Lev Levanda

Lev Levanda (Russian: Лев Осипович Леванда, romanized: Lev Osipovich Levanda, Yiddish: יהודה לייב לעוואַנדאַ, romanized: Yehuda Leyb Levanda; June 1835 – 18 June 1888) was a Russian author, belletrist, and publicist. His sketches were often published under the pen name Ladnev.^[1]: 273

Lev Levanda
Born	Yehuda Leyb Levanda June 1835 (1835) Minsk, Russian Empire
Died	18 June 1888(1888-06-18) (aged 52–53) St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
Pen name	Ladnev
Occupation	Writer
Language	Russian and Yiddish
Alma mater	Vilna Rabbinical School

Levnada's literary work made him a leading figure in the circles of the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia.^[2] Originally a vocal proponent of the assimilation of Jews into Russian culture, Levanda became a strong supporter of their emigration to Palestine following the 1881–82 pogroms across the Russian Empire.

Biography

Early life

Lev Levanda was born to a poor Jewish family in Minsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus). After spending three years at a state-sponsored school for Jews in his hometown, he entered the Vilna Rabbinical School in 1849, graduating in 1854 with a teacher's diploma.^[3] He thereafter returned to Minsk and was appointed a teacher at the government-run Jewish school. He taught there until 1860, when he was appointed uchonyi evrei ('adviser on Jewish affairs') to the Governor-General of Vilna, Mikhail N. Muravyov, a position he held until his death.^[4] In this role he assisted with programs to study Jewish life and edited Russian-language state textbooks for Jewish children.^[5] Levanda was instrumental in exposing false witnesses in a ritual-murder trial of several Jews from the shtetl of Shavl in 1861.^[6]

Vilna

Upon his arrival in Vilna, Levanda participated in the publication of the first Russian-language Jewish journal, Rassvet [ru] ('Dawn'), edited in Odessa by Osip Rabinovich, as well as its successor, Zion.^[7] His first novel, Shop of Imported Far-East Groceries, appeared in the pages of Rassvet in 1860.^[1] Levanda's The Warehouse of Groceries: Pictures of the Jewish Life, a work of belles lettres, was serialized in Rassvet, and published as a book in 1869 (a Hebrew translation was published five years later).^[3]

A supporter of the Russification of Eastern European Jewry, in 1864 Levanda was appointed editor of the region's official newspaper, Vilenskie gubernskie vedomosti ('Vilna Provincial News'), with a mandate to justify Muravyov's russifying campaign.^[8] Following the banning of Rassvet and Zion, he began to contribute under a pseudonym to a number of liberal Russian newspapers in St. Petersburg and Vilna, including the Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti.^[1] In a series of articles, Levanda argued that the acquisition of civil rights hinged on the assimilation of the Jewish masses into Russian culture.^[9]

In the 1870s and 1880s, he contributed to the Russian Jewish journals Evreiskaia biblioteka [ru] (Еврейская библиотека, 'The Jewish Library'), Russkii evrei [ru] ('The Russian Jew'), and Voskhod ('Sunrise'). In 1876 he published a collection of sketches under the title "Sketches of the Past," followed later by a number of stories, such as "The Four Tutors" and "The Amateur Performance", in Russkii evrei, Yevreiskoe Obozrenie ('The Jewish Review'), and Voskhod.^[10] He published over twenty articles on Jewish life in Poland with the title "The Vistula Chronicle" in Russkii evrei.^[11][12] Other works of this period include "Essays of the Past" (1875), originally published in 1870 in Den [ru] ('The Day'); "Types and Silhouettes" (1881); and the historical novels The Wrath and Mercy of the Tycoon (1885) and Avraam Yosefovich (1887).^[10]

He published his best-known work, Seething Times, set in the northern Pale of Settlement against the background of the Polish Uprising of 1863, in three instalments between 1871 and 1873 in Evreiskaia biblioteka.^[13][14] In the novel, young Westernized Jews were urged by the hero, Sarin, to abandon Polish orientation (after 500 years of unhappy experience with the Poles) and become Russians.^[2] The book was released as a book in 1875 under the title Seething Times: The Novel of the Last Polish Uprising.^[15]

Final years

Levanda's political views changed dramatically following the 1881–82 pogroms across the Russian Empire, and the Russian state's hostile indifference to them.^[16][17] With the subsequent rapid growth in Polish anti-Semitism, Levanda began writing about the rebuilding of a Jewish state in Palestine.^[3] He became a leading activist for the Hibbat Zion movement and maintained close links with Leon Pinsker, author of the influential Zionist manifesto Auto-Emancipation. In "The Essence of the So-Called 'Palestine' Movement" (1884), Levanda discussed the ideas of Jewish self-determination as a "practical solution" to a "vicious cycle,"^[18] and in 1885 published an important reconsideration of the position of the Jews in Russia, entitled "On 'Assimilation'".^[8]

In early 1887, his mental condition began to deteriorate sharply, showing signs of major depressive disorder. As a result, he was transported that May to St. Petersburg, where he was placed in a psychiatric hospital.^[7] He died there less than a year later.^[19]

Reception and legacy

Although a popular writer, contemporary critics considered Levanda untalented and unrefined.^{[1]: 63–65 [20]}

An elegy in Levanda's memory, in Yiddish and Russian with accompaniment on the piano, was published in Vilna upon his death.^[21]

Partial bibliography

• Депо бакалейных товаровъ: картины еврейского быта [The Warehouse of Groceries: Pictures of the Jewish Life] (in Russian). Vilna: Romm. 1869.
• ר׳ שלומעלע: דער פער פון דער קהלה נ׳ [Mr. Shlomele] (in Yiddish). Vilna: Romm. 1870.
• המרכלת: אוצר מרכלת מגרים; או, תמונת היהדות [The Gossip] (in Hebrew). Odessa: Olrikh et Shultse. 1874.
• Польный хронологический сборник законов и положений касающихся Евреев [Complete Chronological Collection of Laws and Regulations Concerning Jews] (in Russian). St. Petersburg: K. V. Trubnikova. 1874.
• Горячее время: роман из послѣдняго польскаго возстанія [Hot Times] (in Russian). St. Peterburg: A. E. Landau. 1875.
• Очерки прошлаго [Sketches of the Past] (in Russian). St. Petersburg: A. E. Landau. 1875.
• Мировоззрение талмудистов: свод религиозно-нравственных поучений в выдержках из главнейших книг раввинской письменности [The Talmudic Worldview] (in Russian). Moscow: Ladomir. 1994 [1876]. (With S. J. Fuenn and Kh. L. Katsenelenbogen.)
• Виленская жизнь: фельетонные этюды [Vilna Life] (in Russian). Vilna: A. G. Syrkin. 1878.
• Исповѣдь дѣльца: роман в 2-х частях [Confessions of a Lover: A Novel in 2 Parts] (in Russian). St. Petersburg: Tuzov. 1880.
• Большой ремизъ: романъ изъ коммерческой жизни евреевъ [A Large Fine] (in Russian). St. Petersburg: L. Berman and G. Rabinovich. 1881.
• Гнев и милость магната [The Wrath and Mercy of the Tycoon] (in Russian). 1885.
• Авраамъ Іезофовичъ: историческая повѣсть первой половины XVI вѣка [Avraam Yosefovich] (in Russian). 1887.
• Скромныя бесѣды о прошлогоднемъ снѣгѣ: О томъ, какъ гора родила мышь [Modest Talk About Last Year's Dream] (in Russian). Ekaterinoslav: Pechatnya Shparbera. 1894.
• אברהם בן יוסף [Abraham ben Joseph] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: Toshiyah. 1901.
• עיר ובהלות:‏ ‏ספור מחיי אחינו במדינת ליטה במאה העברה [City and Panic] (in Hebrew). Warsaw: B. Tursh. 1903.
• אין שטורם: ראָמאַן [In Turbulent Times] (in Yiddish). Warsaw: Tsentral. 1912.
• A groyser remiz roman אַ גרויסער רעמיז: ראָמאַן [A Large Fine] (in Yiddish). Warsaw: Tsentral. 1914.
• דער פוילישער מאגנאט [The Polish Magnate] (in Yiddish). Warsaw: Tsentral. 1923.