[Mendele] Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements--Trachtenber's *Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish*

Victor Bers victor.bers at yale.edu
Tue Dec 23 20:26:27 EST 2008


MENDELE Yiddish Language and Literature
Personal Notices and Announcements

Dec. 23, 2008

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Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 21:08:51 -0500
From: Barry Trachtenberg <btrachtenberg at albany.edu>
Subject: Publication of The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 
1903-1917


I'm pleased to announce the publication of The Revolutionary Roots of 
Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917 from Syracuse University Press. Description At 
the beginning of the twentieth century, Yiddish was widely viewed, even by 
many of its speakers, as a corrupt form of German that Jews had to abandon 
if they hoped to engage in serious intellectual, cultural, or political 
work. Yet by 1917 it was the dominant language of the Russian Jewish 
press, a medium for modern literary criticism, a vehicle for science and 
learning, and the foundation of an ideology of Jewish liberation. The 
Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917 investigates how this 
change in status occurred and three major figures responsible for its 
transformation.

Trachtenberg reveals how, following the model set by other nationalist 
movements that were developing in the Russian empire, one-time 
revolutionaries such as the literary critic Shmuel Niger, the Marxist 
Zionist leader Ber Borochov, and the linguist Nokhem Shtif committed 
themselves to the creation of a new branch of Jewish scholarship dedicated 
to their native language. The new "Yiddish science" was concerned with the 
tasks of standardizing Yiddish grammar, orthography, and word corpus; 
establishing a Yiddish literary tradition; exploring Jewish folk 
traditions; and creating an institutional structure to support their 
language's development. In doing so, the author argues, they hoped to 
reimagine Russian Jewry as a modern nation with a mature language and 
culture and one that deserved the same collective rights and autonomy that 
were being demanded by other groups in the empire.

Barry Trachtenberg
Assistant Professor
Judaic Studies Department
University at Albany (SUNY)
Albany, NY 12222
btrachtenberg at albany.edu

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