1/2005 Empire: The Lexicon of Praxis and the Grammar of Analysis

Конструирование невероятной идентичности: случай Грыцько Кернеренко

Йоханан Петровский-Штерн

1/2005

Публикуется на английском (на английской части сайта).

SUMMARY:

Йоханан Петровский-Штерн разбирает малоосвоенный историографией процесс еврейской аккультурации в колониальный дискурс (напр. литовский, словацкий), который сознательно предпочитается “высоким языкам” имперской культуры (напр., русскому или немецкому). В частности, выбор еврейскими писателями украинского языка автор рассматривает как явный антиколониальный жест. Анализируя конкретный пример такого “жеста”, автор выходит на проблему формирования еврейской идентичности с помощью украинских культурных тропов и ставит вопрос о существовании еврейско-украинского текста (по аналогии с русско-еврейской литературой).
Статья посвящена анализу жизни и творчества Григория Борисовича Кернера (Гирш бен Борух Кернер, 1863-?), первого украинского поэта еврейского происхождения, писавшего под псевдонимом Грыцько Кернеренко. Петровский-Штерн считает его основателем украинско-еврейской литературной традиции, зародившейся в 1880-х гг. Автор рисует политическую и культурную ситуацию в имперском и украинском обществе второй половины XIX века, которая мало способствовала интеграции евреев в колониальную украинскую культуру. На этом фоне, из редчайших разрозненных данных, обнаруженных в различных архивах Украины, он воссоздает биографию Кернеренко/Кернера, провинциального еврея-украинского поэта, социализировавшегося в украинской культурной среде, на украинском языке, и остававшегося в ней маргинальной фигурой. Украинская культурная ориентация определила маргинальный статус Кренеренко и в родном Гуляй-Поле, хотя он принадлежал к одному из самых богатых и экономически влиятельных местных семейств.
Петровский-Штерн вскрывает неоднозначный характер идентичности Кернера на самых разных уровнях: от его непосредственного круга общения до поэтического и эпистолярного наследия. Отдельный большой сюжет статьи посвящен анализу взаимоотношений Кернера и Ивана Франко, которые были важнейшим эпизодом украинской социализации Кернера. Франко живо интересовался еврейским просвещением (Хаскалой) и сионизмом, он привлек Кернеренко к сотрудничеству в журнале “Литературно-науковый вистнык” и помог ему обрести голос переводчика-посредника между украинской и идишистской культурами. До 1900 г. среди основных тем поэзии Кернеренко доминировали эротика и Украина. Петровский-Штерн показывает, как в интерпретации Кернера эти темы приобретали характерное еврейское звучание благодаря трансляции еврейских концептов в украинский контекст. В 1900-х гг. в Кернере пробуждается интерес к еврейской тематике, в том числе к сионизму, и он использует весь доступный украинскому поэту лирический потенциал для выражения своей еврейской идентичности. Именно с этой точки зрения в статье разбираются как оригинальные произведения Кернеренко, так и его переводы еврейских поэтов, прежде всего, Семена Фруга. В этих переводах оформлялась парадигма украинско-еврейской идентичности – “пасынка”, который воспринимает Украину как “мать”. В статье анализируется реакция на творчество Кернеренко украинской критики рубежа веков, которая рассматривала его в диапазоне от эстетствующего поэта до представителя уникальной украинско-еврейской литературной традиции. В современной Украине фигура Кернеренко питает историческое воображение как тех евреев и украинцев, кто оптимистически романтизирует перспективы украино-еврейского сближения, так и тех, кто пытается оценить его “позитивно-объективно”. В заключении Петровский-Штерн отмечает, что вопреки реальной лингвистической и политической ситуации, Кернеренко рассматривал украинский язык как универсальный язык национального самовыражения, как дискурс, открытый таким “малым” народам, как еврейский. Автор методологически углубляет этот вывод, привлекая перспективу постколониальных исследований.
Литературное наследие Кернеренко составляют несколько сот стихотворений, поэтических переводов, несколько коротких рассказов и сказок и одна пьеса. Напечатанные при жизни поэта сборники его работ являются сегодня библиографической редкостью. Они не переиздавались после выхода последнего сборника в 1910 году. Несмотря на то, что отдельные стихи Кернеренко в 1900-х гг. печатались в украинских периодических изданиях и вошли в украинские поэтические антологии, в конце 1920-х гг. его имя оказалось забытым. Личный архив Кернеренко, по видимому, погиб в годы Первой мировой войны. Документы, позволяющие реконструировать литературную биографию Кернеренко, находятся в коллекциях украинских культурных деятелей рубежа веков – Олексы Коваленко, Кесария Билыловського, Ивана Франко. Документы для настоящей статьи и архивной публикации собирались в архивах и музейных хранилищах Киева, Чернигова, Гуляй-Поля. В предлагаемую читателям AI архивную публикацию вошли семь стихотворений Кернеренко, три поэтических перевода и три письма (последние публикуются впервые). В своей совокупности они позволяют лучше понять связанный с его именем в значительной степени утопический проект создания еврейской идентичности на украинском языке и в украинском колониальном (согласно автору публикации) культурном контексте.

1.On the integration of Austro-Hungarian and Austro-Galician Jews to German culture, see Lois Dubin. The Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste: Absolutist Politics and Enlightenment Culture. Stanford, CA, 1999; Peter Hanak. The Garden and the Workshop: Essays on the Cultural History of Vienna and Budapest. Princeton, 1998. Pp. 44-62, 174-172; William McCagg, Jr. A History of Habsburg Jews, 1670-1918. Bloomington, 1989; Hillel J. Kieval. The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870-1918. New York and Oxford, 1988; Marsha Rozenblit. The Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914: Assimilation and Identity. Albany, NY, 1983; Jerzy Tomaszewski (Ed.). Najnowsze dzeje żydow z Polsce w zarysie. Warsaw, 1993. Pp. 79-122. On the assimilation of Jews in the Russian Empire to Russian culture, see John D. Klier. Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 1855-1881. Cambridge, 1995; Benjamin Nathans. Beyond the Pale: the Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley, 2002; Alexander Orbach. New Voices of Russian Jewry. A Study of the Russian-Jewish Press of Odessa in the Era of Great Reforms, 1860-1871. Leiden, 1980; Michael Stanislawski. For Whom Do I Toil?: Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry. New York, 1988; Steven Zipperstein. The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794-1881. Stanford, CA., 1986.↩

2.See Kinga Frojmovics. Ha-Zeramim ha-datiyim be-Yahadut Hungaryah: ortodoksya, neologyah ve-status kvo ante: ben ha-shanim 1868/1896-1950. Ramat Gan, 2002; Ezra Mendelsohn. On Modern Jewish Politics. New York and Oxford, 1993; Idem. The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars. Bloomington, 1983; Antony Polonsky and Michael Riff. Poles, Czechoslovaks, and the “Jewish Question”, 1914-1921: A Comparative Study // Volker Berghann and Martin Kitchen (Eds.). Germany in the Age of Total War. London and Totowa, NJ., 1981. Pp. 63-101; Liekis Sarunas. A State Within a State? Jewish Autonomy in Lithuania, 1918-1925. Vilnius, 2003; Jerzy Tomaszewski. Zarys dziejów Żydów w Polsce w latach 1918-1939. Warsaw, 1990.↩

3.I do not include here those literary figures who lived in or came to Ukraine and wrote in Yiddish, such as David Gofshteyn, Leyb Kvitko, and Itsik Fefer. See Gennady Estraikh. In Harness: Yiddish Writers’ Romance with Communism. Syracuse, NY, 2005. On Soviet Yiddish writers, see Dafna Clifford. “Dovid Bergelson’s ‘Bam Dnieper’; a passport to Moscow” // Politics of Yiddish. 1998. Pp. 157-170; Joseph Sherman. Creative freedom and the Party Line: the Case of Dovid Bergelson // Midstream. 2001. Vol. 47. No. 8. Pp. 20-23; Susan A. Slotnick. David Bergelson and the metamorphosis of tradition // JBA. 1983. Vol. 41. Pp. 122-132; Lawrence Rosenwald. The Implications of a New Bergelson Translation // Prooftexts. 2001. Vol. 21. No. 2. Pp. 237-247; Seth Wolitz. Language as Ideology in Bergelson’s “Nokh Alemen”// WCJS. 1982. Vol. 8. No. 3. Pp. 171-175; Gennady Estraikh. Itsik Fefer: a Yiddish “Wunderkind” of the Bolshevik Revolution // Shofar. 2002. Vol. 20. No. 3. Pp. 14-31; Joshua Rubenstein. A portrait of Itsik Fefer // Midstream. 2002. Vol. 48. No. 5. Pp. 9-11; Mikhail Krutikov. Between Mysticism and Marxism: Meir Wiener as Writer, Critic, and Literary Historian // Jews in Eastern Europe. 1994. Vol. 25. Pp. 34-40. On Ukraine, and Kyiv in particular, as the new center of Yiddish culture, see Alfred Abraham Greenbaum. Jewish Scholarship and Scholarly Institutions in Soviet Russia, 1918-1953. Jerusalem, 1978; Gillel Kazovskii. Khudozhniki kul’tur-ligi. Moscow, 2003; Mykola Rybakov (Ed.). Pravda istoryi: diial’nist ievreis’koi kul’turno-prosvitnyts’koi orhanizatsii “Kul’turliga” u Kyievi (1918-1925): zbirnyk dokumentiv i materialiv. Kyiv, 2001.↩

4.For an analysis of Jewish themes and motifs in the works of Russian-Jewish writers and poets, see Rita Genzeleva. Puti evreiskogo samosoznania. Jerusalem and Moscow, 1999; Leonid Katsis. Osip Mandelshtam: muskus iudeistva. Jerusalem and Moscow, 2002; Vladimir Khazan. Osobennyi evreiskii-russkii vozdukh: k problematike i poetike russko-evreiskogo literaturnogo dialoga v XX veke. Jerusalem and Moscow, 2001; Simon Markish. A propos de l’Histoire et de la methologique de l’Etude de la Litterature Juive d’expression Russe // CMRS. 1985. Vol. 26. No. 2. Pp. 139-152; Alice S. Nakhimovsky. Russian-Jewish Literature and Identity: Jabotinsky, Babel, Grossman, Galich, Roziner, Markish. Baltimor, 1992; Maxim Shrayer. Russian Poet/Soviet Jew: the Legacy of Eduard Bagritskii. Lanham, Md., 2000; Harriet Murav. A Curse on Russia: Gorenshtein’s anti-‘Psalom’ and the critics // Russian Review. 2000. Vol. 52. No. 2. Pp. 212-227.↩

5.For a standard survey of the nineteenth-century representation of Jews in Polish literature, see Mieczysław Inglot. Postać żyda w literaturze polskiej lat 1822-1864. Wrocław, 1999, as well as Magdalena Opalski and Israel Bartal. Poles and Jews: a Failed Brotherhood. Hanover, 1992; for contributions from the first half of the twentieth century, see Eugenia Prokop-Janiec. Polish-Jewish Literature in the Interwar Years / Transl. from the Polish by Abe Shenitzer. Syracuse, 2003. An interesting conceptual framework for Polish-Jewish rapprochement is offered in Ryszard Löw. Znaki obecności: o polsko-hebrajskich i polsko-żydowskich związkach literackich. Kraków, 1995; for a recent collection of Jewish contributions to Polish literature, see Antony Polonsky and Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska (Eds.). Contemporary Jewish Writing in Poland: An Anthology. Lincoln, 2001, as well as Henryk Markiewicz (Ed.). Żydzi w Polsce: antologia literacka. Kraków, 1997.↩

6.See, for example, Henry Abramson. Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920. Cambridge, 1999; Shimon Redlich. Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945. Bloomington, 2002; Polin: a journal of Polish-Jewish studies. Vol. 12 (Focusing on Galicia: Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians, 1772-1919). London, 1999. As for the literary interaction an issue of “Jews and Slavs” dedicated to the Ukrainian-Jewish cultural rapprochement hardly filled the gap. See: Jews and Slavs. 1993. Vol. 5.↩

7.To a certain extent this reluctance is informed by the received perception of the historical “encounter” between Jews and Ukrainians, according to which Ukrainian-Jewish history is nothing but one prolonged pogrom. It begins with gezerot takh ve-tat, the 1648-1649 Khmel’nyts’kyi (Chmelnicki) massacres, continues to the 1756 haidamaky pogroms, the pogroms of 1881, 1905, and 1919, and, finally, the Holocaust. For a criticism of this grand historiographic narrative, which ignores Ukraine’s status as a colonial territory, see Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern. In Search of a Lost People: Jews in Modern Ukrainian Historiography // East European Jewish Affairs. 2003. Vol. 1. Pp. 67-82.↩

8.Hryts’ko Kernerenko was a pseudonym. In Ukrainian, his name was Hryhoryi Borysovych Kerner; in Russian, Grigorii Borisovich Kerner; and in Hebrew/Yiddish, Hirsch ben Borukh Kerner.↩

9.For the most comprehensive overview of this theme, see Vadim Skuratovskii. Ukrainskaia literatura // Kratkaia evreiskaia entsiklopedia. Vol. 8. Jerusalem, 1976-1999. Pp. 1268-1276; see also Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern. Moisei Fishbein // Glenda Abramson (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture. Vol. 1. London and New York, 2005. Pp. 270-271.↩

10.Osnova (1861-1862) and Chernyhovs’kyi lystok (1861-1863). I do not refer here to Russian language publications that randomly published some materials in Ukrainian such as Gubernskie vedomosti (established in South-Western provinces in 1838). For more detail, see Paul Robert Magocsi. A History of Ukraine. Toronto and Buffalo, 1996. Pp. 366-367.↩

11.For a detailed discussion of this period, see Alexei Miller. The Ukrainian Question: The Russian Empire and Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century. Budapest and New York, 2003. Pp. 60-95.↩

12.For the English version see Magosci. History of Ukraine. Pp. 369-370.↩

13.For the English version, see Miller. Ukrainian Question. Pp. 267-269.↩

14.Olga Andriewsky discusses these decrees in the context of the “politicization” of the Ukrainian question in the Russian empire after the 1863 Polish revolt. See her “The Russian-Ukrainian Discourse and the Failure of the ‘Little Russian’ Solution, 1782-1917” in: Andreas Kappeler et al. (Eds.). Culture, Nation, and Identity: The Ukrainian-Russian Encounter 1600-1945. Edmonton and Toronto, 2003. Pp. 182-214, esp. 208-213.↩

15.Though historians argue that the ostracism of Ukrainian language and culture was unique in Late Imperial Russia, another language was partially outlawed, namely, Yiddish. There is a striking parallel in the tsarist authorities’ attitudes to Ukrainian and Yiddish. While the latter was scornfully dubbed a “jargon,” segregated as a third-rate subject of the empire, and never considered a genuine language, the former was also despised as “jargon” and was denied the mere right of residence. Also, it is illuminating that both the Ukrainian and Russian-Jewish press of the 1860s were short-lived and abruptly terminated under the ever increasing pressure of censorship. On the fate of Yiddish in Russia, see Sara Abrevaya Stein. Making Jews Modern: Yiddish and Ladino Press in Russian and Ottoman Empires. Bloomington, 2004; for the Russian-Jewish press, see Alexander Orbach. New Voices of Russian Jewry: a Study of the Russian-Jewish Press of Odessa in the Era of Great Reforms, 1860-1971. Leiden, 1980. For a brief discussion of the negative Russian imperial attitude to the languages that “generally lacked a literary standard,” see Andreas Kappeler. Mazepintsy, Malorossy, Khokhly: Ukrainians in the Ethnic Hierarchy of the Russian Empire // Kappeler et al. (Eds.). Ukrainian-Russian Encounter. Pp. 166-167.↩

16.The situation with “foreign” (Galician Ukrainian) publications was not stable. In the 1890s, a meager circulation of several periodicals such as Zoria and Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk (hereafter – LNV) was allowed to be sent by mail to a number of Russian cities, but in the late 1890s and in early 1900 the authorities enforced the ban, preventing the circulation of some 400 issues of Zoria and some 150-200 of LNV. See Ivan Franko. Zaborona Literat.-Nauk. Vistnyka v Rosii // LNV. 1901. No. 16. Pp. 94-98.↩

17.Magocsi. History of Ukraine. Pp. 363-382.↩

18.Iaroslav Hrytsak. Narys istorii Ukrainy: formuvannia modernoi ukrains'koi natsii XIX-XX stolittia. Kyiv, 1996. P. 70.↩

19.For more detail, see chapters 9 and 10 of Miller. Ukrainian Question. Pp. 179-210. On the persecution of Ukrainian ethnography, particularly of one of its founders, Pavlo Chubyns’kyi (1839-1884), see Omeljan Prytsak (Ed.). Fedir Savchenko. Zaborona Ukrains’tva 1876 r. / Reprint of the 1930 Kiev edition. München, 1970. Index.↩

20.I owe this archival-based information to Yuri Shcherbak, who in the early 1980s planned to use it in his play devoted to Lesia Ukrainka, Contra spem spero.↩

21.John Klier. Imperial Russia’s Jewish Question, 1855-1881. Cambridge, 1995. Pp. 51-62.↩

22.On Jewish inn-keepers humiliating poor Ukrainians, see Anna Barvinok. S Volyni // Osnova. 1861. No. 1. Pp. 282-292; on an anti-Jewish hatred among Ukrainians, see Panteleimon Kulish. Drugoi chelovek (iz vospominanii bylogo) // Osnova. 1861. No. 2. Pp. 64-67; on the legitimization of the anti-Jewish stance of the Ukrainian press, N. Kostomarov. Iudeiam // Osnova. 1862. No. 1. Pp. 38-58; on Jewish factors (lease-holders) exploiting local Ukrainians, see Hromada. 1878. No. 2. Pp. 50-51, 62-63, 77-78; on Jewish army purveyors whose activities ruined the army and local economy, Ibid. Pp. 357-359; on rapacious Jewish stock-exchange adventurers, see Hromada. 1879. No. 4. Pp. 23-24; on Jewish nouveau riches and landowners in Ukraine, see Hromada. 1882. No. 5. Pp. 2-5.↩

23.See Panas Myrnyi. Tvory v 5-ty tomakh. Kyiv, 1960. Pp. 216-217. In 1883, in the aftermath of the pogroms in the southwestern part of the Russian empire (predominantly in Malorossia), Myrnyi penned a story “Za vodoiu” (On the Other Side of the Waters) with Ivan Bilyk about a Jewish lease-holder, Leyba, who becomes a new Ukrainian blood-sucking lord exploiting rural dwellers and triggering anti-Jewish pogroms. This story was not published until 1918. See Panas Myrnyi. Tvory v 2-kh tomakh. Kyiv, 1989. Vol. 1. Pp. 197-262.↩

24.See Israel Bartal and Antony Polonsky. The Jews in Galicia under Habsburgs, and Józef Buszko. The Consequences of Galician Autonomy after 1867 // Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies. 1999. Vol. 12. Pp. 3-24 and 86-99. See also Ivan L. Rudnytsky. Essays in Modern Ukrainian History. Cambridge, 1987. Pp. 299-314.↩

25.See Ukrains’ki seliane v nespokoini roky // Hromada. 1882. Vol. 5. Pp. 253-258. For more detail on Drahomanov’s stance on Jewish issues, see Rudnytsky. Essays in Modern Ukrainian History. Pp. 283-298.↩

26.For example, Panteleimon Kulish, an ardent adept of the Ukrainian-Jewish encounter who at first wholeheartedly supported and publicly praised the literary endeavors of Kesar Bilylovs’kyi, a Jew eager to entirely sacrifice his Jewishness for the sake of his newly adopted Ukrainian identity, became disillusioned, claiming that a Jew cannot become a Ukrainian any more than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, and his sudden switch naturally caused Bilylovs’kyi’s consternation, bitterness, and distress. See Bilylovs’kyi’s complaints about Kulish’s bigotry in his letter to Mykhailo Lobodovs’kyi, the Department of Manuscripts of the Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (hereafter – DMIL). F. 182 (the letter is dated February 3, 1895; unprocessed collection of Yeremiia Aizenshtok). For a detailed analysis of Kulish-Bilylovs’kyi relations and the reasons for their quarrel, different from those indicated by Bilylovs’kyi, see Stepan Zakharkin’s commentary on Bilylovs’kyi’s memoirs: Kyivs’ka starovyna. 2003. No. 1. Pp. 152-153 n50 and the extensive bibliography Zakharkin amasses there.↩

27.On Franko’s stance on ethnic problems in Galicia, see Yaroslav Hrytsak. A Ukrainian Answer to the Galician Ethnic Triangle: The Case of Ivan Franko // Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry. 1999. No. 12. Pp. 137-146.↩

28.Vynnychenko’s philosemitic writings have not been subjected to scholarly analysis. Among the most important pieces containing complex, contradictory yet in most cases positive Jewish images, see his short story “Talisman” and his plays “Between Two Fires” and “Israel’s Melody.” In addition, Vynnychenko seems to have been one of the first who traced parallels in the mistreatment of the Jews and Ukrainians in the Russian empire. See his Otkrytoe pis’mo k russkim pisateliam // Ukrainskaia zhizn. 1913. No. 10. Pp. 29-33. For the later development of Vynnychenko’s philosemitic stance, see his 1923 essay “Evreis’ke pytannia na Ukraini,” reproduced in: Suchasnist. 1992. Vol. 8. Pp. 116-125.↩

29.Among the most important publications on this issue are: Benjamin Nathans. Beyond the Pale: the Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley, 2003; Jonathan Frankel and Steven Zipperstein. Assimilation and Community: Jews in 19th Century Europe. Cambridge, 1992; John Klier. Imperial Russia’s Jewish Question, 1855-1881. Cambridge and New York, 1995; Gabriella Safran. Rewriting the Jew: Assimilation Narratives in the Russian Empire. Stanford, 2000; Michael Stanislawski. For Whom Do I Toil? Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry. New York, 1988; Steven Zipperstein. The Jews of Odessa: a Cultural History, 1794-1881. Stanford, 1986.↩

30.I rely on Patricia Hernihy’s insightful observation that the bigger the city in the 19th century Ukraine, the less it was Ukrainian. See her Ukrainian Cities in the Nineteenth Century // Ivan Rudnytsky (Ed.). Rethinking Ukrainian History. Edmonton, 1981. Pp. 135-149.↩

31.Max Weinreich. History of the Yiddish Language / Transl. by Shlomo Noble. Chicago, 1980. Pp. 548-550, 587-595.↩

32.I am grateful to Mikhail Krutikov for bringing this information to my attention.↩

33.On Jabotinsky’s sympathies to the Ukrainian cause and his criticism of Russian chauvinistic quasi-liberals, see Israel Kleiner. From Nationalism to Universalism: Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky and the Ukrainian Question. Edmonton and Toronto, 2000, and Alexei Miller’s review in KRITIKA: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2003. Vol. 4. No. 1. Pp. 232-238; Olga Andriewsky. “Medved” iz berlogi: Vladimir Jabotinsky and the Ukrainian Question, 1904-1914 // Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Vol. 14. No. 3-4. Pp. 249-267. For Jabotinsky’s Ukrainophile essays, see Volodymyr Zhabotyns’kyi. Vybrani statti z natsional’noho pytannia / Transl., preface, and commentary by Izrail Kleiner. Kyiv, 1991.↩

34.Ruth Wisse. The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Language and Culture. New York and London, 2000. Pp. 207-216, 220-223.↩

35.See Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Can the Subaltern Speak? // Patric Williams and Laura Chrisman (Eds.). Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. New York, 1994. Pp. 66-111.↩

36.Kachurovs’kyi has to be credited for his attempt to conceptualize Kernerenko as one of the first Ukrainian poets of Jewish descent. For his pioneering essay, see Ihor Kachurovs’kyi. Pro Hryts’ka Kernerenka // Khronika 2000. 1998. Pp. 174-176.↩

37.See Yulia Mirmovich (Ed.). Obzor dokumental’nykh istochnikov po istorii evreiskoi literatury v fondakh arkhivokhranilishch Kieva: Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv-muzei literatury i iskusstva Ukrainy, Otdel rukopisei Instituta literatury im. T. Shevchenko Natsional’noi Akademii Nauk Ukrainy. Moscow, 1996. Pp. 20-22 [“Jewish archive” series], available on the web: http://www.jewish-heritage.org/sea6.htm↩

38.Oleksa Kovalenko (Ed.). Ukrains’ka muza. Poetychna antolohia. Kyiv: n.p., 1908. P. 797. This anthology of Ukrainian poetry has been reprinted partially (Buenos Aires, 1973) and in full prefaced and edited by Fedir Pohrebennyk (Kyiv, 1993). These scarce biographic details go back to a short autobiography that Oleksa Kovalenko commissioned Kernerenko to write for his anthology Rozvaha. Kernerenko was not too eloquent depicting his life and career. What he penned was a modest biographic entry that leaves almost nothing to the imagination. “Dear Mister Oleksa Kuz’mych, I am promptly answering your kind request. I was born in 1863 in Huliaipole sloboda, Katerynoslav Province. I studied in Simferopol high school, then studied agriculture in Munich Polytechnical School. I have published only four books […]. I am sending you my picture and also this small notebook of my already published and yet unpublished works. Will you be so kind as to return this notebook to me as soon as you make some use of it for your almanac. Thank you very much for remembering me. Most respectfully yours, Hryts’ko Kernerenko.” See Chernihiv Local History Museum (Chernihivs’kyi istorychnyi muzei, hereafter – ChHM). Al 52-147/1/539 (Kernerenko to Kovalenko, December 26, 1906). L. 1-1ob. For the Ukrainian original, see in this issue of AI “From Kernerenko’s Literary Heritage,” III, 2.↩

39.For the anti-Jewish educational restrictions that followed the infamous Ignatiev 1882 May laws, see Heinz-Dietriech Löwe. Antisemitism at the Close of the Czarist Era // Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.). Hostages of Modernization. Studies of Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. 3 vols. Berlin and New York, 1993. Vol. 3/2. Pp. 1188-1207; see also Benjamin Nathans. Beyond the Pale. Pp. 268-282 and Alexander Orbach. The Development of the Russian-Jewish Community, 1881-1903 // John Klier and Shlomo Lambroza (Eds.). Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge, 1992. Pp. 137-163.↩

40.Suffice it to mention Dmytro Dontsov, who studied in Vienna, and Viacheslav Lypyns’kyi, who studied in Geneva. Both became prominent 20th-century Ukrainian thinkers.↩

41.See references to places where his early poems were written in Hryts’ko Kernerenko. Nevelychkyi zbirnyk tvoriv. Kharkov: Zilberberg, 1880. Pp. 22, 24.↩

42.At that time, Huliai-pole, situated in the center of a triangle formed by the three cities Ekaterinoslav (Dnipropetrovs’k), Yuzovo (Donets’k), and Melitopol, was a nicely planned town. By 1898, it boasted 76 plants, factories, and artisan shops, and some 20 stores. By 1914, it had 16,150 inhabitants, three churches, one synagogue, five primary schools, one parish school, one workers’ school, one German and two Jewish schools, a library, a theater, and a cinema. See A. V. Belash and V. F. Belash. Dorogi Nestora Makhno: istoricheskoe povestvovanie. Kiev, 1993. P. 577 n2. According to the 1897 census, there were 1,173 Jews in Huliai-pole. See R. I. Goldshtein. Materialy k istorii evreiskoi obshchiny Dnepropetrovshchiny. Dnipropetrovs’k, 1992. P. 9. Later in 20th century Jewish literature, Huliai-pole became an example of an essential Jewish collective farm (kolkhoz) and of the social and cultural encounter between Jewish and Ukrainian peasants. See Note Lurye. Der step ruft. Minsk, 1934.↩

43.Several buildings belonging to Huliai-pole Jews remain intact to this today, including the Althausen Hotel (now the city council), a two-storied mill (now an oil and grain mill), the central synagogue (now the district hospital), and Mutual Credit Bank (now the local museum).↩

44.Anatol Hak (Martyn Zadeka). Vid Huliai-polia do Niu-Iorku: spohady. Philadelphia, 1973. P. 24, note.↩

45.Ibid. Pp. 24-25.↩

46.Ibid. Pp. 26-30.↩

47.Kernerenko penned at least five books, all of which are rare: the short tale Pravdyva kazka (1886 and 1890), and four books of poetry: Nevelychkyi zbirnyk tvoriv (1890), Shchetynnyk (1891), V dosuzhyi chas (1894), Menty natkhnennia (1910). Though almost all texts analyzed in this paper appeared in the book collections, I quote them from the available journal reprints. In selecting Kernerenko’s texts for this paper, I did not pursue the task of introducing the whole plethora of his themes and images. Rather, I focused on Ukrainian and Jewish national issues.↩

48.Ivan Franko (Ed.). Akordy: antoliohia [sic!] Ukrains’koi liryky vid smerty Shevchenka. Lviv: Ukrains’ko-rus’ka vydavnycha spilka, 1903. P. 274. The fact that the Akordy anthology was published by Mykhailo Il’nyts’kyi in a facsimile edition (Kyiv, 1993) testifies to its particular importance in the history of Ukrainian culture.↩

49.Ukrains’kyi deklamator: rozvaha. Artystychnyi zbirnyk poezii, opovidan’ v prozi, monolohiv, zhartiv i humoresok naivydatnishykh ukrains’kykh poetiv i pys’menykiv (Ukrainian Declaimer: an entertainment. An artistic collection of poetry, prose short stories, monologues, jokes and anecdotes of the most prominent Ukrainian poets and writers). Kyiv: Kul’zhenko, 1905 and 1908. Vol. 1. Pp. 89-93, 271; 2: 226-227, 268, 330.↩

50.Oleska Kovalenko (Ed.). Ukrains’ka muza. Poetychna antolohia od pochatku do nashikh dniv (Ukrainian muse: a poetic anthology from the beginning to the present). Kyiv, 1908↩

51.. Pp. 797-806. Zerov mentions it among the last pre-1920s anthologies of Ukrainian poetry. See Mykola Zerov. Ukrains’ke pys’menstvo. Kyiv, 2003. P. 228. On Kernerenko-Kovalenko relations, see Kernerenko’s letters to Oleksa Kuz’mych Kovalenko in the ChHM. Al 52-147/1/539 (Kernerenko to Kovalenko, December 26, 1906). L. 1-2; Al 52-147/5/539 (December 26 [in fact, November 27], 1906). L. 1; Al 52-147/2/539 (February 2, 1907). L. 1-1ob., Al 52-147/3/539 (November 10, 1908). L. 1; Al 52-147/4/539 (November 5, 1907). L. 1. 1-2a.↩

52.B. Lepkyi. Struny: antoliohia ukrains’koi poezii vid naidavnishykh do nynishnikh chasiv. 2 vols. Berlin, 1922. Vol. 2. Pp. 74-76.↩

53.Narodnyi pisennyk z naikrashchykh ukrains’kykh pisen, iaki teper naichastish spivaiutsia, z notamy (The People’s Songbook of the best Ukrainian songs that are most-often sung nowadays, with scores). Kharkov: Mikhailov, 1887.↩

54.For a short biography of Aleksandrov, see Zerov. Ukrains’ke pys’menstvo. P. 983. For archival material, see Putivnyk po fondu viddily rukopysiv Instytutu Literatury. Kyiv, 1999. Pp. 23-25.↩

55.See DMIL. F. 22. D. 11-13, 37, 38, 49, 50, 54-56, 87, 88, 90-96, 157 (for 1877-1892).↩

56.Alexandrov’s own verse, imbued with romantic motifs, is indebted to Schiller, Heine, Lermontov, and their epigones. See Skladka: almanakh. Kharkiv: Adolf Darre, 1886. Pp. 5-6, 44, 46, 69, 81, 91, 169, 218.↩

57.Yevhen Chykalenko. Spohady (1861-1907). New York, 1955. P. 238.↩

58.For the Ukrainian original of Kernerenko’s letter to Kovalenko, see in this issue of AI “From Kernerenko’s Literary Heritage,” III, 2.↩

59.Kesar Oleksandrovych Bilylovs’kyi, whose Jewish descent and literary interests have been neglected by students of both East European Jewish and Ukrainian culture, deserves a separate scholarly discussion. For a biography that excludes references to Bilylovs’kyi’s Jewish identity, see P. A. Dehtiarev. Zaliublenyi v krasu ridnoho slova // Kesar Bilylovs’kyi. V charakh kokhannia. Kyiv, 1981. Pp. 3-24; Idem. Kesar Bilylovs’kyi // Pys’mennyki radians’koi Ukrainy: Literaturno-krytychni narysy. 1987. Vol. 13. Pp. 38-112. In an autobiographical essay, Bilylovs’kyi avoided the discussion of his Jewish identity. See Isai Zaslavs’kyi and Stepan Zakharkin. Spohady Kesaria Bilylovs’koho // Kyivs’ka starovyna. 2003. No. 1. Pp. 134-154; 2003. No. 2. Pp. 84-102; 2003. No. 3. Pp. 118-145. However, in his letters to prominent Ukrainian literary figures he complained of having been misunderstood, and even mistreated, because of his Jewish origins by such outstanding Ukrainian poets as Panteleimon Kulish. Mention should be made of Bilylovs’kyi’s consistent attempts to translate notions and motifs of the Musar (ethical) Jewish tradition into Ukrainian verse. He extensively draws from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), Mishle (Proverbs), some explicitly didactic Tehillim (Psalms), and perhaps even from Pirke Avot (“Fragments of Our Fathers,” an ethical tractate of the Talmud). Bilylovs’kyi universalizes Judaic ethics in his Ukrainian poetic version and not unsuccessfully circumvents apparently indispensable Christian connotations. See his “Life Wisdom” (Zhyteis’ka mudrist’), “Life Experience” (Zhyteis’kyi dosvid), “The Red Wedding” (Chervonyi shliub), “Let Me Live” (Daite-bo zhyt’!), and “Elegy” (Elehia), in: Ukrains’kyi deklamator. Pp. 263-64, 305-06, 384-85, 411, 486-87. Also see Bilylovs’kyi’s ethical and didactical poems with some Judaic flavor such as “Ten Wordly Gifts” (Desiat’ dariv na sviti), “Klym Haneba,” and “Let Me Live!” (Daite-bo zhyt’) in: V. Aleksandrov (Ed.). Skladka: almanakh. Kharkiv, 1887. Pp. 7, 82-84, 131-132.↩

60.“I would like to thank you for starting your good job of enlightenment by having already brought to light two almanacs. May God help you! It is really a pity that I could not have joined the participants in the collection in memory of the late Vladymyr Stepanovych. Had I known that you have such a dear soul and had I known where you live I would have written to you and sent something: since I am one of the acquaintances and disciples of the late Vl[adymyr] Stepanovych; alas, what has passed cannot be returned! At this point I would like to ask you, your kindness, should you plan to publish something literary in memory of the late Vl[adymyr] St[epanovych], do not exclude me....” Kernerenko’s letter was attached to his collection of poetry. See MDIL. F. 72 (Kesar Bilylovs’kyi). D. 243. Pp. 1-2. Unfortunately, the collaboration between Kernerenko and Bilylovs’kyi did not bring fruit because in 1897 Bilylovs’kyi stopped publishing the Skladka almanac. On Skladka, see Zakharkin’s commentaries to Bilylovs’ky’s memoirs: Kyivs’ka starovyna. 2000. No. 2. Pp. 100-101, n128-139; 2000. No. 3. Pp. 141-142, n231. For the original Ukrainian of Kernerenko’s letter to Bilylovs’kyi, see this issue of AI “From Kernerenko’s Literary Heritage,” III, 1.↩

61.Thus Bilylovs’kyi could not ignore Hryts’ko Kernerenko’s Jewish origin. The fact that he referred neither to Kernerenko nor to Kernerenko’s writings may suggest that identifying with things Ukrainian-Jewish were beyond his interests. Perhaps this is the reason Bilylovs’kyi does not even mention Kernerenko among Aleksandrov’s circle of Ukrainian intellectuals in his much detailed memoirs. See Spohady Kesaria Bilylovs’koho // Kyivs’ka starovyna. 2003. No. 2. Pp. 90-91.↩

62.There might be some additional evidence that Kernerenko was not considered a respected contributor: his letters to LNV remained unanswered for years; his forthcoming publications were announced in the journal and never published; and his author’s copies, for example, of The Accords anthology were never sent to him. Though those could have been cases of mere negligence by the editors, and may have had nothing to do with Kernerenko personally, it is yet commendable to ask whether we are not imposing later 20th century author-publisher relations in East Europe on pre-1917 realities. For the letters containing Kernerenko’s complaints of disrespect, see DMIL. F. 3. D. 1620. Pp. 70, 142-143, 525, 527.↩

63.One of the earlier versions was entitled A Strong Love Brings Murky Punishment (Liubov pevna – kara temna).↩

64.Kernerenko’s drama (sometimes he calls it “drama etude”) is built around a complex system of love relations and rivalry. Semen, the orphaned son of a district clerk, is going to be drafted into the army. His name has been forged onto a conscription list due by Rad’ko, the clerk, whose sister Nastia is in love with Semen, and who seeks to marry Horpyna, who also loves Semen. Sending Semen into the army, Rad’ko plans to kill two birds with one stone, paving the way for his future marriage with Horpyna, the daughter of Mykyta Syla, the local rich man, and for his further control over his sister Nastia. But Horpyna, who now moves into the focus of the plot, rejects Rad’ko’s unscrupulous advances and plans to inform the authorities about the forgery. To bring Semen back to her and to make Nastia, whose love Semen reciprocates, an inappropriate match for him, Horpyna turns to Lukeria, the inn keeper, who supplies her with magic herbs. A moving fare-thee-well before the draft brings Semen and Nastia together for what happens to be their final embrace, marking the end of the first part of the play. The second, shorter part, which takes place two-and-a-half years later in a nearby provincial town, finds Horpyna in prison, accused of poisoning Nastia and making her blind. On the day of the trial, Semen, temporarily released from the army, goes through the town toward his native village in search of Nastia. In the town square in front of a church, Semen meets a blind woman and her guide asking for alms, and recognizes his Nastia and embraces her. At the same moment, convoyed to the court, Horpyna pushes aside the soldiers, rushes toward Semen and Nastia, prostrates herself in front of them, confesses her crime, prays for clemency, and dies. See DMIL. F. 70 (Kantseliariia kyivs’koho okremoho tsenzora). D. 57. Pp. 1-37 (first version, November 18, 1887); F. 70. D. 58. Pp. 1-38 (second version, February 1, 1896).↩

65.For an example of a Ukrainian recruit drafted into the army despite his married status, see D. Mordovtsev. Saldatka // Osnova. 1861. No. 4. Pp. 15-32.↩

66.DMIL. F. 70. D. 57. Pp. 3-5, 12, 33-34.↩

67.For a brief introduction, see Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. New Haven and London, 2003. Pp. 122-132. For the Ukrainian cultural revival in Galicia, see Magosci. A History of Ukraine. Pp. 436-457; Rudnytsky. Essays in Modern Ukrainian History. Pp. 315-352. For Russian imperial policies in Galicia, see Miller. Ukrainian Question. Pp. 211-220. On Jewish-Ukrainian relations in turn-of-the-century Galicia, see Yaroslav Hrytsak. Dimension of a Triangle: Polish-Ukrainian-Jewish Relationships in Austrian Galicia // Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies. 1999. Vol. 12. Pp. 2-48.↩

68.“I reverently beseech the respected Editorial Board to publish my translations from N. Minsky and Sully-Prudhomme and a couple of my own verses that I am sending you now. Soon I will send you my dramatic etude for here it has been twice forbidden for publication.” See DMIL. F. 3 (Ivan Franko). D. 1620. Pp. 141-142 (June 13, 1899).↩

69.See LNV. 1900. No. 9. Pp. 116-17; No. 12. P. 125.↩

70.DMIL. F. 3. D. 1620. Pp. 219-220 (May 1, 1900).↩

71.DMIL. F. 3. D. 1620. Pp. 463-464 (February 7, 1903).↩

72.Although the theme “Ivan Franko and the Jewish Question” is still awaiting a multifaceted scholarly analysis, several attempts have been made to scrutinize its various aspects. For the literary aspects of Franko’s interest in Zionism, see Asher Wilcher. Ivan Franko and Theodor Herzl: to the genesis of Franko’s Moisej // Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 1982. Vol. 6. No. 2. Pp. 233-243; scattered references to Franko’s buttressing the Ukrainian-Jewish contacts are to be found in Marten Feller. Poshuky, rozdumy i spohady ievreia, iakyi pam’ataie svoikh didiv, pro ievreis’ko ukrains’ki vzaiemyny, osoblyvo zh pro movy i stavlennia do nykh (Searches, thoughts, and memoirs of a Jew who remembers his grandfathers, on Ukrainian Jewish relations, in particular about languages and the attitude toward them). Drohobych, 1994. Pp. 138-140, 149-153, 182-184. For one of the earliest publications on this issue, see L. Zhygmailo. Natsional’nye motivy v proizvedeniakh Bialika i Franka // Ukrainskaia zhizn’. 1916. No. 4-5. Pp. 41-64. The most significant, though somewhat outdated, article on the issue is Pavlo Kudriavtsev. Evreistvo, evrei ta evreis’ka sprava v tvorakh Ivana Franka // Zbirnyk prats evreis’koi istoryko-arkheohrafichnoi komisii. 2 vols. Kyiv, 1929. Vol. 2. Pp. 1-81. During the 1900s, perhaps under the impact of his personal encounter with Herzl, Franko revisited his perception of Jews and Judaism, discovering classical Jewish texts he had previously overlooked. See his notes on and from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud recorded in his private notebook reflecting his interest in rabbinic Judaism, DMIL. F. 3. D. 202. Pp. 4-11.↩

73.In the 1880s, Franko penned a number of articles on “Jews in Their Life and Literature” focusing on such new tendencies in Jewish life as the Haskalah (Enlightenment). See, for example, his analysis of the impact of Moses Mendelsohn on the development of European Jewish enlightenment in: Zoria. 1886. No. 7. 1↩

74.April. Pp. 114-115. At the same time, he expressed deep interest in Yiddish (zhydivs’ka) language and literature, befriended the Jewish scholar Isidor Bernfeld and commissioned him to write a review of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature later published in Zoria (1889). With Bernfeld’s help, Franko obtained books of Yiddish poetry and translated from Yiddish into Ukrainian several poems of the rational-minded maskil Wolf Erenkrantz Zbyrasky, written in the genre of pseudo-epigraphy and containing sharp anti-Hasidic criticism. It is significant, though, that Franko’s translations from the Yiddish poet appeared after his epistolary acquaintance with Kernerenko. See Franko’s preface to, and publication of, Erenkrantz’s verse in LNV. 1905. Vol. 35. No. 10. Pp. 87-94.↩

75.See DMIL. F. 3. D. 1630. Pp. 527-530, “Hryts’ko Kernerenko to Ivan Franko,” January 17 (30), 1906. Significantly, Franko did not follow Kernerenko’s stylistic “innovation” and changed the Ukrainian “Khyvria” back to the Yiddish “Reizi.” See Kernerenko’s translation of Sholem-Aleichem’s tale “Diad’ko Pini ta titka Reizia” in LNV. 1906. Vol. 33. No. 3. Pp. 544-551. For the original Ukrainian of Kernerenko’s letter to Franko, see in this issue of AI “From Kernerenko’s Literary Heritage,” III, 3.↩

76.Franko consistently encouraged Kernerenko, advising him to continue his translating activities and publishing his Ukrainian versions in LNV. In 1906, Kernerenko cautiously asked Franko if he was still interested in Yiddish literature. Franko’s answer is not extant but the frequency with which LNV continued to publish Kernerenko’s translations from Yiddish between 1906 and 1908 testifies to Franko’s wholehearted support. See DMIL. F. 3. D. 1630. Pp. 531-534 (Hryts’ko Kernerenko to Ivan Franko, March 16, 1906).↩

77.Later, however, individuals appeared who provided the journal with essays on East European Jewish themes, especially political ones. See, for example, M[ykhailo] Lozyns’kyi. Zhydivs’ka sotsial’na demokratia v Halychyni // LNV. 1905. Vol. 32. No. 10. Pp. 1-21; M. Hekhter. Za syntezom (storinka z istorii rosiis’koho evreistva) // LNV. 1908. Vol. 43. No. 7. Pp. 84-99.↩

78.See Iu. G. Shapoval. Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk” (1898-1932): tvorennia derzhavnoi ideolohii Ukrainstva. L’viv, 2000. Pp. 58-59.↩

79.See his short story “Tsiliushche zillia” (“The Healing Herb”) in: LNV. 1904. Vol. 28. Pp. 95-99; Ibid. 1905. Vol. 29. P. 138; the translation of Nadson’s “Mri,i” // LNV. 1906. Vol. 33. Pp. 280-283, Sholem Aleichem’s tale // Ibid. Pp. 544-550; the translation of Frug. From the Jewish Melodies: Adam’s Rim // Ibid. 1906. Vol. 34. P. 264; the translation of Frug. From the Jewish melodies: “Heritage” and “Sand and Stars // Ibid. 1906. Vol. 35. Pp. 28, 212; the translation of Frug. Two Troikas // Ibid. 1907. Vol. 37. Pp. 495-496; the translation of Frug. The New Year // Ibid. 1908. Vol. 41. P. 187.↩

80.See DMIL. F. 3. D. 1630. Pp. 623-624 (February 11, 1904), 525-526 (January 4 (17), 1906).↩

81.See ChHM. Al 52-147/4/539 (letter of Kernerenko to Kovalenko, November 5, 1907). L. 1-1a.↩

82.I am grateful to Liubov Hryhorivna Hen’ba, the director of the Huliai-pole local museum (Kraieznavchyi muzei) for this information.↩

Ab Imperio

Ab Imperio

Конструирование невероятной идентичности: случай Грыцько Кернеренко

Примечания