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Failed Messiahs: German-Jewish Culture

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

Meir Wiener was born in 1893 in Cracow, the capital of Poland, which was incorporated into the Austrian Empire in 1795 and again in 1918. Austria granted full civil rights to the Jews of Cracow in ... More

Meir Wiener was born in 1893 in Cracow, the capital of Poland, which was incorporated into the Austrian Empire in 1795 and again in 1918. Austria granted full civil rights to the Jews of Cracow in 1867–1868. Wiener left Cracow in 1914, but the city and its Jewish population exerted a powerful influence on his memory and imagination long after that. He acquired a broad and solid Jewish education, and studied Hebrew grammar, Bible, and Talmud, as well as medieval Hebrew literature, under the tutelage of Professor Benzion Rappaport. This chapter focuses on Wiener's youth and education in Switzerland, Cracow, and Vienna, and also examines his changing attitude to expressionism and Jewish literature in German. It first looks at the views of German thinker Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) about the “Jewish Question” and cultural nationalism in comparison with Martin Buber. The chapter then discusses Wiener's interest in Hebrew and German literature during his last two years in Switzerland, his only published collection of poetry entitled Messias, and his dissatisfaction with the German–Jewish cultural synthesis.Less

Politics and Scholarship in Post-War Vienna

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

In 1918, while he was in Switzerland, Meir Wiener composed an essay entitled “Hass und Verachtung” (“Hatred and Contempt”) in which he revisits the problem of anti-Semitism and tackles the meaning of ... More

In 1918, while he was in Switzerland, Meir Wiener composed an essay entitled “Hass und Verachtung” (“Hatred and Contempt”) in which he revisits the problem of anti-Semitism and tackles the meaning of hatred of Jews. He argues that Christianity, acquired by Europe as part of the Roman cultural legacy, made it difficult for Europeans to assimilate the Jewish element in that religion. Drawing on the cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha'am and Martin Buber, Wiener regarded Zionism as a movement that would provide redemption to the Jewish people through their return to Zion. This chapter examines his political and scholarly ideas during the early 1920s, with an emphasis on his Zionist polemics, his interest in medieval Hebrew literature, and his philosophical views about Jewish mysticism and messianism. It also considers Wiener's anthology Die Lyrik der Kabbalah (The Poetry of the Kabbalah), his return to Vienna in 1919–1921, his gradual ideological and political drift toward Marxism, and his turn to Yiddish literature.Less

Soviet Beginnings

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

In 1926, Meir Wiener immigrated to the Soviet Union for economic and ideological reasons. While in Kiev, he worked as a research fellow at the Department for Jewish Proletarian Culture of the ... More

In 1926, Meir Wiener immigrated to the Soviet Union for economic and ideological reasons. While in Kiev, he worked as a research fellow at the Department for Jewish Proletarian Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in April 1927. Wiener then transferred to the Kiev Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture, where he was appointed as the head of the Section of Ethnography and Folklore, and published in Di royte velt a long essay reviewing two collections of poetry by the American Yiddish author H. Leyvick (Leyvik Halpern, 1888–1962). In 1929 a series of high-profile ideological campaigns were waged, first against prominent Russian writers such as Evgenii Zamiatin and Boris Pilnyak, and subsequently against Yiddish literature. The Communist Party's efforts to consolidate control over Soviet literature from 1929 to 1934 did not spare Yiddish literature and scholarship. This chapter, which focuses on Wiener's time in the Soviet Union and his adjustment to Soviet conditions in Kiev, also examines the “Leninist Period” in Soviet literary criticism and Wiener's move from Kiev to Moscow.Less

Realism and the Yiddish Literary Canon

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

This chapter examines Meir Wiener's Marxist history of Yiddish literature from the Haskalah to socialist realism. Wiener considered literature to be an arena of class struggle for conflicting ... More

This chapter examines Meir Wiener's Marxist history of Yiddish literature from the Haskalah to socialist realism. Wiener considered literature to be an arena of class struggle for conflicting ideologies that reflect the socio-economic interests of antagonistic classes. Unlike many leading critics and scholars outside the Soviet Union, such as Shmuel Niger and Max Weinreich, who extolled the harmony, unity, and continuity of Yiddish literature, he emphasized the literary representations of socio-economic tensions, conflicts, and discontinuities among the Jews in East Europe during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The chapter looks at Wiener's view of the ideological evolution of Yiddish literary history in the context of Soviet Marxism of the 1930s, and, in particular, places Wiener vis-à-vis leading theoreticians such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Georg Lukács.Less

On the Way to Yiddish and Emigration

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

Jewish culture underwent radical changes in the aftermath of the wars, revolutions, and other upheavals in Eastern and Central Europe from 1914 to 1921. Multinational empires collapsed and Yiddish ... More

Jewish culture underwent radical changes in the aftermath of the wars, revolutions, and other upheavals in Eastern and Central Europe from 1914 to 1921. Multinational empires collapsed and Yiddish cultural space disintegrated, to be replaced by a new constellation of cultural centers outside the traditional area of Jewish settlement in Austria, Germany, and Russia as a result of the mass migration of Jews out of the regions affected by the wars. A small number of Yiddish intellectuals, poets, and writers tried to develop Yiddish cultural life in Vienna. In 1921–1925 Meir Wiener befriended young Yiddish poets and writers in Berlin who belonged to the so-called Kiev group, which included Leyb Kvitko, Pinkhas Kahanovitsh, and Perets Markish. In the chaotic years following the end of World War I, many intellectuals actively searched for a new expressive language in Yiddish literature, especially in poetry. This chapter explores Wiener's early Yiddish writing in the context of the Yiddish literary scene in Vienna, Berlin, and Kiev after World War I.Less

Soviet Literature and Theory

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

Meir Wiener applied Marxism primarily as an analytical method in his historical studies of Yiddish literature and as an ideological worldview in his Soviet literary criticism. He sought to construct ... More

Meir Wiener applied Marxism primarily as an analytical method in his historical studies of Yiddish literature and as an ideological worldview in his Soviet literary criticism. He sought to construct an idealized general concept of Soviet Yiddish literature in which conflicts and contradictions were nonexistent, and in which Marxist critical analysis was canceled by socialist realism as a “creative method,” giving rise to a utopian vision of reality. Wiener turned to theoretical criticism for the first time after 1932 at a time when Soviet literature was undergoing a radical transformation and socialist realism was getting institutionalized. This chapter focuses on his attempts to develop a comprehensive synthetic concept of modern Yiddish literature in the context of Marxist theory. It examines Wiener's response to the proletarian critics concerning Soviet literature and theory, his analysis of Perets Markish and David Bergelson, and his views about poetry and socialism as well as the Soviet Yiddish literary canon.Less

Life Writing: Between the Usable and Unusable Past

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

Despite the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in Austria in 1918, the Habsburg mythology continued to flourish with the help of Jewish writers such as Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and ... More

Despite the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in Austria in 1918, the Habsburg mythology continued to flourish with the help of Jewish writers such as Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and Arthur Schnitzler. The Habsburg memory has remained alive among German-speaking Jews as well as those who have written in other languages, including Hebrew (Shmuel Yosef Agnon) and Polish (Bruno Schulz). Unlike Georg Lukács, Meir Wiener represented his life story as a slow and painful process of self-realization, rather than a direct path to communism. In his memoirs, which he began writing in Moscow, Wiener associates Zionism, along with all other nationalist ideologies, with mental and physical weakness. His memoirs contain the text of an unfinished novel, which portrays the world of the déclassé Jewish intellectuals and artists in four European cities: Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and Zurich. The novel tackles gender, sexuality, and class consciousness. This chapter explores Wiener's life writing, focusing on its style and ideology, along with his memoirs and the unfinished magnum opus.Less

Folklore, Language, and the Haskalah

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

Meir Wiener linked the development of modern Yiddish literature to the collective creativity of the Jewish masses, viewed the study of folklore as part of literary studies, and also argued that ... More

Meir Wiener linked the development of modern Yiddish literature to the collective creativity of the Jewish masses, viewed the study of folklore as part of literary studies, and also argued that modern Yiddish culture resulted from the interaction of folklore and Haskalah. He saw Soviet ethnography as a Marxist reconstruction of the culture of the oppressed classes and accused contemporary Yiddish folklorists abroad of still practicing the “bourgeois-nationalist” approach of S. An-sky (Shloyme-Zanvl Rappoport). This chapter examines Wiener's theory of folklore and its role in the emergence of Yiddish literature, along with its relation to language and the Haskalah. It also considers Wiener's views about the problem of Jewish military conscription, the place of Yisroel Aksenfeld and Shloyme Etinger in his arguments, and his use of Marxism to develop a conceptual framework that incorporated literary and social aspects of Jewish cultural development in the Russian Empire during the early nineteenth century.Less

History and Fiction

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

Meir Wiener developed an interest in historical fiction for practical and theoretical reasons. His concept of the historical novel can be seen within the theoretical framework of socialist-realist ... More

Meir Wiener developed an interest in historical fiction for practical and theoretical reasons. His concept of the historical novel can be seen within the theoretical framework of socialist-realist discourse. Wiener argued that historical progress is driven primarily by the plebeian underclass, and that the vagabond intellectual and artist is the voice behind this underclass. This theory can be interpreted as a response to Georg Lukács's concept of the historical novel, in which he dismissed the masses as a historical force. Both Wiener and Lukács are critical of “psychological modernization,” but Wiener proposes a different kind of artistic modernization known as “metaphorical modernization.” This chapter discusses Wiener's historical fiction and his ideas on Jewish history, along with his historical concept of the Yiddish literature. It looks at Wiener's historical novella Valenty Gulviets, which he revised and expanded after arriving in the Soviet Union, turning it a short novel entitled Kolev Ashkenazi. The chapter also examines another Wiener novel, Baym mitllendishn yam (At the Mediterranean Sea), which focuses on the seventeenth-century Venetian rabbi Leon Modena.Less

Introduction: Why Meir Wiener?

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

This book explores the intellectual and artistic creativity of Meir Wiener in the context of cultural movements and phenomena in interwar Central and Eastern Europe, including Soviet Marxism, German ... More

This book explores the intellectual and artistic creativity of Meir Wiener in the context of cultural movements and phenomena in interwar Central and Eastern Europe, including Soviet Marxism, German expressionism, Kabbalah, and Haskalah. It analyzes Wiener's achievements by focusing on the experiences of millions of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe with the pressing issues of their day, such as anti-Semitism and the intensifying political and military situation in the region. The book examines Wiener's changing attitude to expressionism and Jewish writing in German, his political and scholarly ideas during the early 1920s, his early Yiddish writing, his time in the Soviet Union and his adjustment to Soviet conditions in Kiev, and his historical and critical studies on Yiddish literature, as well as the evolution of his ideas during the 1930s. It also looks at Wiener's historical fiction and his ideas on Jewish history, along with his memoirs and the unfinished magnum opus, set in the early 1920s in Berlin.Less

Desire, Destiny, and Death: Fantasy and Reality in Soviet Yiddish Literature around 1929

Mikhail Krutikov

in 1929: Mapping the Jewish World

This chapter examines the convergence of fantasy and reality in Yiddish literature produced in the Soviet Union around 1929. It first considers a series of high-profile ideological campaigns in the ... More

This chapter examines the convergence of fantasy and reality in Yiddish literature produced in the Soviet Union around 1929. It first considers a series of high-profile ideological campaigns in the Soviet Union that affected Yiddish writers such as Leyb Kvitko, Der Nister, and Perets Markish. It then assesses the impact of international developments on Soviet Yiddish politics, including the outbreak of Arab violence in Palestine, before shifting to a discussion of literary productivity in 1929. In particular, it analyzes the short stories of Der Nister and Shmuel Godiner, as well as Meir Wiener's novel Ele Faleks untergang (The Downfall of Ele Falek).Less

Conclusion

in From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener

Meir Wiener's conversion to communism was disturbing to prominent Yiddish critics and scholars such as Dov Sadan, Elias Shulman, and Max Weinreich. They found it hard to comprehend how Wiener could ... More

Meir Wiener's conversion to communism was disturbing to prominent Yiddish critics and scholars such as Dov Sadan, Elias Shulman, and Max Weinreich. They found it hard to comprehend how Wiener could embrace an ideology they considered to be totalitarian and hostile to Jews, and move to the Soviet Union—a foreign country in which he had no roots and to which he felt no particular attachment. More paradoxically, Wiener was able to establish a successful career in the Soviet Union as a scholar and writer. Although his emigration to the Soviet Union affected his thinking and expression in many ways, the essence of his personality remained unchanged. In fact, Wiener successfully brought that discourse to the Soviet Union and adapted it to the intellectual agenda of Soviet Marxism. His understanding of the development of Yiddish literature from the Haskalah to socialist realism influenced his understanding of Marxism. Through Marxism, a theoretical possibility arose for Wiener to separate Jewish culture from modern politics, particularly from its focus on nationalism.Less