Hayim Nahman Bialik by Avner Holtzman

Author:Avner Holtzman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

4

Turbulence and Transition, 1911–1924

IN THE period after he ceased writing poetry Bialik devoted himself entirely to Moriyah Press. On the face of things, the three years leading up to the First World War seemed the most serene and untroubled period in his life. Anyone looking for Bialik knew they could find him either at the offices of the publishing house or at the nearby print shop: reading and editing manuscripts, perched over galleys, making financial calculations. He meticulously handled the production of each of the titles the press issued, regardless of whether they were the collected works of a dear, deceased friend such as E. L. Lewinski or a textbook for Hebrew schools. No task was too small for him, and he pored over the wording of the advertisements for forthcoming books. His main aspiration was to turn his publishing house into the literary home of the entire Odessan milieu, assemble their writings, and leave a monument that would commemorate this distinctive literary school. On occasion, when he grew tired of working, he and Ravnitski or another friend would go on long walks during which they engaged in animated conversations. Bialik was known in Odessa. He did not affect pompous mannerisms, took genuine interest in the people he met, and radiated humane warmth. Many enjoyed conversing with him and reveled in his wit. Often he would retire to the seashore, renting a summer apartment or a cabin on the city outskirts, close to the beach, and taking the tram to work every morning.

If he suffered from depression and frustration during this time, he let it show only rarely. In December 1912 he confessed to his friend Ben-Ami, “I have no time to breathe. No time at all. I am preoccupied with external work and unbearable soul searching.”1 This emotional turbulence sometimes drove him to make business trips to Warsaw to breathe a different air and spend time with friends old and new. In 1912 Bialik seriously considered the offer of his friend S. An-Sky, the author of the play HaDibbuk, to join an ethnographic expedition that was about to embark on a long journey through the Pale of Settlement in order to collect and document Jewish folklore.2 The adventurous plan appealed to Bialik, but eventually he backed out for fear of the hardships of travel and the onerous winter weather. “I need rest, but not to take upon myself torture,” he wrote.3

As in the previous decade, Bialik continued to attract the attention of young literary aspirants who came to Odessa to knock on his door. They craved his judgment of their work and were surprised by the earnestness and patience with which he read their manuscripts. The talented among them were given the honor of being published in HaShiloah, after Bialik recommended them to Klausner. Often their first glimpse of Bialik would be engraved in their memory as a revelatory event. The author Nathan Goren, a native of Vilna, described his first meeting with Bialik at the Moriyah offices as

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.