudes. While this perception undoubtedly played a role, other factors were more impor-

| tant.A fundamental weakness of deconstructive analysis that affects this book 1s the : author’s unwillingness to acknowledge any objective reality. Eighteenth-century travellers and twentieth-century historians see authentic differences in clothing and manners between West and East, as well as quantifiably different social and economic circumstances: crop yields, metal production, and literacy rates, for example. Eastern Europe has indeed lagged behind western Europe in these areas, and all observers must come to terms with that gap. While Wolff makes a contribution by showing the development of a particular stereotype, I found the extension of knowledge in this period more striking than some of the silly mistakes recorded by observers. Moreover, blaming Western habits of thought for Eastern misfortunes ignores the equally significant Eastern misperceptions of the West,

Book Reviews 339 such as the stereotypes exploited in Russian and Polish xenophobic antiWesternism. DANIEL STONE University of Winnipeg

ANDRZEJ ZBIKOWSKI

Lydza A to Polska wlasnie (Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie, 1997) pp. 314. ISBN 83-7023-594-8

The books in the series A to Polska wlasnie (‘This is Indeed Poland’) address a nonprofessional reader wishing to learn more about the history and culture of Poland than could be found in an average textbook, but wanting as many illustrations and as few sophisticated explanations and footnotes as possible. These books introduce

their readers to various issues of interest to anyone studying Polish society. The publisher has produced fourteen volumes so far (including the one under discussion here), ranging from such biographical subjects as Adam Mickiewicz through the history of Polish cities to outlines of selected historical and cultural areas, such as Polish literature from 1918 to 1939. The volume Zydzi (‘The Jews’) is the first to discuss an important group among Poland’s population. The volume resembles the others in the series in appearance; it is printed on quality paper and contains more than 400 illustrations, most of them in colour, some small, others extending over two full pages.

The book does not present the history of Jews in Poland systematically, although the six chapters fall into more or less chronological order, covering the period up to the second half of the eighteenth century, political and social prob-

lems from the second half of the eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth, Jewish culture and religion in the nineteenth century, the period from the First World War until 1939, the Holocaust, and Jews in Poland after the Second World War. The author also incorporates many topics not clearly connected to the main subject of each chapter. The captions to the illustrations supplement the main text with significant information or interesting quotations from historical sources and literature. It would be difficult to present the history and culture of the Jews of Poland on the mere 120 or so pages that remain after the illustrations have been subtracted from the page count and the author had to limit his factual information so as not to

| turn the book into an encyclopaedia. At the same time, he had to explain many elementary details of Jewish life unfamiliar to the average contemporary Polish

340 Book Reviews reader. He had, for example, to cover the Jewish holidays and the customs | associated with them. He stresses the factors that created mutual dislike between the Jews and their gentile neighbours, who knew little about Jewish traditions, religion, and everyday life, and regarded Yiddish and Jewish books as mysterious

secrets, and he emphasizes the importance of religious stereotypes and bias in creating mutual antagonism between Jews and Poles.

One might easily enough list the missing topics and information that might -_ prove important to readers in Poland. I think, however, that Zbikowski would in fact have done better to omit even more of the topics he covers in order to offer more comments and explanations, although I quite understand his wish to cover as many facts and famous people as possible. Probably no book in the world (except a Torah scroll written by an experienced sofer) does not contain at least a few mistakes. The critical or professional reader will perceive misunderstandings in the captions to the illustrations on pages 224 and 276, oversimplifications on pages 60 and 222, and an imprecise explanation on page 238, where the author claims that after 1939 Betar cooperated with the Polish socialists. I think, however, that these and other questions, particularly those relating to matters in dispute among professional historians, are of minor importance. The reader who wants to learn about the Jews of Poland will find an elementary and interesting introduction in this book, as well as a short chronology and bibliography to facilitate further study. This book should be regarded not as just one more study about Polish Jews, but

as making a singular contribution to the promotion of knowledge about Jewish traditions, culture, and history in Poland. The series Thus is indeed Poland enjoys well-deserved popularity in Poland and the mere fact that the publisher chose to

| publish this volume as the only one to discuss an ethnic group in Poland to date may be regarded as proof of the interest in Jewish history among Polish readers. JERZY TOMASZEWSKI

| University of Warsaw ELIJAH JUDAH SCHOCHET

The Hasidic Movement and the Gaon of Vilna (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1994) pp. xvi + 258. ISBN 1-56821-125-2

Schochet sets out to answer two related questions in this book: What problems did

its opponents perceive in the hasidic movement and why did the Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman (known as Hagra), reject it? The book presents the problems of hasidism through the eyes of the edicts and polemical tracts against it. ‘I have attempted to present and analyze cogent selections from the primary sources themselves—the teachings and writings of the hasidim, the Gaon of Vilna

Book Reviews 341 and other mitnagdim in reaction to it...’ (p. xi). Given the paucity of sources in English on mitnagedut, the book provides a usable summary of Mordecai, including his translations of anti-hasidic edicts, quotations from anti-hasidic tracts, and a

summary of the Hebrew biographies of the Vilna Gaon by Bezalel Landau, Maimon, and Haim-Ben Hillel Sasson. The book’s central chapter consists of a

, 100-page analysis of the infractions and changes in priority introduced by the hasidic movement. It includes a thorough list together with a nuanced theological

against hasidism. ,

analysis, and gives the reader a detailed summary of the complaints levelled Schochet represents mitnagedut as traditional rabbinic Judaism, in contrast to hasidism, which he portrays as an acceptance of ordinary people and an acknowledgement of their need for simplicity in worship. In light of his acceptance of a neo-Romantic conception of hasidism, he searches ‘in vain for a clear delineation of the hasidim’s infractions, [and] it begins to appear as if the mitnagdim themselves were too reticent to openly disclose the deepest fears and lay bare their frightening apprehensions, that they sensed in the Hasidic movement its ability to reveal the weaknesses and susceptibilities of the traditional religious establishment? (p. 31).

The book cites texts showing that the hasidim took the emphasis off ‘Torah study, degraded scholars, changed the shehitah knife, introduced a new prayerbook, and formed new houses of prayer. Schochet presents these changes as clear sectarian developments. He also tries to overcome the popular misconception that the Vilna Gaon did not engage in mysticism as genuine as the popular mysticism of hasidic thought. The book views their kabbalistic differences as a matter of the amorality of monism (p. 65), yet it is important to note that the Gaon had his own dualistic, hierarchical, and mystical interpretation of the Zohar and R. Isaac Luria. Moreover, he focused on Torah study precisely because he regarded it as a mystic and theurgic partaking of the divine realm. Schochet quotes approvingly Avraham Kariv’s aphorism that ‘the power of Hasidism lay in that it did not allow the soul to grow sober. The strength of mitnagdism . .. was that it did not permit the soul to become intoxicated’ (p. 178). He applies this distinction between hasidism and Lithuanian Jewry to the personality of the Gaon and his opposition to hasidism. The reason for the mitnaged opposition was one of personality: it was part of ‘a collective religious personality emblematic of each group’ (p. 203). Using Nietzsche’s dichotomy between the Apollonian and the Dionysian (described by Ruth Benedict), Schochet defines hasidism as Jewish Dionysianism seeking ecstasy, excess, and the illumination of frenzy. He regards the Gaon and the mitnagedim as Jewish Apollonians who distrust the Dionysians: they keep to the middle of the road, the known map, and the common tradition of the people. The book presents the Gaon as dignified, intellectual, and passionately enamoured of truth, but eschewing ecstasy. He personifies Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s

342 Book Reviews Apollonian Halakhic Man. In contrast, Schochet’s discussion of hasidism engages David Biale’s Eros and the Jews; he takes as his model of Dionysian hasidism the followers of R. Abraham ben Alexander Kate of Kalisk, who, at the end of the 1760s, won notoriety for their acrobatics, cavorting, nakedness, and public elimination of wastes. Hasidism emphasizes natural feelings, emotions, and embodied worship through the corporeal. Schochet notes correctly that mitnaged writings do not integrate food, sex, levity, and ecstasy into their world-view. While the Lithuanian Jewish establishment of the nineteenth century fits this

description of Apollonianism, the description may not do justice to the Vilna Gaon. He advocated extreme piety and rejected a middle-of-the-road path. He chose exile as an act of identification with the Shekhinah, avoiding any public position and choosing instead seclusion in the woods. He also rejected many of the

, halakhot and customs common to Ashkenazi practice. In this sense one may regard the Gaon himself as a hasid. We find many of these extreme inclinations among his

students as well: the messianism of Hillel of Shklov, the wanderlust for India of David D’Beth Hillel, the social criticism of Menashe of Ilia, the biological studies of Benjamin Rivlis, and the kabbalistic writings of Menahem Mendel of Shklov. The author’s historical approach recalls that of Shimon Dubnow and Benzion Dinur: Schochet describes this period as turbulent and its leadership as corrupt. “The hasidic movement, on the other hand, primarily originated from the lower social strata—the disenfranchised, the underprivileged, and those of inferior social status’ (p. 34). The sectarian activities of the hasidim were ‘motivated by a deep dissatisfaction with the existing leadership and its priorities’ (p. 34). Schochet could have strengthened his theological analysis by integrating the recent scholarship of Zeev Gries, Mendel Piekarz, Rachel Elior, Moshe Idel, and Naftali Lowenthal, who document the background of hasidic thought in earlier kabbalistic texts. He would also have benefited from examining the historical writings of Shmul Ettinger, Moshe Rosman, and Ya’acov Hisdai, who show the cultural milieu in which the conflict between the hasidim and the mitnagedim arose. At the same time his serious engagement with the critiques of hasidism and his personality study of the Vilna Gaon contribute to a theological understanding

of the formation of the mitnagdic ideology dedicated to Torah study and its important role in shaping the cultural world of Lithuanian Jewry. ALAN BRILL Yeshiva University

Book Reviews 343 JONATHAN FRANKEL

The Damascus Affair: ‘Ritual Murder’, Politics, and the ews in 1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) pp. xiv + 492. ISBN-o0-5214-8246-1

This book, written by an experienced Israeli historian, offers good reading for a broad audience, including scholars interested in Jewish history, international relations, or sociology, and also lovers of crime stories. The book is well written and I read it with pleasure. In 1840 a tragedy took place that appeared to be a blood-libel story. In February of that year a Catholic monk and his servant disappeared in Damascus; they had last been seen entering the Jewish quarter. Several days later a group of Jews, including members of the best-known Jewish families of Damascus and the chief rabbi, were arrested and tortured. Two died, one converted to Islam, and most confessed their apparent guilt. Everyone expected them to receive the death sentence, which would require the approval of Mohammed Ali, viceroy of Egypt. A similar case occurred the same year in Rhodes. The local authorities hesitated at first to pursue the ‘ritual murder’ theory, but the European consuls, especially the French vice-consul, urged them strongly in this direction. The case grew complicated when it became known in Europe, and even more so when the Austrian consul changed his views, protested against the tortures, and questioned the ritual-murder theory. The affair soon became the topic of much debate in the press and parliaments, particularly in France, Great | Britain, Austria and Germany. Moreover, a conflict between Mohammed Ali and his formal sovereign Sultan Abdul Majid caused growing international tension and further complicated the question of the fate of the accused Jews. The governments of France, Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia fought for influence in the Middle East, and this led to a war between Turkey and Egypt, which the latter, backed by France, lost. Because of this, and also because of a mission led by Sir Moses Montefiore and Adolphe Crémieux, the surviving Jews were liberated. The disappearance of the monk and his servant, however, remains a mystery to this day. Frankel cannot explain it and must content himself with citing contemporary suppositions, which were not investigated at the time. The book analyses the events in Damascus, the fervent activity of individuals and, somewhat later, of various Jewish associations in Europe in favour of the accused and against the blood libel, the press polemics and the changes in public opinion, and the diplomatic activity forming the background of the whole affair. In the last chapters Frankel presents the views of historians, who in most cases did not consider the episode to deserve a prominent place in Jewish history and gave it scant treatment. He likewise puts forward his own conclusions about the signifi- |

344 Book Reviews cance of these events for Jewish political, ideological, and social life in the next century. In his view, and I believe he proves his case, ‘it turns out that neither the Damascus nor the Rhodes affair can be understood as primarily the product of the backward and Muslim East. In both cases, on the contrary, it was the European consular corps that (at first unanimously) drove the prosecution relentlessly forward.’ It appeared that numerous journalists and even some apparently serious scholars in Europe believed the blood libel. ‘Ultimately . . . the epicenter of the ritual-murder affair proved to be not in the East but in the heart of Europe.’ All this exerted a deep impact on the Jews of western Europe, who believed in

enlightenment, emancipation, and integration in their respective countries. Frankel regards the events he depicts as a crisis in Jewish history and a prehistory of certain modern political and ideological trends, foremost among them Zionism.

He tends to regard the attitudes of the European statesmen, who treated the Damascus affair as minor and subordinate to their political interests, as a Jewish problem, the problem of a nation deprived of its own representation and often

| suffering discrimination. A look at the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggests that such attitudes on the part of politicians are common, and not just in relation to suffering Jews: similar attitudes prevailed towards Poles

under foreign rule, persecutions in contemporary China (and several other countries), and the situation of the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. The Jewish

situation differed only in that Jewish intellectuals and activists managed to organize influential pressure groups in at least some countries; similarly, in the contemporary world an increasing number of individuals and associations work on behalf of the victims of political and bureaucratic indifference and manipulation. Frankel seems perplexed by the persistence of traditional anti-Jewish beliefs and superstitions. I believe he is correct to conclude that ‘only prolonged and _ profound cultural change can erode the inherent logic of such an enclosed belief system’. This problem is not, however, limited to anti-Jewish beliefs, which continue to resurface. One may likewise observe a revival of other old beliefs, superstitions, and prejudices, even in so-called developed and culturally sophisticated countries. Frankel bases his analysis on archival sources from Austria, France, Great _ Britain, Israel, and the United States. His printed sources included periodical literature in eleven languages. Such extensive research is rare and impressive; I wonder, however, what additional information might have been gleaned from the Turkish archives. This excellent piece of scholarship and writing also made me wonder whether Polish journals covered the Damascus affair and whether it had any influence on Polish society. Almost no studies have been written on the blood libel in Poland after the partitions; perhaps Frankel’s work may inspire some. JERZY TOMASZEWSKI University of Warsaw

Book Reviews 345 ERICH HABERER

Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)

, pp. xvi + 346. ISBN 0-521-46000-3

Traditional historiography has marginalized the contributions of Jews to narodnichestvo (revolutionary populism) in Russia in the 1870s and 1880s. Leonard Schapiro, for example, considered populism so alien to Jewish life that even the most Russified Jews could not internalize the underlying Slavic spirit. Erich Haberer’s book seeks to challenge this received wisdom. A well-researched work, it draws on quantitative data to demonstrate the disproportionate Jewish representation in various populist organizations as well as on qualitative data in the form of personal biographies that show how Jewish culture shaped the populist movement. At one level Haberer reinforces Andreas Kappeler’s findings that Jews constituted a significant proportion of the populist movement; in the south-western part

of the Russian’ empire (corresponding to Ukraine) 20 per cent of the activists | were Jews. More challenging is Haberer’s broader thesis that Jewish revolutionaries played a decisive, formative role in shaping the basic doctrines and party organization of the movement ostensibly devoted to the romantic idealization of the Russian peasant and commune. This thesis raises three important questions.

One centres on the link between Jewishness and political radicalism: to what extent did Jewish culture and education ‘radicalize’ those whom it reared? A second question focuses on the Jewish contribution to the populist movement: apart from their numerical prominence, did Jews supply only praktiki (practitioners) or did they make a direct (Jewish) contribution to the programme and theory

of populism? The third issue deals with the differences between Jewish and Russian populists: did ethnicity and culture predispose Jewish revolutionaries to a

socialist world-view fundamentally different from the archaic ‘peasantism’ of Russian populists?

Haberer emphasizes the critical role of the Haskalah in radicalizing Jewish youth. He contends that as individual Jews abandoned ‘Jewish embeddedness [identity]’ and the Jewish community, the revolutionary subculture provided a new identity and community (p. 262). He notes that most Jewish activists in nthilist circles had some form of secular education, or at least an acquaintance with While the Russian language distinguishes the word russki (‘of, belonging to, or concerning the Slavic people dominant in medieval Rus’ and modern Russia’) from rossijskij (‘of, from, inhabiting, or

concerning the multi-ethnic modern state of Russia’), the lone English word ‘Russian’ must cover both meanings, although they often conflict. Except in the phrases ‘the Russian federation’ and ‘the Russian empire’, this review will use the term ‘Russian’ only in the ethnic sense, corresponding to russktj, and will use such phrases as ‘of Russia’ and ‘Russia’s’ to cover the geo-civic sense of rossijskij.

346 Book Reviews Enlightenment ideas, and shows convincingly the continuity between the quest of the maskil for self-education and the transformation of traditional Jewish life and

| that of the nihilist for personal emancipation and service to ‘the people’. Nevertheless, his insistence that the Haskalah proved such a decisive influence leads to the question why most members of the Russified Jewish intelligentsia did not become populists or revolutionaries.

| Most problematic is the author’s attempt to discern something specifically Jewish in the ideologies and programmes of prominent Jewish activists. He claims, for example, that Mark Natanson’s ‘ingrained Jewishness’ led him to direct the

| Chaikovskii circle towards ‘scientific rationalism rather than romantic peasantism’ , | and ‘political rather than social revolution’ (p. 43). But these ideas were neither | specifically Jewish nor new at the time; ‘new people’ in the late 1850s and 1860s adhered to ‘scientism’ and anti-romantic rationalism, for instance, long before the Chaikovskii circle came into being. Haberer’s treatment of Grigorii Goldenberg

| follows a similarly tenuous rationale; Goldenberg confessed the secrets of Narodnaya vol’a (the Russian populist-terrorist organization) to the police under the misguided belief that the prosecutors would grant constitutional government. Here Haberer speculates that, ‘without his “Jewish predilection” for a “constitutional paradise,”. . . no degree of mental sickness could have unhinged Goldenberg enough for him to commit his well-meaning “treason”’ (p. 184).

To be sure, many Jews advocated constitutionalism, but then so did many | Russians and many who were neither Russian nor Jewish; Haberer fails to justify

| labelling constitutionalism as specifically ‘Jewish’. Indeed, if constitutionalism | were ‘Jewish’, how then could any Jewish activists have ever espoused terrorism or anarchism? In some cases the ethnic links appear more cogent, however: for

| example, the Jewish preoccupation with propaganda libraries, smuggling, and other technical functions did draw upon experiences and connections from the Pale of Settlement. If Jews were not attracted to the Russian variant of populism and its idealistic

| identification with the peasantry, the author must explain what attracted them to the movement. In his view, populism represented ‘the only form of socialism | available in the 1870s, and for that matter, in the 1880s as well’ (p. 109). Further| more, the concept of a world with freedom, equality, and social justice accorded fully with Jewish aspirations and experiences. But this fundamental component of populist ideology attracted other national minorities as well, especially those on the periphery. Indeed, periphery rather than ethnicity explains the over-representation of minority groups in the revolutionary intelligentsia.

Given the emphasis on a Jewish contribution to populism, Haberer tries to explain why so few Jews participated in the famous ‘going to the people’ in the mid-1870s. He correctly stresses that most Jewish radicals lived in the Pale of Settlement and therefore lacked direct access to the Russian peasantry. Moreover, the police decimated the first wave of populists so efficiently that those Jews who

Book Reviews 347 lived on the border had no time to join the short-lived movement. Haberer denies any special disadvantage to Jews in dealing with Russian peasants, noting the hostility of the peasants to all members of the educated strata, even the most ‘conscience-stricken’, due to which the peasants thought most of the Russian populists

almost as ‘alien’ as the Jews. |

Although Haberer did not examine archival materials in the former Soviet Union (e.g. the massive secret-police collection in the Gosudarstvennyj Arkhiv

Rossijskoj Federacii, the national archive of the Russian Federation), he used the YIVO and Bund archives effectively, as he did the personal collections of prominent leaders and many published memoirs and programmes. In sum, this study offers an original, long-overdue account of the Jewish role in populism, with special attention devoted to the important but neglected role of individual Jewish populists. Although the author does not conclusively prove his thesis of a distinctive Jewish role, he does demonstrate the need to revise a Russocentric historiography that minimized the role of minorities in general and particularly of Jews in Russia’s seemingly ‘nativist’ populist movement. This book poses

important questions, challenges conventional assumptions, and invites more research on the non-Russian dynamics of Russia’s history. CHAERAN Y. FREEZE State University of New York, Binghamton

UTE CAUMANNS

Die polnischen Fesuiten, der ‘Przeglad Powszechny’ und der politische Katholizismus in der Zweiten Republik. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der katholischen Presse Polens zwischen den Weltkriegen, 1915—1939 (Dortmund: Forschungstelle Ostmitteleuropa, 1996) Pp. 450

Perhaps the title of this very interesting doctoral dissertation The Polish Jesuits, ‘Przeglad Powzechny’ and Political Catholicism in the Second Republic: A Contribution to the History of the Polish Catholic Press between the Wars, 1915-1939,

should not be so general. In fact it is not a complete study of Polish political Catholicism but rather an analysis of a particular Catholic journal published before 1939 in Poland, however important this journal may have been. Przeglad Powszechny is a monthly published by the Jesuits and is exceptional among Polish journals in that it has managed to survive from its founding in 1884 to this day, although not without difficulties and breaks. Przeg/ad neither was nor is among

348 Book Reviews | the most popular Catholic journals published in Poland; it has intellectual ambitions, however, and represents one significant political and ideological direction of

the Polish Catholic Church. Ute Caumanns rightly observes that the Jesuits comprised a kind of ideological avant-garde for the Vatican in Poland (p. 200). The evolution and views of Przeg/qd accordingly form part of the history of the Polish Catholic Church and the history of political ideologies in Poland. Caumanns’s book provides a thorough study of the most important problems presented in the journal. She begins with an analysis of the position of the journal in the Catholic press and in the Polish church. The bulk of the book consists of two parts, one covering the political views of Przeglad (including its attitude towards Polish political parties), and the other covering its views on social and economic problems (including attitudes towards religious and national minorities). The author points out the similarities and differences between the views of Przeglad and those of other Catholic journals and writers in Poland. One important subject discussed in the book is that of attitudes towards the Jews. Several marginal comments on the issue show up in most of the chapters, but one (pp. 250—68) focuses on it in particular. Caumanns analyses the evolution of the journal’s views and concludes that Przeglgd tended to present a kind of religious as well as social antisemitism that none the less differed substantially from that of right-wing Polish parties and journals. Probably the most significant difference was Przeglqd’s condemnation of the radical nationalism connected to anti-Jewish riots and assaults, which it considered contrary to Christian morality. This condemnation included Nazism. Moreover, it insisted that any Jew who converted to Catholicism sincerely thereby became equal to all other believers in the one true religion. On the other hand, it opted for the social and economic isolation of all other Jews, and in 1919 even published an article expressing racist views.

I believe, however, that Caumanns overestimates the significance of this article (pp. 262—3); it appeared at a time when racism constituted the exception rather than the rule and Christians saw little reason to regard it as dangerous. This lack of apprehension about political consequences likewise permitted a conservative author to publish the first favourable opinion of Marx’s economic views out of appreciation for Marx’s critical analysis of capitalism and in spite of the political implications of that analysis. When Adolf Hitler surfaced in German politics, Przeglad criticized his views sharply (pp. 265-7), although the above-mentioned article had voiced similar views.

, In Caumanns’s opinion Przeg/ad tried to provide an academic underpinning for Polish antisemitism, based on analyses of economic and social factors together with religious, historical, and psychological arguments. She considers the journal’s critical attitude towards aggressive nationalism to have been based mainly on political considerations (pp. 387-90). I am not sure whether she is right. While political questions mattered greatly to the Jesuits, one should not forget that Christian ideology formed the essence of their views. The analysis Caumanns

Book Reviews 349 presents indicates that the writers and editors of Przeglad found themselves in difficult situations on many questions, not just those concerning the Jews. They tried to formulate their political opinions, which often incorporated traditional biases, in conformity with Christian morality and beliefs. One finds traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes in numerous short notices concerning new books, films, and other matters. These notices receive only marginal attention, but I think they deserve more space. They express critical opinions about Judaism based on old religious superstitions. These religious issues had great importance for the journal, and Caumanns would have done well to consider them more closely. Caumanns’s book offers the first extended analysis of Przeg/ad and serves as an excellent source of information. The author addresses many subjects besides the Jewish topics discussed in this review, using her excellent knowledge of Polish historiography to incorporate material from archival documents and a vast litera-~ ture into her discussion of Przeglad. The book also includes useful biographical notes on the authors of the journal articles and an index of people mentioned in the book. The index, unfortunately, reflects less preparation than the rest of the book. JERZY TOMASZEWSKI University of Warsaw

WILMA ABELES IGGERS (ED.)

The Fews of Bohemia and Moravia: A Historical Reader (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992) pp. 412; 8 pp. illustrations

This book, originally published in Germany as Die Juden in Bohmen und Mahren (Munich: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1986), is an important source of information about Jewish life in the Czech lands. The editor, whose family came from Czechoslovakia, describes her purpose as follows: ‘As far as possible within the confines of one volume, this book portrays the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia in their own words beginning with the Age of Enlightenment’ (p. 11). The book offers a collection of carefully chosen fragments of memoirs, private and public documents, and literary selections (including poetry) supplemented by the editor’s comments. These help the reader to understand the course of events. The sources presented do not, of course, describe political and economic developments in a systematic way, nor does the book constitute a traditional history of the

Jews in Bohemia and Moravia, but the comments and notes fill in some of the missing factual information. The collection presents an excellent and exciting portrait of the life and death

350 Book Reviews , of Jewish society in the Czech lands. It relates the troubles, failures, and achievements of individuals as well as small communities, and through these accounts depicts the fate of Czech Jewry and describes the changes of the past 200 years. The book consists of five chapters that cover the main periods of Jewish history in this area: 1744-1848, 1849-73, 1874-1918, 1918-38, and 1938-52. These dates are only approximate, however, as several of the pieces cut across at least two of

the divisions but rather than creating an impression of discontinuity for the reader, the fact that some of the selections cannot be restricted to the chapter divi-

| sions, helps to convey a sense of continuous development enhanced by the diversity of sources. Some sources mention facts that do not seem to have any intrinsic connection to the main theme of the work in themselves but eventually show a historical logic. It is even possible to observe important fragments which link general | developments to the history of the editor’s own family. The selections presenting the complex situation of those Jews who lived during

: the developing national conflict between Czechs and Germans achieves a particular poignancy. Perhaps the best parts are those that cover the eventful inter-war period that lasted until 1938. Unfortunately, however, these selections are too few and too condensed, and they completely omit the interesting political and cultural developments in Jewish society during these years, such as the rise of Zionism,

| Jewish sports associations, and other groups. Granted that it was not possible for the East German edition, which appeared before the ‘velvet revolution’, to include events after 1952, nor to cover some of the important developments from 1945 to 1948 and those that contradicted post-1968 political ideology, surely the US edition could have done so? Czech historians are publishing many new and interesting documents and the small Jewish community in Prague is beginning to participate in a new era, so it should have been possible to mention some of the changes that are taking place. It is also important to remember that even in the

| darkest years some people tried to keep the memory of Jewish traditions alive in the Czech lands, and even enjoyed some degree of success.

A few minor errors should be corrected in subsequent editions. For example,

| sometimes individual documents seem to contradict one another (e.g. those on pages 32 and 35); these inconsistencies should be explained. Further, the | commentary on page 199 on the wwolnienie of Hilsner is not precise, and the title ‘Rude pravo’ on page 321 would be better translated as ‘Red Law’ rather than the

| ambiguous ‘Red Right’. Similarly, ‘Narodni Sourucenstvi’ on page 362 should be translated ‘National Community’ rather than ‘National Union’, and the editor should have included some commentary explaining the concept for non-Czech readers. On balance, however, the special nature of this book, with its presentation of many unusual documents, offers the reader a new and deeper understanding of the internal history of Jewish Bohemia and Moravia. JERZY TOMASZEWSKI University of Warsaw

Book Reviews 351 NEHEMIAH POLEN

The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995) pp. xx + 208. ISBN 0-87668-842-3

Relatively few theological statements have come down to us from the east European Jewish communities of the Second World War, and those writings and accounts have often been oversimplified by subsequent editors. It is particularly significant, therefore, that the manuscript ‘Esh kodesh’ by the Piaseczner rebbe of the Warsaw ghetto, Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, was found in the rubble of the

ghetto after the war and published in 1960. Nehemiah Polen analyses ‘Esh kodesh’ carefully in his monograph The Holy Fire, which provides insight into the

mindset of hasidic theorists and practitioners during the Holocaust. If ‘Esh kodesh’ had not been written and influenced by the war, people would still remember Shapira as an important twentieth-century kabbalist and hasidic thinker. But the fact that he wrote the work when he did, and that the book presents one of the most profound confrontations of mysticism with empirical catastrophe and the problem of evil, makes the author particularly memorable. Shapira had an excellent hasidic lineage. His ancestors included Elimelekh of Lezajsk (Lyzhansk), Rabbi Jacob Isaac the Seer of Lublin, and Israel ben Shabbetai, the magid of Kozienice. Before the war, Shapira espoused such mystical practices as hashkatah, a meditation that silences the mind. This type of exercise in detachment, which approaches the contemplative practices of Eastern spirituality, characterized hasidism, particularly as it encountered and absorbed the ethical rigour of Lithuanian musar practices. Shapira’s idealization of the role

of silence continued throughout the war. | Shapira’s self-abnegation and stoicism met a severe test when he lost his wife, son, and daughter-in-law in the first weeks of the Nazi invasion. From then until

his execution on 3 November 1943 Shapira immersed himself in writing and public teaching, clinging to the notion of ‘Jewish nobility and [the] dialogic relationship between man and God’ (p. 16). He viewed his ability to reason and engage

in mystical speculation and halakhic adjudication as forms of resistance. For Shapira, the detachment of Jewish traditions from worldliness made Judaism an instrument of defiance. Shapira viewed the goal of hasidic thought as the transformation of suffering to joy. One could accomplish such a transformation through self-abnegation, a classical hasidic practice, but the circumstances of the war presented an enormous challenge to this method. Shapira fought to retain the luxury of hasidism amidst

the worst privations of the ghetto. He bore the extra burden of maintaining a

352 Book Reviews | hasidic outlook when hasidism was viewed as a set form of spiritual practice in which the adept strove for an ongoing psychological state of transcendence. In ‘Esh kodesh’ Shapira portrays the events of the war primarily as tests of his and his congregation’s faith. Expanding on the anthropomorphic theology and anthropocentric strains of Jewish mysticism, he sees the people Israel as a social and corporeal body bound up in what he perceives as the physical body of the

| Divine and the sensual body of the world, which the image of the Shekhinah exemplifies. Even as Jews suffer while purging their communal sin, God suffers and weeps for the travails of Israel.

Such issues beg the question of faith in the face of suffering. Unlike Shimshon | ben Pesah Ostropolier, who understood his martyrdom in 1648 as proof of : the truth of kabbalistic counter-reality, Shapira’s theology emphasizes the transformation of faith. He discounts the possibility that sorrow will destroy one, | and he refuses to lower his spiritual standards merely because of the realities of

war.

Presaging the conclusions of Abraham Joshua Heschel, Shapira distinguishes between two readings of the Hebrew term yrah. He posits that it can be inter-

preted as either fear or awe, which enables him to transform his reality until his travails become unreal. He offers a philosophy of a providence in which the : suffering of the righteous occurs in accordance with an aspect of the biblical hok, the Law that is without justification in natural law and is wholly subsumed in divine will. In his interpretation of the nature of fok and yirah, he espouses — the anti-rational, anti-philosophical strain of hasidism. When the daily realities of life are so perverse, Shapira must maintain that absolute truth cannot be appre-

| hended.

Classical kabbalah focuses largely on the mythic struggle of the forces of good and evil for world dominion. Jewish mystics often felt intimately involved in the workings of history, believing that as Jews they suffered from history’s vicissitudes

| with a greater piquancy than other peoples; thus a self-conscious sense of the Jewish role in the wars and cataclysms of history attended such events as the | | martyrdom of Shimshon Ostropolier, the machinations of various hasidic rebbes | during the Napoleonic wars (especially Dov Ber, the magid of Mezhirech, and the Seer of Lublin), and even the role of holy men in political conflicts in the state of : Israel. Polen combs Shapira’s writings for intimations of such interventions and echoes of a Jewish sense of history in reference to the events of the Holocaust. He

: seems to have made it a matter of honour, however, to do no more than allude to the events around him, without paying any heed to their actual nature. None the less, seldom has a mystical testament mirrored historical events with such poignancy; images of children begging for mercy, the ashes of sacrifice, and God weeping for the suffering of Israel spring from Shapira’s writings like inchoate cries. Polen provides a powerful and moving exposition of Shapira’s spiritual world.

Book Reviews 353 In introducing this mystic to a wider audience, he has produced a scholarly work that borders on the devotional. PINCHAS GILLER Washington University

IDA FINK

A Scrap of Time and Other Stories (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1995) pp. 165. ISBN o0-8101-1259-0

Readers wishing for an unmediated view of the best of Holocaust fiction should be pleased at the reissue of Ida Fink’s chilling collection 4 Scrap of Time. Ably translated by Madeline Levine and Francine Prose, the collection consists of twentythree stories that offer a haunting, uncompromising view of life in Poland during the Holocaust. It includes scraps of ordinary lives that have been disrupted and terminated, and many of the stories are narrative slices of family, friends, or helpless bystanders. (Fink always leaves us with a question: Could it have been otherwise?) The stories include no crematoria, no selections, and no merciless views of life

in the camps, but their absence does not mitigate the sadness, futility, and the omnipresent ‘why’. Nor does the absence of descriptions of camp horrors enable the reader to remain innocent and unscarred by the realities of life in that time or the altered views necessitated by the Holocaust’s legacy. The tone of these stories

is closer to the ironic calm underpinned by helpless devastation in a Tadeusz Borowski story (from his collection This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen)

than to the frenzied desperation of Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird or to the satiric, fantastical parody of Leslie Epstein’s King of the Jews. These are spare, quiet stories that will disturb in a far more upsetting way, for they threaten our very beliefs in an essential human dignity and innocence. Distinguished critic of Holocaust literature Lawrence Langer opens the fiction section of his important book Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology (New

York, 1995) with two stories from Fink’s collection, “The Key Game’ and ‘A Spring Morning’. This choice is important because in his several critical examinations Langer has so carefully articulated a theory about a ‘literature of atrocity’ that breaks from modern literatures as we have known them. Langer is interested in defining the Holocaust as a literary genre that allows no excuses, no illusions, no

escape from the despair, horror, and finality of death. Fink’s work perfectly fits Langer’s idea of the authentic. Further, Langer sees the Holocaust as a turningpoint in our history and literature, echoing Wiesel’s comment that what was lost in the Holocaust was not man but the idea of man. Langer successfully spells out the philosophical and stylistic implications of

354 Book Reviews this view by describing a literature that disabuses us of our illusions, innocence, and belief that we are ‘masters of time and space’ (Admitting the Holocaust (New York, 1995), 3). On the contrary, Langer tells us, Holocaust literature asks us to grieve rather than to celebrate, to recall the darkness of the human soul rather than its greatness, and to see death not as redemptive or possessing dignity, but with unadulterated dread. As bleak as all this sounds, it defines the difference between the sad sweetness of Meryl Streep’s and James Woods’s suffering in the consoling

television drama Holocaust and the unremitting dread of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Fink nears ground zero in her stories: she gives us no relief, even as she artfully weaves images, symbols, and characters into the maelstrom. Holocaust survivor Ida Fink was born in Poland in 1921, and has lived in Israel

| since 1957. In 1942 (after the Nazi invasion) she lived in a ghetto, and then survived first in hiding and then on false papers in Germany. Her experiences after 1942 form the settings of most of her stories: mainly hiding-places, or regrets that none were sought or found. Fink has also written a novel, The Journey (New York,

1992), which tells the story of two Jewish sisters in Poland working as forced labourers in Germany. The stories in.A Scrap of Time illustrate Fink’s artistry in describing the dilem| mas, conflicts, and crises of ordinary families facing the Nazi threat. The title story

begins: ‘I want to talk about a certain time not measured in months or years... This time was measured not in months but in a word—we no longer said “in the beautiful month of May”, but “after the first action”, or “the second”, or “right

| before the third” ’ (p. 3). | With memory fresh, and moving between ‘I’ and ‘we’, the narrator describes | a scrap of time, the first action: a round-up, as ‘each of us made our way, not | willingly, to be sure, but under orders, to the marketplace in our little town’. Ina simple, direct way, we learn how the world changed from the old time, habits, and considered choices to something very different. At one point the narrator’s sister

: says, on a whim, ‘Let’s run away’ and ‘although no one was chasing us and the morning was still clear and peaceful’, they do run, not noticing the willows or | reflections in the Gniezna, a ‘pitiful little stream’ (p. 6). At Castle Hill they stop; time stops, that is, time measured as people used to measure it. Soon they return to their house to learn that their cousin David has been taken. David had been one of the ‘Impatient Ones’ who had refused—from loneliness or ‘impatience of the heart’—to stay indoors when all about him people were congregating. The sisters

| learn from a peasant that David died in a dense wood near the town, ‘his arms

wrapped around the trunk like a child hugging his mother’. This is a story of | ordinary people who made the right choice by chance, while someone they love

| ends up choosing death. | “The Key Game’ 1s told in the third person, but it is just as close and sympathetic to the characters as the previous tale was, which used the first person. We | see one couple who move constantly; the story finds them in their third apartment

Book Reviews 355 since the beginning of the war. They are sitting in their kitchen, which is ‘mottled with patches of dampness and... a dull, yellowish light, even gloomier than in the main room’ (p. 35). The couple is teaching their chubby 3-year-old child the key game, in which the child runs around the apartment looking for a key if someone knocks on the

door while mummy is at work and daddy is at home. They have been playing the game daily for two weeks, and still the boy cannot get it right. ‘Ding-dong’, the

mother says, and the child obediently asks, ‘Who’s there?’ The boy then waits while papa hides, and then tells the man at the door that mama’s at work. ‘And papa?’, the father asks. Silence. ‘And papa?’, the man screams in terror. After turning pale, the 3-year-old answers, ‘He’s dead.’

If this answer and its foreshadowing of death leave us without any hope, illusions, or heroes, the end of the story is even bleaker: the child ‘threw himself at his father, who was standing right beside him, blinking his eyes in that funny way, but who was already long dead to the people who would really ring the bell’ (p. 38). Fink offers us little hope. It is likely that readers will resist the message of this book: that the only thing we bear with dignity is the gloom of inevitable death.

Langer tells the story of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, recalling how Solzhenitsyn’s gulag accounts were greeted with disbelief: ‘I have a theory of preservation, mental self-preservation. Western man, by and large, is the most natural man, and he cherishes his mental comfort. It is almost impossible for him to admit disturbing evidence’ (Admutting the Holocaust, 5).

Even if consolation is a lie, a universe dominated by gloom is unbearable. A friend of mine, a survivor of Auschwitz, told me he will no longer tell his story to the public. In his late sixties, this man chooses to forget—or at least publicly not to remember. For him, in his few remaining years, it is a reasonable choice; for those of us who are younger and whose lives have been more blessed, it may not be such an honourable choice. THOMAS KLEIN Bowling Green State University

JERZY MICHALEWICZ

Zydowskie okregi metrykalne 1 Zydowskie gminy

wyznaniowe w Galici (Krakow: Ksiegarnia Akademicka, 1995) pp. 216. ISBN 83-86575-12-3

The history of Galicia, the southern region of Poland that was occupied by Austria from 1772 to 1918, constitutes an important chapter in the history of European

356 Book Reviews Jewry. Yet not many scholarly works have been written about this area, which is the native country of Isaac Deutscher, Karl Radek, Martin Buber, Manes Sperber, and Bruno Schulz. Only recently have historians again begun to write about the

| history of Jewish Galicia, and their task will not prove easy. Many important primary sources did not survive the Second World War and the post-war turmoil, and the restoration of statistical and legal documents poses particular difficulties. Contemporary historians often have no good information on the size of some Galician Jewish communities, the workings of their institutions, and the correspondence of various towns and villages to specific religious communities. Jerzy Michalewicz’s book, Jemish Register Districts and Jewish Religious Communittes in

Galicia, provides some information on these questions, for the author uncovered numerous primary sources and managed to restore the mosaic of Galician communities through his meticulous studies.

| The book consists of two parts. Jerzy Michalewicz, a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, wrote the first section, comprising the bulk of the book, which he then supplemented with the master’s thesis of one of his students, Wieslaw Tyburowski, who wrote about the Jews of Brzostek from 1894 to 1938. In

| the first part, which consists of four chapters along with large appendices, the author analyses changes in the legal status of Galician Jewry, as well as legal documents issued by the Austrian and Austro-Polish authorities from 1772 to 1918 and dealing with the Galician Jewish religious communities. The first chapter, ‘Jewish Religious Communities in Galicia’, includes a detailed examination of such prob-

lems as Galician communal organization, the relationship between the Jewish religious communities and state authorities, the growth of these communities, and their incomes and competencies. The second chapter contains a similar analysis

| for Jewish registers and register districts in Galicia. The third describes the people working for the Galician religious communities and discusses their activities in greater detail. The fourth chapter covers statistical materials on both the religious communities and the register districts in 1870 and 1900, and features a large table

| listing the Galician communities and giving statistical information about their , members, synagogues, rabbis, cemeteries, officials, schools, teachers, students,

: and social institutions.

The appendices (pp. 105-91) present a list of administrative communities,

| landed estates, and settlements included in Jewish register districts and Jewish communities. There are also lists of members of rabbinates, representatives of congregations serving on school boards, Jewish schools, foundations, and hospitals. Tyburowski’s section offers an analysis of demographic changes in the Jewish » register district of Brzostek.

Directed at specialists interested in the history of Jews in Galicia, the book reads much like a documentary. The authors could have improved it by giving their analyses a broader historical context or developing their conclusions beyond

dry statistics. Michalewicz researched an impressive number of primary and

Book Reviews 357 secondary sources, but his bibliography is not complete. It includes only one rather general English title, William O. MacCagg’s History of Habsburg Jews, 1670-1918 (Bloomington, Ind., 1989), and lacks some important German titles, such as Die Habsburgermonarchie, 1845-1918, 11: Die Volker des Reiches (“The

People of the Empire’), edited by Adam Wandruschka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna, 1980) and Jozef Buszko’s Zum Wandel der Gesellschaftsstruktur in Gahzien

und Bukowina (“The Changing Social Structure in Galicia and Bukovina’) (Vienna, 1978). Surprisingly, Michalewicz does not discuss the statistical data and interpretations of two important Polish statisticians: Bohdan Wasiutynski (mentioned by Tyburowsk1) and his Ludnosé zydowska w Polsce w XIX 1 XX wieku (“The

Jewish Population in Poland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’) (Warsaw, 1930) and Wlodzimierz Wakar’s Rozwoj narodowosci polsktey (“The Development of the Polish Nation’) (Kielce, 1918). Wakar treated much the same material as Michalewicz. The most important asset of Michalewicz’s book is its description and analysis of the Jewish register districts in Galicia. This is the first monograph to deal with these state organs, which recorded demographic changes within the Jewish communities in Galicia. Every register district included one Jewish community, and there were 257 such districts in 1891 in Galicia. Michalewicz explains how the districts functioned, presents their most important documents, and includes a long list of all the Galician register districts. This list contains the names not only of the towns in which the districts were located but of each of the localities within the districts, which were sometimes very small and quite numerous. The register district of Nowy Sacz, which corresponded to the religious community, included over 100 villages and settlements. This list contains the Polish and German names of the various units and explains if and when they belonged to another district. Equally important to demographic and genealogical studies of Galician Jewry are the lists of rabbis, schools, and representatives of congregations on school boards. Michalewicz’s book should be useful to every scholar involved in microstudies of Galician Jewry. Readers with even a minimal knowledge of Slavic lan-

, PIOTR WROBEL

guages should be able to understand the tables and lists. |

University of Toronto

358 Book Reviews DAVID G. ROSKIES

A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling The Modern Reader of Yiddish Literature: From Nahman of Bratzlav to Abraham Sutzkever (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995) pp. vi+ 419. ISBN 0-674-08139-0

| And I took in their sound and their sight. ITZIK MANGER

There is no worse fate for a book, a writer, or an entire literature than to become acclaimed as representative of their native background. Lost in such laudatory

verdicts are not only the distinct qualities of the creative work in its complex relation to historic reality, but generally also the complexity of that very reality which it is supposed to represent and illustrate. Rather than seek a challenge or | revelation, the reader embarks on a guided tour of selected images whose ‘meaning’ seldom fails to confirm expectations. Yiddish literature, born of a tremendous desire by authors and readers alike to challenge and to meet challenge, has come to be perhaps uniquely susceptible to this tendency for wishful reading. Written by

and for the ‘millionaires of individuality’, as Isaac Bashevis Singer called the Yiddish-speaking Jews, published in weekly instalments in dozens of competing newspapers and in impressive numbers of book copies, read and discussed everywhere from Kiev to New York, Yiddish literature yet saw its primary function shrink after the Holocaust. It became a mere make-believe repository of tradition, a storehouse of serviceable myths about the Old World, an attic full of humour samples and bedtime stories with pictures of fiddlers and not-too-scary dybbuks

, (souls of sinners that transmigrate into the body of a living person). Few have come to the rescue of Yiddish in the last several decades. Amid this small coterie of post-Holocaust Yiddishists, David Roskies deserves great praise for his magnificent work A Bridge of Longing, laced with learning and love. ‘My book is all about loss and reinvention’, writes Roskies in his preface. ‘Its protagonists are modern Jewish revolutionaries, rebels and immigrants who tried

to salvage for a nontraditional audience forms of the culture assumed to be traditional.’ The loss, in this statement, and the emergence of non-traditional audiences in central and eastern Europe, may date as far back as the beginning of the nineteenth century to the impact of the Enlightenment, which began marginally enough but grew rapidly in both strength and scope. Even small chinks in the wall of Orthodoxy meant a profound transformation: the replacement of religion

Book Reviews 359 with tradition as the base of a threatened unity. Thus, according to Roskies, from its very outset Yiddish literature faced the predicament of needing ‘to address contemporary concerns in the language(s) of tradition’. He coined the phrase ‘creative betrayal’ for the conscious attempt of Yiddish literature to fashion new meanings out of familiar Jewish lore, biblical and aggadic, original and adapted. Of course, in utilizing and transforming traditional Jewish sources, Jewish artists did not differ much from their German, Russian, and Polish—Romantic, then realist, and then modernist—contemporaries. ‘They differed only in their lack of literary predecessors and of a historic nation-state to serve as a sphere of creation subversion. They had only traditional folk art from which to spring and to liberate from the strict bonds of religion and moralism, to ‘fake’ in order to make it together with their audience into the mainstream of European culture. There was subversion at work beneath the pious facade of not a few Yiddish classics. I. L. Peretz’s ‘Kabbalists,’ as we shall see, were a pair of starving, self-deluded communal freeloaders, while his ‘Bontshe the Silent’ turned the Jewish sacred legend of the hidden saint up on its head. Even Sholem Aleichem created in Tevye the Milkman a decidedly atypical Jew, who felt closest to God when out of doors and was endowed with far more wisdom and humanity than any rabbi or hasid in the rest of Sholem Aleichem’s fiction.

But the major element of subversion, as Roskies demonstrates, involved a variety of narrative devices that would include the author in the tale: as a protagonist, a

self-doubting collector of stories (who may also be the subject of the story), a devil’s advocate or victim, or, as in several of I. B. Singer’s stories, an apparently omniscient demon, although the omniscience later turns out to be mere pretence. This practice, too, began with the beginning of Yiddish stories, when Nahman of Bratslav, a great-grandson of Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, shattered by the realization that his messianic prophecies remained unfulfilled and by the death of his only son, began telling stories. He borrowed their plots from Jewish and Slavic fables but reshaped them along the lines of his own life experience. The next chapter of Roskies’s book features Isaac Meir Dik of Vilna (Vilnius), who transformed lowbrow chapbooks, collections of romances and anecdotes read mostly by women, into hilarious satirical sketches performed for a similarly female audience by a seductive magid, who clearly served as the authorial alter ego. The chapters about Isaac Leib Peretz and Sholem Aleichem are a tour de force and reveal the superb art of both writers in inventing quasi-authentic voices, Peretz’s mostly ironic, Aleichem’s mostly mock-naive. Although Roskies does not mention it, one wonders about the Yiddish writers’ contributions to early twentieth-century modernism as one reads his summaries of such works as Peretz’s “Three Gifts’, a bitter parable on the necessity and uselessness of martyrdom, and Aleichem’s ‘Baranovich Station’, in which one Sholem Shachnah accidently dons a train conductor’s hat, looks in a mirror, and, mistaking himself for the gentile conductor, runs to the train to rouse his actual, Jewish self. In an essay on Bruno Schulz, “The

| 360 Book Reviews | Degraded Reality’, Artur Sandauer wrote that in modernist literature ‘the question “in whose consciousness is a story taking place?” receives an ever evasive , answer’, with a resulting confusion of both subjective and objective reality. The same confusion happened in the visual arts (many of the great modernist painters | were Jews or of Jewish descent, as were such key modernist thinkers as Bergson | and Freud), and likewise in music and theatre. The degraded reality in the fiction

| of Schulz, Kafka, and Joseph and Henry Roth, those other creative betrayers, | matches the ominous elusiveness of Peretz and Der Nister (Pinkhes Kahanovich,

| the ‘high priest’ of Yiddish modernism, author of stylistically refined and profoundly pessimistic allegories, whose affinity with Franz Kafka seems too striking

| to be entirely accidental). Only the Yiddish-speaking sidekick devil was lost in assimilation; the other characteristics remained.

| Readers who, like myself, know next to nothing about Der Nister or Itzik Manger will be spellbound by the chapters describing them. The Romanian-born 3 Manger, who lived in Warsaw between the two World wars, was highly admired

for his nature poetry, but gained true fame after publishing a cycle of ballads | casting contemporary characters in biblical plots. ‘Manger’s Bible folk were the | people of the Humanistic Book’, Roskies writes. In his translation of ‘Hagar’s Last Night in Abraham’s House’ we hear the peasant Hagar reflect:

| How like the smoke of a chimney, How like the smoke of a train Is the love of a man, dear mother, The love of any man.

| Roskies is not a biographical critic, but the information he provides about the lives of the writers should inspire many a Jewish biographer. Der Nister’s life itself

forms a great allegory for the fate of the Jewish artist in the twentieth century. Born in Ukraine, he lived for some time in Berlin as one of the leaders of Yiddish

| avant-garde circles, but moved back to the Soviet Union, where high hopes for a : Yiddish revival were soon crushed. His last story, ‘Under a Fence’, presents the confession of a former ascetic scholar who, seduced by the erotic and artistic allure of a circus, eventually finds himself facing condemnation by judges from both the spiritual and worldly courts in a double trial. Roskies unravels the story’s web of

meanings to find references to E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Devil’s Elixir’ and Heinrich Mann’s ‘Professor Unrat’ (filmed with Marlene Dietrich as Blue Angel),

| and, more significantly, to Nahman of Bratslav. The creative betrayal thus comes

| full circle. How well the Yiddish writings hold up depends on how much of their merits

| the reader can discern. One could argue that at least some of the Yiddish chefs d’ceuvre, such as the best of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novels and stories, have merit enough to reach most interested readers. Singer wrote one of his most powerful

stories in 1943, when the news of the Holocaust had finally begun to reach the

Book Reviews 361 United States and was fuelling his rage against the shallow rationalism of the Jewish intelligentsia both in pre-war Poland and in wartime America. Satan narrates the story and persuades Zeidel, ‘the greatest scholar in the whole province

of Lublin’, that there is no difference between truth and falsehood. Zeidel converts to Catholicism, pens a grand theological treatise, is elected pope in Rome, but is soon denounced and returns to his native Janow to end up a beggar, lying under a fence. When Satan mocks him at the gates to hell, Zeidel responds that if

hell exists, so must God. ‘Over Kant and Nietszche,’ Roskies writes, ‘Zeidel reaches back to the negative theology of Lurianic Kabbalah.’

Yet our present-day scholar of Manhattan’s Upper West Side has more to unveil. The motif of a Jewish pope has been an old Mayse-buch standard, retold by

Isaac Meir Dik, with an elegant, handsome German maskil as the culprit, quite unlike Singer’s scrappy Zeidel from backwoods Janow, ‘where the whole notion of converting or defecting was a bad joke, a mean trick played by the devil’. And it does matter that there was a similar ending in Peretz’s ‘Monish’, where the mocking devils meet in Monish their intellectual equal, a man possessed of free will based on knowledge. ‘Alas’, replies Singer, who set several of his stories from that period, which Roskies terms his artistic annus mirabilis, in Peretz’s geographic

territory of Tyshovets; and in scene after scene Singer depicts the terrible triumphs of the Evil One, never a clear victor in the fiction of Peretz, a kinder and

gentler pessimist. Praised by critics for ‘celebration of old tradition’ (Peter Prescott), by Roskies for whimsical humour and marvellous storytelling, Isaac Bashevis Singer presents a fiercer art than many of his admirers can or want to see. Even more than he does for Peretz and Aleichem, Roskies rescues Singer from the sweet perils of fame, which, if left unchecked, condemns the bluntest achievement to what Witold Gombrowicz called upupenie (‘making a fool of oneself’). The book ends with a chapter on post-Holocaust Yiddish writers and poets, all of whom have been published in English only marginally. Their often incomplete, blurred testimonies about the Gehenna of the Holocaust deserve a separate book. I would love to read all seven volumes of Yehiel Yeshaia Trunk’s The Storybook of

my Life: Poland (volume viii of Polin included excerpts), and a comprehensive, critical edition of the poetry and prose of Abraham Sutzkever, of whom Roskies writes, ‘his categorical refusal to bow before the demise of Yiddish culture—

contributed to the revival of a modern Yiddish storytelling legacy that might otherwise have been lost’. Finally, Roskies reviews some of the latest attempts to rekindle the ‘lost art’ in Israel and the United States, although he does not mention

similar efforts undertaken in Budapest, Krakow, and Kiev, and at the Jewish | writers’ club at 13 Tlomackie Street in Warsaw, where so many of his protagonists used to hold court. Perhaps David Roskies believes, however tentatively, in the miracle of revival.

As a scholar and writer, he is a true heir to the restorative spirit of creative betrayal. His Story of Stories, beautifully designed by Gwen Frankfeldt and

362 Book Reviews adorned with fascinating reproductions of original illustrations by Jewish artists, constitutes what his closing sentence calls ‘redemption enough for the People of the Lost Book’. JOANNA ROSTROPOWICZ CLARK

Princeton

GERSHON C. BACON

The Politics of Tradition: Agudas Yisrael in Poland, 1916-1936 Studies of the Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish

| Jews at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1996) pp. 32. ISBN 965-223-962-3

Agudas Yisrael was undoubtedly a very important component of both Jewish and gentile political life in Poland before 1939. Unfortunately, however, we know little about the history and ideology of this party, and most authors writing about interwar Poland merely repeat the information and opinions expressed by contempo-

raries, who often represented rival political and ideological camps. Notable

| exceptions include Ezra Mendelsohn and Gershon C. Bacon. | Bacon presents the historiography of his subject in the first chapter of his book The Politics of Tradition, and stresses the lamentable lack of sources. I suspect, although with scant evidence, that the significant difference between the contemporary historian and even the most historically minded hasid’s concepts of history

and historical time further complicates the task of anyone approaching this subject. A historian is inclined to analyse changes in society and explore their

, reasons and consequences based on scrupulously established facts. A hasid explores history to find moral lessons and positive heroes to turn into models. A historian analyses changes over time; a hasidic scholar presents eternal values, and in the face of eternity individual and historical facts turn into modern midrash. Bacon succeeded in discovering a process of historical changes going on behind the veil of moral stories and stereotypes as the hasidim went from linking their

strict, conservative distancing of religion from current politics to forming a conservative but modern party engaged in the political life of the Polish republic while maintaining strict religious observance. While this party based its ideas and practice on the Torah and Talmud, it none the less took on contemporary practical

: questions.

Probably the most important merit of Bacon’s book lies in its understanding

Book Reviews 363 and explaining that the religious conservatism and tradition of Agudas Yisrael did not contradict an acceptance of contemporary ways of defending those values. ‘The strength and significance of this party derived from its successful combination of these apparently contrasting elements.

The book is composed of ten chapters. After presenting historiography and sources in the first chapter, the author analyses, in the next eight chapters respectively, the prehistory of Agudas Yisrael, its ideology and structure, the activity of Po’alei Agudas Yisrael and Tse’irei Agudas Yisrael, the educational activity of Agudas Yisrael, and its participation in kefz/ot and in parliament and the municipalities. Chapters 7—9 are particularly interesting and important for the analysis of political life in Poland. The epilogue (chapter 10) exceeds the chronological limits of the title by presenting a general view of the attitudes and activity of the Agudas Yisrael, or, more precisely, of its individual members, during the Second World War, and of the role of the party in Israel. The author analyses the changes affecting the party during the inter-war period and after, its internal differences and conflicts (relating at least in part to generational and class differences among members), and the role of rabbis as established ideological authorities and their differences from politicians. Altogether Bacon succeeds in creating a vivid picture of a political party trying to use modern means, including the press, parliamentary politics, and political alliances, to fight modern ideologies and to prevent changes in tradition. As I have said, from time to time Bacon indicates lack of information and sometimes even difficulties in establishing

elementary facts. This opens the field for future scholars. Even if some of its opinions and hypotheses are not confirmed in the future, the book constitutes a major advance in the analysis of the political life of Poland between the two world wars. JERZY TOMASZEWSKI University of Warsaw

HAROLD B. SEGEL (ED.)

Stranger in our Midst: Images of the fews in Polish Literature | (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996) pp. xv + 402. ISBN 0-8014-2865-3

A book examining Jewish characters and topics in Polish literature has long been

needed to test the prevalent stereotype, which Segel captures in the second sentence of his preface to Stranger in our Midst: ‘Widely regarded as notoriously anti-Semitic, the Poles seem hardly likely to have encompassed Jewish experience

364 Book Reviews in their literature in any but the most negative terms.’ ‘But this is not the case’, he declares in the very next sentence, and his anthology sets out to prove it. In 400 pages it encompasses nearly fifty texts or fragments written over four centuries,

from the mid-sixteenth century to recent times. The anthology tries to give a balanced picture by including works both sympathetic and hostile to Jews. Does it succeed? ‘This book is an attempt to look at Polish Jewish relations from the perspective

| of Polish literature. Or to be more specific, from the viewpoint of that Polish imaginative literature written by Poles who were not, or are not, Jews’ (p. xi). This ! premiss of Segel’s book seems to me misguided, since the distinction between Jew : and Pole, although in general applicable in the sense that by 1939 the two societies

| were clearly separate on the Polish lands, does not apply to the Polish literary pantheon, which contains many hybrids who were both Polish and Jewish in some

| degree. He goes on to explain that ‘very few Jewish writers in Polish have turned to Jewish subjects or the relations between Poles and Jews in their works. Ethnic Polish writers, however, free of the constraints and inhibitions of Jewish assimila-

, tion, and representative of the host culture, have attempted to come to grips with the huge but largely alien Jewish community in their midst for centuries’ (pp. xi—xii). Even if we concede to such a division within Polish-language literature,

| surely more writers with Jewish roots than ‘ethnically Polish’ writers have addressed Jewish topics. Moreover, without such writers as Julian Tuwim, Bruno

| Schulz, Janusz Korczak, Aleksander Wat, Adolf Rudnicki, Julian Stryjkowski, : and Hanna Krall, to mention just a few, Polish literature, especially in the twentieth century, simply would not exist. Perhaps Segel chose his strategy because he is addressing an American Jewish audience in an attempt to change the views of those who believe that nothing but antisemitism can emerge from Poland. For such readers, a Polish Jewish writer cannot provide a convincing argument. The introduction reflects precisely such

| an apologetic and defensive attitude. Yet even within these premisses, the antholo| gist is not consistent: he includes Antoni Stonimski, an assimilated Jew who wrote | some antisemitic poems before the war. There is no apparent reason for his inclusion, except perhaps for Segel’s personal taste. Nevertheless, in this review I will | follow Segel’s categorization and support my arguments with only Polish writers of impeccably ‘Aryan’ ancestry.

| Every standard periodization of Polish literature divides it into two main periods: ‘old’ (staropolska) and ‘modern’ (nowozytna), the beginning of the nineteenth

| century serving as the caesura between the two, with eighteenth-century classi-

| cism ending the ‘old’ and Romanticism initiating the ‘modern’. This is no arbitrary division; whereas works of classicism and earlier periods, although part of the standard school curriculum in Poland, interest few other than specialists,

| Romantic literature continues to hold great interest for modern readers and has shaped much of the conscience of contemporary Poles. Segel’s division of Polish

Book Reviews 365 literature into the period ‘from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century’ and that ‘from positivism to modernism’ has no apparent justification.

The earliest part of the anthology seems unnecessarily selective. Jan Dantyszek’s originally Latin poem of the mid-1530s hardly represents the earliest Polish literary text about the Jews. One finds unfavourable depictions of Jews as early as medieval poetry, both religious and secular. Indeed, Segel should have included Esterka’s story from Jan Diugosz’s chronicle as perhaps the most popular Jewish topos in early Polish writing. This section of the book has still more prob-

lems. The Jewish statutes in Jan Tarnowski’s codex, inexplicably dated 1579, eighteen years after Tarnowski’s death, are no more than a new rendition of the privilege granted by Bolestaw the Pious in 1264. More importantly, they hardly constitute literature. Similarly, Segel gives 1858 as the date of Moszkopolis, or, The Year 3333 by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, although the author died in 1842. In fact, he wrote Moszkopolis in 1817, before Levi and Sarah and forty years earlier than Segel indicates. Thus, the piece belongs to a completely different literary epoch, tradition,

and mindset than Segel indicates; 1858 is merely the date of first publication. Despite its clear anti-Jewish stance, the piece is interesting from a purely literary point of view as an early example of dystopian literature.

Romanticism has played the most significant role in shaping Polish national identity and thus deserves a separate section in any anthology of this magnitude. The exploration of Adam Mickiewicz should include not only Pan Tadeusz and Paris Lectures, with their favourable treatment of Jews, but also The Books of the Polish Nation and Pilgrimage, which contains some strongly anti-Jewish sections. Moreover, in addition to Mickiewicz, Andrzej Towianski, and Cyprian Kamil Norwid, the section on Romanticism should include at least some selections from Zygmunt Krasinski, the most anti-Jewish of Poland’s three national poets. Segel judges correctly, however, in placing Cyprian Norwid in this pre-positivist section as a Romantic poet, although his introduction describes him as representative of positivism.

The selection of positivist literature forms the strongest in Segel’s book. It includes the work of Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Aleksander Swietochowski, and Bolestaw Prus. Unfortunately, however, Segel gives short shrift to modernism, which he includes in the same section

of the book but represents by only one author, Gabriela Zapolska. Certainly a reviewer may always complain about omissions from any anthology, but there are works of such fundamental importance in any serious discussion of the image of the Jew in Polish literature that their omission practically disqualifies any anthology of works on the subject. The Wedding, by Stanistaw Wyspianski, must be such a work. His Rachel and Mickiewicz’s Jankiel share a place amongst the most prominent Jewish figures in Polish be/les-lettres. Similarly, the encounter between the priest, the Jew, and Czepiec (Act I, scenes xxviii and xxix) is paradigmatic of

366 Book Reviews | the treatment of Polish—Jewish relations in Polish literature. I find the omission of

a such important modernist writers as Jan Kasprowicz (The Book of the Poor) and | Wladystaw Stanistaw Reymont (Promised Land) equally hard to explain. Yet Segel astonishes most in his rendering of the inter-war period, for which he draws primarily on journalistic excerpts, some antisemitic, and others polemiciz, ing against antisemitism. Such selections, comprising six out of the eleven texts in

| this section, hardly constitute the ‘imaginative literature’ Segel promises in his preface, nor do they offer Marxist criticism of the same. Moreover, Segel includes in this section a fragment of Czestaw Milosz’s Native Realm describing the 1920s, but written in 1959 and thus belonging to post-war literature. This curious choice can hardly be explained by lack of appropriate material. The editor might have : turned to Maria Dabrowska’s Nights and Days or Stefan Zeromski’s The Ashes for

| portrayals of Jews in realistic literature. Likewise, the plays by Witkiewicz (Witkacy) (e.g. Jan Maciej Karol Wscieklica) show Jewish traits in literary experi-

ments, and for popular literature Segel might have looked at the works of Michal | | Choromanski, Adolf Nowaczynski, or possibly Tadeusz Dolega~Mostowicz. Part IV, ‘World War II and the Holocaust’, includes only three texts. The first two make sense enough: a poem by Czestaw Mitosz, ‘A Poor Christian Looks at , the Ghetto’, and a prose novella by Jerzy Andrzejewski (Holy Week), but the third selection, Elegy for Jewish Shtetlach, by Antoni Stonimski, was composed in 1947.

Segel thus undermines his own reasons for assigning Tadeusz Borowski’s short : story. “Che Man with the Package’, written in 1948, to the following section, and indeed for narrowing the post-war period to ‘War and Holocaust Revisited’, which completely ignores all other subjects covered in the literature of the last fifty years.

| I find particularly significant the absence of the reactions to 1968, such as “The Mass for the City of Arras’ by Andrzej Szczypiorski, Janusz Szpotanski’s satirical poems, and also Marek Hlasko’s Israeli novels.

| In creating such an anthology an editor has two choices: either to attempt a diachronic cross-section through each literary period, a complicated historical— literary procedure requiring thorough research into both literature and its social

| and other backgrounds, or else to reconstruct a comprehensive contemporary image based on the literary canon and including the most important works and authors, as found in standard literary histories and in school reading lists. Segel : follows neither of these strategies and his selection appears largely accidental.

| Literature, particularly in east-central Europe, provides the nation with its | memory, but also with its conscience. One of the paradoxes of Poland lies in the | distinct sympathy of its high culture towards the Jews as contrasted to the antisemitism of its low culture and popular sentiments. For this reason it is difficult to

| find antisemitic works in the literature of the high culture. Understandably, Segel | sought to create a balanced portrayal of Polish—Jewish relations over time, but | Polish literature does not provide such a balanced image. One cannot find in it antisemitic works by writers of such stature and importance as Dostoevsky in

Book Reviews 367 Russian literature, Nietzsche in German, or Céline in French. One may, if one likes, blame Polish literature for this omission, which reflects a certain lack of reflection on an important social issue. One cannot, however, compile an anthol-

ogy of unwritten works. ,

There remains a need for a book dealing seriously with the images of Jews in Polish literature and with the influence of literature on Polish perceptions of Jews. Unfortunately, however, Harold B. Segel’s anthology contributes to miscomprehension rather than clarifying it. Alexander Hertz’s The Jems in Polish Culture,

written almost forty years ago and seriously out of date by today’s scholarly standards, still remains practically the only comprehensive work available on this important topic. GWIDO ZLATKES | Brandeis University

BLANK PAGE

| OBITUARY Chone Shmeruk 5 January 1921-5 July 1997

ACCORDING to Jewish tradition it is a blessing to die on the Sabbath. Professor Chone Shmeruk died on Saturday evening, just before the Sabbath ended, 1n his native Warsaw, to which he had returned two months earlier. A few months before his death I asked Professor Shmeruk to read aloud in the original Yiddish Abraham Sutskever’s moving poem ‘Tsu Poylin’ (“To Poland’), written in 1946 and constituting the poet’s embittered farewell to Poland. I was planning to translate the whole poem into Polish (so far only fragments have been translated) and thought that a recording of this very rhythmical work, with each stanza ending with a line from Juliusz Slowacki’s hymn ‘Smutno mi, Boze’ (“How Sad I Am, O God’)

quoted in Polish, would help me render the specific character of the original. Professor Shmeruk started reading, but after a minute his voice faltered and he was unable to read on. That event made me even more aware of how painful it must have been for Professor Shmeruk himself to part with Poland in the same year as Sutzkever did, and how mixed and deep at the same time were his feelings towards the country, or rather its Polish Jewish past. So, when the news about his mortal illness reached me several months later, I was not particularly surprised by his decision to go to Warsaw and, in accordance with his last will, be buried there in the Jewish cemetery on Gesia Street. Professor Shmeruk was born in Warsaw and lived in the northern part of the capital’s Jewish quarter until the outbreak of the Second World War. He attended a Yiddish kindergarten and his parents then wanted to send him to a Bundist school where all subjects were taught in Yiddish. However, his grandfather was against the idea; he believed that Chone would learn enough Yiddish at home and

needed to learn Hebrew to a reasonable standard. He was therefore sent to Fajnholc’s school, a progressive heder in which Hebrew was taught and which awarded the qualification for entry to gymnasium. Professor Shmeruk would often mention later that he owed his knowledge of the Bible and Talmud to that particular school. It was also there that he learnt to speak Polish, having earlier been exposed almost exclusively to Yiddish. After completing elementary school, he continued his education at the well-known Magnus Krynski Jewish gymnasium. A year before war broke out Chone Shmeruk began studying history at the University of Warsaw. It was planned that in the academic year 1939—40 he was to

370 Obituary do his student’s practice at the YIVO Institute in Vilnius, but he did not even manage to reach the city. After the Soviet invasion, like many other people from the eastern Polish territories, he was deported to the Soviet Union, which probably saved his life. In 1946 he returned for a short time to Warsaw, but, like many Jews, decided to

leave Poland since he did not see any prospects for a continuation of Jewish life there: the pogrom in Kielce had taken place shortly before and, what is more, it turned out that almost no one from his family had survived. He decided to go to Palestine, where his maternal grandfather, who had left Poland in 1934, was living. Since his grandfather begged Chone to go there legally, he waited in Germany for

, a visa. During his wait he worked as a teacher in a Jewish high school in Stuttgart. He finally got to Erets Yisrael in 19409, after the state of Israel had already been | established, but his grandfather had died a few months before. In Israel Chone Shmeruk served in the Israel Defence Force from 1950 to 1951. In 1951 he took Yiddish and Jewish history courses at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and in 1956 graduated with distinction in Jewish history. His long and | brilliant academic career started when he was employed as a teaching and research assistant in the department of Yiddish. In 1961 he received his Ph.D. summa cum

| laude from the Hebrew University; four years later he became an associate professor in Yiddish literature and in 1971 full professor.

| Chone Shmeruk’s range of interests was very wide. He researched both early and modern Yiddish literature, demonstrated the ties between Yiddish texts and classical texts in Hebrew and Aramaic, wrote about Soviet Yiddish writers, and edited Yiddish classics. One of his great passions was Yiddish theatre; he was also

interested in children’s literature. In 1971 he was nominated to the chair of Yiddish at the Hebrew University and retained that position until 1982. From 1975 he served as editor-in-chief of the Yiddish Literature series published by the

Magnes Press. In 1973 he received the Y. Yefroykin Award, in 1983 the Itzik Manger Award, and a year later the Sholem Aleichem Award. In 1986 he was : elected to the Israeli Academy of Arts and Sciences. He maintained wide contacts with the international academic community, lecturing and carrying out research in

| various countries. In 1994 he became a doctor honoris causa of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.

Professor Shmeruk wrote more than a dozen books and studies, as well as | numerous articles and reviews. Among his books are: Kavim shel hayei hahevrah hayehudu bame’ah ha-1g al pi sifrutah: Homer keriyah letargil betoledot yisra’el bazeman hehadash (Jerusalem, 1957); Shirim historityim min hame’ah hasheva-esreh:

Homer keriyah letargil (Jerusalem, 1960); Hakibuts hayehudt vehahityashvut | hahakla'it hayehudit bibilorustyah hasovi'etut (Jerusalem, 1961); Peretses yiesh-vizye. Interpretatste fun Y. L. Peretses Bay nakht oyf{n altn mark un kritishe oysgabe fun der

drame (New York, 1971); Tarbut yehudit biverit hamo’atsot (Jerusalem, 1973); Di Altytdishe literatur. Ire onheybn un primere kontaktn ... (New York, 1976); Sifrut

Obituary 371 ytdish: Perakwm letoledotethah (Tel Aviv, 1978); Shalom-Aleikhem, madrikh lehayav veltyetsirato (Tel Aviv, 1980); Guide to Yiddish Classics on Microfiche (New York,

1980); Sifrut yidish bepolin: Mehkarim ve’tyunim historiyim (Jerusalem, 1981); The Esterke Story in Yiddish and Polish Literature: A Case Study in the Mutual Relations of Two Cultural Traditions (Jerusalem, 1985); Ha’tyurim lesifret yidish bame’ot ha-16 — ha-17: Hatekstim, hatemunot, venimanehem (Jerusalem, 1986); Prokim fun der Yidisher literatur-geshtkhte (Tel-Aviv, 1988). He was editor, translator, or contributor to, among others, the following books:

Jewish Literature in the Soviet Union during and Following the Holocaust Period (Jerusalem, 1960); The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917 (London, 1972); Sholem Aleichem, Ketavim tvriyim (Jerusalem, 1976); Uri Zvi Greenberg, Gezamlte verk (Jerusalem, 1979); Mahazot mikra’tyim beyidish, 1697-1750 (Jerusalem, 1979); Fiddisch. Bettrage zur Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin, 1981); Itzik Manger, Medresh Itsik (Jerusalem, 1984); Ida Cohen Selavan, Shorter Notices (Cincinnati, 1984); Israel Rabon, Di gas (Jerusalem, 1986); Israel Rabon, Harehov (Jerusalem, 1986); A shpigl oyfa shteyn. Antologye. Poezye un proze fun tsvelf farshnitene Ytdishe shraybers in Ratn-Farband (Jerusalem, 1987); The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse (London, 1987); The Jews of Poland between Two World Wars

(Hanover, NH, 1989); Jemish Culture and Identity in the Soviet Union (New York, 1991); The Jews in Warsaw: A History (Oxford, 1991); The Jews in Old Poland, 1000-1795 (London, 1993); Di Yidishe hteratur in nayntsetn yorhundert. Zamlung

| fun Yidisher literatur-forshung un krittk in Ratn-Farband (Jerusalem, 1993). He also wrote many articles, including some of the best that have appeared in Polin.

The editors of his Festschrift, Israel Bartal, Ezra Mendelsohn, and Chava Turniansky (Studies in Jewish Culture in Honour of Chone Shmeruk (Jerusalem, 1993) ), described Professor Shmeruk as ‘the historian of Yiddish literature’, emphasizing how much he had accomplished in this field. As Leonard Prager put it in his review of the Festschrift (Studies in Contemporary Jewry, 11 (1995), 297), Shmeruk has helped bring coherency to Old Yiddish studies; he has written many chapters of what is becoming a comprehensive history of Yiddish literature; he has edited texts at the highest standard; he has shown the intricate relations between Yiddish texts and classic Hebrew—Aramaic ones; he has brought order into study of the Yiddish Biblical play; he has illuminated Soviet-Yiddish writing. He has brought to his examination of the Yiddish text, whether Old Yiddish or twentieth-century, an eye for allusions, sources, influences, relationships to other texts and to the life of the author and his period.

For his valuable contributions to Yiddish studies Professor Shmeruk was awarded the highest Israeli award, the Israel Prize, in 1996. In the same year, for his contribution to Polish culture, he was awarded the Krzyz Oficerski Orderu Odrodzenia Polski (Officer’s Cross of the Order of Reborn Poland), one of the highest national distinctions. What factors led to this latter recognition, which can be seen as a symbolic compensation, considering that before the war, when he

372 Obituary went to Warsaw University, he was assigned a seat on the ‘Jewish side’? For almost

2 forty years after leaving Poland Chone Shmeruk did not visit the country, since for him it evoked traumatic memories. He decided to return only in 1984, a year after he had become the head of the newly formed Center of History and Culture of Polish Jews at the University of Jerusalem. During his first visit he went with a , group of Israeli scholars and students to several universities, including Warsaw, Krakow, and Lublin, in order to establish some contacts between Polish and

Israeli scholars. In 1988 he organized the landmark Singer’s conference in | Jerusalem which was a breakthrough in Polish—Israeli academic contacts. After he retired Professor Shmeruk divided his time between Israel and Poland (with summers often spent teaching at the Yiddish summer school at Oxford), : where he lectured at the universities of Warsaw, Krak6w, and Lodz. His lectures at the University of Warsaw resulted in a history of Yiddish literature (Historia hteratury sidysz (Warsaw, 1992). He also edited the only book collection of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s non-fiction, Felietony, eseje, wymiady (‘Feuilletons, Essays, Interviews’) translated into Polish from the Yiddish by Tomasz Kuberczyk; | together with me, he also translated into Polish Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Der Sotn in

Goray. Singer’s work occupied an important place in Professor Shmeruk’s research. He was one of the most competent critics of the writer’s oeuvre. He met him a number of times, corresponded with him, and accompanied his development as a writer for many years and, crucially, in the original Yiddish. Shortly before his death he completed a collection of essays on Singer.

| Among Professor Shmeruk’s last books to be published are an edition of the | sequel to Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Mayn tatns beys-din shitub (hemsheykhim zam| lung) (Jerusalem, 1996), a critical edition of the recently discovered full text of the Old Yiddish novella Paris un Vinah (‘Paris and Vienna’), edited with Erika Timm

| (Tubingen, 1996), and the first volume of the critical edition of the works of Sholem Aleichem, the full text of parts I and 1 of Motl Peyse dem Khazns. His volume of essays on Sholem Aleichem will be published soon by the Magnes Press in Jerusalem. One of his most recent fascinations was Jacob Frank, whose manu-

script he studied in Lublin and Krakow libraries. He presented the results of his | research in a couple of articles, but unfortunately did not manage to complete his study of this subject. Chone Shmeruk combined versatility with great precision; he personified the : painstaking approach of a historian with the imagination and erudition of a literary

| critic. He approached each of his topics with great passion and his works are | inspiring: they show us how many aspects of Yiddish literature and culture deserve attention, reveal their relationship to other, especially Slavic, literatures

| and cultures, and point out how much is still to be researched. He imposed high , standards on other scholars and stressed on many occasions the need for those who | want to undertake serious research in the history and culture of Ashkenazi Jewry | to study various languages. He left groups of scholars in Israel, America, and

Obituary 373 Poland, his disciples and colleagues, who owe him a great deal and who intend to

, continue some of the projects initiated or inspired by him. They are aware, however, how difficult it will be without his advice and criticism. MONIKA ADAMCZYK-GARBOWSKA University of Lublin

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Notes on the Contributors MONIKA ADAMCZYK-GARBOWSKA is Associate Professor of American and Comparative Literature at the Department of English, Maria Curie-Sktodowska University in Lublin, Poland. She is the author of Polskie tlumaczenia angielskiej literatury dzseciecey: Problemy krytyki przektadu (‘Polish Translations of English

Children’s Classics: Problems of Translation Critique’) (Wroclaw, 1988) and Polska Isaaca Bashevisa Singera: Rozstanie 1 powrot (‘Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Poland: Exile and Return’) (Lublin, 1994). She is also a translator from English and Yiddish. At present she is working with Antony Polonsky on an Englishlanguage anthology of post-war Polish Jewish writers. ISRAEL BARTAL 1s Professor of Modern Jewish History at the Hebrew University

and Director of the Center for Research on the History and Culture of Polish Jews. He is the editor of the second, revised, edition of the minute book of the Council of Four Lands (Jerusalem, 1990) and co-author (with Magdalena Opalski) of Poles and Jews: A Fatled Brotherhood (Hanover, NH, 1993). He is the author of

several monographs and articles on east European Jewish history and on the history of the pre-Zionist Jewish community in Palestine. He is a member of the editorial committee of Polin.

ADAM BARTOSZ is an ethnologist and museologist. Since 1980 he has been Director of the Regional Museum in Tarnow, administering its several branch

museums, cultural centres, and other divisions. He is the curator of various museum exhibitions including several on Jews and Romani (gypsies), as well as the author of numerous books and articles on those subjects. In 1998 he was honoured by the Israeli government for his contributions to documenting and preserving the physical relics of Jewish culture in Poland.

J6zeF Buszxo is Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakéw, where he has been Director of the Historical Institute, Pro-Rector, and first Deputy Rector. He has been the principal editor of Studia Historyczne since 1964 and is also an editor of Austro-Polonica. Among his books are Sejmowa reforma wyborcza w Galicyi, 1g05—191 4 (‘Local Parliamentary Electoral Reform in Galicia, 1905—1914’) (Krakow, 1956), Ruch socjalistyczny w Krakomte 15go—-1914 na tle ruchu robotniczego w Galicpt

(“The Socialist Movement in Krakow between 1890 and 1914 against the Background of the Workers’ Movement in Galicia’) (Krakow, 1961’) and Historia Polski 1564-1948 (“The History of Poland from 1864 to 1948’), 9 edns. (Krakow, 1978).

376 Notes on the Contributors STEPHEN D. CorrsIn is Head of Serials Acquisitions in the Columbia University Libraries. He has published historical and bibliographical studies on the : Jews in Poland and Polish—Jewish relations, and is the author of Warsam before the First World War: Poles and Jews in the Third City of the Russian Empire (Boulder, Colo., 1989). His latest book is on a completely different topic: Sword Dancing in Europe: A History (1997).

DaviIp ENGEL is Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University and a fellow of the Diaspora Research Institute at Tel Aviv University, where he serves as editor of Gal/-Ed: On the History of the Jews in Poland. He is the author of [n the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews,

1939-1942 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1987) and Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in Exile and the Jews, 1943-1945 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993). His latest book 1s Bein shthrur liverthah: Nitsulet hashoah befolin vehama’avak al hanhagatam, 1944-6 (‘Between Liberation and Flight: Holocaust Survivors in Poland and the Struggle for Leadership, 1944-1946’) (Tel Aviv, 1996).

| IMMANUEL ETKESs is Professor of Modern Jewish History and the History of Jewish Education at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His books include Lita beyerushalayim: Hatht halamdanit belhta ukehilat haperushim beyerushalayim beor rot ukhetavim she’l R. Shmuel mikelm (‘Lithuania in Jerusalem: The Scholarly Elite in Lithuania and the Community of Emigrants in Jerusalem in the Light of the Letters and Writings of Rabbi Shmuel from Kelm’) (JJerusalem, 1991)

and Rabbi Salanter and the Mussar Movement: Seeking the Torah of Truth (Philadelphia, 1993). He has also written widely on the history of hasidism, the Vilna Gaon and the opposition to hasidism, the Haskalah, and the scholarly élite in Lithuania.

Tomasz GASOwSKI is a Docent in the Historical Institute of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and conducts a seminar on the history of Jews on the Polish lands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is the author of Migdzy gettem a swiatem: Dylematy ideowe Zydéw galicyjskich na przelomie XIX i XX wieku (‘Between the Ghetto and the World: Ideological Dilemmas of the Jews of Galicia at the Turn of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’) (Krakow, 1997). STANISLAW GRODZISKI is Professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he has been Director of the Faculty of the Polish State and Law and Dean of the Department of Law and Administration. Among his books are Obywatelstwo w szlacheckier Rzeczypospolite; (‘Citizenship in the Noble Republic of Pre-Partition Poland’) (Krakow, 1963), Historia ustroju spoteczno-politycznego Galicpt, 1772-1848

| (‘The History of the Social and Political System in Galicia, 1772-1848’) (Krakow, , 1971), and W krolestwire Galicjt 1 Lodomeria (‘In the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria’) (Krakow, 1976).

Notes on the Contributors 377 JOANNA HENSEL-LIwszIcowa worked from 1970 to 1ggit in the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her main field of research was the quantitative investigation of sources such as notarial acts, tax registers, and entries in newspapers as a basis for study of the bourgeoisie in the Kingdom of Poland in the nineteenth century.

JOHN-PaUL HIMKa is Professor of East European History at the University of Alberta. He is the author of three monographs on Galicia in the late nineteenth century, the most recent of which is Religton and Nationalism in Western Ukraine: The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1567-1890 (Montreal, 1999). He is currently working on the cultural history of Ukrainians before the codification of a national culture. KLAUS HODL is an Assistant at the Institute for Contemporary History at the Karl Franzens-Universitat. His principal research interest is antisemitic stereo-

types of the ‘Jewish body’ and the ‘sick Jew’. His most recent book is Zur Patholisterung des judischen Korpers. Juden, Geschlecht und Medizin im Fin de Siecle

Wien (‘The Pathologization of the Jewish Body: Jews, Gender and Medicine in fin-de-siécle Vienna’) (Vienna, 1997).

JERZY HOwzer is Professor in the Institute of Political Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. His books include Polska Partia Socjalistyczna w latach 1917-1919 (‘The Polish Socialist Party, 1917-1919’) (Warsaw, 1962), Mozatka polityczna drugie; Rzeczypospolite; (“The Political Mosaic of the Second Republic’)

(Warsaw, 1974), and Solidarnosé, 1gSo-1g81: Geneza 1 historia (‘Solidarity, 1980—1981: Origins and History’) (Paris, 1984).

YAROSLAV HrytTSaK is Director of the Institute for Historical Research at Lviv

State University and visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest. He 1s the author of Dukh, shcho tilo rve do boyu: Sproba politychnoho portreta Ivana Franka (‘The Spirit that Moves to Battle: An Attempt at a Political

Portrait of Ivan Franko’) (Lviv, 1990) and J/stortya Ukrayiny: Formuvannia modernoyt ukrayins’koyt natstyt (“The History of Ukraine: The Making of a Modern Nation’) (Kiev, 1996).

GABRIELE KOHLBAUER-FRITZ studied Russian language and literature and Jewish Studies at the universities of Vienna and Moscow. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled ‘Russian Religious Philosophers and Judaism’, and she has published several articles on Yiddish and Yiddish literature. Since 1993 she has been a curator in the Jewish Museum in Vienna.

JANuUSzZ KoREK is a Research Assistant in the Faculty of Slavic and Baltic Languages at the University of Stockholm. He ran an unofficial publishing house in Poland and was interned during the period of martial law. After losing his job and being expelled from Poland, he moved to Sweden. He wrote his doctoral

378 Notes on the Contributors dissertation on the political thought of the émigré monthly Kultura. He is co-editor of Acta suedo-polonica and translated the work of the Swedish poet Bruno Ojijer

| into Polish under the title Gdy trucizna dziala (‘When Poison Works’ (Warsaw 1993) ). He has published widely on contemporary Polish and Swedish literature. HANNA KozINsKA-WITT was born in Krak6éw in 1957 and studied history at the Jagiellonian University and the University of Tiibingen. At present she is working

on the history and culture of Polish Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. RACHEL MANEKIN 1s a doctoral student in the Department of the History of the

| Jewish People at the Hebrew University, where she is completing her dissertation ‘The Growth and Development of Jewish Orthodoxy in Galicia: The “Machsike Hadas” Organization, 1878-1912’. A graduate of the Hebrew University and the University of Maryland, her area of specialization is nineteenth-century Galician Jewry. She 1s an archivist at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish

| People, Jerusalem. ANTONY POLONSKY is Walter Stern Hilborn Professor of Judaic and Social

Studies and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at : Brandeis University. Until 1991 he was Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is chair of the editorial board of Polin, author of Politics in Independent Poland (1972), The Little Dictators (1975), and The Great Powers and the Polish Question (1976), and co-author of A History of Modern Poland (1980) and The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland (1981).

| EMANUEL RINGELBLUM was one of the leading younger Jewish historians in inter-war Poland. He received his doctorate from the University of Warsaw in 1927 for a thesis on the history of the Jews in Warsaw in the Middle Ages. After the creation of the Warsaw ghetto he was the principal organizer of the Oneg Shabbes underground archive. His diary Ksovim fun getto (‘Ghetto Notes’) (Tel Aviv, 1985; shortened Eng. ed. 1958) and his important study in Polish Stosunki polsko-zydowskie w drugie] wojny Swiatowe; (Warsaw, 1998; Eng. ed. New York,

1976) both survived the war and are crucial documents for understanding the implementation of the Nazi ‘final solution’ in Poland. JANINA KATARZYNA ROGOZIK was born in 1944 and is completing her doctorate

in the Institute for Librarianship and Information Technology at the Jagiellonian University. She has published a number of articles on Bernard Singer and Nasz

| Przeglqd.

TIMOTHY SNYDER is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Poland and eastern Europe, presently working in Warsaw on Poland’s contemporary relations with its eastern neighbours. His Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central

Notes on the Contributors 379 Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, 1872-1905 was published by Harvard University Press in 1997. FRANZ A. J. SZABO is Professor of Central European History at Carleton Uni-

versity, specializing in the eighteenth-century Habsburg monarchy. He is the author of the award-winning Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, 1753-1780 (Cambridge, 1994) and was recently the director of the Austrian Immigration to Canada research project, which produced two volumes edited or co-edited by him. ROMAN WaAPINSKI was born in 1931 and is Professor of History at the University of Gdansk and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Among his books are Wladystam Sikorski (Warsaw, 1978), Narodowa demokracja, 1893-1939: Ze studidw nad dziejami mysli nacjonalistyczne

(‘National Democracy, 1893-1939: Studies on the History of Nationalistic Thought’) (Wroclaw, 1980), Swiadomosé polityczna w drugtey rzeczypospolite (‘Political Consciousness in the Second Republic’), (L6dZ, 1989), and Pokolenia drugiey rzeczypospolite; (“The Generations of the Second Republic’) (Wroclaw, 1991).

THEODORE R. WEEKS is Associate Professor of History at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He is the author of Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863-1914 (Dekalb, Ill., 1996). His present research focuses on Polish—Jewish relations from the 1850s to 1914.

Glossary Anders’ Army The army established in the Soviet Union in 1941 by General Wladystaw Anders under the auspices of the Polish government-in-exile in London. This army left the Soviet Union for Persia and the Middle East in mid-1942. arenda_ A lease of monopoly rights, usually of an estate.

arendar ‘The holder of an arenda. , ban (Hebrew: herem) Denotes the various degrees of religious and social ostracism imposed by rabbinical courts. Frequently used as a deterrent; transgressors would be threatened with the ban when an edict was promulgated.

beit midrash (Hebrew: lit. ‘house of study’). A building attached to a synagogue where Jewish men assemble to study the Torah.

~ Bund General Jewish Workers’ Alliance. A Jewish socialist party, founded in 1897. It joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, but seceded from it when its programme of national autonomy was not accepted. In independent Poland it adopted a leftist, anti-communist posture, and from the 1930s cooperated increasingly closely with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS).

commonwealth (Polish: Rzeczpospolita) The term Rzeczpospolita is derived from the Latin res publica. It is sometimes translated as ‘commonwealth’ and sometimes as ‘republic’, often in the form ‘Noblemen’s republic’ (Rzeczpospolita szlachecka). After the union of Lublin in 156g it was used officially in the form Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodéw (Commonwealth of Two Nations) to designate the new form of state which had arisen. In historical literature this term is often rendered as the Polish—Lithuanian commonwealth.

Congress kingdom (otherwise kingdom of Poland or Congress Poland). A constitutional kingdom created at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), with the tsar of Russia as hereditary. monarch. After 1831 it declined to an administrative unit of the Russian empire in all but name. After 1864 it lost the remaining vestiges of the autonomy it had

been granted at Vienna and was now officially referred to as ‘Privislansky kray’ (Vistula territory). devekut (Hebrew: lit. ‘cleaving’, ‘attachment’). A term which became central to hasidism, although it was previously in use. It denotes communion with God, achieved mainly through prayer or meditation through prayer, using the appropriate kavanol, the mystical interpretations and meanings given to the words of prayer.

dybbuk A wandering soul which enters the body of a human being as a refuge from the demons which pursue it.

Endecja Popular name for the Polish National Democratic Party, a right-wing party which had its origins in the 1890s. Its principal ideologue was Roman Dmowski, who

Glossary 381 advocated a Polish version of the integral nationalism which became popular in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century. The Endecja advanced the slogan ‘Poland for the Poles’ and called for the exclusion of the Jews from Polish political and economic life. Its adherents were called Endeks.

, felcher A medical orderly, with limited medical training, who carried out a fair number of less complicated medical procedures in the tsarist empire.

ga’on, ge’onim (Hebrew: lit. ‘genius’). A term originally used to designate the heads of the academies of Sura and Pumbeditha in Babylon from the sixth to the middle of the eleventh centuries. Later used to describe a man who had acquired a phenomenal command of the Torah.

General Government An administrative—territorial unit created in Poland during the Nazi occupation from some of the territory seized by Germany after the Polish defeat. The General Government was established on 26 October 1939 and first comprised four districts: Krakow, Lublin, Warsaw, and Radom. Its capital was the town of Krak6w and its administration was headed by Hans Frank. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union an additional province, Galicia, made up of parts of the pre-war

Polish provinces of Lviv, Stanislaviv, and Ternopil’, was added to the General Government. On the territory of the General Government the Germans pursued a policy of mass murder of the Jewish population and reduced the Christian Poles to rightless slaves who were to provide a reservoir of labour for the Third Reich.

government-in-exile After the German defeat of Poland in 1939 a government was established made up of the less compromised elements of the Sanacja regime and representatives of the democratic opposition and headed by General Sikorski. This government made its headquarters in Angers and after the fall of France moved to

London. It attempted to represent the Polish cause, but was abandoned by the Western powers at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, when it was decided that the pro-communist government established in Poland by Stalin be recognized on condition that it broaden its ranks by the addition of democratic politicians from Poland and the West and hold free elections. In practice neither condition was fulfilled in any meaningful way.

Habad An acronym derived from the Hebrew words hokhmah, binah, da’at ‘wisdom’, ‘understanding’, ‘knowledge’). It was applied to a sect of hasidism founded in the grand duchy of Lithuania by Shneur Zalman of Liozna (Liady). He and his descendants espoused a more intellectualized mystical doctrine than was characteristic of many other hasidic groups. Also known as the Lubavich hasidim, the group was led , until recently by the close family of its founder. haidamaky ‘The name used to describe armed groups which were active in the Polish Ukraine in the eighteenth century. The ha:damaky included both ordinary bandits and peasant insurrectionaries. halakhah (Hebrew: lit. ‘the way’) A word used to describe the entire prescriptive part of Jewish tradition. It defines the norms of behaviour and religious observance.

halukah_ Charitable funds sent from abroad for distribution among religious Jews in Palestine.

382 Glossary hasidism A mystically inclined movement of religious revival consisting of distinct

| groups with charismatic leadership. It arose in the borderlands of the Polish— Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the eighteenth century and quickly

: spread through eastern Europe. The hasidim emphasized joy in the service of God, , whose presence they sought everywhere. Though their opponents, the mitnagedim, _ pronounced a series of bans against them beginning in 1772, the movement soon

became identified with religious orthodoxy.

Haskalah (Hebrew: lit. ‘learning’ or ‘wisdom’, but used in the sense of Enlightenment) A movement that arose in the wake of the general European Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century and continued into the second half of the nineteenth century. Its adherents were known as maskilim. Its most prominent represen- ,

: tative was Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86). The Haskalah was particularly important and influential in German and Slavic lands. It advocated secular education, the acquisition of European languages, the adoption of productive occupations, and loyalty to the state. In eastern Europe there was considerable emphasis on Hebrew as opposed to Yiddish, which was rejected by most maskilim.

heder (Hebrew: lit. ‘room’) Colloquia! name for a traditional Jewish elementary school, in which teaching was carried on by a melamed.

| January insurrection The ill-fated insurrection against the tsarist monarchy which began in January 1863. After its defeat the Russian government embarked on a determined effort to Russify not only the kresy (the western provinces of the empire, which

had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth) but also the Congress kingdom.

| Jewish Agency The international, non-government body, with its headquarters in Jerusalem, which was set up in accordance with the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, to assist and encourage Jews to help in the development and settlement of Erets Yisrael. After 1948 it relinquished many of its functions to the government of Israel, but continued to be responsible for immigration, land settlement, youth work, and other activities financed by voluntary Jewish contributions from the diaspora.

kabbalah Jewish mysticism, the search for an inner spiritual meaning to the Torah and its commandments.

kahal, kehilah (pl. kehilot) Although both terms mean ‘community’, kahal is used to | denote the institution of Jewish autonomy in a particular locality, while kehilah (pl.

, kehilot) denotes the community of Jews who live in the town. The kahal was the lowest level of the Jewish autonomous institutions in the Polish—Lithuanian commonwealth. Above the local kehilot were regional bodies, and above these a central body, the Va’ad Arba Aratsot (Council of Four Lands) for the Kingdom of Poland and the Va’ad Lita

: (Council of Lithuania). The Va’ad Arba Aratsot was abolished by the Polish authorities in 1764, but autonomous institutions continued to operate legally until 1844 and

, in practice for many years after this date in those parts of the Polish—Lithuanian commonwealth directly annexed by the tsarist empire and until the emergence of the Polish state in the kingdom of Poland and Galicia. Here the reorganized communal body, which no longer had the power to punish religious heterodoxy, but adminis-

| tered synagogues, schools, cemeteries, and mzkva’ot, was often called the gmina (com-

| Glossary 383 mune). In inter-war Poland the legal status of the kehilot was regulated by statute in October 1927 and March 1930. The legislation gave them control over many aspects of Jewish communal life with both religious and social functions. All adherents of the ‘Mosaic faith’ were required to belong toa kehilah, and one could not withdraw except through baptism or by declaring oneself an atheist.

Litvak A Jew from the territories of the grand duchy of Lithuania (Litwa). In terms of Jewish stereotypes the Litvak was a rationalist, an opponent of hasidism, often a social radical and also a miser. To themselves, the Litvaks were the incarnation of all the finest Jewish values.

Malopolska (Polish: lit. ‘Lesser Poland’ or ‘Little Poland’) Southern Poland, the area around Krakow. Also referred to under the Habsburgs as (western) Galicia.

magid (Hebrew) Itinerant preacher, skilled as a narrator of stories. | maskil, maskilim See Haskalah. melamed_ (Hebrew: ‘teacher’) A teacher in a heder. A distinction is made between a melamed dardeki, who taught children of both sexes to read and write Hebrew and also a chapter or two of the weekly lessons from the Pentateuch, and a melamed gemara, who taught Bible and Talmud to boys and also, when they were older, the Shulhan arukh.

mikveh, mtkva’ot A pool or bath of clear water, immersion in which renders ritually clean a person who has become ritually unclean through contact with the dead or any other defiling object or through an unclean flux from the body, especially menstruation.

mitnaged, mitnagedim (Hebrew: lit. ‘opposer’) The rabbinic opponents of hasidism. musar movement A movement for the establishment of strict ethical behaviour in the — spirit of halakhah, which arose in the nineteenth century among the mitnagdim of historic Lithuania. Its influence remained strong in the area until the Second World War and it was particularly influential in the yeshivas there.

piyyut, ptyyutim Jewish liturgical poetry. powiat ‘The basic administrative unit in pre-partition Poland—Lithuania, subordinate to the voivodeship (wojewodztwo). It remained a basic administrative unit in the various parts of partitioned Poland and in the independent state which emerged after 1918.

Realschule, Realgymnasium_ A secondary school in German-speaking Europe for modern subjects, particularly the sciences.

rosh yeshivah, rashei yeshivah ‘The head ofa yeshiva. royal (free) town A town directly dependent on the king and subsequently on the government of the different parts of partitioned Poland. Burghers in royal or ‘government’ towns had greater rights that those in towns controlled by the nobility (‘private towns’). The reverse was for the most part the case with the Jews.

Sanacja_ From the Latin sanatzo: ‘healing’, ‘restoration’. The popular name taken by the

regime established by Jozef Pilsudski after the coup of May 1926. It referred to Piludski’s aim of restoring health to the political, social, and moral life of Poland.

384 Glossary , Sejm The central parliamentary institution of the Polish—Lithuanian commonwealth, : composed of a senate and a chamber of deputies; after 1501 both of these had a voice in the introduction of new legislation. It met regularly for six weeks every two years, but

, could be called for sessions of two weeks in an emergency. When it was not in session, an appointed commission of sixteen senators, in rotation four at a time, resided with the king both to advise and to keep watch over his activities. Until the middle of the seventeenth century the Sejm functioned reasonably well; after that the use of the

7 liberum veto began to paralyse its effectiveness. Also used for the local parliament in Galicia as in Sejm Galicijski.

selihah, selthot Penitential prayers, perhaps the oldest portion of the synagogal compositions known as piyyutim. The word selihah is derived from salah, ‘he forgave’.

shtetl (Yiddish: ‘small town’). The characteristic small town of central and eastern Poland, often with a Jewish majority. These were originally ‘private’ towns under the control of the szlachta (see royal towns).

Shulhan arukh (Hebrew: lit. “The Set Table’) The last comprehensive code of : halakhah, it was written by Joseph Caro (1488-1575) in Palestine. The custom arose of publishing it together with the mapah (‘tablecloth’), the commentary of Moses

, Isserles (1525~72) of Krakow, who supplemented the work of the Sefardi author by adding reference to Ashkenazi practice.

sofer A Jewish scribe. starosta A royal administrator, holder of the office of starostwo. From the fourteenth

| century there were three distinct offices covered by this term: the starosta generalny , (general starosta) in Wielkopolska, Rus’, and Podolia represented the Crown in a , particular region; the starosta grodowy (castle starosta) had administrative and judicial authority over a castle or fortified settlement and its surrounding region; and the starosta niegrodowy (non-castle starosta) or tenutariusz (leaseholder) administered royal lands leased to him.

| szlachta ‘The Polish nobility. A very broad social stratum making up nearly 8 per cent of the population in the eighteenth century. Its members ranged from the great magnates, like the Czartoryskis, Potockis, and Radziwills, who dominated political and social life in the last century of the Polish—Lithuanian commonwealth, to small landowners (the sz/achta zagrodowa) and even to landless retainers of a great house.

, What distinguished members of this group from the remainder of the population was their noble status and their right to participate in political life in the dietines, the Sejm, and the election of the king.

tov, tovim (Hebrew: lit. “The Good Ones’) One of the titles of those who held office in

. the kahal.

tsadtk, tsadikim (Hebrew: lit. ‘righteous man’) The leader of a hasidic group was | called a tsadtk or rebbe. Often his hasidim credited him with miraculous powers, seeing him as mediator between God and man. voivode (Polish: mojewoda) Initially this official acted in place of the ruler, especially in judicial and military matters. From the thirteenth century the office gradually evolved into a provincial dignity; between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries the voivode

Glossary 385 conducted the local dietine, led the pospolite ruszenie, the levée-en-masse of the szlachta in times of danger to the commonwealth, and occasionally governed cities and collected certain dues. The assistant sub-voivode (podmwojewoda) often acted as Judge of the Jews. By virtue of his office the voivode sat in the senate.

voivodeship (Polish: wojewddztwo) A province governed by a voivode. Wielkopolska (Polish: lit. ‘Great Poland’ or ‘Greater Poland’) Western Poland, the area around Poznan.

yeshiva A rabbinical college; the highest institution in the traditional Jewish system of education.

Zohar (Hebrew: lit. [Book of] Splendour’) The fundamental work of kabbalistic literature comprising various related compositions in Aramaic and dating mainly from the last decades of the thirteenth century in Spain. Scholars consider the main author to have been Moses ben Shem Tov de Leon.

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Index A changing attitudes to, 1863-1914: 242-56 Abrahamowicz, Dawid 42 n. 36 Dmowski’s view of 275-6 acculturation of Jews 14, 16, 81, 245 negative attitudes to 252

in Galicia 36, 44-5 opposition to 244, 255, 273-4, 279

Jewish progressives and 81-2 and ownership ofland 134

and poor relief 156, 158 in Ukraine 144

and Zionism 162 see also Germanization and under Galicia see also Germanization; surnames, forced Association for Settlement in the Land of Israel

adoption of and under Galicia 18

Adler, Victor 262 Avangard 174

Agnon, Shmuel Yosef 5 Avrohom ben Wolf of Bilgoraj 209 Agudas Ahim (Agudas Achim) 16, 18, 91, 166

Agudas Yisrael 362-3 B

Ahavat Zion 94 ba’al shem / ba’alet shem, status of 297, 301-2,

alcohol trade, role of Jews in 30 304

see also innkeeping Ba’al Shem Tov, Israel (the Besht):

Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums 104, 116 as founder of hasidism 303-5

Andrzejewski, Jerzy 366 historiography concerning 297-306

Anhelovych, Antoni 39 influence of 305

An-Ski, Shai 20 Babad, Joseph 112

anti-Jewish violence 92, 281 Bacon, Gershon C. 362-3 condemned by Catholic press 348 Badeni, Kazimierz 91

in Krakow in 14thc. 6 Bader, Gershom 100, 167, 175

antisemitism 268 badkhanim 165

anti-Jewish boycotts 21, 30, 256, 276 Balaban, Majer 8, 80, 180

Austrian 84 Balicki, Zygmunt 45 n. 43,251

blood libel 10, 343-4 Bandera, Stepan 24

and capitalism 262 Baraniski, Stanislaw 266n. 57

in Galicia 37, 43, 92 Barkany, Eugen 330, 331, 333, 335

— ‘Litvak’ as object of 252, 254, 273 Barvinsky, Aleksander 91

and Narodowa Democracja 271-83 Bauer, Otto 262

in Poland, 1880-1905: 251 Baum, Samuel 81 privilege ‘de non tolerandis Judaeis’ 63 Baumhorn, Leopold 334n. 4

progressive 253-4 beggars, Jewish 151-5

roots of 242-56 Belzec 23

see also anti-Jewish violence; numerus clausus; Bergson, Michal 212n.1 | ritual murder and under Galicia Betansky, Antonin Vaclav 52

Appenszlak, Jakub 180 Bierer, Ruben 167n. 11

Arbeyter, Der 260 Bilezewski, Jozef 42 asceticism 304-5 Birkenthal, Dov Ber 4

Asch, Sholem 168 Birnbaum, Nathan 167-8, 172,174

Aschkenase, Tobiasz g1 Birnbaum, Solomon Asher 171 n. 29 Ashkenazi, Tsevi Hirsch 10 Birnbaum, Uriel 175, 176n. 46 assimilation, Jewish 17, 76—8, 91, 269 Blazejczyk, Marian 291-2

and antisemitism 262 Blazewski, Wladyslaw 317-18 bankruptcy of asa policy 273-4 Bloch, Jan 247

388 Index Bloch, Joseph Samuel 161 Czartoryski, Prince Adam 245

blood libel 10, 343-4 Czartoryski family 302

Blumenfeld, Emanuel 129 Czas 17,73, 107, 116, 119 Blumenstock von Halban, Henryk 129 Czech lands, Jews in 349-50 Bobrzynski, Michal 96-8 Bojarska, Anna 293 D Bondy, Filip 14 Dabrowska, Maria 366

book trade, Jewish 198~211 Dankowicz, Szymon 17

Borochov, Ber 169, 173 Danityszek, Jan 365

Borowski, Tadeusz 366 Daszynski, Ignacy 93, 141, 261 n. 28

Brauman, G. 212n.1 David ben Samuel Halevi 9 Brawer, Abraham Jakob 3 Deiches, Salomon 17, 107 Bregman, Samuel 212n.1 | Detoux, M. 199n.7 Broder, Berl 165 Deutscher, Isaac 185, 193, 195-6 Brodsky, Joseph 355 Diamand, Hermann 169

Brody 80 Diamanstein family 130 Broydes, R. A. 173 Diamant, Hersch 115

Brutzkus, Boris 232, 234-5 Dik, Isaac Meir 359, 361

Brzostek, Jewish community 356 Dikztajn, Samuel 212 n.1

Buber, Solomon 84 278

Buber, Martin 263 Dmowski, Roman 251, 254, 269, 273, 275-6,

Bujak, Franciszek 132 Dobraczynski, Jan 293

Bund, Bundists 174, 254 Dobrzanski, Jan 118n.79 relations with the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna © Dolega-Mostowicz, Tadeusz 293 n. 36, 366

257-70 Doreshei Shalom (Dorze Szulom) 16, 118 Byk, Emil 36n. 26 n. 80 Dov Ber (the Magid of Mezrich) 303, 305

C Drahomanov, Mykhailo 45 n. 43, 140-1 Calahora, Mattathius 8 Du Four (printer) 199, 201 Capitalism: Dubnow, Simon 208 association of Jews with 261-2 Dubs, Lazar 129 relation to nationality 267, 269 Dubs, Marek 129

Caro, Joseph 7 Dziedzic, Jozef 132

Catholic Church in Galicia, see under Galicia Dzienntk Polski 108-9

Catholicism, Greek, see Uniatism Dzierzynski, Feliks 259 n. 13 Caumanns, Ute 347-9

2 cemeteries, Jewish, see under Slovakia E Chelm, abolition of Uniate Church in 40 eastern Europe, Western ideas of 337-9

: Chmielowiec, Michal 289 economy, Polish, role of Jews in 247-8

Choromaniski, Michal 366 alcohol trade 30

Chiila 181 book trade 198-211

communism seen as Jewish 277-8 as factor in Jewish emigration 148—52

conversion to Christianity 348 as landlords 29-30

as means of assimilation 245 landownership 18, 120-36, 143 n. 26

see also under Galicia as lawyers 282

Cossack rebellions in Ukraine 38 see also capitalism; taxation, taxes on Jews Council of the Four Lands, see Va’ad Arba education, Jewish 226

Aratsot establishment of yeshivot in Galicia 6 culture, Ukrainian 92 in heder 234,236. 35

culture, Yiddish 22, 85 in state-sponsored schools, see under Galicia;

in Vienna 171-3 | Kazimierz

see also under Galicia of women 235

Index 389 E:chenstein, Elijah 113 culturein 43-6 Eidlish, Solomon 7 desire for partition of 32-3 Elijah ben Solomon Zalman (Hagra) 340—1 economic situation and Jewish emigration

emancipation, Jewish 16, 34, 89 148-52

implications for ownership ofland 122-3 economy, role of Jewsin 5, 6, 8-9, 17, 30, 57,

see also equal rights for Jews 66

emancipation of serfs 29, 47 education, Jewish 80; in state-sponsored

emigration, of Jews: schools 17,90

economic origins of 148-52 emigration of Jews 19;tothe USA 150-3,

as solution to the ‘Jewish question’ 279-80 159-60; to Vienna 147-63 see also immigration and under Galicia ethnic relations in 25-60, 87

Endecyja, see Narodowa Democracja forced assimilation in 65

Enlightenment 60 Galician Social Democratic Party 92-3

Ephraim of Sudylkov 303 Germanization 66,71, 164-5

equal rights for Jews 104n. 17, 244 hasidic movement in 13, 340-2

see also emancipation, Jewish Haskalahin 13, 84

Esterka story, see under Kazimierz III historiography 355-7

Ettinger, Isaac Aaron 105 immigration: from Russian Poland 82; to— Vienna 152-63

F intelligentsia, Ukrainian 39, 45

Feldman, Wilhelm 45 n. 43, 46, 91, 134, 167 Nn. Jewish community: before 1772: 3-10;

9, 266, 269 1772-1848: 11-15; 1848-1918: 15-20;

Fink, Ida 353-5 after 1914: 20-4

Finkelsztajn, Chaim 183, 185 Jewish élite in 79-85 Fischer, Josef 167—8 Jewish landowners in 120-36, 143 n. 26 folk singers, Jewish 165 Jewish legal status, reforms in 1772-90: badkhanim as precursors of 165 61~72

see also Gebirtig, Mordecai Jewish population 86—7; attempts to reduce

folk song, Jewish 165-6 63-5 Folkists 94 ‘Jewish question’ in 88-9

Fraenkel, Jonas 91 Jewish—Ruthenian political alliance (1873)

Frank, Jacob 10 IIlI-17 Frankel, Jonathan 343-4 Jewish vote in 1873 elections 100-19

Frankel, Selman 204 Joseph II, Emperor, and 49-51, 61, 65, 67,

Frankel family 130 70-1; and the Jews 164; reforms of Uniate Franko, Ivan 33, 37 n. 27, 45-6, 92 Church 39

political activities 137-46 labour camps in 23

relationship to Jews 137, 143-6 landlord—peasant relations 27-31

Franzos, Karl Emil 44,79 landowners, Jewish 120-36

Fraye Vort, Dos 173 Landsleit societies 153, 159

Fuks, Avrohom Moshe 170, 175 literature, Yiddish, in 166, 170-1

Funk, Jozue 14-15 Maria Theresa, Empress, and 9g—50; and the Jews 164; reforms of Uniate Church 39

G military service by Jews in 69 Galicia: nationalism in 32-3, 39, 94 acculturation of Jewsin 36, 44-5 operain 45

antisemitism in 37, 43,92; pogroms 47 Nn. 44 persecution of Russophiles 32, 35

Armenian and German minorities in 57 pogromsin 47Nn. 44

Austrian reform agenda 59-60 Polish—Jewish relations 54—5 conflict of Catholic Church with Greek Polish—Ukrainian—Jewish relations,

Catholics (Uniates) 40-3 1772-1914: 25-48, 87

conversion to Christianity 65 politicsin 31-8; after 1867: 86-99

390 Index Galicia (contd.) Halpern, Moshe L. 171 n. 28 poor reliefin 156-8 Hankeivich, Mikolay 95 population: in 1773: §2—3; 1825—1910: 26; in Ha&Sek, Jaroslav 25

1869: 86; in 1870: 103, 104 n. 16;1n 1880:96 hasidism 152

n. 17; Jewish, see Jewish population beginning of 298—9

religious divisions in 38—43 innovations by Ba’al Shem Tov 303 Russification: of Ukrainians 47; view of Jews magic in origins of 300 as agents of, in Russian Poland 252-3, 258, meditation and (hashkatah) 351

273,277 pre-Beshtian 298

, Russophilesin 95, 97-8 theory of 351-3 theatrein 44 see also under Galicia

yeshivot, establishment ofin 6 Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) 80-1, go

Yiddish culture 164~—76 attitudes to hasidism 13

Zhovkva, printing in 210 in Hungary 331 Zionism in 18—19; and support for Jewish in Russia 345

ownership of land in Galicia 134-5 and Yiddish 166 see also Kazimierz; Krakow; Lviv see also under Galicia

Gartenberg family 130 Haynt 181-3, 188

| Gazeta Narodowa 107-8, 118 ~ Hebrew 84, 167

Gazeta Poranna 2 Grosze 276 literacy in 225-7, 231-2, 234-5, 241

Gazeta Warszawska 200 heder 234, 236N. 35 Gazeta Wyborcza 292 Heller, Yom Tov Lipman 7

Gebirtig, Mordecai 169-70 Hertz-Bernstein, Jakub 129 Gelber, Nathan Michael 171 n. 29 Herzl, Theodor 94, 150

Gelblum, Samuel 212n.1 Hiasko, Marek 366

Germanization 81, 83,90 Holocaust: see also under Galicia in fiction 353-5

Gezer 1750. 44 in Galicia 22-3

Giertych, Jedrzej 281 Homberg, Naftali Herz 80, 165

Glos poranny 181 Honigsmann, Oswald 117

Gluzinski, Tadeusz 280 Horowitz, Ber 175,176n. 46

Gniewosz, Wlodzimierz 89, 117 Horowitz, David 11

Goldenberg, Grigorii 346 Horowitz, Isaiah 7

Goldfeder, Bronislaw 212n.1 Horowitz, Samuel 129 Goldman, Bernard 118 n. 80 Horwitz, Max 259

: Goluchowski, Count Agenor 87, 124 Hovevei Zion 18,94 | Gottlieb, Heinrich 112 n. 48, 117 Hrushevsky, Mykhailo 37 n. 27, 92

Grabowski, Zbigniew 290 Hungary, Jews in 330-1

Greenberg, Uri Zevi 176

Groedl family 130 I Gros, Moyshe 175 Iggers, Wilma Abeles 349-50

: Gross, Adolf 20, 94 Imber, Shmul Yakov 170-1, 175

Gross, Nathan 169 n. 22 immigration of Russian Jews 252-3

Grossman, Henryk 85 to Galicia 82

Grynberg, Henryk 286 innkeeping as a Jewish occupation 30, 66, 149

Gumplowicz, Ludwig 73-8 integration 18, 144-5

Guszakiewicz, Father 124 intelligentsia, Jewish 13,71, 77,90 Gutmann, Baron Wilhelm Ritter von 150 urged to reform Jewish customs 250

H | in Warsaw 259 Haarets 181 and Yiddish 259 in Vilnius 258

Haberer, Erich 345-7 intelligentsia, Polish, and the Jewish press 180

Index 391 Isaac ben Nahman (Nachmanovitz) 9 Kiev, university 47

Tsraeht, Der 16, 105-7, 109-11 Kipnis, Menahem 182

Israelitische Allianz 134, 158 Kirszrot, Jan 212n.1

Isserles, Moses (Rema) 7 Kisslinger family 130

J 116-17

Iwaszkiewicz, Jaroslaw 288 Kohen-Zedek, Joseph 81-2

Izraelita 254 Kohn, Abraham 13, 108

Kohn, Josef 105—6, 108-9, 112 n. 48, 114,

Jacob Joseph of Polonne 299, 301, 303, 305 Kolakowski, Leszek 316-17 |

Jagiello, Eugeniusz 256 Kolischer, Henryk 129

Jedrzejowski, Bolestaw Antoni 260, 264 Kolischer, Julius 105, 129

Jelenski, Jan 251 Kon, Felix 140-1 Jeske-Choinski, Teodor 251 Kon, J. 212n.1 . Jewish Social Democratic Party 17,93, 169 Kon, Mikhal 174

Jewishness and national identity 75-6 Konczynski, Jozef 225

Jews, distinctive appearance of 66 Kontynenty 290 Joseph II, Emperor, see under Galicia Korczak, Janusz 180 Judah Leib, the Maggid of Polonne 301 Korytowski, Witold 98 Fiidische Almanach 172 n. 34 Kosinski, Jerzy, and Polish—Jewish relations

Jiidische Arbeiter, Der 169 n. 22 284-04

Jiidische Kikeriki 1731. 37 Kot, Stanislaw 190, 192-3

Jiidische Kultur 172 Kozicki, Stanislaw 279

Jiidische Volksblatt 169 n. 19 Kozniewski, Kazimierz 291-2 Kraj 73-8 K Krakow 11-13, 17-18, 20, 22, 61

kabbalah, influence on hasidism 298 German club 82

Kadimah 167 Jewish community 5-8 Kadish, Hermann 173 Jewish population 14 Kallir, Nathan 117,129 Jewish publishing in 7

Kaminska, Ida 173 n. 35 Progressive (Reform) synagogue 77, 81

Kamionka, J. 212 n.1 see also Kazimierz

Kanarek, Rachmiel 131 Krasinski, Zygmunt 365

Kaplansky, Salomon 169 n. 22 Kraszewski, Jozef Ignacy 365

Karski, Jan 194 Krepl, Yona 168

Kasprowicz, Jan 366 Krieger, Johann Anton 198-211

Kate, Abraham ben Alexander 342 Krittk, Der 175

Kaunitz-Rietberg, Prince Wenzel Anton 49-52, Krochmal, Nahman 81

59 Kronenberg, Leopold 247 education, Jewish, in state-sponsored schools Krusceniski, Salomea 45 14, 80-1 Krytyka 266, 269 Jewish populationin 1570: 6 Krzepicki, Maurycy 14,15

Kazimierz 6-8, 13—14, 61 Kronika 289

synagogues 6, 8,17 Krzywicki, Ludwik 45 n. 43, 281

Kazimierz III, Esterka story 365 Kucharzewski, Jan 255

Kazimierz the Great 6 Kultura 289

Kelles-Krauz, Kazimierz 257-70 Kuranda, Ignaz 105

on Zionism 263 L Kellner, Leon 172 labour camps, see under Galicia on the ‘Jewish question’ 266-8

Kenigsberg, Dovid 170-1, 175 Lad 291

Khmelnitsky, Melekh 170, 175-6 Landau, Alfred 171n. 29

Khmelnytsky, Bohdan 38 Landau, Joachim 110, 117

392 Index Landau, Saul Rafael 168, 169 n. 22 Manger, Itzik 360

Landau, Szymon 212n.1 Maria Theresa, Empress, see under Galicia Landesberger, Maximilian 117 Markish, Perets 176

landlords, Jewish 29-30 Markusfeld, Szachna 14 landowners, Jewish 18 Marxists, view of Jews 262

see also under Galicia Mary of Hungary and the Jews 330

Landsleit societies, see under Galicia Mayersohn, Maier 162

Lange, Antoni 233 Medzhybizh 305

Langer, Lawrence 353-4 Jewish community 298-9, 302

Lasker, Eduard 110 Meisels, Dov Ber 14-15 , Laudau, Saul 174 Menahem Mendel of Peremyshliany 305 Lazarus, Moritz (Maurycy) 105, 125, 129 Mendelsburg, Albert gon. 8, 117 Lazer Yitskhok of Krotoszyn 198, 200-2, 207 Mester, Jacob 170, 175

legal profession, Jews in the 282 Michalewicz, Jerzy 355-7

Levi, Yosef 170 Mickiewicz, Adam 142, 365

Levin, Menahem Mendel 81 Miczynski, Sebastian 8

, Lewandowski, Jozef, Four Days in Atlantis Mieses, Matthias 171 n. 29

307-15 military service, by Jews 200

Lewicki, Witold 131 see also under Galicia Lewite, J. 212n.1 Mill, John 259, 260, 265 n. 44 Leyb, Mani 171 n. 28 Milosz, Czeslaw 366 Lidenbaum family 130 Mises, Hermann 116—17 Liebeskind, Karol 285 mitnagedut 341-2 Liga Narodowa 273 Mizes, Jézef Hersz 129

Lilien, E.M. 176n. 46 Mlodziejowski, Andrzej 61 Liptzin, Sol 171 n. 30 Mlodziez Wszechpolska 278

, Lisowski, Jerzy 288 Morawski, Kazimierz Marian 183 n. 15

literacy: Mosdorf, Jan 280 comparative studies of 239-40 Moszczenska, Iza 254

Jewish 221-41 mysticism and origins of hasidism 305

literature, Hebrew 84

literature, Polish, images of Jews in 363-7 N

literature, Yiddish 175-6, 358-62 Nadir, Moshe 171 n. 28

see also under Galicia Nahman of Bratslav 359

Lithuania, book trade in 210 Nahman of Horodenka 305

Litvaks 252, 254, 273 Nakher, Karl 169 n. 19

Loewenstein, Bernhard 105, 110, 112, 117 Narodowa Demokracja (Endecja) 37, 269

Loewenstein, Nathan 91,96, 129 and the ‘Jewish question’ 271-83

Loker, Berl 174 and ‘spiritual’ racism 282-2 Longchamps de Berier, Boguslaw 132 Nasz Przeglad 180, 188-9 Lueger, Karl 261 Natanson, Henryk 247 Luxemburg, Rosa 260, 265 Natanson, Mark 346 Lviv 13, 18-19, 22, 24, 43 Natanson, Stefan 212n. 1

ghetto 23 Nathansohn, Josef Saul 110-11

Jewish community 8—12 Nathanson, Jozef 129

pogromsin 10, 21 National Democratic Party 94

synagogues 9, 16, 81 nationalism: University 45 and ethnic identity 85,91, 100-19, 138

MM Ukrainian g1—2, 94-5 Machsike Hadas 17,118 n. 80, 162 see also under Galicia Polish 251

Malopolska 4, 11 Naumovych, Ioann 41, 45 n. 42

Index 393 Naygreshl, Mendel 175, 176n. 46 Po’alei Zion 19, 169,174 Neue Freie Presse 104, 107, 115-16, 118 Podolaks 87

Neue Nationalzeitung 168,174 poetry, Yiddish 166,170

Neue Zeitung 172 N. 32,174 pogroms 22

Neuzeit, Die to1, 119 of 1648: 10 | Nicholas Il and the Jews 252 see also anti-Jewish violence; Lviv Niemcewicz, Julian Ursyn 365 Polen, Nehemiah 351-3

Niemojewski, Andrzej 254 Poles, Austrian view of 55-6 , Nister, Der (Pinkhes Kahanovich) 360 Polish—Jewish relations:

nobility, Polish in early 1860s 243-9 Austrian attitude to 53-4 after 1905: 252 defined 121 during the Second World War 324-8 | and Jewish settlements 4 under Soviet occupation 320-3 relations with Jews in Galicia 4-5, 36 Jerzy Kosinskiand 284-94

stereotypical views of 53-4 Polish Social Democrats 141 Nomberg, Hersch David 168 Polish Socialist Party, see Polska Partia

Nordau, Max 160-1 Socjalistyczna

Norwid, Cyprian Kamil 365 Polish—Ukrainian relations 141-3 Nossig, Alfred 45 n. 43, 167n. 12 Polityka 291-2

Nowaczynski, Adolf 366 Pollack, Jacob 6 Nowak, Jerzy Robert 290 Polonization 91

Nowy Dwor, printing in 198-211 Polska 190 Nowy Dzienntk 180-1 Polska Partia Socjaldemokratycznya (PPSD;

numerus clausus 278 Polish Social Democratic Party of Galicia and Silesia) 93, 169, 264

O Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (PPS; Polish

Ob6z Narodowo-Radykalny 281 Socialist Party), relations with the Bund , Oesterreichische Wochenschrifi_ 161-2 257-70

Oettinger, Jozef 14-15 Pomiatowski, Prince Stanislaw 202

Ojezyzna 18, 166 Poptawski, Jan Ludwik 273-4 Ottokron family 130 populism, Russian 345-7 Orzeszkowa, Eliza 249-50, 365 Popper family 130 positivism 74

P positivist movement in Poland, view of ‘Jewish

Pale of Settlement 258 question’ 249-51 Party of Independent Jews 94 Potocki, Andrzej 33, 97

Pawkilow, Teofil 111-12, 114 poverty, Jewish, effect of railway in exacerbating

Pawlik, Michal g2 149-50 peasant rebellions 29, 30n. 10 see also beggars, Jewish peasants: Pradzynski, J6ézef 283

Polish 29; stereotypical views of 30-1 Praga, book trade in 208 Ukrainian: emancipation 29; stereotypical Prawda 269

views of 54 preaching, Jewish, in the vernacular 81-2

Perechodnik, Calek, wartime journal 316—29 PreSov, Jewish museum 330 Perechodnik, Pesach 318, 320-1, 324 n. 24, 328 press, Catholic 347-9

Perets, Isaac Leib 164, 168, 359, 361 press, Jewish:

Pergen, Johann Anton von 49-60 in German 45

Perl, Joseph 13 in Hebrew 18, 45, 181 Pilnik, Boguslaw Jan 327 in Polish 45

| Pitsudski, Jozef 258, 260, 264-5, 269-70 in Ukraine 45

Pininski, Leon 33 in Yiddish 18, 45, 167—8, 173-5, 181 place-names xvi—xvill Presse, Die 108

394 Index | Priwes, Lejzor 212n.1 Salz, Abraham 94

Prus, Bolestaw 249, 365 Samelson, Szymon 17, 90n. 8, 107

Pruszynski, Ksawery 281 Sanojcz, Jézef 184

Przeglad Powszechny 347-9 Saphir family 130

Przeglad Spoteczny 45 Sare, Josef 20 ,

Przeworski, Jakub 212n. 1 Schaff family 130

, Przysztosé 94,167 Scherlag, Marek 172 n. 32 Przytyk, anti-Jewish riot (1936) 281-2 Schemes Achim 110

publishing, Jewish 7, 198-211 Schiff, Meilech 150

Purkes, David 301 Schiper, Ignacy 85 Schmelkes, Isaac Judah 110

R Schneur Zalman, Rabbi 301 Rada Naczelna Mlodziezy Wszechpolskie} Schochet, Elijah Judah 340-2 (Executive Council of All-Polish Youth) 280 | Schomer Israel 16-17, go, 105—7, tog—12,

Rada Ruska (Ruthenian Council) 111-14, 117 117-18

Raker, N. M. 174 Schomrei Hadas 110

Rapoport, Hayim 1o Schorr, Mojzesz 180 Rapoport, Solomon Judah Leib 81 ~ Schulz, Bruno 170

Rappaport, Moritz 36 n. 24, 82 Schwarzbart, Ignacy 180

Rappoport, Arnold 129 Segel, Harold B. 363-7

, Ravitch, Melekh 171-2, 175-6, 181 Selzer family 130

Reymont, Wladyslaw Stanislaw 366 Sembratovych, Sylvestr 41 n. 35,91 Reyzen, Avraham 168, 169 n. 21 sermons, see preaching, Jewish

ritual murder 343-4 Serpov, Alexander 174 ,

Robotnik 258 Shabad, Yakov 233~-5 Roke’ah, Rabbi Joshua (the Belzer rebbe) 17 Shapira, Kalonymous Kalman 351-2 Rola 251 Sheptytsky, Andrei 23, 41~2, 45, 91 Romanchuk, Julian 91 Shevchenko, Taras 29, 47, 138

Rosdolsky, Roman 46 Shivhei habesht 299-302 ,

Rosenstock, Siiskind 129 Shmeruk, Chone 369-73 Roskies, David G. 358-62 Shohet, Alexander 301

Rosman, Moshe 297-306 Sholem Aleichem (Rabinovitch Sholem) 359

Rossi, Azariah dei 7 Shomer Yisrael, see Schomer Israel

Roth, Joseph 44,170 Shulhan arukh 7

Rézewicz, Tadeusz 290 Sichynsky, Miroslav 97

Ruch Mlodych Obozu Wielkiej Polski Siedlecka, Joanna 284-7, 292-3 (Movement of the Youngofthe Camp fora Sienkiewicz, Henryk 365

Greater Poland) 278 n. 20 Sierakowski, Waclaw 39

, Ruppin, Arthur 232, 235 Silberbusch, David Ishaya 175 Rus’ Czerwona 4,9, 11 Singer, Bernard 179-97 | Russia, Jewish support for revolutionary Singer, Isaac Bashevis 120, 293, 360-1, 372

populism 345-7 Singer, Mendel 174n. 40

Russian empire, imperial census (1897) 224 Sirkes, Joel (the Bah) 7

Russification, see under Galicia Slawek, Walery 184 Russko-Narodnaya Party 95 Slonimski, Antoni 364, 366

Ruthenian Triad 31 Slovakia: Ruthenian—Ukrainian Radicals 141 Jewish cemeteries in 331-5 Rybarski, Roman 279 Jewsin 331

S synagogues in 333—4 Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von 44 Stowacki, Juliusz 369 Judaicain 330-5

, Sadan, Dov (Shtock) g Stowo Ludu 289, 291

Index 395 Smolka, Franciszek 88-9 theatre, Polish 44

socialism 93 theatre, Yiddish 22, 44, 173, 176

in Austria 261-2 Thon, Ozjasz 17 and nationalism 138-46 Tog, Der 168, 181 Polish and Jewish goals, 1893-1905: 257—70 Toghlat 167

Socjaldemokracja Krélestwa Polskiego i Litwy Towianski, Andrzej 365 (SDKPiL; Social Democratic Party of Toynbee Hall in Vienna as shelter for poor Jews Congress Kingdom and Lithuania) 265 172 Sofer, Rabbi Moses (the Hatam sofer) 118 Trunk, Yehiel Yeshaia 361 Sofer (Schreiber), Rabbi Szymon 17, 118-19 Tsushteyer 171

Sokolow, Nahum 233 Tuwim, Julian 170

Sotsyal-Demokrat, Der 169 Tworczosé 288 Spiro, Gyorgy 29-, 293 Tyburowski, Wieslaw 356

Staszic, Stanislaw 273 Tygodnik 20

stereotypes: Tygodnik Polski 195 ‘Litvak’ 252, 254, 273

of Polish peasantry 30-1 U

of Ukrainian peasantry 54 Ukraine, political partiesin 37 n. 27

Stern, Alfred 162 Ukraine (Russian), Polish—Ukrainian relations in

Stojalowski, Stanislaw 92 46-7 Stolica 288 Ukrainian dualism 138-9 , Styron, William 293 Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (UPSD) 93, Suligowski, Adolf 221-3, 225-7, 231-2, 237, 95 239-40 Unhoyb 175 Supreme Ruthenian Council in revolution of Uniatism, Ukrainian 38-43, 46-7, 56

1848: 31 Unsere Hoffnung 172 n. 32

surnames, forced adoption of 66, 71 Unszlicht, Julian 253n. 45

Sutzkever, Abraham 361, 369 Unzer ekspres 181 Swietochowski, Aleksander 249, 269, 365 Unzer vort 174

synagogues: uprisings, Polish:

Polish, architecture 14 January uprising 82,243

in Slovakia 333-4 Kosciuszko insurrection 208 Szapiro, Pawel 319-4, 327-8

Szczepanowski, Stanislaw 131, 147 V Szczypiorski, Andrzej 366 Va’ad Arba Aratsot (Council of the Four Lands)

Szela, Jakub 29n.6 7,9, 67, 203-4

Szokalski, Wiktor 15 Va’ad Medinah (Council of the Province) 9

Szpotanski, Janusz 366 Veker, Der 174

T Vienna:

Szujski, Jozef 87 Velt, Di 173

Velvel Zbarazher, see Ze’ev (Wolf), Benjamin

Talmud, publication of 203 Jewish population 261

Tarnawski, Wit 290 University: Jewish students 83; medical

Tarnowski, Count Jan 131, 365 degrees awarded to Galician Jews 79, 83 Tarnowski, Count Stanislaw 87, 121 Zionism, attitudes to 160-3

taxation: see also Toynbee Hall and under Galicia housing tax 213-14 Vilna Gaon, see Elijah ben Solomon Zalman taxes on Jews: in Galicia 63, 68-71; on Viner Morgentsaytung 174 Hebrew books 198, 202; kosher tax 71

Teodorowicz, Jézef, Archbishop 42 W

Ternopil’ 80 _ Warsaw: Progressive synagogue 81 ghetto, memoirs of, see Perechodnik, Calek

396 Index Warsaw (contd.) literacy in 225-7, 230-6, 241

: Jewish Communal Administration 212-14 maskilic attitudes towards 165

Jewish population, by occupation 212-20 negative attitudes towards 233

literacy rates, 1882-1914: 221-41 and socialists 258—6o, 267

Litvaks in 252,254, 273 Yidish 175

| pogrom of 1881: 248, 250 Yidishe Arbeyter, Der 169, 174, 260

. taxpayers in Ig12: 212-20 Yidishe Morgnpost 174 Wyznaniowa Gmina Starozakonna 212-14 Yidishes Frayland 173

Warschauer, Jonatan 14-15, 119 . Yunge, Di 175 7 Warszawski Dzienntk Narodowy 182

Wasilewski, Leon 260 Z

, Wasilewski, Zygmunt 279 Zamoyski, Andrzej 244 Wawelberg, Hipolit 247 Zapolska, Gabriela 365

Wegmejster, Joel 212n.1 Zbarazher, Velvel, see Ze’ev, Benjamin

Weisinger, Zallel 153 Zbikowski, Andrzej 339-40

Weissberg, Max 171 n. 29 , Zbytkover, Samuel 201 n. 17 Wielopolski, Aleksander 244 Ze’ev (Wolf), Benjamin (Velvel Zbarazher)

Wiener Israehit 173 n. 37 165-6

Witkiewicz, Stanislaw 366 Zentralstelle fiir das jidische Armenwesen

Witos, Wincenty 133 155-8

Wittlin, J6zef 170 Zeromski, Stefan 366 Wittlin family 130 Zetterbaum, Max 169 n. 19, 264 Witz, Leon 129 Zilberg, Moyshe 175-6 Wolf, Larry 337-9 Zinger, Mendel 174-5

Wyslouch, Boleslaw 33, 45 Zionism 84-5, 94, 152, 262, 266, 269

Wyspianski, Stanislaw 365 and Galician Jews in Vienna 160-3 Wyssogota, Ignacy Zakrzewski 201 and religion 161-2

, Zucker, Filip 118 n. 80 Y Zwiazek Literatow i Dziennikarzy Zydowskich W2dulski, Konstanty 251 see also under Galicia

Yehiel Mickal of Zolochiv 305 181

, yeshivot, see under Galicia Zycie Literackie 291

Yiddish 76, 160 Zycie i Mysl 290-1 Chernivtsy conference 168 Zygmunt IT 6 and culturalidentity 164-76 Zywiec 63n. 6