Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 5.279 March 12, 1996 1) Sholem-Aleykhem's _Kenig Pik_ (Endnotes I) (Leonard Prager) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 96 21:42:39 IST From: rhle302@uvm.haifa.ac.il Subject: Sholem-Aleykhem's _Kenig Pik_ Endnotes 1. An early version of this paper was presented at the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem on August 19, 1981. An expanded version appeared in _Jewish Language Review_ 2 (1982), 7-20. The present version is a revision of the latter. I thank Aharon Dolgopolski, the late Anna Dresner, David Gold, A.A. Greenbaum, the late Ezra Lahad, Avrom Lis and Nedda Strazhas for their counsel. David Goodblatt kindly brought the Goodblatt manuscript of _Kenig Pik_ to my attention and let me use it. 2. Sholem-Aleykhem uses the form _kenig_, which is an acceptable variant, though _kinig_ is more authentic. I follow the author here. Uriel Weinreich in his _MEYYED-(New York, 1968) lists both, preferring _kinig_. Sholem-Aleykhem might have used _meylekh_ ('king'), but apparently the usual term in this context among cardplayers was _kenig_. 3. A letter in the Sholem-Aleykhem Archives (Tel-Aviv) reveals that _Kenig Pik_ was performed in Riga in 1911 by an amateur troupe under M. Vorki. Programs were sent to Sholem-Aleykhem in Lausanne in 1913, but none has survived. All the evidence shows that Sholem-Aleykhem regarded the play as performable. Zilbertsvayg's entry on M. Vorki in his _Leksikon fun yidishn teater_ does not mention _Kenig Pik_. Significantly, the number of Sholem-Aleykhem plays for which Zilbertsvayg finds no record of performance or translation is very small: _Yidishe gazetn un zhurnaln_ ('Jewish Periodicals'), _Az got vil shist a bezem_ ('God Can Do Anything'), _Homen un mortkhe_ ('Haman and Mordechai'), _In tsveyen a zeks-un-zekhtsik_ ('A Two-Handed Game of Sixty-Six'), _Komedye brak_ ('Trash Comedy') [not included in the Folksfond Edition], and, of special interest to us, _Shrage_ [-Leksikon fun yidishn teater_ 4:3389]. 4. The manuscript (which the Goodblatt family eventually gave to Bet Sholem-Aleykhem in Tel-Aviv) is written on pages 1-18 and on one side of the page only. The spaces between the vertical and horizontal lines are one-half centimeter. The cover, in addition to the multiplication table, carries the address: Cartoleria / Alessandro Barisione / Piazza Soziglia / Genova. The next to the last sheet of this twenty-sheet notebook has been torn out. The text is written in black ink in two different hands and the corrections are made in red ink in a third hand, Sholem-Aleykhem's. I am grateful to Shlomo Tsuker of the Department of Manuscripts of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem for helping me to identify the handwriting in red ink as Sholem-Aleykhem's. 5. Sholem-Aleykhem's letters toBerkovitsh contain numerous references to the copying and typing of manuscripts. In a letter to Tsvi Prilutski, editor of _Der moment_, dated 6 December 1910, Sholem-Aleykhem relates that he has "farfartikt far aykh tsvey naye freylekhe shtiklekh arbet, a _Zeks-un-Zekhtsik_ un a _Kenig Pik_ un opgeshikt tsu berkovitshn af der shraybmashin." ('prepared for you two new merry pieces of work, a _Sixty-Six_ and a _King of Spades_ and sent them off to Berkovitsh to be typed' [reproduced in _Bikhervelt_ (July/October 1922), 465-466]. This statement is ambiguous: since Sholem-Aleyukhem did own a typrwriter at this time, one might him to be saying that he is 'sending off the two pieces typed by himself'. However, it is more likely that we are dealing here with an elliptical expression: "af [oystsuklapn af] der shraybmashin" ('to [type out on] the typewriter'). 6. I thank Tsvi Tsaplyovits for helping me to translate the Russian letters. 7. Further light is shed on this period by Y.-D. Berkovitsh in his memoiristic _Undzere rishoynim_ (Tel Aviv: HaMenora), vol 4, pp. 160-4. Berkovitsh writes: "Derbay iz vert tsu fartseykhenen, vi azoy der eynakter _Kenig pik_ un di dertseylung _A zeks un zekhtsik_ zaynen ba em aroysgebrakht gevorn. Zukhndik nokhtsukumen dem farlang funem _Moment_ vegn klenere zakhn, hot er ba zikh in arkhiv gefunen zaynem an altn, nit-gedruktn shpasikh eynakter mitn nomen _A zeks-un-zekhtsik_. Er hot em genumen baarbetn fun dos nay un dervayl vegn dem gegebn tsu visn der redaktsye. Di redaktsye hot zikh tsugeaylt un anonsirt far di lezer, az af khanike kumt Sholem-Aleykhems a humoristishe zakh, _A zeks-un-zekhtsik_. Nor az Sholem-Aleykhem hot zikh neenter tsugekukt tsum altn _Zeks-un-zekhtsik_, hot er em farbrakirt un anshtot dem ongeshribn an andern dramatishn shpas, af a gants ander teme, untern nomen _Kenig Pik_. Er hot es mir tsugeshikt farn _Moment_ un azoy geshribn: "Ikh shik aykh a nor vos fartrakht un ongeshribn zakhele lekoved khanike. Ikh hob gevolt oysbesern _Zeks-un-zekhtsik_, nor ikh hob derzen, az di zakh iz an alte. Me badarf hobn epes nays, dos letste geshrey fun der yidisher gas - - hob ikh mir ufgekhapt zeks a zeyger in der fri un biz akht ungevorn a brekele pyesele, vos ikh bob ungerufn _sharzh_ [pp. 163-4]. ('In this connection it is worth recording how he produced the one-act _Kenig-pik_ and the story entitled _Sixty-Six. Seeking a way to satisfy _Der moment-'s demand for smaller items, he found an old unpublished farcical one-acter called _A Sixty-Six_ in his files. He started to revise it and so informed the newspaper, whose editor promptly announced that a humorous story by Sholem-Aleykhem called _A Sixty-Six_ would appear on Chanuka. But when Sholem-Aleykhem took a closer look at the old _A Sixty-Six_ he scrapped it and instead wrote a comic sketch on a completely different subject called _King of Spades_. He sent it to me for _Der moment_ with the following explanation: "I am sending you a little Chanuka piece which I have just now thought up and written. I wanted to revise _A Sixty-Six_, but I saw that it was out of date. We need something new, the dernier cri of the Jewish community. I therefore woke up at six in the morning and by eight the miniplay, which I call a farce, was done."') Berkovitsh goes on to explain that Sholem-Aleykhem, having promised _Der moment_ a story entitled _A zeks in-zekhtsik_, sat down and wrote a new story by that name. This story has proved one ofthe author's most popular. 8. The title was changed to correspond to a card game different from the one used in the denouement of the original. The figures of the title refer to the cards and not to characters in the play. 9. See _Sholem-aleykhem bukh_, New York, 1926, p. 296. 10. The change appeared apposite to Sholem-Aleykhem because the use of the Hebrew term is appropriate to the fledgeling Hebraist in this sketch burlesquing zealous Hebraism. The Hebrew term also replaces a _daytshmerish_ one, but whether this was involved in the author's choice is hard to say. In any event, the Standard Yiddish term iz _zay/zayt/zayts moykhl_. 11. I am grateful to the late Ezra Lahad (d. 1995) for informing me of the Cracow edition of _Kenig Pik_, which no one before him seems to have noticed. Berkovitsh in the _Sholem-Aleykhem-bukh_ cites only the 1911 _Der moment_ and _Der groyser kundes_ editions [p. 296] and it does seem strange that he did not record the Cracow edition. Sholem-Aleykhem may have placed the play in the Cracow periodical directly and either Berkovitsh did not know about it or in the course of six years forgot this small detail. As regards the _Moment_ version, I have yet to see it although I have searched through the 1911 volume of the newspaper in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. It could conceivably have been part of a supplement which was not bound with the rest of the paper. I have not been able to check the 1910 volume, since it was reported lost. Berkovitsh makes it clear in _Undzere rishoynim_ that Sholem-Aleykhem sent _Kenig Pik_ to _Der moment_ and in his _Sholem-Aleykhem bukh_ recorded it as appearing there. One may be fairly certain that it does not differ significantly from the Cracow version. 12. Sholem-Aleykhem had to correct _kloymersht_ in the Goodblatt manuscript three times, altering the final letter from the copyist's incorrect _sof_ to a _tes_. This points to the likelihood of dictation. 13) In general there is a good deal of _daytshmerish_ and a bit of English influence in the Sholem-Aleykhem and Berkovitsh quotations given in this article. We must distinguish between their creative and their casual writings: the former is normally excellent Yiddish, but letters and business communications are often another matter. See _Jewish Language Review_ 1:121-122. 14. On the Progressive Dramatic Club, see _Leksikon fun yidishn teater_ 3:1857. 15. Line 26 of column 4 of the first page of _Kenig Pik_ ("griven. S'vet zayn altsding" ) was accidentally printed twice in _Der groyser kundes_ and the significant words "guryeve kashe, telyatshene nozhke - - pfui!" were omitted. Sholem-Aleykhem's Khane looks down on aristocratic dishes such as sweet porridge a la Gourieff (which Jews would not have eaten), while approving of such peasant dishes as mamelige (which Jews did eat). Leonard Prager ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 5.279 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. Anonymous ftp archives are available. ftp ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files A table of contents is also available, along with weekly updates. 2. 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