The Stories Of David Bergelson

The writings of David Bergelson—virtually unknown to readers in the United States—are now available in this exciting collection. Composed of two short stories and a novella, this volume brings to life Bergelson's rich, elegiac prose. Golda Werman's highly literate translation perfectly captures his elusive literary style. Bergelson's writings evoke the declining world of small-town Eastern European Jews. His world captures the dreariness of the uncommitted life. His characters are cast adrift in a society whose traditions are coming unhinged by powerful modernist forces. In her Introduction Werman offers readers an engaging and tragic portrait of Bergelson, who was arrested on orders from Stalin and died in a prison camp in 1952.

"The Shadows of Berlin is, in part, a bleak chronicle of life in a Europe growing ever more hostile at the edge of World War II. More than that, these stories offer glimpses into a community and a world now lost. They are also, in part, parables of modern life, drawing as much on the transformative possibility of scripture as they do on gritty depictions of the Berlin street. Bergelson's stories hint at the possibility of redemption even as they suggest a horror just around the corner."--BOOK JACKET.

Among the finest prose stylists in Yiddish literature, David Bergelson (1884-1952) was caught up in many of the twentieth century's most defining events. In 1909 he emerged as a pioneer of modernist prose, observing the slow decay of the Tsarist empire. In 1917 he welcomed the Revolution, but the bloodshed of the ensuing Civil War and the dogmatism of the Bolsheviks drove him to emigration. For more than a decade (1921-1934), he lived in Weimar Germany, travelling extensively in Europe and the United States. Shocked by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, disheartened by the decline of Yiddish culture in the West, and inspired by Soviet promises to create a Jewish republic, Bergelson became a Communist sympathiser and moved towards socialist realism. Returning to the Soviet Union after Hitler's rise to power, Bergelson flourished in a state-sponsored cultural environment in which his work was widely read both in Yiddish and in Russian translation. After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Bergelson became a prominent member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, writing extensively about the Holocaust. In the paranoia of the Cold War years, the Stalinist regime accused him of anti-Soviet activities and, after a secret military trial he was executed on 12 August 1952, his 68th birthday.For years, critics have argued that Bergelson produced his best work before the Revolution, and afterwards largely wrote Communist propaganda. David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism challenges this view by examining Bergelson's entire oeuvre. The book argues that Bergelson continually reinvented himself as a writer, experimenting with style and narrative technique even under the most severe restrictions of Party dogma. With contributions from an international team of Bergelson experts, the volume offers a full-length biography, the first complete bibliography of Bergelson's work, translations of two of his most influential programmatic articles, and a range of essays dealing with all periods of the writer's life.With the contributions:Joseph Sherman — David Bergelson (1884–1952): A BiographyLev Bergelson — Memories of My Father: The Early Years (1918–1934)Daniela Mantovan — Language and Style in Nokh alemen (1913): Bergelson's Debt to FlaubertKerstin Hoge — For Children and Adults Alike: Reading Bergelson's 'Children's Stories' (1914–1919) as Narratives of Identity FormationSeth L. Wolitz — Yoysef Shor (1922): Between Two WorldsSasha Senderovich — In Search of Readership: Bergelson Among the Refugees (1928)Mikhail Krutikov — Narrating the Revolution: From 'Tsugvintn' (1922) to Mides-hadin (1929)Ellen Kellman — Uneasy Patronage: Bergelson's Years at Forverts (1922–1926)Gennady Estraikh — David Bergelson in and on America (1929–1949)Ber Boris Kotlerman — 'Why I am in Favour of Birobidzhan': Bergelson's Fateful Decision (1932)Harriet Murav — Memory and Monument in Baym Dnyepr (1932–1940)David Shneer — From Mourning to Vengeance: Bergelson's Holocaust Journalism (1941–1945)Jeffrey Veidlinger — 'Du lebst, mayn folk': Bergelson's Play Prints Ruveni in Historical Context (1944–1947)Joseph Sherman — 'Jewish Nationalism' in Bergelson's Last Book (1947)Roberta Saltzman — A Bibliography of David Bergelson's Work in Yiddish and EnglishDavid Bergelson — Appendix A. Belles-lettres and the Social Order (1919)David Bergelson — Appendix B. Three Centres (Characteristics) (1926)

"Among the finest prose stylists in Yiddish literature, David Bergelson (1884-1952) was caught up in many of the twentieth century's most defining events. In 1909 he emerged as a pioneer of modernist prose, observing the slow decay of the Tsarist empire. In 1917 he welcomed the Revolution, but the bloodshed of the ensuing Civil War and the dogmatism of the Bolsheviks drove him to emigration. For more than a decade (1921-1934), he lived in Weimar Germany, travelling extensively in Europe and the United States. Shocked by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, disheartened by the decline of Yiddish culture in the West, and inspired by Soviet promises to create a Jewish republic, Bergelson became a Communist sympathiser and moved towards socialist realism. Returning to the Soviet Union after Hitler's rise to power, Bergelson flourished in a state-sponsored cultural environment in which his work was widely read both in Yiddish and in Russian translation. After Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Bergelson became a prominent member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, writing extensively about the Holocaust. In the paranoia of the Cold War years, the Stalinist regime accused him of anti-Soviet activities and, after a secret military trial he was executed on 12 August 1952, his 68th birthday. For years, critics have argued that Bergelson produced his best work before the Revolution, and afterwards largely wrote Communist propaganda. David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism challenges this view by examining Bergelson's entire oeuvre. The book argues that Bergelson continually reinvented himself as a writer, experimenting with style and narrative technique even under the most severe restrictions of Party dogma. With contributions from an international team of Bergelson experts, the volume offers a full-length biography, the first complete bibliography of Bergelson's work, translations of two of his most influential programmatic articles, and a range of essays dealing with all periods of the writer's life. With the contributions: Joseph Sherman- David Bergelson (1884-1952): A Biography Lev Bergelson- Memories of My Father: The Early Years (1918-1934) Daniela Mantovan- Language and Style in Nokh alemen (1913): Bergelson's Debt to Flaubert Kerstin Hoge- For Children and Adults Alike: Reading Bergelson's 'Children's Stories' (1914-1919) as Narratives of Identity Formation Seth L. Wolitz- Yoysef Shor (1922): Between Two Worlds Sasha Senderovich- In Search of Readership: Bergelson Among the Refugees (1928) Mikhail Krutikov- Narrating the Revolution: From 'Tsugvintn' (1922) to Mides-hadin (1929) Ellen Kellman- Uneasy Patronage: Bergelson's Years at Forverts (1922-1926) Gennady Estraikh- David Bergelson in and on America (1929-1949) Ber Boris Kotlerman- 'Why I am in Favour of Birobidzhan': Bergelson's Fateful Decision (1932) Harriet Murav- Memory and Monument in Baym Dnyepr (1932-1940) David Shneer- From Mourning to Vengeance: Bergelson's Holocaust Journalism (1941-1945) Jeffrey Veidlinger- 'Du lebst, mayn folk': Bergelson's Play Prints Ruveni in Historical Context (1944-1947) Joseph Sherman- 'Jewish Nationalism' in Bergelson's Last Book (1947) Roberta Saltzman- A Bibliography of David Bergelson's Work in Yiddish and English David Bergelson- Appendix A. Belles-lettres and the Social Order (1919) David Bergelson- Appendix B. Three Centres (Characteristics) (1926)"

A contemporary evaluation of Bergelson and his works, examining Yiddish literature, Jewish culture, and modernism. David Bergelson (1884–1952) emerged as a major literary figure who wrote in Yiddish before WWI. He was one of the founders of the Kiev Kultur-Lige, and his work was at the center of the Yiddish-speaking world of the time. He was well known for creating characters who often felt the painful after-effects of the past and the clumsiness of bodies stumbling through the actions of daily life as their familiar worlds crumbled around them. In this contemporary assessment of Bergelson and his fiction, Harriet Murav focuses on untimeliness, anachronism, and warped temporality as an emotional, sensory, existential, and historical background to Bergleson’s work and world. Murav grapples with the great modern theorists of time and memory, especially Henri Bergson, Sigmund Freud, and Walter Benjamin, to present Bergelson as an integral part of the philosophical and artistic experiments, political and technological changes, and cultural context of Russian and Yiddish modernism that marked his age. As a comparative and interdisciplinary study of Yiddish literature and Jewish culture, this work adds a new, ethnic dimension to understandings of the turbulent birth of modernism. “Harriet Murav treats Bergelson with the care and sincerity that literary critics have shown other important writers. This is a masterpiece of literary scholarship that will be sure to transform not only how people read Bergelson and who chooses to read Bergelson, but how readers engage with the entire concept of modernism itself.” —David Shneer, author of Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture: 1918-1930

From the acclaimed author of The Man Without a Face, the previously untold story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia that reveals the complex, strange, and heart-wrenching truth behind the familiar narrative that begins with pogroms and ends with emigration. In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan.The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there. The state-building ended quickly, in the late 1930s, with arrests and purges instigated by Stalin. But after the Second World War, Birobidzhan received another influx of Jews—those who had been dispossessed by the war. In the late 1940s a second wave of arrests and imprisonments swept through the area, traumatizing Birobidzhan’s Jews into silence and effectively shutting down most of the Jewish cultural enterprises that had been created. Where the Jews Aren’t is a haunting account of the dream of Birobidzhan—and how it became the cracked and crooked mirror in which we can see the true story of the Jews in twentieth-century Russia. (Part of the Jewish Encounters series)

In this powerful novel set in Tsarist Russia, a young Jewish woman forced into a marriage of convenience descends into emotional turmoil. Originally published in 1913, and titled When All Is Said and Done in previous translations, The End of Everything is one of the great novels of the twentieth century. Considered David Bergelson’s masterpiece, it was written in Yiddish and until now has been unavailable in a complete and accurate English translation. This version by acclaimed translator Joseph Sherman finally brings the novel to a wide English-speaking audience. Bergelson depicts the lives of upwardly mobile, self-aware nouveaux riche Jews in the waning years of the Russian Empire. The central character, Mirel Hurvits, is an educated, beautiful woman who embodies the conflict between tradition and progress, aristocracy and enterprise. A forced marriage of convenience results in Mirel’s emotional disintegration and provokes a confrontation with the expectations of her pious family and with Jewish tradition. In a unique prose style of unsurpassable range and beauty, Bergelson reduces language to its bare essentials, punctuated by silences that heighten the sense of alienation in the story.