Yiddish Fiction and the Crisis of Modernity, 1905-1914

This work examines representations of modernity in Yiddish literature between the Russian revolution of 1905 and the beginning of the First World War. Within Jewish society, and particularly Eastern European Jewish society, modernity was often experienced as a series of incursions and threats to traditional Jewish life. Writers explored these perceived crises in their work, in the process reconsidering the role and function of Yiddish literature itself. The orientation of nineteenth-century Yiddish fiction toward the shtetl came into conflict with the sense of reality of young writers, who felt themselves part of a rapidly changing modern urban environment. This opposition between the generations was reflected in their principles of plot construction. The conservatives employed cyclical patterns, producing mythological schemes for incorporating the new experience into the traditional order. Modernists emphasized the uniqueness of the new, and therefore preferred a linear organization of plot with emphasis on the transformation of individual character.