To Reveal Our Hearts: Jewish Women Writers in Tsarist Russia by Carole B. s> Balin (review)

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

REVIEWS 509 Balin, Carole B. ToRevealOurHearts.ewish Women Writers in TsaristRussia. Monographs of the Hebrew Union College, 24. Hebrew Union College Press, Cincinnati, OH, 2000. x + 269 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39-95. THEfiveJewish women writerswhose lives and worksareexamined in Carole B. Balin'sstudydo not conform to stereotypicalviews ofJewish women in the Russian Empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. None of them could be described as living a life shaped wholly by tradition, domesticity and religion, nor did they reject their roots to become secular revolutionaries.They wrote and published in a variety of languages, whether Hebrew, Russianor Yiddish, and theirwritingrevealsa diversityof genre and theme. Yet they share certain characteristics:as members of the educated middle classes they had more in common with Jewish women of the same classin CentralandWesternEuropethanwithwomen livingin the Palein the Russian Empire, and led lives which departedin varyingdegreesfromJewish convention. In her Introduction Balin provides a brief cultural history of Jewry in the Russian Empire which sets out the context in which these women embarked on their literary careers. This provides invaluable information for the nonspecialistreader about the nineteenth-century secularJewish Enlightenment movement, the Haskalah,which developed a secular culture of Jewish selfexpression ,focusing attention on extending the range of Hebrew and Yiddish as literarylanguages. As Balin'sfirstchapter, on Miriam Markel-Mosessohn, shows, women writersstood in a somewhat delicate position in relationto the Hebrew language, which had been the traditional preserve of men. The adherents of the Haskalah, however, encouraged women to write in Hebrew, so as to bring some feminine refinement and a greater emotional flexibility into the language. Forwomen such as Markel-Mosessohn,gender played an importantrole both in her literarysuccess, and in her ambivalentresponseto her statusas a woman writer. As Balinpoints out, the five chaptersin her studyarelargelyself-contained, and might be read independently. None of the women she writes about saw herself as belonging to a larger network of Jewish women writers;there was no history of women's writing in which she might situateherself.Although a number of women in the Russian Empire did become proficient in Hebrew and were able to publish their work, they correspondedonly with their male counterparts,having no opportunityto become acquaintedwith each other. Balin's account of Miriam Markel-Mosessohnaddresses questions of the womanwriter'srelationshipto theHebrewlanguage.The caseofHava Shapiro, who also wrote in Hebrew, reveals the difficulties facing a woman writer attemptingto explore female experience in a language and culturewhich had a largelymale audience. The threeotherwomen in Balin'sstudy,who wrotein Russian, found that their descriptions of women's lives were more warmly received. Rashel' Khin is the only woman discussed here who came to be recognized by the Russian literaryestablishment.Many of the charactersshe portrayed,both gentilesandJews, wereambitiousmiddle-classwomen striving for female emancipation. Sofiia Dubnova-Erlikh'spoetry is also concerned withwomen's lives,andparticularlywith the experienceof motherhood. 5IO SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 When it comes to the treatmentofJewish themes in thewritingsof the three women who wrote in Russian, Balin finds that their attitude towards their heritage and Jewish identity was complex. While both Khin and DubnovaErlikhwere at home in the Russian culturalmilieu and made little reference to questions of Jewish identity in their writing, Feiga Kogan's work contains allusions to Jewish tradition which express an ambivalent attitude. Balin characterizes Kogan, best known for her collections of Symbolist verse and workson poetic theory, as a writerwho concealed herJewish identitybehind a Russianfront. It is not the aim of Balin's study to be a history of Jewish women writing, but to examine five literarywomen whose lives and work open up aspects of Jewish cultural history in the Russian Empire. Her exploration of a field which has hitherto received little attention shows that the role played by language and identityin the formation ofJewish women writerswas complex and fascinating.This studyopens up new scholarlyterritory;it is to be hoped that others will follow Balin and explore further,building on this interesting contributionto our understandingof women writersin Russia. SchoolofModernLanguages K. M. HODGSON UniversityofExeter Ketchian, Sonia I. KeatsandtheRussianPoets.Birmingham Slavonic Monographs , 33. University of Birmingham,Birmingham, 200 I. Vii+ 308 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Indexes. 25s.00. THEinfluence of certain English and American writerson Russian literature is well attested: Pushkin...