Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T05:14:13.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Jewish Identity and Russian Culture: The Case of M. O. Gershenzon*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Brian Horowitz
Brian Horowitz*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In late tsarist Russia, when a Russian historian writes about Russia he need not justify his activity; his work is naturally understood as an example of cultural self-expression. When a Jew, however, writes about Russia for an intended Russian audience, he has to explain and defend his work before himself, before his fellow Jews and before hostile Russians. His work inevitably elicits questions, and coming from a repressed ethnic minority, the assimilated Jew appears suspect. Why does he so love the nation which treats his people so badly?

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 699 - 713
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

* I would like to thank the Lady Davis Trust for their generous support and the Hebrew University for help rendered to me during my sojourn in Jerusalem 1990–1991, and Dr. Hugh McLean (University of California, Berkeley) who generously aided me in preparing this manuscript. The responsibility for everything said here, however, belongs solely to the author.Google Scholar

1. Rozanov was an ambiguous figure who was excluded from the Petersburg Philosophical Society in 1914 on the grounds of anti-semitism. He wrote inciting anti-Semitic tracts during the Beilis trial, while at other times defending Jews and Jewish culture. It appears that he felt no social responsibility for his writings, playing both sides “for fun.”Google Scholar

2. Rozanov, V., “Perepiska V. V. Rozanova i M. O. Gershenzona,” Novyi mir, Vol. 3, 1991, p. 219. Vasilii Vasilievich Rozanov (1856–1919), Symbolist writer, and religious thinker. Among his writings on religious questions, are Legenda o velikom inkvizitore (1894), Okolo tserkovnykh sten, 2 Vols. (1906), Apokolipsis nashego vremeni (1918). Rozanov was a literary acquaintance of Gershenzon's. Boris Grigor'evich Stolpner (1871–1937), Jewish philosopher, sociologist and contributor to the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906–1913) (Evreiskaia entsiklopediia). Samuil Solomonovich Gart, pseudonym (real name Zusman) born 1880, Jewish journalist and literary critic. Aleksandr Mikhailovich Skabichevskii (1838–1910), Populist literary critic and historian of literature.Google Scholar

3. See “Perepiska V. V. Rozanova i M. O. Gershenzona,” pp. 219–242.Google Scholar

4. See Reed, Christopher, Culture and Power in Revolutionary Russia (London: Macmillian, 1990), p. 75. Khodasevich, Vladislav, Nekropol' (Brussels, 1939), pp. 150–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Gershenzon graduated from the Kishinev Gymnasium with a silver medal. In order to enter a Russian university a Jew needed a gold medal.Google Scholar

6. For more about this incident see Arthur Levin's unpublished dissertation, “The Life and Writings of M. O. Gershenzon,” diss., U. C. Berkeley, 1968, pp. 114–116.Google Scholar

7. Even in his personal life Gershenzon was beset by discrimation. As a Jew, Gershenzon was only allowed offically to marry Mariia Borisovna Gol'denvizer when she converted from Orthodoxy to Lutheranism in 1914, ten years after the couple had begun living together. In addition, Gershenzon's children were baptized with the help of Mikhail Sabashnikov who, being Orthodox and having the name Mikhail, could serve as a valid substitute (the children received the correct patronymic).Google Scholar

8. Aronson, G., “Evrei v russkoi literature, kritike, zhurnalistike i obshchestvennoi zhini,” Kniga o russkom evreistve: sbornik statei (New York: Soiuz russkikh evreev, 1960), p. 372.Google Scholar

9. P. Sakulin describes Gershenzon as an ideal embodiment of the Russian intelligentsia. See Sakulin, , “Edinaia dusha,” Unpublished essay. Sakulin Papers located at TsGALI: 444–1–14, Moscow.Google Scholar

10. Kornei Ivanovich Chukovskii, pseudonym for Nikolai Vasilievich Korneichukov (1882–1969), poet, translator, literary historian and editor. Gershenzon's correspondence to K. Chukovskii has been published; see Andreeva, I., “Istoriia odnoi nevstrechi, rasskazannaia v retsenziiakh i pis'makh M. O. Gershenzon i K. I. Chukovskogo,” Literaturnoe obozrenie, Vols. 11–12, 1992, pp. 63–72.Google Scholar

11. M. O. Gershenzon to K. I. Chukovskii from 22 January 1908, Chukovskii papers located in the Lenin Library, Moscow, (620–62–93). Nikolai Osipovich Lerner (1877–1934), Pushkinist, literary critic. Among his works are: A. S. Pushkin: Trudy i dni (1903), Proza Pushkina (1922) and Rasskazy Pushkina (1929). Gershenzon was responding to Chukovskii's “paradoxical article” entitled, “Jews and Russian Literature” (Evrei i russkaia literatura), published in Svobodnye mysli on 14 January 1908. In this article Chukovskii claimed that “the greater the poet, the more national he is; the more national, the less he is intelligible to an alien ear, alien spirit… I maintain that a Jew is incapable of understanding Dostoevskii, just as an English, French, Italian person cannot understand him. Otherwise Dostoevskii is not Dostoevskii, or the Jew is not a Jew.” K. Chukovskii, “Evrei i russkaia kul'tura,” in I. Andreeva, “Istoriia odnoi nevstrechi,” p. 67. Although the article “caused a literary scandal,” Chukovskii was still a respected member of the liberal intelligentsia. His opinions did not lead to a break in his relationship with Gershenzon. See “Istoriia odnoi nevstrechi,” pp. 67–72.Google Scholar

12. Sh. Betrinskii (Vasilii E. Cheshikhin), rev. of “Zhizn’ V. S. Pecherina,” by Gershenzon, M. O., Nizhegorodskii listok, Vol. 132, 1910, p. 4.Google Scholar

13. A. S. Izgoev, rev. of Dekabrist Krivtsov, by Gershenzon, M., Rech', 100, 14 April 1914, p. 3. (Ironically, Izgoev was a pseudonym. Aleksandr Solomonivich Lande (1872–1935) was born a Jew.)Google Scholar

14. Rozanov is referring to Gershenzon's biography of Petr Chaadaev, P. Ia. Chaadaev: zhizn’ i myshlenie (1908). “Perepiska V. V. Rozanova i M. O. Gershenzon,” p. 219.Google Scholar

15. Gershenzon wrote a positive review of Chukovskii's book, Ot Chekhova do nashikh dnei. Literaturnye portrety. Kharakteristiki (St. Petersburg, 1908), which appeared in Vestnik Evropy, 1 March 1908, and in which he criticized Chukovskii, incidentally, for a lack of moral criticism. “He has ideas, but not an idea, many subtle, refined ideas, independent from one another, which separate are very valuable and, importantly, beautiful. But in literature there is another value, higher that this one: there is the moral unity and strength of the personality, producing a consistency of ideas and their effect. This moral personality is not perceived in Mr. Chukovskii's book.” p. 412.Google Scholar

16. L. Andreev, V. Korolenko, F. Sologub and others contributed to the volume, Shchit (1916), the aim of which was to speak out against anti-semitism and discrimination against Jews.Google Scholar

17. Gershenzon to Rozanov 18 January 1912, “Perepiska V. V. Rozanova i M. O. Gershenzona,” p. 228.Google Scholar

18. Rozanov writes, for instance, in a letter from the middle of August 1909, “I am afraid the Jews will grab the history of Russian literature and Russian criticism more firmly than the banks; and, this is really ‘some such thing …’ out of the Apocalypse or Isaiah: ‘you will be the nation of kings’ (A vy budete narodom tsarei).” “Perepiska V. V. Rozanova i M. O. Gershenzona,” p. 223. Rozanov is probably misquoting Exodus 19:6 which in the King James version of the Bible reads: “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” In Russian one finds, “A vy budete u Menia tsarstvom sviashchennikov i narodom sviatym.” Incidentally Gershenzon and Rozanov's relationship broke over the issue of Rozanov's anti-semitism.Google Scholar

19. Gershenzon, M. O., Sud'by evreiskogo naroda (Berlin, 1922), p. 21.Google Scholar

20. For more on his view of cosmic oneness, see Gersenzon's “Pis'ma k bratu,” Russkaia mysl', Vol. 2, February 1907, pp. 387–396.Google Scholar

21. Gershenzon, , Sud'by evreiskogo naroda, p. 21.Google Scholar

22. Arkadii Georgievich Gornfel'd (1867–1941), Jewish literary critic, historian, contributor to the Jewish encyclopedia, Evreiskaia entsiklopediia: svod znanii o evreistve i ego kul'ture v proshlom i nastoiashchem, 16 Vols., (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvo dlia nauchnykh evreiskikh izdanii i izdanie Brokgauza i Efrona, 1906–1913). The article on Gershenzon appears in Volume 6, p. 423.Google Scholar

23. M. O. Gershenzon to A. Gornfel'd 20 January 1910, Gornfel'd papers located at RGALI, Moscow (155–1–269). How paradoxical that here Gershenzon says he agrees with Kornei Chukovskii. Iurii Aikhenval'd (1872–1928), Jewish critic and literary historian associated with the Symbolist school. His works include, Siluety russkikh pisatelei, 3 Vols., 1906–1910.Google Scholar

24. Gershenzon, M., “Gertsen i zapad,” Obrazy proshlogo, Moscow, 1912, p. 176.Google Scholar

25. Gershenzon, M., Istoricheskie zapiski, 2nd edn (Berlin, 1923), p. 128.Google Scholar

26. Gershenzon, M., Mudrost’ Pushkina (Moscow, 1919), p. 11.Google Scholar

27. Florovsky, G., “Michael Gerschensohn,” Slavonic Review, No. 14, 1926, p. 317. Florovsky thought Gershenzon held an ahistorical philosophical perspective which permitted him deep psychological insights, but which prevented him from correctly evaluating historical processes.Google Scholar

28. Struve, P., Patriotika: sbornik statei za piat’ let 1905–1910 (St. Petersburg, 1911), p. 470.Google Scholar

29. Sakulin, P., “Apologiia dukha: M. O. Gershenzon i russkaia intelligentsia.”Google Scholar

30. Gershenzon, M. O. and Ivanov, Viacheslav, “Perepiska iz dvukh uglov,” in Viacheslav Ivanov, Sobranie sochinenii, 4 Vols. (Brussels: Foyer Oriental Chrétien, 1979), pp. 414–415.Google Scholar

31. For a full bibliography of Gershenzon's writings, see la. Berman, Z., M. O. Gershenzon: bibliografiia (Moscow: Trudy Pushkinskogo Doma Akademii Nauk SSSR. LII, 1928).Google Scholar

32. Ivanov, Gershenzon and, “Perepiska iz dvukh uglov,” p. 415.Google Scholar

33. Gershenzon was already expressing his skepticism about culture in 1904, see his review article, “Literaturnoe obozrenie,” in Vestnik Evropy, Vol. 10, 1904. In addition, his basic anti-cultural position can also be detected in his Vekhi article, “Tvorcheskoe samosoznanie.”Google Scholar

34. Gershenzon, M. O., “O tsennostiakh,” Vetv': sbornik kluba moskovskikh pisatelei, Moscow, 1917, pp. 289–290.Google Scholar

35. For a picture of Gershenzon in his official capacity at GAKhN, see his unpublished correspondence with Kogan, Petr, President of GAKhN in RGALI, Moscow, (237–1–27).Google Scholar

36. In principle the tsarist political culture and the Bolsheviks shared a common respect for the same mentality based on rationalism, and, therefore, both were equally odious to Gershenzon.Google Scholar

37. Gershenzon had a strong sense of his Jewish identity and did not forget his origins or his unfortunate people. In a 1922 essay, “Solntse nad mgloi” (The Sun above the Darkness), Gershenzon writes about his fellow Jews, “I myself was born in the darkness, can I forget my brothers, forever slaves?” Gershenzon, “Solntse nad mgloi,” Zapiski mechtatelei, Vol. 5, 1922, p. 107.Google Scholar