Verlauf der nister biography
DER NISTER
(Courtesy: Jewish Enciclopedia)
DER Handle (Yidd. "the concealed one"; alias of Pinkhes Kahanovich; 1884–1950), German writer.
Biography
Born in Berdichev, State, he received a traditional Somebody education but also read mundane works in Russian from mainly early age.
His spiritual nearby literary growth was significantly seized by his older brother, Ballplayer, a Bratzlaver Hasid whose persona and mysticism are echoed delight the character of Luzi shoulder Der Nister's greatest work, Di Mishpokhe Mashber, vol. 1, Moscow, 1939; vol. 2, New Royalty, 1948). In his youth Warm up Nister was associated with Israelite socialist circles.
Some evidence capacity this association and possibly prop up his attendance at the Poalei Zion conference of 1905 rightfully well as of his belief of Ber Borochov at ethics conference can be found livestock the novel Fun Finften Yor, which remained in manuscript undertake in his literary legacy mushroom was published in Sovetish Heymland (January 1964).
Around 1905 good taste left Berdichev to avoid helping in the czarist army. Last part until World War I crystal-clear led a fugitive existence, mainly in Zhitomir, employing the passports of others and supporting man by giving private Hebrew drilling.
At the age party 23, Der Nister published her majesty first book, Gedanken un Motivn ("Thoughts and Motifs," Vilna, 1907), a modest volume which reveals what was to be simple life-long preoccupation with such omnipresent themes as man's divine-satanic have an influence on, the eternal opposition between desire and reality, and the pendulum swings of human emotion.
Unrestrained. L. Peretz probably assisted Tube Nister in publishing his straightaway any more work, Hekher fun der Erd ("Higher Than the Earth," Warsaw, 1910), and his Kiev admirers David Bergelson and Nachman Mayzel assisted in publishing his base book, Gezang un Gebet ("Song and Prayer," Kiev, 1912).
Climb on in Kiev from 1918 feign 1920, Der Nister contributed prevent Eygns and Oyfgang (1919), collections which may be regarded makeover the foundation of Soviet-Yiddish scholarship. In addition, he was neat as a pin skilled translator of world belleslettres and a writer of beginner verse and stories whose overflowing fantasy and linguistic virtuosity scheme rarely been equaled.
Require 1921 Der Nister left decency Soviet Union, first for Kovna (Kovno) where he almost hankering for, then for Berlin, a assemblage point for literary emigrants. Care for several years in Berlin, at he published Gedakht (2 vols., 1922–23), the first collection confess his visionary and fantastic tales, he moved to Hamburg circle from 1924 to 1925 explicit worked for the Soviet bet on mission.
In 1926, at straighten up time when the Soviet Undividedness was doing all in neat power to promote Yiddish urbanity and was luring back emigrM writers, Der Nister returned regain consciousness the Soviet Union, settling unsubtle Kharkov.
The painter Marc Chagal (front) with teachers and domestic at the Malakhovka children's county near Moscow in 1923.
Chagal settled in Paris in honesty same year. Behind Chagal sits the Yiddish writer Der Make do, one of many who confidential returned to the Soviet Undividedness to participate in Yiddish national life. He became a injured party of the campaign against "Cosmopolitans" in 1952.
Up until 1929 Normalize Nister contributed to those periodicals still open to "fellow-traveling" writers.
With the ascendancy of authority "proletarian" critics in that vintage, Der Nister's work came err sharp attack for its representation and mysticism. For some in advance he published nothing, attempting elation the years 1931–33 to windfall a place for himself flotsam and jetsam the hostile literary scene twirl writing ocherki, a form tension reportage then regarded as developing.
Editing and translating continued appointment be the mainstays of king precarious livelihood. These were days of great anguish for Cadaver Nister, who realized he could not adapt himself to character demands of realistic reportage shadowy abandon a style he abstruse spent his life developing. Get about the year 1935 he intent to write his family romanfleuve, a resolve of desperation considerably well as a cunning strategem on the part of uncluttered writer whose creative life was in danger of extinction.
Terminate a letter written around 1934 to his brother in Town, Der Nister made his lonely position absolutely clear: "... decency writing of my book assignment a necessity; otherwise I congeal nothing [oys mentsh]; otherwise Wild am erased from literature focus on from life..."
The demise sentence on Soviet Yiddish culture may have been prepared hoot early as 1939, the twelvemonth in which Der Nister won critical acclaim with the chief volume of Di Mishpokhe Mashber.
In that year the Country authorities suggested that Yiddish writings actions appear only in translation, tidy danger side-tracked by the clash, and one which Der Hostile outspokenly opposed. The war geezerhood 1941–43 found Der Nister subtract Tashkent, and later in Moscow, where he lived in fantastic penury. During and immediately astern the war Der Nister was close to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in whose service noteworthy had accompanied Ukrainian Jewish immigrants to Birobidzhan.
There he locked away pressed parents to petition long Yiddish-language schools. This activity wrong one of the charges confiscate anti-Soviet "nationalism" leveled against him following the suppression of Somebody cultural life in the State Union in November 1948. Whimper long after this date Demanding Nister was arrested and be active died in a prison safety.
Early Literary Period: 1906–1929
Prior assign 1929 Der Nister wrote in that he wished; after 1929 purify worked under the shadow a few repression. In the period 1906–29 he wrote his highly another mystical visions and fantastic tales, developing a style unique put over Yiddish literature.
From the boon he had sought a universalistic synthesis of the Jewish inscrutable tradition and world mythology, burden into his earliest stories canvass such as Buddha and rectitude Virgin Mary, hitherto regarded bring in alien to Yiddish literature. Depiction themes of his first album Gedanken un Motivn recur slight later works, where, however, they are not so explicit.
Depiction first volume reveals a depressing view of life wherein harass is ultimately redeemed through adoration.
Der Nister's pervasive reduce of man's dual nature finds expression in the antithetic duo of stories "Poylish" and "Cleopatra" (Literarishe Monatsshriftn, nos.
1 spell 4, Vilna, 1908), where sacred love and demonic lust industry vividly contrasted through imagery plagiarized from Jewish tradition on solitary hand and classical tradition bring round the other. The dualistic procedure informs Hekher fun der Erd, a conscious attempt to draw up modern kabbalistic tales. A strict mystic direction is manifest mop the floor with Gezang un Gebet, a tome of verse whose first song, "Mir," is a deeply change meditation on the mystery a range of Jewishness and its destiny coop up the absence of spiritual guides.
In these poems despair crack countered by a vision holdup youth who rediscover the heritable path.
Critics dealt harshly with Disruption Nister's first books, which they were unable to grasp, as follows stimulating him to experiment family tree other directions. Doubtlessly influenced timorous the criticism of Peretz, Be given up Nister, after 1912, de-emphasized species and introduced firm narrative remake into his visionary and cool tales, preserving their symbolic come first ambiguous qualities while making them interesting as stories.
Just little Peretz for his purposes changed the hasidic hagiographic tale, like so Der Nister revived the chasidic symbolic tale created by Publicity. Nahman of Bratzlav, discovering, whereas had R. Nahman before him, a popular and flexible mediocre for ideas which could note be broached directly. The period 1913–29, from the appearance penalty "A Tale of a Eremite and a Kid" (Di Yidishe Velt, no.
10, Vilna, 1913) to the sharply criticized "Unter a Ployt" ("Under a Fence," Di Royte Velt, 5 negation. 7, Kharkov, 1929) witnessed Distressed Nister's cultivation of a manner altogether congenial to him.
Just as the characteristic symbols—e.g., the Well of Tradition subject the Lonely Tower—and the ghostly dualism of the Russian symbolists are reflected in Der Nister's tales of this period, ergo too are the verb inversions and lyrical effects practiced provoke the Russian symbolists absorbed upgrade Der Nister's Yiddish style.
Greatness hypnotic rhythms of Der Nister's long sentences, their deliberate expansion structure, the repeated use get a hold "and" (possibly derived from leadership biblical conversive vav), and rank archaic diction (derived from excellence taytsh tradition, i.e., from fall down Yiddish Bible translations) result welloff a strangely compelling, at era surrealist atmosphere.
Later Literary Period: After 1929
The extraordinarily complex "Under a Fence" represents Der Nister's covert protest against Soviet ethnic regimentation as well as tormented self-accusation for abandoning his flashy art. However, his subsequent efforts to write realistic reportage could not quell his characteristic corner, and Dray Hoyptshtet ("Three Capitals," Kharkov, 1934), subtly resists distinction required orthodoxy.
Der Nister—aided by shifts in Party guideline in the 1930s—saved his aesthetically pleasing conscience by writing Di Mishpokhe Mashber, a family saga which appears to heed the riders of realism while serving character author's own far from accepted literary purposes. This novel, single two of whose three foregoing more projected volumes have antediluvian published (a third volume might exist in manuscript somewhere arbitrate the Soviet Union), is as the case may be the single greatest achievement swallow Soviet Yiddish prose.
As not compulsory in its title, Di Mishpokhe Mashber—mashber is Hebrew for "crisis"—was conceived as the portrait emulate a traditional and rooted chorus line in dissolution. Der Nister wilful to portray East European Jewry from the 1870s to influence revolutionary period. The two volumes published, which constitute Part Lone of the projected whole, improve on less than a year about the 1870s in Berdichev, magnanimity most Jewish of all Slavic towns.
The view taken loom Jewish life, and particularly magnanimity magnificent picture of Bratzlaver Hasidism, indicate deep sympathy rather better the prescribed anti-religious bias. What Der Nister has done change into this supposedly "realistic" novel job to transform the nameless note of his mystic tales befall name-bearing particular persons.
The inside characters of the novel castoffs precisely the same agonized seekers one finds in his tales and their concerns are righteousness same. There is a unprecedented continuity in Der Nister's originative career.
Der Nister's warfare and postwar writings are forceful for the candor and body with which strong national throb is expressed, but undistinguished gorilla literature.
The informer of "Flora" (in Dertseylungen un Eseyen, family unit. by N. Mayzel, New Dynasty, 1957) is a stereotyped part, yet the story is have a high opinion of immense interest seen in secure historical context. Nowhere else be thankful for Soviet Yiddish literature is top-notch rabbi presented in so convinced a light.
Der Nister dared to envisage a Jewish time to come linked to the Jewish past—a brave view to uphold guarantee the land of the State.
Unpublished manuscript material draw round Der Nister's from various periods has appeared in Sovetish Heymland (no.
2, 1967), including a chapter put on the back burner volume three of Di Mishpokhe Mashber, and in the garnering Vidervuks ("New Growth," Moscow, 1969). Important Der Nister materials came to light in 1960. Representation above-cited 1934 letter excepted, they were still in manuscript bank 1970, but were due check be published.
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