What do you think?
Rate this book
Zionism and the Fin de Siècle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky
Michael Stanislawski's provocative study of Max Nordau, Ephraim Moses Lilien, and Vladimir Jabotinsky reconceives the intersection of the European fin de siècle and early Zionism. Stanislawski takes up the tantalizing question of why Zionism, at a particular stage in its development, became so attractive to certain cosmopolitan intellectuals and artists. With the help of hundreds of previously unavailable documents, published and unpublished, he reconstructs the ideological journeys of writer and critic Nordau, artist Lilien, and political icon Jabotinsky. He argues against the common conception of Nordau and Jabotinsky as nineteenth-century liberals, insisting that they must be understood against the backdrop of Social Darwinism in the West and the Positivism of Russian radicalism in the fin de siècle, as well as Symbolism, Decadence, and Art Nouveau.
When these men turned to Zionism, Stanislawski says, far from abandoning their aesthetic and intellectual preconceptions, they molded Zionism according to their fin de siècle cosmopolitanism. Showing how cosmopolitanism turned to nationalism in the lives and work of these crucial early Zionists, this story is a fascinating chapter in European and Russian, as well as Jewish, cultural and political history.
When these men turned to Zionism, Stanislawski says, far from abandoning their aesthetic and intellectual preconceptions, they molded Zionism according to their fin de siècle cosmopolitanism. Showing how cosmopolitanism turned to nationalism in the lives and work of these crucial early Zionists, this story is a fascinating chapter in European and Russian, as well as Jewish, cultural and political history.
312 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 2001
76 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 17, 2020
Michael Stanislawski’s argument in this book is that Max Nordau, Ephraim Moses Lillen, and Vladimir Jabotinsky’s transitions from cosmopolitanism to nationalism were responses to the rise of racial antisemitism and the consequent exclusion of Jewish artists and intellectuals from cosmopolitan, pan-European fin-de-siècle culture . In none of the three cases Stanislawski examines was the conversion to Zionism motivated by genuine connection to traditional Jewish culture or depth of Jewish learning. (It seems to be a recurring theme that people who have had western style educations find it almost impossible to master traditional Jewish learning, see these reviews of other books for more.)
Stanislawski shows how, beginning with the rise of German racial antisemitism in the 1870s and the pogroms following the assassination of Alexander II in 1882 and culminating in the Second Dreyfus trial and the Kishinev pogrom at the turn of the century, Jewish intellectuals who were previously very well integrated into the pan-European fin-de-siecle intellectual milieu began to think of themselves as outsiders and, in the case of Jabotinsky, began to see nationalism as a way to fill the void and cure the malaise left by the death of god and the perceived failure of other secular ideologies like Marxism. The turn from aestheticism to nationalism was common among gentile fin-de-siecle intellectuals, and because Russian Jews, however Russified they might be in culture, were not (and are not) thought of as members of the Russian nation (even if they were subjects of the Russian Empire) Jabotinsky became a Jewish nationalist.
There is a fascinating chapter in this book about the extensive romantic correspondence between Max Nordau and the antisemitic Russsian noblewoman Olga Novikova. Intellectual and political changes over the course of their correspondence made Nordau’s Jewish ethnicity and Novikova’s antisemitism increasingly salient and eventually destroyed the relationship altogether. Nordau, a physician and social Darwinist writer, began the correspondence by shamelessly flirting with Novikova, and they liked to comment on and criticize each other’s writing and occasionally meet when something brought Novikova from her home in England to the continent. Novkiova’s antisemitism did not at first bother Nordau very much. He attributed it to her impetuous feminine spirit which delighted him so much in other ways. Nordau eventually began to take Novikova’s antisemitism more seriously, beginning in the 1890s when her defense of discrimination against Jews on the part of the tsar’s government led to mass meetings against her in England where she was a minor public figure. Their correspondence ended shortly after the second Dreyfus trial and Nordau’s conversion to Zionism when it became impossible for him to have an antisemite as a friend and romantic interest.
One of Stanislawski’s secondary arguments is that the study of these figures has been marred by hagiography, they are treated as latent Zionists from their first moments and the real motivations for their commitment to Zionism are lost. In this book, hagiography is not just a fancy way of saying “overly positive biography.” The lives of Nordau and especially Jabotinsky are loving catalogued by their contemporary disciples who really do venerate them like religious believers venerate saints. Because of this, Jabotinsky’s Russian language fiction which exposes his continuing doubts about the desirability of the break-up of the cosmopolitan Odessa of his youth is either heavily censored in Hebrew translation or subject to an extremely narrow ultra-nationalist interpretation. His novels, stories, and plays are celebrated by the right and denigrated by the left but never really properly analyzed as literary products.
Jabotinsky’s attitude towards Jewish culture in the galut , the diaspora was so hostile that it led him to be mistaken for an antisemite as a student in Switzerland. His advocacy for hadar, a Hebrew word which he did not straightforwardly translate but which he took to mean something like manly strength suggests that he may have accepted much of the empirical content of the antisemitic portrait of Jews as accurate. Jabotinsky argued that members of the nationalist youth organization he set up in Palestine, Betar, should transcend the bad customs of the ghetto by sticking closely to the truth, developing a deep connection to nature, a cultivation of physical prowess, and a strong sense of pride. This implies that he accepted, to some extent, the idea that diaspora Jews were effete inveterate liars with no connection to nature and no pride. In his novel Sampson the Nazirite Jabotinsky portrayed Sampson as deeply seduced by Philistine culture and Philistine women and completely uninterested in the Hebrews, Judaism, or his status as a Nazirite (a celibate Jewish monk). Sampson’s turning on the Philistines is portrayed as a recognition of the unbreakableness of national ties, which Jabotinsky thought necessarily took precedence over cultural affinity and friendship whether one wanted them to or not. In Jabotinsky’s telling, Sampson could not choose to become a Philistine, one can never transcend one’s nationality, so he fought the people he loved for the sake of the people he hated. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest (and I think Stanislawski implies) that this was very close to Jabotinsky’s own attitude towards the Jews. He could not be a Russian despite the fact that he knew Russian language and culture better than nearly anyone. He did not want to be a Jew, he had no real knowledge of Judaism, and seems to have believed many of the antisemitic stereotypes of diaspora Jews. He was a Jewish nationalist partly because by making Jews a nation like any other nation he, and deracinated irreligious Jews like him, could rejoin the cosmopolitan European intellectual milieu that they had been cast out of when Europe decided that the Jews were racial outsiders and a potential fifth column.
One criticism I have of this book is that it doesn’t really do enough to explain what it means by fin de siècle. In French this phrase means “end of century.” But in nineteenth century historiography it has more specific connotations. It can connote a style of art, an anti-bourgeois, sometimes antipositivist philosophical sensibility (but not a well developed philosophical system), atheism, a feeling of malaise, and a rejection of revolutionary ideologies of both the left and the right in favor of a kind of aestheticism. Another term for this period, the belle epoque, stresses its more optimistic side. I think it would have been better, and made his argument clearer if Stanislawski had said more about what exactly he means by fin de siècle and how his interpretation of the period at large relates to the rest of the literature (it is possible that Stanislawski did some of this and I missed it, I am writing this review from notes long after having read the book).
A great book for people interested in the history of ideas, Zionism, or Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. I would give it 4.5 stars if that were possible, but have given it 4 because I reserve the score of 5 for my all time favorites.
Stanislawski shows how, beginning with the rise of German racial antisemitism in the 1870s and the pogroms following the assassination of Alexander II in 1882 and culminating in the Second Dreyfus trial and the Kishinev pogrom at the turn of the century, Jewish intellectuals who were previously very well integrated into the pan-European fin-de-siecle intellectual milieu began to think of themselves as outsiders and, in the case of Jabotinsky, began to see nationalism as a way to fill the void and cure the malaise left by the death of god and the perceived failure of other secular ideologies like Marxism. The turn from aestheticism to nationalism was common among gentile fin-de-siecle intellectuals, and because Russian Jews, however Russified they might be in culture, were not (and are not) thought of as members of the Russian nation (even if they were subjects of the Russian Empire) Jabotinsky became a Jewish nationalist.
There is a fascinating chapter in this book about the extensive romantic correspondence between Max Nordau and the antisemitic Russsian noblewoman Olga Novikova. Intellectual and political changes over the course of their correspondence made Nordau’s Jewish ethnicity and Novikova’s antisemitism increasingly salient and eventually destroyed the relationship altogether. Nordau, a physician and social Darwinist writer, began the correspondence by shamelessly flirting with Novikova, and they liked to comment on and criticize each other’s writing and occasionally meet when something brought Novikova from her home in England to the continent. Novkiova’s antisemitism did not at first bother Nordau very much. He attributed it to her impetuous feminine spirit which delighted him so much in other ways. Nordau eventually began to take Novikova’s antisemitism more seriously, beginning in the 1890s when her defense of discrimination against Jews on the part of the tsar’s government led to mass meetings against her in England where she was a minor public figure. Their correspondence ended shortly after the second Dreyfus trial and Nordau’s conversion to Zionism when it became impossible for him to have an antisemite as a friend and romantic interest.
One of Stanislawski’s secondary arguments is that the study of these figures has been marred by hagiography, they are treated as latent Zionists from their first moments and the real motivations for their commitment to Zionism are lost. In this book, hagiography is not just a fancy way of saying “overly positive biography.” The lives of Nordau and especially Jabotinsky are loving catalogued by their contemporary disciples who really do venerate them like religious believers venerate saints. Because of this, Jabotinsky’s Russian language fiction which exposes his continuing doubts about the desirability of the break-up of the cosmopolitan Odessa of his youth is either heavily censored in Hebrew translation or subject to an extremely narrow ultra-nationalist interpretation. His novels, stories, and plays are celebrated by the right and denigrated by the left but never really properly analyzed as literary products.
Jabotinsky’s attitude towards Jewish culture in the galut , the diaspora was so hostile that it led him to be mistaken for an antisemite as a student in Switzerland. His advocacy for hadar, a Hebrew word which he did not straightforwardly translate but which he took to mean something like manly strength suggests that he may have accepted much of the empirical content of the antisemitic portrait of Jews as accurate. Jabotinsky argued that members of the nationalist youth organization he set up in Palestine, Betar, should transcend the bad customs of the ghetto by sticking closely to the truth, developing a deep connection to nature, a cultivation of physical prowess, and a strong sense of pride. This implies that he accepted, to some extent, the idea that diaspora Jews were effete inveterate liars with no connection to nature and no pride. In his novel Sampson the Nazirite Jabotinsky portrayed Sampson as deeply seduced by Philistine culture and Philistine women and completely uninterested in the Hebrews, Judaism, or his status as a Nazirite (a celibate Jewish monk). Sampson’s turning on the Philistines is portrayed as a recognition of the unbreakableness of national ties, which Jabotinsky thought necessarily took precedence over cultural affinity and friendship whether one wanted them to or not. In Jabotinsky’s telling, Sampson could not choose to become a Philistine, one can never transcend one’s nationality, so he fought the people he loved for the sake of the people he hated. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest (and I think Stanislawski implies) that this was very close to Jabotinsky’s own attitude towards the Jews. He could not be a Russian despite the fact that he knew Russian language and culture better than nearly anyone. He did not want to be a Jew, he had no real knowledge of Judaism, and seems to have believed many of the antisemitic stereotypes of diaspora Jews. He was a Jewish nationalist partly because by making Jews a nation like any other nation he, and deracinated irreligious Jews like him, could rejoin the cosmopolitan European intellectual milieu that they had been cast out of when Europe decided that the Jews were racial outsiders and a potential fifth column.
One criticism I have of this book is that it doesn’t really do enough to explain what it means by fin de siècle. In French this phrase means “end of century.” But in nineteenth century historiography it has more specific connotations. It can connote a style of art, an anti-bourgeois, sometimes antipositivist philosophical sensibility (but not a well developed philosophical system), atheism, a feeling of malaise, and a rejection of revolutionary ideologies of both the left and the right in favor of a kind of aestheticism. Another term for this period, the belle epoque, stresses its more optimistic side. I think it would have been better, and made his argument clearer if Stanislawski had said more about what exactly he means by fin de siècle and how his interpretation of the period at large relates to the rest of the literature (it is possible that Stanislawski did some of this and I missed it, I am writing this review from notes long after having read the book).
A great book for people interested in the history of ideas, Zionism, or Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. I would give it 4.5 stars if that were possible, but have given it 4 because I reserve the score of 5 for my all time favorites.
October 21, 2012
VERY niche. Unless you're really into learning about the personalities of this trio and a compelling argument from the author explaining how the political/cultural landscape of their time influenced their attitudes towards Zionism, stay away. If you're a freak for Zionism with a penchant for amateur hour psychology (done well!) in hindsight, you'll enjoy this book as much as I did.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews