Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.050 September 3, 1998 90 yorikn yoyvl fun der ershter yidisher shprakh-konferents in Tshernovits Part IV 1) Peretz and the Czernowitz Conference (Marvin Zuckerman) 2) Peretz's Speech at the Conference (Marvin Zuckerman and Marion Herbst) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 16:46:20 -0700 From: "Marvin S. Zuckerman" Subject: Peretz and the Czernowitz Conference In 1908, a group of Yiddish intellectuals decides that Yiddish language and literature has reached a level and an historical moment that required a world-wide Jewish conference on the subject of Yiddish. In April the initiators of the conference (Birnbaum, Cordon, Evalenko, Pinski, and Zhitlovsky) send out a letter and an invitation to various segments and levels of Jewish life all over the world. One of these is, of course, addressed to Peretz, with a request that he undersign the state-ment in the invitation as a sponsor and as one who is in accord with Its aims. The invitation reads in part, as follows: Honored Sir! In the past several decades the Yiddish language has made great progress. Its literature has achieved a level of which no one had imagined it capable. Yiddish newspapers are distributed in hundreds of thousands of copies daily and weekly. Yiddish poets write songs which are sung by the people, stories which are read by the people, plays which the people eagerly flock to see. Every day the language itself becomes more refined and richer. But it continues to lack one thing which older tongues possess. The latter are not permitted to roam around freely and wildly in the linguistic world to attract all kinds of dis-eases, defects, and perhaps even death. They are guarded as a precious child is guarded. No one, however, pays heed to the Yiddish language. Thousands of Yiddish words are replaced by German, Russian and English words which are completely unnecessary. The live rules of the language which are born and develop with it in the mouths of the people go unrecorded, and it appears not to possess any such rules. Each person writes it in a different way, with his own spelling because no standard authoritative Yiddish orthography has thus far been established. True, the disgrace attached to Yiddish in the past has diminished. People are less and less ashamed of the con-temporary language of our people. It is gradually coming to be reckoned with and respected. It is coming to be understood that in Yiddish the Jewish spirit is reflected and its value for the survival of our nation is beginning to be comprehended. But it is still an object of ridicule and con-tempt. People are still ashamed of it. And is this not because of the faults noted above? If this be true, a stop must be put to these things. A fence needs to be established, some sort of protection for our precious mother-tongue so that it not wander about aimlessly as until now, so that it not become chaotic, tat-tered and divided. All who are involved with the language, writers, poets, linguists, and those who simply love it-must confer and find the appropriate means and methods of establishing an authority to which all will have to and want to defer. Honored sir: If you share the views herein expressed, you are invited to attend the Conference which we are call-ing on behalf of the Yiddish language. [From E. Goldsmith, Architects of Yiddishism (1976), pp. 183-4, his translation of this from Di Ershte Yidishe Shprakh-Konftrents (Vilna, 1931), pp. 2,3.] Peretz's initial reaction to this invitation is luke-warm. He writes back, saying that he doesn't like its "American" preface. Here is the beginning of the letter he wrote (1908) to Dr. Nathan Birnbaum (my translation): Most Esteemed Doctor: It was very hard for us, Doctor, to answer. We are, of course, very interested in a conference, but we could not under any circumstances sign [endorse] your invitation. We certainly did not want to hinder you - we would even come to the conference - but not sign [endorse] your invitation. First of all, if you will forgive us, we don't like its American preface... Unfortunately, we don't believe in the "great progress" of Yiddish. What exists? He then goes on to list a number of issues he thought needed to be dealt with-and if the initiators were in accord with them, they could then sign [endorse] his list and use his name. Here is his list: 1) Orthography 2) Grammar 3) Foreign usages 4) A dictionary 5) Translation of the Bible 6) The press 7) Literature 8) Dramaturgy 9) The significance of the language as a national or folk-loristic language and its relationship to Hebrew. 10) The ethics of international copyright. At the conference itself, as a result of his literary reputation, but also as a result of his personal charisma, he takes center stage. His keynote address is received with great enthusiasm. The five-day conference is torn by party politics, the conflict between Hebraists and Yiddishists, Bundists and Zionists, and other matters. Many issues are argued and discussed. Finally, the central issue becomes a debate between those who would like Yiddish declared the national language of the Jews and those who are opposed to this posi-tion for one reason or another. Peretz's position is that Hebrew is our national language and that Yiddish is our folk language. The conference arrives at a compromise resolution/declaration: "Yiddish is _a_ [not _the_] national language." Peretz declares in his keynote address: And we call out to the world: we are a Jewish nation and Yiddish is our language and we wish to live our lives and create our cultural heritage in this language. This is the language in which we wish to amass our treasure, to fash-ion our culture, to awaken our soul and to unite with each other across all countries and in all times. For years afterwards, the 1908 Czernowitz Language Conference is considered a major milestone in the history of the Yiddish language and literature. Peretz's role was pivotal. As soon as Peretz came to Czernowitz, he started to help with the work, and showed great energy and passion. He became one of the main activists at the conference, its' living soul. He was the vice-president; he held the second speech at the opening festivities; he read the report about the world-wide Yiddish-language organizations; he took an active role in the discussions and during the conference. Peretz spoke at a variety of evenings in Czernowitz and later in many other cities of Galicia and Bukovina. Thanks to Peretz, the evenings in these cities became a great manifestation in support of Yiddish and Yiddish literature, and they became engraved in the minds of the attendees. The conference opened with a speech by Dr. N Birnboym. As the Haynt, a Yiddish newspaper reported Birnboym's speech did not make the proper impression because he spoke a weak Yiddish. Peretzs' speech, the second one of the evening made a strong impression, therefore and the audience responded with tremendous applause. "Peretz's appearance on the platform," according to a reporter in a Czernowitz newspaper "evoked tremendous applause and indescribable joy." The speech was interrupted several times with enthusiastic applause. In his memoirs of the Czernowitz Language Conference, Matisyohu Meises, says the following: "We were waiting, full of suspense and spiritual hunger for Peretz's opening speech at the Language Conference. He didn't disappoint us. We heard powerful, mighty words from his mouth... certain moments of his speech have remained etched in my memory. I remember experiencing a kind of electrical current which ran through my limbs. And the kind of glimpse I for a moment had into the soul of Peretz the man as in his opening speech he said 'the state is the greatest criminal'... in those few words I saw mirrored Peretz's weltanschauung." Reprinted from "Selected works of I.L. Peretz" / edited by Marvin Zuckerman and Marion Herbst / Malibu, Calif. : Joseph Simon/Pangloss Press, 1996. The book is available from the National Yiddish Book Center. Marvin Zuckerman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 00:39:48 EDT From: Miriamke@aol.com Subject: Peretz's Speech at the 1908 Czernowitz Language Conference Here is his speech as it appeared in Dr. Birnboym's Vokhnblat #2, Czernowitz, 1908 (Translated by Marvin Zuckerman and Marion Herbst from Nakhmen Meisel, Briv un redes fun I.L. Peretz (New York: YKUF, 1944): Honored Conference: Three liberating moments in Jewish history created our movement. I don't want to he a prophet, and to proclaim that we are now experiencing a new historical moment, that we are uncovering a new source of fresh, living waters in God's vineyard, and that from this day forward this place will be watered and will bloom. "Something," though, has been achieved among us, and that something was elicited by those three liberating moments. The poor Jewish masses, the poor ignorant Jews begin to liberate themselves. They lose confidence in both the Jewish Talmudic scholar, and in the rich man. The rich man's "charity" does not fill his stomach; the Talmudic scholar's Toyre doesn't give him any joy. The masses long, feel, want to live their own poor lives in their own way. And Chassidism emerges. Toyre for everybody. And this is the first moment. Yiddish doesn't begin with Isaac Meir Dik. The Chassidic tale, that is the "Genesis." The tales in praise of The Baal-Shem and other tales are folk-poetry. The first folk-poet is Reb Nakhman of Bratslav and his seven beggars. Also, the Jewish woman - the Jewish wife - the Jewish girl awoke and demanded something for herself. Women's books appeared, and out of Judeo-German was born a "mother-tongue." And the Jewish people still has two tongues: a language for the scholars in the house of study - the language of the Toyre, the language of the Gemore, and the second for the masses and the Jewish daughter... But from these three moments alone the Yiddish language would not have emerged. Now the Jewish worker appears, the Jewish proletariat, and creates for itself an instrument for its struggle for life, its working-class culture in Yiddish. The worker is simply not satisfied just with women's prayers and prayers from the women's synagogue, and not just with the wonder-tales from behind the stove in the synagogue. He wants to and he must express himself in Yiddish. And the Yiddish secular book in the Yiddish language appears. But all of that would not have brought us together; if we have come together from many different countries and states to proclaim equality for Yiddish language among all languages, it is also as a result of a forth socio-political international impulse. The nation-state, to which small and weak people were sacrificed - as children were in ancient times to Molokh - the nation-state, that had because of the interest of the ruling classes and peoples wanted to level everything, needed to make everything uniform: one army, one language, one school, one police, and one civil law - that nation-state is losing its luster. The dense, oily smoke that wrapped itself around the sacrificial altar is becoming thinner and is being dispersed. The folk, not the nation-state, is the modern concept! The people, not the Fatherland! And separate cultures, not borders protected by patrols, guard the separate folk cultures... The weak, oppressed people awake, and struggle for their language, for their own culture against the nation-state. And we, the weakest, have also joined their ranks. The nation-state will no longer falsify the cultures of its peoples, no longer suppress individuality and differentness. This is the byword of the multitudes, and we are in their ranks under our own banner and in the name of our own cultural interests. We don't want to be anyone's handmaiden. A lackey people can-not create cultural riches - and we do! And the best place for our gathering was here in Bukovina, especially its capital, Czernowitz. Here where people of various nationalities, speaking many languages, live side-by-side, it is easier to do our work in our language. We stroll in the evening in the streets and from various windows stream out the sounds of different languages, all kinds of folk-music. We want our own windows! Our own distinct motif in the folk-symphony. We no longer want to be fragmented, and to render to every Moloch nation-state its tribute: There is one people - Jews, and its language is - Yiddish. And in this language we want to amass our cultural treasures, create our culture, rouse our spirits and souls, and unite culturally with all countries and all times. We did not come here simply to talk amongst ourselves and to issue proclamations. We have come here to _work_ together. There will be various proposals for important tasks, but two such tasks that I consider of the utmost important I want to mention at the outset. If Yiddish is to become a real language for us, then all the old cultural treasures of our great past must become a part of it. If Yiddish is to become a full member in the family of the languages of the world, it must become accessible to the world. I, therefore, want to propose the translation into Yiddish of all our cultural treasures from our free, golden past, primarily the translation into Yiddish of the Bible. Also the transliteration of our best cultural treasures into Roman letters. We no longer want to be crude, unrefined parvenus or upstart newly-rich. Culture includes tradition! And we don't want to introduce our culture to the peoples of the world through mechanical translations that deaden the living word. We have come here to talk less and work more. Consequently we ask everyone to work more [applause]. We thank Dr. Birnboym for bringing us all together. We thank the academic association "Yiddish Culture" which dedicated itself to this purpose and with all its strength helped to publicize our conference. Also, let us remember today that great man, the first to create works in our modern, authentic Yiddish literature; who gave us the first classic work in the Yiddish language, and who is unfortunately not here. We are without Mendele Moykher-Sforim! [loud applause of many minutes duration] Permit me to propose that we should, in the name of the entire conference, send him a greeting telegram [more applause]. Reprinted from "Selected works of I.L. Peretz" / edited by Marvin Zuckerman and Marion Herbst / Malibu, Calif.: Joseph Simon/Pangloss Press, 1996. 485 p. The book is available from the National Yiddish Book Center. Mirke (Marion) Herbst and Marvin Zuckerman ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.050 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html