The Portrayal of Jews in Modern Biełarusian Literature by Zina J. Gimpelevich (review)

Abstract

SEER, 97, 2, APRIL 2019 344 preferred the Ruthenian variant to the Russian and the vernacular to the bookish (p. 131). Instrumental as it may look, this type of reconstruction does not allow us to say something definitive about the provenance of the respective translations and their language. Some comments, especially in reference to the Arabic original, are not convincing either, for instance, the explanation of the use of the preposition o in molitva w nawsobněišo(m) ‘a sermon to the Most Distinguished’ by the alleged influence of the underlying Arabic ‘alā ‘on, about’ (p. 430). The Slavic concordantial index (pp. 597–720) reflects shortcomings in the author’s interpretation of the Slavic language of the Logika. The orthographic variants are usually not alphabetized with a word’s main entry and are given separate entries. To give the most obvious examples, one should cite the vъ > u alternation as illustrated in vzęti and ouzęti ‘to take’ taken as separate entries, also vkazati next to oukazati ‘to guide’ (p. 605). Separate entries, according to the author, are vpasti and vъpasti ‘to fall’ (p. 607), though vinnyj is found in one entry next to such variants as vyn´no, vino and vinъno (n.sg.) ‘necessary, requiring’ (p. 605). The author does not provide any glossary of Slavic terms although the latter would benefit Taube’s research of the Ruthenian texts replete with numerous lexical and morphological innovations (p. 56). One comes across some obsolete spellings like Belorussian (p. 51) instead of Belarusian, Kiev (p. 9) rather than Kyiv. Despite these shortcomings, Taube’s critical edition is a ground-breaking contribution to the study of the literature of the Judaizers. Pace University, New York Andrii Danylenko Gimpelevich, Zina J. The Portrayal of Jews in Modern Biełarusian Literature. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and Kingston, London and Chicago, IL, 2018. xx + 479 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $95.00: £76.00. Belarus has been home to Jews for many centuries, and Professor Gimpelevich has provided a wide-ranging and comprehensive review of the relatively harmonious relationship of this substantial minority with their Christian neighbours, in sharp contrast to the situation in other Slav countries. Her ambitious monograph consists of eleven parts and two appendices. The first part is a thoroughly researched review of Jewish-Christian relations from the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the present, quoting extensively from existing scholarship, as well as from writers and poets. Using earlier published research and statistics, the author paints a broad yet thorough REVIEWS 345 overview of the past, emphasizing, without idealization, the predominantly co-operative and equable position of Jews in a part of the world where they enjoyed both status and a degree of independence. The remaining ten chapters are illustrations of her thesis on the basis of the work by some prominent writers from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. The range of texts selected is admirably broad and includes works that are familiar to all educated Belarusians as well as some that have fallen into neglect and/or been suppressed. One of the appendixes is a note on transliteration, in which the author attempts to devise a transliteration system that will help her readers ‘experience the richness of Biełarusian phonetics’ (p. 369). In this notice, however, except in direct quotations, the forms that have now become standard in this country are used. The second chapter links one of the first plays in Belarusian to three works by Jakub Kolas (1882–1956), one of them his masterpiece, and the two others relatively unknown: ‘The Creation of Biełarusian Jewish Characters from Kaetan Marašeŭski’s Comedy and Jakub Kolas’s Anton Łata, Symon the Musician, and “Chajm Rybs”.’ It begins with an extensive discussion of the origins of Belarusian drama, including the work of Simiaon Polacki (1629–80) and the school dramas, followed by a thoroughgoing description of the eighteenth-century Comedy, its characters and plot. Kolas’s Anton Lata was closely modelled on the earlier play, and after a sketch of this writer’s achievements and status in the USSR, Gimpelevich describes in detail this ‘epigonic work’ (p. 71). In...