Chaim Nachman Bialik: Poems from the Hebrew.
[Judaica]. (Bialik, Chaim Nachman). Chaim Nachman Bialik: Poems from the Hebrew. Edited by L.V. Snowman with an introduction by Vladimir Jabotinsky. London: “Hasefer,” 1924.
8vo.; green cloth; light wear.
First edition of this collection of Hebrew poems in translation, with contributions by Nina Salaman, Helena Frank, Reginald V. Feldman, and Snowman. Many of the poems included had previous publication in periodicals such as Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Guardian, Jewish World, Zionist Review, Jewish Quarterly Review, Jewish Review, Jewish Forum (New York), Zionism: Problems and Views (Fisher Unwin), and Jewish Literary Annual.
Russian-born Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934) was raised largely by his Hasidic grandfather, with whom he was placed after his father died when he was eleven. While at the Yeshiva at Volozhin, where he learned Russian and delved into literature, he published his first poem, El Hatzippor (To the Bird), in 1892. The following year, after a journey to Odessa where he met and was encouraged by Moses Leib Lillienblum, Ahad Haam, and J.H. Rawnitzki (with whom he would later collaborate on the compilation of more than one anthology), he published his first book of poems in Warsaw in 1901. Four years later he co-founded the Hebrew publishing house Moriah. Though he devoted a great deal of energy to writing and editing theological works, preparing Biblical and rabbinical texts, and editing journals (Hashiloah; Haolam, and “the remarkable collections of Jewish ethnography and folklore, Reshummoth”), he performed his greatest services in the interest in literature. “He turned a classic but almost forgotten language of books into a vehicle of vigorous idiomatic expression, especially in poetry. Bialik was also important as a translator,” directing his talents toward Don Quixote and Wilhelm Tell, as well as “many writings of well-known German, Russian and Yiddish writers… His direct influence on modern Yiddish literature is well recognized. Many of his poems have been set to music, especially those inspired by Jewish folklore” (UJE II, p. 277).
Within a few years Bialik gained worldwide recognition as the greatest living Hebrew poet. “He became the poet laureate of the Jewish Renaissance, its most beloved name and its most popular figure. He was accorded the highest recognition of any Hebrew writer—in Hebrew as well as in Yiddish—a poet considered the central personality in literature and equally respected by all factions in Jewry” (ibid.). Influenced by Judah Leon Gordon and Simon Samuel Frug, he developed his own style to become
the purest, most expressive lyric poet of modern Hebrew literature. He restored to the almost defunct Hebrew language its elasticity and originality, showing that it is capable of expressing all the effects of light, sound and color. He created a new naturalistic poetry which was followed by a general invigorating poetry of life. (ibid.)
In addition to poetry, he wrote stories and an unfinished memoir, and prepared new editions of medieval poetry. In 1908 his poetic output came to almost a full halt. “His poetic reserve, deplored as a national loss, gave rise perhaps to more written comment and more debate than did his poetry itself. Many of the poems from the period after 1908 betray an entirely new man, a deep, groping artist striving toward the heights and wrestling with the depths” (ibid.).
In 1921, Bialik left soviet Russia with 12 other Hebrew writers under the aegis of Maxim Gorki. After a serial migration to Berlin, Hamburg, Palestine, and Tel-Aviv, he visited the United States in 1926 and received honorary degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Jewish Institute of Religion. “He was unquestionably one of the most representative Jewish figures in his generation. No poet in Israel has been accorded such universal recognition, esteem and affection. He inaugurated a new epoch in Hebrew poetry” (UJE II, p. 278) .
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