Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.261 March 5, 1996 1) Sholem-Aleykhem's _Kenig Pik_ (Part 1) (Leonard Prager) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 96 21:42:39 IST From: rhle302@uvm.haifa.ac.il Subject: Sholem-Aleykhem's _Kenig Pik_ [Mendele is happy to present the first of five installments of a fascinating paper by our old friend Yude-Leyb Prager of Haifa. The endnotes will appear in two subsequent installments. nm] 1 While a minor work in the Sholem-Aleykhem canon _Kenig Pik_ hardly deserves the oblivion to which it has been consigned.(2) Indeed, even Sholem-Aleykhem specialists may have little more than a vague notion of the play. Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, in a brief notice in his _Leksikon fun yidishn teater_ (New York, 1963, 4:3388) augmented the impression of slightness by reporting that no translations or performances were known.(3) The fact that Y.-D. Berkovitsh, the humorist's son-in-law, dld not record, much less describe, all editions in his _Sholem-aleykhem-bukh_ (New York, 1926) and, more importantly, did not include the author's revised edition of the play in the Collected Works (Folksfond-oysgabe), further accounts for the play's neglect. My awareness of _Kenig Pik_ dates from the moment a colleague, David Goodblatt, showed me a manuscript copy of the play which had belonged to his father and which he believed might be in Sholem-Aleykhem's own hand. The manuscript is a 21-by-15-cm. graph-paper notebook made in Genoa, Italy. The light green back cover (whlch became the front cover) has a printed multiplication table; the Itallan word _quaderno_ ('copybook') is printed on the front cover.(4) This is precisely what this manuscript is, a _copybook_. Before I say any more about the manuscript and the play, I would llke to say somethlng about copying. Sholem-Aleykhem supported himself and a large family by his writing and by occaslonal readings. He needed to sell his stories and feullletons to as many periodicals as would buy. He simultaneously wrote for newspapers and journals in Warsaw, New York, Johannesburg and a great many other cities. He sometimes employed a copyist and by 1910 he was typing his own work. He was often helped by his son-in-law, Y.-D. Berkovitsh, in editing, copying and distributing his manuscripts.(5) In 1910 Berkovltsh was working as literary editor of Mortkhe Spektor's _Di naye velt_ (The New World) in Warsaw, later that year moving to Vilna. >From these cities he forwarded Sholem-Aleykhem's manuscripts to domestic and foreign papers. We can follow this activity closely by consulting the relevant letters in the Sholem-Aleykhem Archives.(6) On November 16/29 (old and new style), 1910, Sholem-Aleykhem, in a postcard (in Russian) from Nervi, Italy, directed Berkovitsh to copy _Kenig Pik_ and send it to the Unlted States, but to hold up sending a copy to the Warsaw _Der moment_. The "barbarians" of _Der moment_, he feared, were capable of printing the feuilleton, a Chanuka piece, before the holiday. That would not do. He had written to _Der moment_ that it could announce the feuilleton then, but he would send it in just before the holiday. He further informed Berkovitsh that he was writing another feuilleton, _Zeks-un-zekhtsik_ ('Sixty-Six'), which he would offer to -Der moment_ in the event _Kenig Pik_ were rejected.(7) Another letter to Berkovitsh from Sholem-Aleykhem on November 25, 1910 tells us that the Russian-language Jewish Journal _Rassvet_ ('Dawn') had asked Sholem-Aleykhem for a feuilleton with a Chanuka flavor for a holiday issue. It was willing to receive a Yiddish text and translate it into Russian for its fifteen thousand readers. Berkovitsh sent -Rassvet_ a copy of _Kenig Pik_ and it was published in No. 9 (1911) under the altered title 'Three Ladies'.(8) Besides informing us about the Russian translation in _Rassvet_, Sholem-Aleykhem's letters to Berkovitsh of the period also shed light on the humorist's unsuccessful efforts to publish _Kenig Pik_ in Hebrew. -Hatsefira_ was interested In recelving a story from Sholem-Aleykhem, who asked Berkovitsh to offer _Kenig Pik_ to thls prestigious Hebrew perlodical. Sholem-Aleykhem regarded the play as a cheerful piece of writing and betrayed no doubts as to its appropriateness for _Hatsefira_. But Berkovitsh told his father-in-law that the Yiddish play would lose its _smisl_ (Russian 'sense'; 'purport') in Hebrew. Surprisingly, Sholem-Aleykhem did not understand this reaction. Sholem-Aleykhem was too itinerant and harassed to keep careful records and we find hlm 1n December 1910 asking Berkovitsh whether he had the original manuscript of _Kenig plk_. He wanted to compare it to the Purim feuilleton he was working on (the future _Shrage_). At the same time that Berkovitsh was helping hls father-in-law to place his writings in Yiddish periodicals in Poland, New York Yiddish Journalist Yankev Faler was assisting across the Atlantic. On December 5, 1910, Sholem-Aleykhem wrote to Faler: "Ikh shtel mir for vos far a kashe mit a borsht un mit lokshn ba aykh tut zikh itst mit mayne dray felyetonen: 1) Kasrilevke, 2) Kenig Pik, 3) A zeks-un-zekhtsik. Ir vet mir nit shtark sheltn?" ('I can well imagine what a pandemonium I've created with my three feullletons: 1) Kasrilevke, 2) King of Spades, 3) Sixty-six. You won't curse me, will you?'(9) It was not pleasant for Sholem-Aleykhem to remind his unpaid agent that he was dependent on periodicals for his livelihood. In 1911 he was writing for at least five New York Yiddlsh papers and the logistics of thls operation was not always smooth. Confusion arose as to the placing of _Kenlg pik_. It had originally been intended for Barondes's _Yidish folk_ ('Jewish People'). On December 19 (old style), 1910, Sholem-Aleykhem wrote to Berkovitsh to send Barondes a copy of _Kenig pik_. This appears to have been the second copy that was sent to New York. Sholem-Aleykhem was an industrlous correspondent, but perhaps not a completely organized one . On December 8, 1910 he had acknowledged receipt of a clean and apparently edited copy of _Kenig Pik_ from Berkovitsh, expressing great delight in hls son-1n-law's substitution of the loshn-koydesh _slicho_ ('forgiveness') (cf. Y. _slikhe_, ModH. _selicha_) for his original _entshuldikt_ ('excuse me.') Berkovitsh was editor, amanuensis and agent.(10) But Sholem-Aleykhem was also hisown editor, amanuensis and agent. On January 15, 1910, he wrote to Berkovitsh that he had almost doubled the size of _Kenig Pik_ and was sending it to _Der groyser kundes_ ('The Big Joker') in New York. The day before, Sholem-Aleykhem had written to Faler that he was glad that _Kenig Pik_ was not to appear in the periodical for which it had originally been intended, that he had revised and lengthened the play and that it would appear elsewhere in New York. He requested return of the manuscript. Copies, after all, were worth something and had to be accounted for. Leonard Prager ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.261 Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line 2. Sign your article (full name please) Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Send change-of-status messages to: listserv@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu a. For a temporary stop: set mendele nomail b. To resume delivery: set mendele mail c. To subscribe: sub mendele first_name last_name d. To unsubscribe kholile: unsub mendele Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu ****Getting back issues**** 1. 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