[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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