Natalia is the daughter of a Russian aristocrat in the early years of the twentieth century. Aaron is the son of a Jewish tailor. In the Russian Empire, Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement and experienced every abuse and degradation one can imagine. The animosity towards Jews was stoked by the imperial authorities, which led to horrific pogroms in 1905. People like Natalia and Aaron belonged not only to different but to actively warring tribes.
But in Vynnychenko’s play The Song of Israel, they meet and fall in love. Their families oppose their union but the young couple stands strong in defense of its feelings. “All we want is to be persons. Human beings,” they say. “We don’t want to be Jews or Russians. We don’t want anything to do with religion, tradition, culture, or tribe. We are simply individuals.”
Finally, Aaron and Natalia manage to buckle their families’ will and get married. Of course, Aaron has to convert to Christianity first because it was still the Russian Empire, and only religious marriages counted. But they do get married, and have a cute little baby, and Aaron becomes a famous musician, and they are rich. Yay, right?
No, not yay. Blank-slatism was as stupid in 1922 when Vynnychenko wrote the play as it is today. Natalia’s and Aaron’s version of “imagine there’s no countries… and no religions, too” lasts them less than 2 years. They discover that they are not empty vessels for rootless, self-generating personhood. Religion, tradition, culture and tribe are inside them and always will be. Their plan to be “just people and not part of anything” becomes a source of tragedy not only for them and others.
Vynnychenko spent his life trying to bring about the “no countries and no religions” dream of socialism. But as an artist, he knew it was all bunkum. We are the continuation of the story of our family, tribe, and culture. And that’s a good thing.
Yes, there is an English translation of the play, and I’m holding in my hands what I believe is the only copy of it in existence. I want to figure out a way to scan, edit, and make it public. It needs major editing.
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“I want to figure out a way to scan, edit, and make it public.”
I’d first scan it in the shape it’s in, as a backup and for safe keeping and then think about other options.
Do you have staff that can do the scanning for you or is there no way to claim it’s part of your department’s work?
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I can get it scanned, for sure. But it’s typewritten. Does anybody know if OCR can extract from typewritten texts?
Or maybe I should do a voice translation and use voice recognition. It’s typing up the whole thing that I can’t do because it will take forever.
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Yeah, ocr should be able to do that
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I would scan one page for a start and try various OCRs.
We do not know about the version at the National Library. It could be typewritten too.
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I know someone who uses an OCR system with15th and 16th century printed texts in extremely obscure fonts, I’m sure there has to be an OCR out there that can handle a 20th century typewriter. I’m not sure where to go looking for it, but it would surprise me if it doesn’t exist.
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Would love to read it.
Винниченко, Владимир Кириллович , yes?
Couldn’t find a similar title in Russian anywhere. What is the Russian title of this play?
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Wiki says it’s Песнь Израиля (1930)
A Jewish site says it’s «Мелодия Израиля»
And I cannot find it online in any language. Do you know where it is?
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I told you, it’s in my hands. Which is why I want to find a way to make it public.
There should be a copy in Ukrainian at the National Library of Israel.
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I tried to get my hands on that Ukrainian copy in Israel because then I could make my own translation. But my university failed to acquire a copy for me.
If I don’t make it available, nobody will.
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I сhecked the website of the National Library of Israel and one can order a PDF scan of a book from them sent to one’s email (for money).
Found the book itself too on their site:
Пісня Ізраїля : (Кол-нідре) : п’єса на 4 дії. Винниченко, Владимир Кириллович,
Book number is
28 C 25216
Here is the English version of their page :
Order Scans and Print-Outs from the Library Collections
https://www.nli.org.il/en/at-your-service/document-delivery-service/scans-and-prints-order-form
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My university tried and got a refusal. I’m going to try as a private individual, maybe that will make a difference.
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“I’m holding in my hands what I believe is the only copy of it in existence.“
Wow, just wow. THIS is what I call real dedication to art and culture.
Oh, and yes, you can’t escape your origins. You may hide them, and even try to ignore them, but you cannot escape them.
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It would be so great if I manage to make it openly available. But the translation is poor, so I’ll have to improve it significantly.
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“the translation is poor”
I was going to ask if your father was the one to translate it…. but now that seems indelicate (unless he did it very early…. it takes a fair amount of translating before a person really hits their stride).
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Two reactions yesterday evening and/or tonight:
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People who reject the group they were born into generally try to join another group. Typically, they have a rather idealized view of their new group, so hopefully, there are people who can give them some direction.
https://dailyfriend.co.za/2024/07/31/jd-vance-a-catholic-postliberal-intellectual-firebrand/
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Here’s a great quote from the linked article:
“the two dominant forms of post-WW2 liberalism, market liberalism and social liberalism, instead of being somehow opposed, have coalesced around an all-encompassing sociopolitical project that above all else seeks to maximize individual autonomy”.
Absolutely true. This maximization of individual autonomy is at the heart of our problems today. It sounds good at first but then you see men who think they should be entitled to be women, and it gets scary.
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Except these are actually two very different things. In SA, the government has promoted social liberalism while demonizing market liberalism as “neoliberal”.
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I know we are supposed to believe they are completely different. And they were at some point. But then they started to draw close and have no completely merged.
Lefties in the US also pay lip service to anti-neoliberalism. But what else can we call their open-borders policies?
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This is actually a reason why a lot of black people in SA don’t vote for black nationalists. They don’t want open borders with the rest of Africa.
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I only wish we had people around here who truly didn’t want open borders.
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