The significance of the printing press cannot be understated in the development of a Modern Yiddish literary and political culture. This printing press is where it all really happened. Literary journals that published avant-garde poetry and fiction; political newspapers of the Anarchists, Socialists, Communists, Zionists, rival factions within each movement; and many other publications geared toward a Yiddish-speaking audience throughout Eastern Europe and the United States flourished in the early 20th century.
One of the ironic things I learned in my Yiddish Culture class--no slight against the Book Center intended--is that the Yiddish press was actually far more influential than books were in developing Yiddish as a literary language. Much of the Yiddish literature we see in book form at the National Yiddish Book Center today was originally serialized in newspapers.Newspapers were cheap, easy to circulate, and numerous in ideology and audience. Because of these practical reasons, culture, literature, and politics were largely a community experience. Unlike the more intimate experience of novel, the newspaper would be read by multiple people in a household and would be the subject of heated debate in cafes. That kind of populist literary consumption does not exist in the same way now.
I'm not sure if you can tell from the size of this photo, but those are characters of the Yiddish Alef-Beys, which comprises the Hebrew alphabet with some added combinations of letters and some added diacritical marks.
Pretty crazy looking, huh?
5 comments:
Wow, if we were back in the day and your dad had decided he really liked the linotype machine, your whole family could have had their own individual linotype machines! You would have to build an extra barn to keep them all in though.
Glad to hear your experiences thus far have been enlightening and varied! Your thesis and this summer program you're in sound very intriguing. Keep those updates coming.
That machine is incredible looking. I'd love to see it running. It reminds me of the movie Metropolis. Clockwork is awesome to watch in action. Can they get it running or is it just for display?
I bet we could get into an interesting discussion on the kinds of populist literary consumption prevalent today and their effects compared to the old newspaper hay-days.
But anyway, I think the "more intimate experience" of novels... perhaps has more influence than you give it credit for? It's a more subtle influence I think... I dunno, I don't know the context of your conclusions from your Yiddish Culture class.
I'm not debating the societal effects of the novel. I'm simply stating that it wasn't as prevalent in Modern Yiddish Literature.
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