4/2003 The Limits of Marginality: Jews as “inorodtsy” in Continental Empires

“Симулякр ненависти”: по случаю историографического эссе господина Дениса Иоффе

Александр Пересветов-Мурат

4/2003

Публикуется на английском.

SUMMARY:

Отвечая на критику Дениса Иоффе, Александр Пересветов-Мурат не ограничивается констатацией того, что по географическим, методологическим и другим оговоренным в книге соображениям он не рассматривал специально проблематику ереси жидовствующих или еврейского присутствия в дохристианском Киеве, Крыму или в Византии (именно с этими сюжетами связаны основные претензии Иоффе). Пересветов-Мурат предлагает подробный конспект своей пока еще мало известной российскому читателю книги “Ухмылка отсутствующего кота”, посвященной филологическому анализу оригинальных и переводных текстов adversus Iudaeos, которые циркулировали среди восточных славян с момента проникновения на Русь христианской литературы и до начала XVI века. Тонкий и сложный анализ Пересветова связан с реконструкцией интертекстуального пространства традиции adversus Iudaeos в рамках общего христианского литературного поля. В статье подробно обосновывается позиция автора, состоящая в том, что попытки рассматривать циркулировавшие в Древней Руси тексты adversus Iudaeos в качестве свидетельств реальной полемики с евреями, а тем более – как источники информации о действительных евреях и славяно-еврейских контактах методологически неверны и идеологически предвзяты. Пересветов считает, что реакция Иоффе мотивирована не столько научными соображениями, сколько чтением его книги в специфическом ракурсе одной из версий российско-еврейской истории, для которой принципиально важны еврейское присутствие на Руси с древнейших времен (при этом Русь мыслится в границах Российской империи) и древность российского этнического/расового антисемитизма.

1.Henceforth abbreviated GWAC.↩

2.This evidently corresponds to an antitype, viz. the later assertions: “avtor daleko ne blestiashchii gebraist” (to put it mildly, A.P.-M.!); or: “U nas est’ ser’eznye somneniia v stepeni kompetentnosti Peresvetova v grecheskoi lingvistike, no my ne mozhem delat’ bezapelliatsionnykh vyvodov” (no argumentation and no examples are given). His method here may be compared with much reward to his criticisms of Nazarenko, referred to below.↩

3.If at all he existed! All doubts have not yet been cleared on that point, as a recent paper by Professor Frank Kämpfer reminds us (“Who is Hiding Behind the Pseudonym Ivan Peresvetov and When?”, http://www.uni-muenster.de/Osteuropastudien/chrono.html (accessed on 11 November 2003)).↩

4.On these, see: A. I. Peresvetov-Murat. Iz Rostova v Ingermanlandiiu: M. A. Peresvetov i drugie russkie baijor’y’ // Novgorodskii istoricheskii sbornik. 1999. T. 7. No. 17. Pp. 366-378. On the unlikeness of an Ivan Peresvetov connection to the Rostov and Dmitrov Peresvetovs, cf. A. A. Zimin. I. S. Peresvetov i ego sovremenniki. Ocherki po istorii russkoi obshchestvenno-politicheskoi mysli serediny XVI veka. Moscow, 1958.↩

5.Two short examples may suffice: “Nazarenko ne v silakh osparivat’ etot vsem khorosho izvestnyi […] fakt, kotoroi ne vpisyvaetsia v ego blestiashchii filologicheskii analiz […], a potomu on vykhodit iz dannoi situatsii s elegantnost’iu starogo moskovskogo studenta […] «po umolchaniiu», napisav…’; “Vmeste s tem, my mozhem vzyat’ na sebya nekotoruyu smelost’ i napisat’, chto uroven’ znanii avtora […] o sobstvenno khazarskom gosudarstve beskonechno dalek ot konventsional’no-professional’nogo.” (Novaia russkaia kniga. 2001. No. 2; I quote the internet version at http://www.guelman.ru/slava/nrk/nrk8/23r.html [accessed on 12 November 2003]; the reader may recognise the ominous references to blestiashchest’…)↩

6.Nicholas de Lange. Qui a tué les Juifs de Byzance? // D. Tollet (Ed.). Politique et religion dans le judaïsme ancien et médiéval. Paris, 1989. Pp. 327-333.↩

7.Which, although not anti-Judaic works proper, were important in reproducing and spreading traditional attitudes to Jews, at the same time as they show us the commonality, even in texts aimed more or less by definition at Christians, of second-person outbursts against rhetorical Jews, who clearly function as theological or rhetorical constructs and repoussoirs.↩

8.With one or two possible late exceptions and one possible early one. The latter bears all the marks of being imported, however, and had probably nothing to do with Rus’ contacts.↩

9.In greater detail on the South Slavonic textual tradition of one example, see Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath: “And Was Jerusalem Builded Here…?” On the Textual History of the Slavonic “Jerusalem Disputation”// Scando-Slavica. 2001. Vol. 47. Pp. 19-38. In GWAC I do not follow the pre-Rus’ text traditions for their own sake.↩

10.This is eminently clear in the works of Cyril of Turov, which I analyse from a thematic point of view in a separate fourty-page paper: Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath. “A Shadow of the Good Spell”: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the World and Work of Kirill of Turov // Ingunn Lunde (Ed.). Kirill of Turov. Bishop, Preacher, Hymnographer. (= Slavica Bergensia, 2). Bergen, 2000. Pp. 33-75.↩

11.More properly, the “Judaically philosophizing” (“zhidov’skaia mudr’’stvuiushchii”). The term “zhidovstvuiushchie” came to be generally used of the heretics only some 200 years after their defeat (cf. John D. Klier. Judaizing without Jews? Moscow-Novgorod, 1470-1504 // A. M. Kleimola and G. D. Lenhoff (Eds.). Culture and Identity in Muscovy, 1359-1584 (parallel Russian title) (= UCLA Slavic Studies, NS, 3). Moscow, 1997. Pp. 336-349, see P. 336), but almost invariably directs the student’s mind and may make her/him jump to unsound conclusions without suspecting any danger. On the reasons for not treating them in this connection, see below.↩

12.Except the ones known in general scholarship, such as Nicholas or Lyre’s and pseudo-Samuel of Morocco’s tracts (the circumstances surrounding the translation of which have partly been misunderstood) or Sabbas of Ladoga’s epistle and some Palaian texts, these include, e.g., some abecedarian poems, the interpreted version of Hilarion of Kiev’s sermon, the tract Against the Jews on the Coming of Christ, that He was born in the Flesh by the Virgin Mary (from the ancient but then forgotten Addresses to a Jew Concerning the Incarnation of Christ), perhaps the Against the Jews on how the Lord can Call Himself Son, Angel, and Man, etc. There was almost certainly a heightened interest in several South Slavonic disputational texts, which, however, had had some spread much earlier still.↩

13.[this is footnote 14 in the original] The reason lies perhaps less in my general outlook or in my not being, for example, a sociologist or a theologian, and more in the fact that the time is not ripe for such examination: the basic data are still missing. From one point of view the study of ideas would of course have put us into contact with the deep structure of our subject: undoubtedly, the dispersion of ideas was directly, and dialogically, linked with the dispersion and use of manuscripts. From the historian’s point of view, however, the world of ideas and their dissemination is accessible only at a secondary stage, largely deduced as one or more aspect of the sum of manuscripts with their texts, and of the business of manuscript copying, reading, and disseminating; aided, at best, by the comments and attested uses of contemporaries.↩

14.In this quotation from GWAC, as well as in those that follow, some matters of typographical style, treatment of abbreviations, etc., may have been changed in accordance with Ab Imperio house style. Similarly, bibliographical references, which are given in short in GWAC, are here given in full. – Editors’ note.↩

15.It must be remembered here that the density of the Jewish settlement in 15th century Lithuanian Ruthenia and its relatively high profile were to do with political and demographic factors which did not obtain in Muscovy; also the Orthodox culture of Ruthenia was to follow other lines of development than that of Muscovy. It is, of course, immaterial in this connection that from the mid-17th century the territories were to be joined under the sceptre of the Russian tsars.↩

16.It should be underlined that no Rus’ works adversus Iudaeos dwell on any of these aspects (with the exception of possible references to conversion in 15th century works on the verge between anti-Judaism and heresimachy).↩

17.[the footnote is no 46 in the original] The fact that the enthusiastic copyist and chronicler Nikon suffered exile to near-Crimean T’’mutorokan’ in the 1060s and 1070s (cf., eg, V. V. Mavrodin. Tmutarakan’. // Voprosy istorii 1980. No. 11. Pp. 177-182, see P. 180) does not change that picture. Meshcherskii’s attempt to show that the Slavonic translation of Josephus’ Jewish History was made in the south-east of Rus’, close to Khazaria (N. A. Meshcherskii. Istoriia iudeiskoi voiny Iosifa Flaviia v drevnerusskom perevode. Moscow-Leningrad, 1958. P. 118-119), builds on a series of partly incorrect hypotheses and is altogether unconvincing. Pritsak eccentrically and arbitrarily conjectured that the Jews of T’’mutorokan’ were the literati, “the bearers of the old tradition in letters” in Kievan Rus’ (Omeljan Pritsak. The Origin of Rus’. Vol. 1: Old Scandinavian Sources Other than the Sagas. Cambridge, Mass., 1981. P. 70-71). [Addendum: Note that the most recent monograph study of the Slavonic Jewish History concludes that the translator was a South Slav (Ernst Hansack. Die altrussische Version des “Jüdischen Krieges”. Untersuchungen zur Integration der Namen. Heidelberg, 1999).]↩

18.The direct Jewish connection of which is tenuous at best if we are speaking of archaeological hard data. However, we must reasonably postulate a certain co-distribution of Saltov-Maiatskaia culture and Judaism.↩

19.I am aware of the important Jewish settlements there in medieval times and of potential (and some actual) contacts with Russians either there or in Rus’ – and I write as much (cf. above) – but fail to see the relevance for my study (but cf. GWAC 2. P. 56. Fnt 133). For the 15th century and Russian Caffan affairs, cf. GWAC 2. Pp. 24-25. For anyone interested in ancient Crimean Jewry, however, Joffe’s rich bibliography is an excellent start.↩

20.Litavrin’s analysis that a Greek (NB!) substrate underlies the legend I support wholeheartedly, GWAC 2. P. 47; the only thing I question is what, in the light of Litavrin’s analysis, remains “original Rus’” except for the information on the attack on Kiev and its effects there.↩

21.Generally on my view of hagiographical sources and the difficulty of distinguishing “real”/“realistic” from “legendary”. Cf. GWAC 2. Pp. 35-36, 93-34.↩

22.In what way does this differ from my: “The Caves Patericon relates how Eustratios (fl late 11 c.) /fn/ was captured by Cuman raiders along with some fifty monastery workmen (slaves?) and other Kievans. They were then taken to Chersonesus in the Crimea, where they were sold on to a Jewish slaver” (GWAC 2. P. 46)? While I do not vouch for the historicity of the details of Eustratios’ crucifixion in the horrid ways depicted in the pious legend, which so precisely imitate the gospels and where the Jewish slaver quotes Paul, I never express any doubt as to these not being possible events or as to the plausibility of Jewish slavers at Chersonesus.↩

23.Henrik Birnbaum. On Some Evidence of Jewish Life and Anti-Jewish Sentiments in Medieval Russia // Viator. 1973. Vol. 4. Pp. 225-255. P. 231.↩

24.Ibid.↩

25.For the reader’s convenience I quote Heppell’s English translation, not the Slavonic “original”, from: The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery // Translated by Muriel Heppell with a Preface by Sir Dimitri Obolensky (= Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature. English Translations, Vol. 1). Harvard University, 1989. P. 125; Slavonic version in: D. I. Abramovich’s edn in: Das Paterikon des Kiever Höhlenklosters. Nach der Ausgabe von D. Abramovič neu herausgegeben von Dmitrij Tschižewskij (= Slavische Propyläen, 2). Munich, 1964 (1931). Pp. 106-108.↩

26.GWAC 2. Pp. 44-49 are devoted to the subject, including an analysis of the legend of Eustratios.↩

27.[the footnote is no 14 in the original] Except for the legend of Vladimir’s test of faiths, on which see below pp. 86 ff. cf. Knjaz’kij’s 1993 thesis (I. O. Kniaz’kii. Rus’, Khazariia, Iudaizm. // Slaviane i ikh sosedi. Evreiskoe naselenie tsentral’noi vostochnoi i iugo-vostochnoi Evropy: srednie veka-nachalo novogo vremeni. Sbornik tezisov XII Chtenii pamiati V. D.Koroliuka. Moscow, 1993. Pp. 26-28); L. S. Chekin. K analizu upominanii o evreiakh v drevne-russkoi literature XI-XIII vekov // Slavianovedenie 1994, No. 4. Pp. 34-42, see P. 36; pace S. Dubnow. Die Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes in Europa. Von den Anfängen der abendländlischen Diaspora bis zum Ende der Kreuzzüge. Autorisierte Übersetzung aus dem russischen Manuskript von Dr. A. Steinberg (= S. Dubnow. Weltgeschichte des jüdischen Volkes. Von seinen Uranfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Europäische Periode, Vol. 4: Das frühere Mittelalter. Berlin, 1926. P. 259 and a number of 20 c. nationalists and ideologists.↩

28.It is another matter that modern genetical research, of which much has been done during the last decade, gives only slight and somewhat ambiguous support to this interpretation. See the synopsis of recent findings on Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA among East European Jews in: Kevin A. Brook. The Origins of East European Jews // Russian History/Histoire Russe. 2003. Vol. 30. No.1-2. Pp. 1-22, esp. pp. 12-16. As Marshall Poe reminds us in a recent provocative essay, “[t]he most interesting work on the origins and migrations of the Slavs (and everyone else, for that matter) is currently being done by population biologists”. (Marshall T. Poe. The Russian Moment in World History. Princeton University, 2003. P. 112).↩

29.“Esli zhe chitatel’ rasschityvaet pozhivit’sia prosveshchennym mneniem avtora o zhizni kievskogo kagala (i ego sviaziakh s temi, kto “pisal” izuchaemye Peresvetovym teksty Adversus Iudaeos – naprimer s Feodosiem Pecherskim) vo vremena “dokumentirovannye”, t.e. v X veke, ego zhdet total’noe razocharovanie.” Quite apart from the fact that evidently neither of the two Theodosioses of the Caves was writing in these times – a century before Rus’ learnt to write and long before the individual writers were born – I believe that I have made it abundantly clear that we have no texts Adversus Iudaeos by either of them, see: GWAC 2. Pp. 130-137. Does Joffe disagree with me here and on what grounds? Has he not read the investigation? Has he read it but chooses to ignore it because of the rhetorical effect of my not treating the Theodosian corpus? I do not know.↩

30.Cf. Brook: “In reality there is no consensus on this question” (The Origins of East European Jews. P. 3), and cf., in his conclusions, “As for the Khazarian Jews, Iraqi Jews, and Byzantine Jews, the degree of their impact, if any, upon the demography of Russian Jews is still uncertain.” (Ibid. P. 22.) Note, however, that by “Russian Jews” the author here primarily denotes relatively modern populations. On the speed with which even the ethnonym of the Khazars was forgotten, see some notes in Paul Wexler. Two-Tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect. Berlin and New York, 2002.↩

31.Despite the attempts of single-minded nationalists such as V. V. Kozhinov to prove otherwise, the sole example of a connection between “Jewish” and “Khazar” in Rus’ minds is the Khazar identity of the Jews questioned by Vladimir in the legend of his test of faiths, but even here Vladimir (or the pious writer) immediately shatters any clear-cut picture by inquiring them of their exile from “their land” Palestine.↩

32.“A Shadow of the Good Spell…”. P. 47. The mention of Ukraine is not there in order to highlight that country specifically, but to point out the existence of some exciting evidence and also of some problems.↩

33.Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus’. Translated and with an Introduction by Simon Franklin (= Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature. English Translations. Vol. V). Harvard University,↩

34.. P. xxxviii. Cf., for example, Marilyn Ann Nelson. Biblical Typology: The Implicit Hermeneutic of Old Russian Literature / PhD dissertation; Indiana University, 1984.↩

35.For example, Déroche argues this point, and to my mind convincingly, in a 1991 essay to which G. M. Prokhorov has directed Joffe (Mr. Joffe might also have found references to that essay in my book). Olster, inter al., takes much the opposite position in another work, cited, surprisingly, without further comment by Joffe; contrast, however, the criticism of Olster in: Averil Cameron. Byzantines and Jews: Some Recent Works on Early Byzantium // Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 1996. Vol. 20. Pp. 24-74); in Olster’s vein, cf. the recent, very polemical, Paul Speck. Varia VI. Beiträge zum Thema Byzantinische Feindseligkeit gegen die Juden im frühen siebten Jahrhundert nebst einer Untersuchung zu Anastasios dem Perser (= Poikila byzantina, 15). Bonn, 1997. Generally on the subject, see now Andreas Külzer. Disputationes graecae contra Iudaeos. Untersuchungen zur byzantinischen antijüdischen Dialogliteratur und ihrem Judenbild (= Byzantinisches Archiv 18). Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1999.↩

36.V. Déroche. La polémique anti-judaïque au vie et au viie siècle: un mémento inédit, les Képhalaia // Travaux et mémoires du Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, Vol. 11. Paris, 1991. Pp. 275-311, see P. 283. Contrast the much more sceptical Speck that “in den ganzen Schriften auch nicht eine einzige reale Auseinandersetzung mit einem Juden steht [...] Die Judenschriften schreibt man für sich selbst, nicht um wirkliche Debatten zu protokollieren” (p. 14).↩

37.Déroche is here speaking of the chronological coincidence of Heraclius’ decree of forced baptism in the seventh century and the abundant production of literary works adversus Iudaeos.↩

38.Déroche. Pp. 283-284, emphasis added.↩

39.If he wishes to present evidence of instances where Byzantine diatribes against Jews have a factual basis there are plenty of cases of greater relevance. (It may be observed that the author of the article in question concludes that the legend was no “proiavlenie bytovogo ili ideinogo antisemitizma srednego vizantiitsa”.)↩

40.A work which I too cite to pretty much the same effect.↩

41.[The footnote is no 1 in the original:] Unfortunately, I have no Hebrew. However, most hitherto identified Hebrew sources on Kievan Jewry have been translated into Polish, German, Russian, or English. Some points of Hebrew have been illuminated by Professor Lars Steensland, Lund, and by colleagues in England and Israel; a secondary source in Yiddish was graciously translated by Mr. Thomas Björkman, Lund.↩

42.[The footnote is no 151 in the original:] cf., e.g., the observations and shreds of evidence in S. Ettinger. Kievan Russia // Cecil Roth (Ed.). Jews in Christian Europe, 711-1096 (= The World History of the Jewish People. Second Series: Medieval Period. Vol. 2: The Dark Ages. Tel Aviv, 1966. Pp. 319-324, 442-445, see P. 321; J. Brutzkus. Der Handel der westeuropäischen Juden mit dem alten Kiev // Zeitschrift für die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland. 1931. Vol. 3. Pp. 97-110, see Pp. 108-109. A case in point might be whether Romaniotes views on ritual baths, which differed from those of other Jewries, might help explain that two of the few known points where Rus' Jews asked western rabbis for rulings concern ritual bath and washing. Being a Slavist, I can make no assessment here. Rus’ notes: Ettinger. P. 321; F. Kupfer and T. Lewicki (Eds.). Źródła hebrajskie do dziejów Słowian i niektórych innych ludów środkowej i wschodniej Europy: wyjątki z pism religijnych i prawniczych XI-XIII w. Wrocław and Warsaw, 1956. P. 152; Romaniotes ritual baths: Steven B. Bowman. The Jews of Byzantium, 1204-1453. Alabama, 1985. Pp. 123ff.↩

43.Poliak’s work – as, incidentally, Mr. Joffe knows – I have gone through looking for references to relevant works or source quotations in languages I can read; I have also read scholarly works that make use of Poliak.↩

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“Симулякр ненависти”: по случаю историографического эссе господина Дениса Иоффе

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